“Hopefully there’ll be good news in a matter of days, not weeks,” he told Sky News.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the Sunday Times newspaper he was “giving it everything” to get a deal done.

As part of its 2020 agreement for leaving the EU, Britain reached an accord with Brussels known as the Northern Ireland Protocol to avoid imposing politically contentious checks along the 500km (310 mile) land border with EU member Ireland.

But the protocol effectively created a border in the Irish Sea for some goods moving from Britain because it kept Northern Ireland in the EU’s single market for goods.

That has disrupted trade and the delicate political balance in the region, preventing the formation of its power-sharing government. It has also exposed fault lines in Sunak’s own Conservative Party.