Official Controls (Plant Health) and Phytosanitary Conditions (Amendment) Regulations 2025
(2 days, 6 hours ago)
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Lord Frost
That this House regrets that the Official Controls (Plant Health) and Phytosanitary Conditions (Amendment) Regulations 2025, laid before the House on 8 January (SI 2025/13), provide for further constitutional separation between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
Relevant document: 15th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, the regret Motion standing in my name tonight is on a very technical piece of legislation, but one that raises huge matters of principle for this country. That is why I thought it right to ensure, however belatedly, that the issues are debated and are not lost from public or parliamentary view. In speaking tonight, I want to do three things. The first is to set out my concerns about this specific legislation. The second is to set it in the context of the wider Windsor Framework arrangements. Finally, I want to speculate and to ask the Minister a few questions about the implications for the Windsor Framework of the SPS agreement reached, at least in principle, with the EU on 19 May.
First of all, in brief, the legislation updates in various ways the controls that apply to the import of plants into Great Britain to protect against certain high-risk plant pests. I will not go into the detail. I thank the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for highlighting it as legislation of interest; the committee did so on the back of a memorandum from the honourable Member Jim Allister in the Commons and a response from Defra. Mr Allister’s memorandum, the concerns of which I entirely share, and the Defra response, which seems to largely miss the point, together set out the core problem.
These regulations, as I say, provide for new controls on the import of plants from other countries, including the EU, which for these purposes includes Northern Ireland. In other words, Northern Ireland is in a separate SPS zone from Great Britain. The implications of this are significant. The legislation says that there is a new list of pests from which HMG want to protect Great Britain. Yet, Northern Ireland is part of the UK as well. Why do the Government not wish to protect Northern Ireland, too? The answer, of course, is that they cannot do so; they must, in fact, rely on the EU’s own biosecurity controls, which are the only controls in force in Northern Ireland. The British Government have no legislative or legal control over biosecurity in Northern Ireland.
In any world, biosecurity is an essential state function of any country, for it must be performed by the state. Article 1(2) of the Northern Ireland protocol says that it
“respects the essential State functions”.
In this case, however, that state function is outsourced to another state. Many might argue that itself is not compatible with the operating of the protocol. The Government attempt to deal with this problem by arguing that the EU’s controls are just as good as ours and therefore we have no reason to be concerned by the situation. Indeed, when we were last debating this, on 29 January, the Minister said:
“I want to stress that the EU takes its biosecurity responsibilities for something like foot and mouth extremely seriously”.—[Official Report, 29/1/25; col. 360.]
She was effectively admitting then that those responsibilities are not ours but the EU’s.
I do not know whether it is true or not that the EU takes its responsibilities seriously. In one sense, it does not matter; there is nothing we can do about it. We can try to persuade the EU through the joint committee process to put similar rules in place in Northern Ireland, if it has not done so in the whole of the European Union, but it is only persuasion; we have no power and we are supplicants to the EU in this and many other areas. In short, we can legislate for GB but not for Northern Ireland. That remains the situation, and it is a very unhappy one.
This brings me to the second area I want to discuss, which is the broader picture into which this legislation fits. Tonight’s SI is a specific case of the general problem, which is the Windsor Framework. Under this arrangement—which, regrettably, the previous Government agreed to—a process is under way which is contributing to the separation between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is what is happening, and that is at the root of the political problem.
To look back a little, the Windsor Framework ultimately stems from the 2017 joint report between this country and the European Union, and the commitment that was made in that report to align Northern Ireland with the EU single market and customs in default of any other solution. Once that commitment had been made, it then became inevitable that the EU would never try to find any other solution. That is why the original Northern Ireland protocol had to be agreed in 2019, effectively under duress, as the only way of delivering the referendum result, once the option of leaving the EU without a deal had been closed off by Members of this Parliament.
Two directions of travel were then possible. The first was that the protocol arrangements would be seen to be difficult to work in practice, would come under pressure, would not last and the protocol itself would end up being removed or overridden. The Johnson Government, both when I was responsible for this issue and under my successors, sought to achieve this, first by negotiation and then by the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill. As we know, that Bill fell and with it fell any effort—for the time being anyway—to deal with the legal situation created by the protocol.
The other possible direction of travel was the one that has been taken since that point, whereby British Governments have reconciled themselves to the protocol arrangements and actively supported them. That is what the Windsor Framework represents. The British Government are now actively committed to defending these arrangements—a situation in which another entity decrees what must happen in part of our own country.
Not only is that intolerable in itself on that basis; it has two consequences. First, this new reality, in which our Government actively support these arrangements, leads to a different future because other actors start adjusting to it. For example, on trade, between 2020 and 2023 the value of goods purchased by Northern Ireland from Ireland went up twice as fast as the value of goods purchased by Northern Ireland from Great Britain. There is persistent evidence that companies in Great Britain are less inclined to supply Northern Ireland because of the complexity of the rules. The Northern Irish companies are finding suppliers in Ireland instead, and therefore trade diversion is taking place. I note that trade diversion is an explicitly specified reason in the protocol for the use of the safeguards in Article 16.
The second consequence is that it leads to a situation that is well known but needs to be dwelt on: British Governments are inhibited from legislating differently from the EU in areas covered by the Windsor Framework for fear of opening further the gap between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. There is plenty of evidence that this is happening. It was part of the reason why the previous Government were so reluctant to remove, fully and completely, retained EU law from the statute book and it was part of the inspiration behind the product regulation Bill, currently going through the Commons, which will allow Ministers to align us further with the EU by legislative fiat.
This is the heart of the political and legal problem, and all attempts to mitigate it—including, I am sure, in the important work of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and his review of the protocol—will come up against this central fact: the willing agreement of the Windsor Framework was a serious mistake. I am afraid that it has caused profound damage to our national interests and will continue to do so.
I know that some noble Lords with an interest in Northern Ireland—and others with a broader interest in Northern Ireland politics—regard this view as intolerably simplistic. They say that the only way to make things work in Northern Ireland is to live with complexity, to accept ambiguity and to be resolute for equivocation. They say that the only way to keep viable the political arrangements created by the Belfast/Good Friday agreement is to pretend to believe they can do two things at the same time: be simultaneously a route to Irish unity for some and a guarantee of Britishness for others under unionism. Maybe you can do that in words, but you cannot do it in real life. Every political, economic and legal development affecting Northern Ireland tilts the balance one way or the other between—to use the jargon—east-west and north-south. But I am afraid that nothing has tilted it more than our acceptance, in the Windsor Framework, of the fact that laws in Northern Ireland are not made by people in Northern Ireland or anywhere else in the UK.
I feel that, in the long run, these arrangements will have to go. One day, a different route will have to be taken and something like the proposed mutual enforcement arrangements will have to be put in place. The Windsor Framework will have to be ditched, and UK laws will have to apply in Northern Ireland as they do anywhere else. I do not think that the current arrangements can stand.
I turn to the third area I want to discuss. I have previously made points like the ones I have just made, as have many others. But since I last made them, one important new element has been added to the situation: the 19 May reset deal and the proposed SPS agreement between us and the EU. I will speculate a little about what this might be and what implications it might have for the legislation we are discussing tonight and other such legislation in the same series. I ask the Minister to respond to some questions.
