Liz Truss has called for “border controls and paperwork” to be scrapped on Irish Sea trade, risking a fresh clash with the EU over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Asked if the government’s aim is to remove all red tape – despite those checks being agreed by Boris Johnson in his Brexit deal – the trade secretary replied: “Absolutely, yes.”
Answering listeners’ questions on LBC Radio, Ms Truss also rejected farmers’ pleas to step back from a tariff-free trade deal with Australia – insisting it was “the gateway” to a boom in sales across Asia.
She gave a cast-iron pledge about the current ban on hormone-injected beef, saying: “Hormone-injected beef will not be allowed into the UK – full stop.”
And she gave a guarded response to Dominic Cummings’ explosive weekend claim that “herd immunity” was the policy pursued to defeat Covid-19 at the start of the pandemic last year.
“Herd immunity was never the declared strategy,” Ms Truss said, at the “number of meetings” she attended.
The trade secretary also appeared to acknowledge widespread criticism of the Sewell report into race disparities, when asked to name someone who praised it “other than the prime minister”.
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“I would be guessing if I did,” she replied, after the study, ordered amid the Black Lives Matter protests, was accused of ignoring structural racism.
Ms Truss acknowledged the failure to prosecute alleged rapists, with fewer than one in 60 cases now leading to a charge, admitting: “There’s a big issue on rape cases and I completely acknowledge that. We need to do more.”
And she insisted gay conversion therapy will be banned, while saying: “We must make sure we are protecting under-18s from making irreversible decisions about their future.”
On the phone-in, Ms Truss came under pressure from a caller who protested that the Protocol – introducing an Irish Sea border, to avoid one on the island of Ireland – had made Northern Ireland citizens “less equal”.
She rejected the charge, but it was pointed out that either “we’re going to have this paperwork and these inspections or we’re not”.
“The aim of the government is to make this as smooth as possible and deal with the issues,” Ms Truss said, but – asked if that meant “we don’t need border controls and paperwork” – replied: “Absolutely, yes.”
On the Australia trade deal – which the prime minister has fast-tracked for agreement by next month’s G7 summit – the trade secretary urged farmers to grasp a big opportunity.
Although Canberra does not currently levy tariffs, other huge emerging markets did, and those charges could be removed if the UK joins the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) of 11 nations.
“What the Australia deal does is open doors to the wider Asia region,” Ms Truss argued, adding: “This is an overall opportunity.”