It is said in the communiqué that the putative agreement
“would result in the vast majority of movements of animals, animal products, plants, and plant products between Great Britain and the European Union being undertaken without the certificates or controls that are currently required by the rules … These same benefits would be extended to the movements between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, through the interplay of the Windsor Framework and the SPS Agreement, so long as the SPS Agreement is fully implemented”.
It goes on to be quite clear about the legal basis for this dynamic alignment: that the UK must accept EU legislation in the SPS area without any formal say in the matter. In other words, the arrangements that are so unacceptable democratically and legally in Northern Ireland are to be extended to the rest of the United Kingdom as well. That is a huge price to pay in national sovereignty and control.
The phraseology of the declaration is important. What the UK has to do is clear; what the effect will be is less so. The Government have at times given the impression that there will be unfettered agri-food trade once the agreement is in place, but that is not what the words say. Agri-food is not all food: it does not include certain processed animal or plant products and many drinks—for example, Scotch, our biggest food and drink export. The Windsor Framework’s arrangements themselves cover more than just SPS movements.
I ask a few questions to conclude my remarks. First, the reset text says that “the vast majority” of movements of SPS goods will be covered by the agreement. Can the Minister say which goods are not covered and will therefore be covered by the existing Windsor Framework arrangements?
Secondly, for goods that are covered by the new arrangements, will the other non-SPS aspects of the Windsor Framework process remain in place for movements from GB to Northern Ireland? Specifically, can the Minister confirm, either now or later in writing, that the customs arrangements required under the Windsor Framework will remain in place, as surely they must unless we are joining some sort of customs arrangement as well. SPS movements will remain secondary customs movements as now, and therefore even when this new arrangement is in place for SPS goods, there will still remain a process and customs barrier between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Finally, can she confirm—to help us understand the difference between now and the future—whether the specific piece of legislation we are discussing tonight would be needed in future when the SPS agreement is in place? If not, is that because in future the biosecurity not just of Northern Ireland but of the whole of this country will be protected under EU legislation rather than our own?
I conclude that the Windsor Framework is leading this Government and this country into deeper, more dangerous waters with every day that passes. It must one day be removed, and one day I hope it will be. I beg to move.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, I will address principally the arguments that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, used in the third part of his speech—the ones that relate more generally to the SPS agreement that on 19 May our Government and the European Union agreed to negotiate.
When I listened to the noble Lord introducing his regret Motion, I hardly noticed any recognition of the fact that we would not be discussing this tonight were it not for his dereliction as a negotiator, when the negotiations were being carried out, to find any protection for the extremely valuable agri-food exports that we make to the other countries of Europe. Nothing was done about that when he was a Minister in the Johnson Government, and no attempt was made to negotiate provisions in the trade and co-operation agreement with the EU aimed at protecting those valuable exports and the people who produce them.
It seems to me that he was also, apparently, unaware of the fact that the SPS agreement, if negotiated successfully—which the Government agreed to attempt to do on 19 May, as did the European Union—would have many additional aspects that could be of great value. Those, of course, are the ones that relate to Northern Ireland, because it is rather clear that if there were an SPS agreement, quite a lot of the problems that have arisen in the operation of the Windsor Framework and the arrangements for trade between Northern Ireland, the rest of the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe would simply fall away. They would not be necessary. That in itself is surely a major prize to reach for.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Frost, on praying against this. It is really good to see someone from the Conservative Party actually praying against these regulations. In his wide-ranging contribution, he highlighted some of the real issues that we should be discussing. Perhaps it might be helpful if sometimes we were not discussing these issues so late at night. I also congratulate him on his patience, because I think he prayed against this some months ago and, of course, the regulations are already in place.
These regulations are hugely controversial because they undermine the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom, giving effect to the division of the UK into two parts. Although it is correct that, for epidemiological purposes, Northern Ireland has been treated on the same basis as the rest of the island of Ireland since before the imposition of the Irish Sea border, the idea that this somehow neutralises the problem associated with the border and these regulations is just unsustainable. There is all the difference in the world between the effects of being treated as part of the same epidemiological unit as the rest of the island of Ireland, while remaining within the international SPS borders of the United Kingdom, and being treated as part of the same epidemiologist unit as the rest of the island of Ireland, while being moved from within the international SPS borders of the UK into the international SPS borders of the EU.
What makes these regulations really toxic to me and to others is the fact that they have been given effect through the SPS border enforcement framework provided by the Official Controls (Amendment) Regulations 2024. As such, not only do they divide the UK by means of an international SPS border but they do so on the basis of a justification that their enforcement mechanism sweeps away, pulling the rug from beneath the feet of the entire Irish Sea border project.
The Government’s justification for moving both the customs and the international SPS border from the international border was that the only way we could have such a border was as a hard border and they did not want a hard border on the international border and therefore agreed to the movement of the border to the Irish Sea.
However, the enforcement mechanism for the regulations before us today demonstrates that the border can be enforced without SPS infrastructure on the border, so the Government’s justification for moving the border disappears, making the constitutional ramifications of the regulations before us today very toxic and controversial.
When I raised this problem on 29 January in the debate on the Official Controls (Amendment) Regulations that provide the framework for the enforcement of the regulations before us today, the Minister stated:
“I was also asked why SPS checks and controls take place away from the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. This was obviously part of the Windsor Framework and was approved at the time by Parliament. We cannot unpick that through this SI, but, again, these things can be looked at by the work that the noble Lord will be carrying out if the committee is interested in doing so”.—[Official Report, 29/1/25; col. 359.]
But that is incorrect.
Although the movement of the SPS border from the international border to the Irish Sea was obviously part of the Windsor Framework, the removal of the central justification for moving the border, by means of the way in which the regulations before us today will be enforced, was not in the protocol, nor in the amendments that resulted in it being renamed the Windsor Framework. That is the whole point.
It is with the demonstration that the border can be enforced through an SPS infrastructure away from the border, through the enforcement regime for the regulations before us today, which has become apparent only this year, that the whole justification for moving the border has been removed.
On 4 March, the honourable Member for North Antrim raised the very same point in another place. Interestingly, on that occasion the Secretary of State said:
“The answer is this: as a sovereign country, it falls to us to decide how we check goods that arrive in our territory … It is for sovereign countries to determine what checks they apply. The same truth applies to the European Union; it has a single market”.—[Official Report, Commons, 4/3/25; cols. 253-54.]
What the Secretary of State was saying simply has the effect of saying that the problem highlighted is indeed a reality, but seeks to validate this on the basis that the way the border works is the decision of the UK Government for goods moving from Northern Ireland to GB and of the EU Government for goods moving from GB to NI. As such, it simply acknowledges the current situation but does not engage with the problem that it presents.
The point is that doing this completely removes the justification always given for taking the extraordinary step of agreeing to move the customs and SPS border from the international border to the Irish Sea, namely that this was the only way to avoid having a hard border, when our Irish Sea border arrangements demonstrate that this is not true. So I ask the noble Baroness again: who is right, she or the Secretary of State in the other place?
This is a huge issue, because of the costs associated with moving the SPS border away from the international border, even, as we know, as that border serves as the border for tax and excise purposes, for purposes of currency, for many other legal purposes and indeed more recently for immigration purposes, because the Republic now carries out immigration checks along the border. So it constitutes the most extraordinary reversal of democracy.
We are aware of countries that are not democratic and we want them to become fully democratic. But what has happened in Northern Ireland, by contrast, because of the needless movement of the customs and SPS border, is really extraordinary. We have seen the disenfranchisement of 1.9 million people in 300 areas of law—not just bits of law but areas. This makes the Government’s position completely unsustainable. They cannot say, as the Secretary of State said, that it is fine to agree to move the border when the operation of the Irish Sea border, GB to NI, demonstrates that the only justification for doing so does not exist.
In truth, no self-respecting country should agree to any arrangement that involves the disfranchisement of all its citizens in 300 areas of law, for any reason. However, to do so in a context where one’s own arrangements demonstrate that this is completely unnecessary suggests that the United Kingdom has become the first country in the world that is prepared to prioritise acquiescing to the requests of other countries that its own arrangements demonstrate are needless when the price is trading the citizenship of its own people.
I have to say that the Secretary of State himself bears a unique responsibility, because he brought before Parliament what became the Benn Act, the effect of which was to greatly weaken the negotiating position of the then Government. Had he not tied their hands, it is highly unlikely that we would have ended up with the protocol, because there is no doubt that the European Union would have feared the implications of a no-deal Brexit and might not have been quite so unreasonable.
Nevertheless, as the noble Lord Frost said, many of us thought at the time when all of this went through that it would only be temporary. I am very sad that the incoming Government have not seized on the opportunity with this so-called reset to actually try to get the European Union to see sense. The Secretary of State’s intervention ensured that there had to be a deal, without the risk of no deal, and the price of that, which he and others certainly wanted, was that the people of Northern Ireland have become a commodity, traded to give the people of Great Britain the assurance of the trade and co-operation agreement.
The regulation before us today puts in focus once again the abandonment of 1.9 million people of the United Kingdom. I am not going to go over it again, but last time I read out the letter from young people from Northern Ireland who talked about the Government lecturing young people about the importance of active citizenship, only to argue that they did not actually have active citizenship in that part of the United Kingdom. I would also say that they are very grateful that the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, has now agreed to meet them, and they are looking forward to that.
All of what is being said now and will be said by others has huge implications for the review by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, which is required by paragraph 7 of the unilateral declaration of 2019 to consider both the operation of the Windsor Framework and the implications of moving away from it, which is possible only if we all consider the alternatives to the current arrangement. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, must consider the alternatives in detail, including, as the noble Lord, Lord Frost, said, mutual enforcement, which was originally what the EU favoured back in 2019, but things have moved on since then.
We have had to come to terms with the very destructive impact of the operation of the Windsor Framework on democracy, trade and the diversion of trade—why has Article 16 not been invoked?—the effect of those wishing to buy goods from GB businesses and, most importantly, driving a wedge between one part of our country and another. As the noble Lord, Lord Frost, said, this cannot continue. It cannot be sustainable. Mutual enforcement can be a solution to address the UK/Republic of Ireland land border challenge. While it may have been passed over in 2019 because some people felt that it was not the solution, now that we have seen what was the solution, mutual enforcement most certainly represents the best available option in 2025, and discussing these kinds of regulations and the effect on people in Northern Ireland really should make noble Lords sit up and think that something has to change.
Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey. I agree with virtually every word that she has said. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Frost, on bringing this regret Motion before your Lordships’ House this evening. It is extremely important, as I have said on numerous occasions during these types of debates. I welcome that, while it is not a great turnout, it is a much better turnout than we normally have for these statutory instrument debates. We are privileged to have so many people taking an interest. We guarantee that there will be such opportunities in the future, as we examine European legislation.
Lord Lilley (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Frost on bringing this regret Motion against these regulations. It is extraordinary that this House is only now considering them months after they came into effect, but that makes it all the more important that we consider their implications, both in practice and in principle.
I want first to respond to the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. He wants an SPS agreement. I have good news for him: we have an SPS agreement. It is called the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. It follows on from an agreement that I helped negotiate—the Uruguay round—which created the WTO, which then led to this. It says that SPS measures
“shall not be applied in a manner which would constitute a disguised restriction on international trade”.
In particular:
“Members shall accept the sanitary or phytosanitary measures of other Members”,
of the WTO,
“as equivalent, even if these measures differ from their own”.
Our measures, of course, are very largely identical. None the less, they have not been accepted by the EU because the EU likes to use phytosanitary measures—in direct conflict with the agreement it has signed—as a protectionist measure to impose what one EU negotiator referred to me as their desire to be a regulatory hegemon. “We are a regulatory hegemon”, he said, “and we intend to remain so in our area”. They try to impose it on Switzerland and they would like to impose it on us.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is a fanatical enthusiast for international law and hates any breach of it, except when the EU is in breach, as it is on multiple occasions on this very issue of sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and has been found to be so by the WTO. I am sure he will welcome the fact that we have this agreement and will do his best to persuade the EU to live up to the agreement it has already entered into, rather than request we make further concessions for it to agree to something it has already agreed to.
I do not fully understand the Government’s position on these specific measures. I look to the Minister to illuminate them and explain them to me; I may well have not understood them. They seem to relate to two bugs or diseases. The first is Heterobasidion irregulare; I am sure noble Lords are thoroughly familiar with it. The impact of the controls will be that:
“Host material imported into Great Britain from EU Member States, other than any EU Member State where Heterobasidion irregulare is known not to occur … will need to be free from this pest and compliant with the additional import requirements. This pest will also be subject to increased awareness raising, surveillance and action on detection within Great Britain to protect biosecurity”.
Is Ireland free from this bug? If it is, why do we need any checks?
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, to some extent, as previous speakers have said of this set of regulations, it is almost preposterous that we are debating it several months after its implementation. But I would have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, that there is nothing as permanent as the temporary; he will, sadly, be familiar with that phrase.
On the idea of protecting our plant life and so on, there will not be a word of discontent around the Chamber about our trying to do that; it is common sense. However, we are dealing here not simply with the regulations that are in front of us; we are dealing with the circumstances in which they have been brought forward. Other speakers have drawn attention to this.
Going back to the beginning, after the decision to leave the European Union, my party was uncomfortable with that at that time, simply because we could see that this sort of thing was going to happen. We triggered Article 50 far too soon. We had not negotiated and worked out among ourselves what we were going to do, and that showed up very quickly in the negotiating process. We accepted the fundamental top three things that the EU had agreed before we even sat down at the table. The first was leaving citizenship out of it, on which I think there would be no argument. We agreed on payment, so we decided to buy a house before we knew what it was going to cost, and we then agreed to take the Irish question out of the trade set-up and put it into a political context. That had to be done before we even got started. So, to some extent, you were fighting a losing battle from that point onwards. If anybody was to renegotiate the situation today, I do not think they would even contemplate such a proposal.
I also suspect that we are also in a totally different context from when the noble Lord, Lord Frost, put in his bid for this Motion. He referred to 19 May and the reset. However, this is a skeletal set of agreements. There is no substance or detail in any of those agreements with the EU, and anybody who knows anything about the European Union knows that it is good at the small print. So we may have these high-level ideas of reset, but the minutiae is where the European Union is at its best and we are at our worst.
I have argued for some time—I hope the Minister will look at this, and I think I have said it in other debates—that, given that the review of the trade and co-operation agreement is due next year, the United Kingdom should be working today to work out what proposals we want to put to the European Union in those negotiations. It is perfectly obvious that the European Union will want to compress that renegotiation to the minimum and the reset will play into that, but it is an opportunity. It is written into the agreement that its operation will be reviewed in 2026. We should be preparing a position now and not end up crashing in at the last minute with a few things jotted on a piece of paper. We need to know what it is that we want.
Fundamentally, the problem of us in Northern Ireland being half in the European Union and half out of it is insoluble. Even if you have all the fundamental technical solutions—there are many now that are applicable and could work, as has been referred to—if we are in one trading bloc and the European Union is in another, that is a politically insoluble position to be in, because we are under a totally different regime, subject to different laws with no impact on or say in what the laws should be.
I have to say that things are changing. All of a sudden, people in Great Britain are saying, “How awful is this? People are going to be making our laws and we’ve no say over them”. Well, I have to say, “Folks, wakey wakey”. We have had to live with this for some years. Now it appears that, in part, people in Great Britain are going to be in the same boat. Looked at that way, “dynamic alignment” is a significant term. We have had expressions of what that actually means. I draw the House’s attention to the fact that, if people are uncomfortable, since many Benches have by and large been empty when we have been discussing these issues, they may not be quite so empty in a year’s time when some people have to take a dose of their own medicine.
Personally, I believe that we as a nation could have avoided a lot of this. I think we negotiated and handled things badly after the people took a decision, and we are living with the consequences of that. Thereafter we have been mitigating, trying to ease the pressure and trying to make things easier for traders and businesses to operate. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, referred to, not one scintilla of the Windsor Framework has been changed.
I want to ask the Minister about a particular issue that has not really got above the parapet yet: the new European Union customs processes. The European Union is undertaking a massive review. Like the Americans, it has had a situation where the movement of goods of small monetary value does not require any paperwork. I think there was a limit of about €125, and in the United States context it was about $850. That is coming to an end. Every single thing, irrespective of its value, will have to have a number and will be under the new regulations that will come in in the European Union in the next few years. That will apply to the whole of the United Kingdom in significant measure, but I have not seen or heard any comment in Parliament about it. Is the Minister aware of that? Do she and her colleagues have anything to say about it and what the implications would be for the movement of products of a very low value?
Of course, that will hit the very small businesses. It will make life more difficult for individuals who may be bringing things in online, or in whatever mechanism that is used. As the Minister knows, we have a parcel issue. We are in the process of spending £200 million on border inspection posts. People are saying, “The new reset means we don’t need them”, but that is not the case. We will continue to need them, and the European Union is insisting that we have them.
Lord Lilley (Con)
I am very grateful to the noble Lord for bringing this up. I am sure he will be able to remind me of the clause in the Northern Ireland protocol—to which the EU signed up—that says the EU will use its best endeavours to ensure that there is no need for checks and border posts at the ports and airports of Northern Ireland. Now it is insisting that they exist, rather than trying to find ways of doing without them.
Lord Empey (UUP)
I suspect that the answer will be, “We need them there just in case there’s an outbreak of disease and we have to inspect animals and get back to crawling under tractors to see if there is any Scottish soil underneath”, and so on. There will be an answer. As the noble Lord is aware, there is always an answer.
Can the Minister tell us what the implications of the new customs rules that are coming down the track—which our committee is aware of and looking at—will be for the situations we are facing tonight? I think they mean that intrusive interference will be coming down to a very low level—to the level of an individual. Maybe Members do not realise that the Select Committee to which the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, referred—and of which he and I are members—is the only committee in this Parliament that is looking at EU regulations and laws that apply to Northern Ireland. Nobody else is looking at them. There is nothing down at the other end. I think that is an outrage; the House of Commons should be looking at these things. Ours is the only committee in Parliament that is looking at these matters; maybe that says a lot about what people’s priorities are.
I ask the Minister to refer to the customs issue, because I think that is going to come very much to the fore. Can she also tell us what preparations are being made for the 2026 renegotiation of the trade and co-operation agreement? Are the Government preparing and working with other interested parties to decide the best way forward and to see whether, while we cannot solve these problems in their entirety—and certainly not constitutionally—we can perhaps mitigate them further to at least alleviate some of the obstacles that are in the way of business?
Lord Bew (CB)
My Lords, it is with considerable regret that I rise to oppose the regret Motion from the noble Lord, Lord Frost, because I respect enormously the work that the noble Lord did on this question when he was in government. I wish to stress in particular tonight that the introduction of unilateral grace periods was the beginning of the fight-back against the authoritarian implications of the 2017 EU-UK agreement. That was of considerable importance and helped to give us space for further developments—developments with which, I understand from listening to him, he is now radically dissatisfied. I am not satisfied; I am rather less dissatisfied.
It is crucial to understand that the 2017 EU-UK agreement is the core of the ideas that are then to be found in the protocol—that is absolutely clear. It is important to understand also that that agreement involved a flouting of key elements in the Good Friday agreement. Strand 3 of the Good Friday agreement insists that there be harmonious mutually beneficial relationships between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. Nobody could see how those mutually beneficial relationships could remain in the full implementation of the 2017 EU-UK agreement. One of the key themes of that agreement is that the British Government were compelled to commit themselves to supporting an island economy.
Look at the Good Friday agreement and the frame- work document that precedes it: it is explicitly about co-operation between two economies on the island of Ireland. To the surprise of many economists who believed that there should be more of an island economy in the early years of the 20th century, suddenly there was a thing called the island economy. By the way, in certain respects there is: in electricity, the dairy industry and so on. But there is not, overall, an island economy—there is absolutely no question about that—and the two economies on the island of Ireland remain a profound reality.
Funnily enough, in recent weeks, as a result of Donald Trump’s probings—is that the right word?—of the Irish economy, the indignant insistence all over the Irish press and media that there are two economies on the island of Ireland has become explosive. But the island economy, and the British Government’s commitment to support it, was one of the great problems in the 2017 agreement and the protocols—both the May and the Johnson versions. It is based on a very unrealistic assessment of the realities of the island economy. In the Gallimard edition of Michel Barnier’s memoir, around pages 137 to 140, there is a discussion of Ireland that is largely mythical. None the less, these mythical concepts became the heart of policy and, more importantly, a British Government were compelled to support that.
If the Windsor Framework has been treated very dustily tonight, there is one thing it does: it calls a stop to that. It says no, and the European Union agrees. It is absolutely explicit. The island economy driver of policy for the British Government and the dynamic alignment that people have talked about are dispelled by the Windsor Framework. That is one of the achievements of the Windsor Framework and why it played a role in the return of Stormont.
This was followed by the Safeguarding the Union document, the importance of which was to demonstrate, on the subject of the Irish Sea border, that, for large parts of the history of the union—for many decades—there has been an Irish Sea border of one sort or another. It is absolutely explicit—it reproduces the documents. You cannot say that the Irish Sea border as such is corrosive of the union; the union somehow survives. The phenomenon known as the Irish Sea border is in a different form today, but what is not in doubt is that it is not corrosive of the union as such. That, again, is one of the important things about the Safeguarding the Union document.
The other important thing is that it lays out the first declaration of something that is now commonplace in debate in this House: the necessary role of the Northern Ireland defence industries in the protection of the United Kingdom. It makes this absolutely clear, and it is the first signal of something that this Government have taken up very strongly. One of the reasons why I mention this is: where is the dynamic alignment with the Irish Republic, when we are emphasising above all the importance of the defence industries of Northern Ireland in the defence of the United Kingdom? It is important to remember these realities.
As I listened, I pictured the frustrations of life with the Windsor Framework. There are many such frustrations. The new SPS agreement may help, and I hope it does. One thing is clear, and the noble Lord, Lord Empey, made the point: one can no longer say in Northern Ireland that we alone are rule takers from the EU. The whole of the rest of the United Kingdom will now be rule takers from the whole of the EU in a different sense. The reason why it is fundamentally democratic is that this Parliament has a right to make these decisions.
Traditional unionism always accepted that. In the 1930s, when traditional unionism disliked the 1938 agreement, it still said, “Nothing to do with Stormont’s decisions. It is up to this Parliament to make these decisions, even if we are uneasy and dislike the various provisions of a particular trade agreement”. That is what traditional unionism stands for: the idea that this Parliament has a right to make these decisions. They are often very difficult and, it so happens, often very unsatisfactory in Northern Ireland.
There are difficulties. The University of Ulster economist Dr Esmond Birnie has been quite right to insist—other speakers have mentioned it tonight—about the fall-off in trade from Great Britain into Northern Ireland, particularly smaller concerns. The paperwork has put off smaller concerns exporting from the rest of the United Kingdom into Northern Ireland. There is absolutely no question that this is a problem, but there is also no doubt, for example, that many Northern Ireland businesses enjoy dual access and enjoy the access to the Irish Republic. There is no doubt that the Ulster Farmers’ Union seems increasingly relaxed, especially in the context of possible new SPS arrangements, about the Windsor Framework.
So, while it is perfectly correct that there are many unsatisfactory aspects of the current reality—Dr Esmond Birnie in particular has drawn careful and precise attention to this, and I hope the Government will pay attention to the various scholarly papers that he has produced—and while there is no doubt that these possibilities exist, there are also areas of success. The services industry in Northern Ireland is doing far better than anybody expected at this point. It is protected in the Windsor Framework quite explicitly and is doing far better than anybody—certainly myself—expected at this particular point in history.
Finally, I will say something on the point of phytosanitary arrangements. Back in the days of the BSE crisis, Dr Ian Paisley, leader of the DUP, went into No. 10 and said to Tony Blair, “I need to tell you that my farmers are British but my cattle are Irish”, because he wanted to make special arrangements. BSE was not so marked a feature in Northern Ireland as it was in the rest of the United Kingdom and, basically, he wanted a privileged relationship for Northern Irish farmers—“My farmers are British, but my cattle are Irish; respect that they currently do not have the same levels of BSE as they have in Derbyshire”. The logic behind this legislation is, “My gardeners are British but my plants are Irish”. It is hard to dispute or argue with it.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Frost, talked about those who suggest that you have to live with ambiguity and compromise in Northern Ireland. He expressed doubt and said that some of these compromises had been very unsatisfactory in the past 25 years. I am absolutely certain that there is no way that Northern Ireland can survive as part of the United Kingdom without compromise of the sort that has been made. He mentioned, for example, the logic of the Good Friday agreement. I am also clear in my mind that the union is never going to be available on exclusively unionist terms. That does not mean that the union is not available—the union has, at this point, a strong future ahead of it—but it is not going to be available on exclusively unionist terms. This is the point that we all have to accept.
There is irreducibly an element here. I have criticised the Irish negotiators of that agreement in 2017; they overplayed their hand, and the best Irish officials, in my view, now accept that. It left a lot of problems that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, had to struggle with, and in the first instance dealt with successfully. It left lots of problems, but the truth of the matter is that there are these two identities and Northern Ireland does face both ways. This cannot be avoided in the settlement, which must involve, at some level, a compromise. The protocol was definitely unfair to the mainstream unionist community, but the idea that we can just drop the Windsor Framework now—which, as I pointed out, has significant elements that work well for the unionist community—is not realistic.
Lord Morrow (DUP)
My Lords, speaking at this stage in the debate can be difficult, because much of what I was going to say has already been said, and perhaps said even more eloquently than I can say it. Just on the last point that the noble Lord, Lord Bew, made about Northern Ireland pointing both ways, we were of a clear understanding that the Belfast agreement actually articulated that.
Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)
Does the noble Lord also accept that, as well as those capital costs, which are very significant, we have to add the £450 million-odd going into the Trader Support Service, the Movement Assistance Scheme and other schemes, adding up to hundreds of millions of pounds being thrown down the drain at a time when we are told that there is no money available for public services?
Lord Morrow (DUP)
I thank my colleague the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, who is forensic on this issue. He has again pointed out that the figure I have mentioned is but a fraction, and I thank him for making that point.
In the second instance, as the Explanatory Memorandum makes plain, if the UK Government judge that Heterobasidion irregulare, known to cause annosus root and butt rot, poses a non-acceptable risk to GB, would that not also pose an unacceptable risk to the rest of the United Kingdom? Similarly, if the United Kingdom Government have judged that specific import requirements must be imposed in relation to—this has been referred to—Popillia japonica, which is simply a Japanese beetle, because it is spreading in Europe, and that therefore it warrants additional measures to prevent its entry into GB, does the spread in the rest of Europe not similarly constitute a threat to the biosecurity of Northern Ireland? If the Minister’s answer is to be the same as her answer to us of 29 January on the related biosecurity foot and mouth question, I say respectfully that that will not do.
The levels of protection that the UK Government insisted on for GB—and rightly so—could not have been more different from those that the EU provided for Northern Ireland. The UK has abdicated its biosecurity responsibilities in relation to Northern Ireland, as the noble Baroness said. In this context, the claim by the Minister in the other place that Northern Ireland farms are just as important looks quite limp, downright pathetic and absurd.
The Minister responded, saying,
“he rightly laid out the situation that Northern Ireland is in as being part of the EU regulations and the fact there is a surveillance zone in Germany. I want to stress that the EU takes its biosecurity responsibilities for something like foot and mouth extremely seriously. There had not been a foot and mouth outbreak in Germany since 1988, so this is very significant for them”.—[Official Report, 29/1/25; cols. 359-60.]
That may not be as reassuring as some would perhaps want it to be, because we have heard this evening a charge of a dereliction of duty. Would there be any remote possibility that Europe could show a dereliction of duty at times too, or have we just to utterly trust it? Quite frankly, I am one who would not be prepared to utterly trust it. It is not enough to say that in Northern Ireland biosecurity standards are now determined by a different country from the rest of us, whose Government you do not elect and cannot change, but not to worry as they are very good in their duties. That is not acceptable any more.
The answer also fails the Windsor Framework because it demonstrates how its operation is now failing in its own terms. Article 1 of the Windsor Framework is designated as having very specific function by means of its heading, “Objectives”. I will not go into those because my colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, has already articulated that very well. If the Government are to fully and faithfully implement the Windsor Framework, the task of ensuring that its operation is faithful to those objectives is plainly of the utmost importance.
Furthermore, the objectives include a requirement that the Windsor Framework respects the territorial integrity and essential state functions of the United Kingdom. The regulations before us today do neither; they divide the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland into two, with an international SPS border, disrespecting the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom of GB and Northern Ireland. They testify to the fact that an essential state security function has been passed from the UK to the European Union, in whose legislature, Executive and judiciary the UK is not represented.
In her response to the debate, I very much hope that the Minister will not suggest that a veterinary agreement with the EU is the answer, for I must tell the House emphatically that it is not. If the Government negotiate an SPS agreement with the EU that will not remove the Irish Sea border or restore the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom, because the United Kingdom will still be divided into two by an international customs border and subject to EU law in all manner of areas—law that we do not make and cannot change—that is just not acceptable. We will still be subject to the EU customs code, which deems that Great Britain is a foreign country in relation to Northern Ireland.
In this, it is my purpose not to offer a counsel of despair—far from it. The truth is that the way the Government are managing the movement of non-qualifying Northern Ireland goods from Northern Ireland to GB, in respect of these and the other SPS regulations, through the Official Controls (Amendment) Regulations and without SPS checks on the border, already provides the answer of how to manage the SPS checks on the international border. However, things can be made even more robust by adopting mutual enforcement, which has already been mentioned by a number of speakers this evening. That has been developed within the EU Commission by Sir Jonathan Faull, together with the academics Professor Joseph Weiler and Professor Daniel Sarmiento, and it provides a means of protecting the integrity of both the United Kingdom internal market for goods and the EU internal market for goods without a hard border across the island of Ireland. I pose the question: what is so desperately wrong with that, when, in fact, it does not hurt either territory? There has to be some other reason that the Government must tell us.
If the current delivery mechanism of the Windsor Framework was exchanged for SPS checks away from the border, as is already the case on west-east movements together with mutual enforcement, the objectives of the Windsor Framework, as set out in Article 1, would be clearly met. Not only would the territorial integrity and the essential state functions of the United Kingdom be respected but the other components of the objectives of the Windsor Framework, as set out in Article 1, could then be fulfilled: namely, protecting the Good Friday agreement in all its dimensions. While I will not digress on that point, the reasons that the current Windsor Framework, far from protecting the Good Friday agreement in all its parts, constitutes the greatest existential threat to the 1998 agreement were eloquently set out recently in an important article in one of our local papers.
There are some strong advocates in this House for the Belfast agreement, and I fail to understand why they are silent on this matter, because it is not being protected. I appreciate that, in 2019, the EU decided that it preferred the Irish Sea border to mutual enforcement, but now we are in a situation where it is clear, in 2025—in part courtesy of the regulations before us today—that the changes necessitated by the Windsor Framework are causing it to contradict, violate and undermine its own objectives as set out by Article 1. The issue must be revisited as a matter of urgency.
In conclusion, I hope that the regulations before us today can rapidly be withdrawn and replaced by regulations that are not implicated in the division of the United Kingdom into two and in the ceding of essential state functions to an entity of which we are not a part. I stress, lest the Minister might be tempted to point this out, that Northern Ireland has been part of the same epidemiological unit since long before the introduction of the Irish Sea border. This point is well understood and is not relevant, because it was never objected to. What is objected to is Northern Ireland being divided from the rest of the United Kingdom by a customs border and an international SPS measure which necessitates Northern Ireland being disenfranchised in hundreds of areas of law.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)
My Lords, I respectfully remind the House it is a firm convention that the House normally rises around 10 pm on Mondays to Wednesdays unless there has been some other agreement—which there has not been tonight. We have had a very good and forensic debate and we are 90 minutes in, so I suggest that we should move on to Front-Bench contributions. If there are going to be any more Back-Bench contributions, I really must insist that, unlike the last couple, they are very brief in their content.
Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)
My Lords, from that point of view, I had not originally intended to speak, but I suspect I may be the last Back-Bench contributor. In the true spirit of equality, it may be useful if I can make a few comments in relation to that. I am sure that the Front Benchers do not really object to being detained too much by what I think is a matter of crucial constitutional significance.
As I said, I had not originally intended to speak in this debate, not least because I agree with the vast bulk of what has been said and contributed to this debate, but I want to touch on just three points that came up during the debate. First, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, is correct that, while this is a highly technical issue, it is one that speaks to much greater constitutional significance. As has been mentioned, this is symptomatic of a wider problem, and that has been the overall approach that has been taken over the last number of years. There have been a number of failures: a failure of planning, negotiation, detail and implementation. Nationally, we need to learn those lessons, particularly for the future.
Secondly, while it will come as no great surprise that I and my unionist colleagues on this Bench, from at least two parties, are not the greatest fans of the Northern Ireland protocol or the Windsor Framework, what is particularly concerning about this regulation is that it is actually worse than the protocol and the framework. As has been highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, and others, at the very least in Article 1, which is supposed to protect security and indeed national security on biosecurity, we are left with a situation where we have what I call “protocol plus”: we have a situation in which the requirements of the Government have been gold-plated. The supposed safeguards have been largely disregarded. If anything, what is in the protocol would provide greater protection than what is there today.
Thirdly and finally, as a number of speakers—relatively critically from noble Lord, Lord Frost, probably more benignly from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay—have indicated, we can only really look at this debate in the context of the reset arrangements. There have been many promises made about that reset. Those of us in Northern Ireland will take a slight level of scepticism towards that. It is not what is promised that is important; it is what is delivered. It is not what is said; it is what is done.
To be fair to the Government, in terms of what they have promised, they have not suggested that the reset particularly solves some of the fundamental issues that are still there. We are still going to be left now. I await the Minister’s response in relation to this: that there will still be customs arrangements between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Secondly, it is clear that it will not deal with the democratic deficit of the 300 areas of law. Thirdly, whatever arrangements are there in SPS, as I think was indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Frost, in one of his opening questions, it seems very apparent that that will not cover those goods outside of SPS on that basis.
In conclusion, let us for a moment take a much more rose-tinted approach to this and borrow from some of the suggestions of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that this will be greatly easing and improving the situation. If that is the case, it is because it would treat the United Kingdom, albeit in a situation in which it is largely subservient to dynamic alignment with the EU, as being one unit on that basis. That seems to be the direction of travel of the skeletal agreement that has been produced in respect of SPS.
If that is the case, and if that is something that is going to lead to a much more halcyon future for the country as a whole, I have to say that this regulation before us takes us in a diametrically opposed position, because it very explicitly brings about a situation that, from a biosecurity point of view, creates fortress Great Britain at the expense of dividing us off entirely from Northern Ireland. So I say in conclusion that, if you are a true believer in and advocate for the reset arrangements, actually you would find yourself in agreement with the regret Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Frost. I do not want to detain the House any longer and I look forward to the response of the Front Benches.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, we support these regulations as a sensible step to protect our biosecurity and reduce costly and deeply damaging barriers to trade, but we see this as just one stage of a much bigger journey. As my noble friend Lady Suttie has said in previous debates of this nature, these regulations are a stopgap. The real prize is a full sanitary and phytosanitary SPS veterinary agreement with the EU—something both sides committed to at last month’s summit. That would mean that one day our aim would be to do away with most border checks on plant and animal products altogether.
Indeed, we welcome the Government’s recent decision to delay new checks on medium-risk fruit and vegetables, an approach that a lot of industry rightly calls common sense. The extension until January 2027 gives businesses some breathing space, but everyone knows this is temporary and that the Government expect that a new SPS agreement will make these stopgap measures unnecessary.
The May summit made clear the aim: a common sanitary and phytosanitary area with no time limit. That would mean most goods, plants, animals and their products could move between Great Britain and the EU without the current certificates and controls. It would cut costs, ease pressure on food prices and end routine border checks. The benefits would also extend to Northern Ireland, thanks to the Windsor Framework. There is sometimes a myth that such an agreement would make Britain a rule taker. In reality, if we want to export, we always have to meet our trading partners’ standards. This deal would mean genuinely unfettered access to the EU market and therefore far less trade friction—friction that has been so damaging, for example, to our farmers in recent years.
Farming groups such as the NFU and the Country Land and Business Association have raised concerns about the role of European courts and the need for flexibility, especially around issues such as precision breeding and pesticides. The proposed agreement suggests dynamic alignment with the EU rules, but also promises a say for the UK and an independent arbitration panel. I am looking forward to a few more answers on this and the need to be sure that any dispute process is genuinely fair and respects our own parliamentary procedures.
This agreement could bring real benefits: lower prices, less red tape and more secure food supply. But I echo some of the requests in previous debates with questions to the Minister, especially from these Benches, about a clear timetable for finalising the implementation of the SPS agreement. So far, our understanding is that no date has been set. We would also like to know whether there is any risk to animal health or biosecurity while we wait for the new agreement to come. Ongoing surveillance in that period is obviously vital, but we do feel that reassurance is needed.
On another point, the Explanatory Memorandum mentions debt recovery and collection costs for unpaid fees. Can the Minister tell us the total cost of unpaid fees, the average fee charged, and whether non-payment is a widespread issue? If she is unable to answer that this evening, perhaps she could undertake to write; we would be very grateful. Finally, can the Minister confirm that there are robust checks to prevent goods deliberately avoiding control posts, now and in the future?
With regard to the Motion to Regret, I note at paragraph 17 of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s 15th report the submission from Jim Allister MP and the Defra response with reference to the use in the four nations of the UK plant health provisional common framework and that, for example, measures against Popillia japonica are already in place in Northern Ireland, and the rest of Great Britain has been catching up. I therefore have been a little confused by some of the contributions I have heard this evening.
Given the benefits so ably described by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and the very detailed and useful explanation from the noble Lord, Lord Bew, we will not be supporting the regret Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Frost. We want to see these regulations and the wider agreement deliver what matters to people: less bureaucracy, lower costs and a stronger partnership with our closest trading neighbours, and we would prefer that sooner rather than later. That is what is best for our businesses, our farmers and ultimately our consumers.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate and my noble friend Lord Frost for bringing it to the Chamber.
At face value, this instrument appears to be a routine update, technical in nature and laudable in intent. It introduces new and stricter import controls on certain plant pests, including Heterobasidion irregulare and Popillia japonica, which are already spreading rapidly in parts of Europe. These steps are necessary. We have seen all too often the devastating consequences of failing to act quickly and unilaterally if necessary, whether to Phytophthora ramorum, which devastates our larches and causes sudden oak death, ash dieback, or threats to our commercial crops from the great spruce bark beetle and the eight-toothed European spruce bark beetle—for some reason, neither of those seem to have Latin names. I refer the House to my register of interests as a forest owner and a planter of new forests.
While these regulations seek to bolster biosecurity across Great Britain, they do not extend those same protections to Northern Ireland, and that is a shame. I know that the concerns of my noble friend are sincerely held and reflect the views of a great number of those in Northern Ireland in particular. As my noble friend Lord Caine has said on previous occasions, it is important that His Majesty’s Government and Opposition continue to listen to those concerns and seek to address them.
We are told that biosecurity is an essential state function. It is and it must be. But under the terms of the Windsor Framework, that essential function has been compromised. Biosecurity measures which apply robustly to England, Scotland and Wales are not being applied to Northern Ireland in the same way. In effect, plant health in Northern Ireland is now subject to the policy choices of the EU and not, as it should be, to the collective will of this sovereign Parliament. However, the Windsor Framework was the best deal available to us while in government, and we continue to support it, while urging this Government to try to improve on it. For that reason, we do not support my noble friend Lord Frost’s regret Motion.
My noble friend Lord Frost and others have already mentioned the new sanitary and phytosanitary deal with the EU, which is designed to ease trade by removing checks on food. To add to the many questions posed to the Minister, could she reassure us that this will not provide an easier entry for plant diseases and a repeat of the imported pests that I mentioned earlier as happened while we were in the EU? What checks will remain in place to protect our natural environment?
The EU deal appears to have betrayed our fishers in return for reduced checks. The farmed salmon industry seems to be the only fish and seafood group to have spoken in support of this deal. The damaging effects of this industry on the environment have been debated at length in this House during Committee and Report of the now Crown Estate Act. The farmed salmon industry is distinct from the UK fishing industry, which has greeted the deal with deep disappointment.
In answer to my Oral Question two months ago, the Minister gave encouraging answers, which I will briefly quote:
“after the end of the fisheries adjustment period set out in the trade and co-operation agreement, European Union access to UK waters, and vice versa, become a matter for annual renegotiation, as is typical between coastal states … as a Government, we will always push for the best opportunities for our fishers and the fishery industry”.—[Official Report, 31/3/25; col. 8.]
The end of the trade and co-operation agreement in June 2026 represented the opportunity to increase the size of our fishing effort by 60%, with full zonal attachment in our exclusive economic zone—a huge economic opportunity for deprived coastal communities. The deal was a betrayal of those communities and those who live and work in the fishing industry. We are now committed to a 12-year extension of the very disappointing status quo. Was this phytosanitary deal really worth that betrayal? The benefits of trade accrue to both sides of that trade, so why should any price be paid, let alone such a high price?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Frost, for introducing this Motion and noble Lords who have contributed to the debate today with such passion and energy. I have, as ever, listened very carefully to all the concerns that have been raised, but I want to draw the attention of noble Lords back to the very positive impact that this legislation has.
Protecting our biosecurity is of paramount importance to address the climate and biodiversity crisis. This instrument introduces and amends protective measures against high-risk plant pests in Great Britain, as identified by our risk and horizon scanning process. As a result, this instrument protects biosecurity and supports trade in the UK. As part of these technical changes, this instrument recategorises certain plants and plant products, again following the completion of the risk assessments, as committed to under the Border Target Operating Model. This is part of an ongoing technical review of plant products subject to plant health import requirements and maintains the GB plant health regime as risk-based and proportionate. This instrument also amends certain official control measures to exclude large plants, plant products and other objects from the requirement for unloading in an area with a roof. This provision enables the implementation of appropriate biosecurity standards in those cases.
I emphasise that this instrument does not separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom or treat Northern Ireland as a third country. Indeed, several of the measures in the instrument actually ensure that Great Britain is applying measures already in place in Northern Ireland. I am sure that noble Lords will not be surprised when I remind the House that the island of Ireland has been treated as a single epidemiological unit for decades. Under this regime, Northern Ireland implements official controls and additional protections in response to pest risks to maintain its biosecurity as part of the island of Ireland.
This instrument also upholds the Government’s policy of unfettered market access in relation to qualifying Northern Ireland goods. Indeed, the Windsor Framework underscores Northern Ireland’s place in the UK. The UK Government want to see the Windsor Framework’s benefits realised for the benefits of businesses and people in Northern Ireland, and right across the UK, in a manner that meets our international obligations, so I am pleased to state that the devolved Governments gave their consent for these regulations to extend across Great Britain. The UK Government and all devolved Governments will continue to work closely together on plant health issues via the UK plant health provisional common framework.
Noble Lords may be interested to note that I had a meeting only this morning with representatives from all devolved Governments—with Ministers—to discuss the BTOM in the context of the SPS agreement. I have listened carefully to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Frost, in support of his Motion, and to other contributors in today’s debate, and have been struck by our shared commitment to protect UK biosecurity.
I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and the noble Lords, Lord Bew and Lord Hannay of Chiswick, for supporting the SI this evening. In respect of the late hour, I will address the noble Lord’s points that relate directly to the legislation which is in front of this evening. I will go through Hansard and any questions that I have not answered I will answer in writing— for example, on the fees, for which I do not have the details with me.
The noble Lord, Lord Frost, asked why the SI applied only to GB. As I said, the island of Ireland has been treated as a single epidemiological unit for decades. The important thing that these regulations are doing is amending the GB-specific phytosanitary legislation to ensure that the biosecurity risks posed to the United Kingdom are addressed. These are already covered in Northern Ireland. We will continue to work closely with Northern Ireland on plant health issues. Northern Ireland will continue to play a full and comprehensive role in technical and policy decisions via the UK plant health provision or common framework.
The noble Lord, Lord Morrow, referred to the Explanatory Memorandum and third countries. To reassure him, this SI applies phytosanitary controls to European Union and rest of the world goods when entering Great Britain. That is the third country mentioned in the EM. A number of noble Lords mentioned the SPS agreement, asking what was in it and what checks would remain. The agreement will cover SPS standards and controls and wider agri-food rules related to food labelling, organics, key marketing standards and compositional standards, as well as pesticides. This is regarding checks, specifically. This will further bring down costs for UK businesses by removing the majority of regulatory trade barriers to agri-food trade, hopefully helping with the trade drop that the noble Lord, Lord Bew, referenced earlier.
We want to get the best deal for British businesses and British people. There is a very limited scope of application to the agreement. We are making commitments to regulate consistently only where that commitment removes a barrier to trade. The EU cannot unilaterally dictate the regulations which the UK must implement. The UK will have to agree and then implement any new rules. It is not like when we were a member state and EU law could flow into the UK even if we had voted against it. We are not returning to those arrangements. This is about regulating in the same way in some limited areas where the UK will also have a role in shaping the relevant laws as they are designed. Again, with regard to the SBS agreement, I have been asked for some specifics, but, because detailed negotiations are ongoing, I cannot provide that information at the moment. But it will come to the House in due course.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, asked why the SPS border has to be in the Irish Sea. The Windsor Framework recognises Northern Ireland’s unique circumstances and therefore prevents the hard border on the island of Ireland. There is a need to maintain the biosecurity of the island of Ireland. Some pests that could pose a risk to Northern Ireland, such as protected zone pests, are present in Great Britain. Therefore, it is appropriate to have procedures in place to ensure compliance with the applicable requirements.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
To be honest, I am not going to take any interventions; it has gone 11 pm.
On plant health threats, the UK Plant Health Service, as I mentioned earlier, has Defra, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government, the Northern Ireland Executive, DAERA and the Forestry Commission as part of it. So it is properly considered and looked at. The noble Lords, Lord Dodds and Lord Roborough, talked about the removal of border checks putting biosecurity at risk, looking in particular at the rising pest risk in the EU. The agreement will explicitly allow for the UK to take action to protect biosecurity. This will mean that the UK has access to EU databases and other systems to help us do this. This is a big benefit. The common understanding is that the UK should be able to take targeted action to protect its biosecurity in public health, in the same way as member states can in the EU.
The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, mentioned FMD protection for Northern Ireland. As he said, Northern Ireland is protected under the biosecurity regime of the EU. Northern Ireland implements official controls and additional protections in response to risk, such as measures related to pest-free areas, traceability and additional notification requirements for the highest- risk goods in order to maintain the island of Ireland’s biosecurity.
The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, asked about Popillia japonica. The noble Baroness rightly said that the reason these pests are mentioned in this SI is that the new requirements are already in place in Northern Ireland, so this is bringing the rest of GB into alignment with Northern Ireland; that is what the SI does.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I have said I am not taking any interventions.
Lord Lilley (Con)
The Minister has not replied to a single point I made. If the bug does not exist in Ireland, why are we inspecting goods coming from Ireland?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
There are plenty of bugs that do not exist in our other countries and are far away that still have the propensity to come here or could possibly arrive here. Therefore, we need to be absolutely vigilant regarding any new potential pests and diseases. The noble Lord, Lord Roborough, talked about the devastating consequences if we do not do that, so we absolutely need to be doing this.
I just have a couple of points and then I am going to wind up, because it is getting late. I will go to Hansard and write on any outstanding points. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, mentioned the trade and co-operation agreement and that its review is due next year. I will take that back to the department and speak about the noble Lord’s concerns on this, because he made a very sensible and relevant point. I completely agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Bew, regarding compromise. It is an extremely important point to make and, if we are to move forward, compromise is going to be critical.
In conclusion, I emphasise that this instrument is a routine update that ensures that risk-based and proportionate biosecurity controls are in operation in Great Britain. Northern Ireland continues to be able to respond to pest risks specifically for Northern Ireland where needed, and will continue to play a full and comprehensive role in technical and policy decisions affecting the UK as a whole.
I remind noble Lords that I meet regularly with DAERA and the Northern Ireland Ministers and their team. Also, I understand that we have a regular meeting of our Northern Ireland Peers this Wednesday, so I am sure that we can pick up many of these issues and continue further at that meeting.
Finally, it is very late. It has gone 11 pm, so I thank all the staff who have stayed and supported us in the House at this late hour.
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I too thank the Minister, the Front-Benchers, noble Lords who stayed late and, indeed, the staff who have kept the Chamber running this evening. This has been an important debate and I will not prolong the discussion.
I have some sympathy with the view expressed by my noble friend Lord Lilley that not all the detailed questions were answered—perhaps understandably— in the round-up. I hope the Minister will look through Hansard and, in particular, at the three specific questions I asked, in addition to others.
I thank all those Members of your Lordships’ House who expressed support for the points I made this evening. I even thank the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, although I suspect his frustration at Brexit might have led him not to pay full attention to everything I said. Indeed, I think we even agreed on one point, which is that an SPS agreement will not cover every barrier that currently exists on SPS.
In winding up, I will react in particular to the comments that the noble Lord, Lord Bew, made. He is absolutely reasonable in saying that one could have different degrees of dissatisfaction with the Windsor Framework arrangements while still thinking that any solution might be imperfect. That is true, and we do have different if often very strong degrees of dissatisfaction.
My concern would be whether it is a stable ending point, not merely an unsatisfactory one. We have heard, and the concerns expressed show, that it probably is not stable. The reality is that having part of your country governed by another entity is not stable. In the end, there are only two stable points: one is to extend the anomaly to the rest of the country—that seems to be the approach that the Government plan to take in the reset—and the other is to remove the anomaly where it exists, which is in Northern Ireland. I hope that is the direction that will be taken.
The issues have been fully aired tonight, if not exactly resolved, and I will not seek to divide the House. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.