Official Controls (Location of Border Control Posts) (England) Regulations 2024

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Berkeley

Wednesday 22nd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to the Motion in my name, as a follow-up to a very interesting debate we had in your Lordships’ House on 2 May, led by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, on the subject of imports and exports of food and agricultural products. It was a lengthy debate, with some excellent comments from a number of noble Lords.

The Minister gave some good answers to many of the questions, but one that I did not feel that he responded to in enough detail was about where all the different checks on trucks would take place—most of the vehicles coming in are trucks, both big and little. I came away with the impression that, if the checks could not be done in Dover because there was not enough space, the drivers would be told to go up the A20, which becomes the M20, and turn left at the fourth junction, which is called Sevington near Ashford.

Now I know that area very well and I thought that there would be a temptation for the drivers to forget to turn left and trundle up either to London or to a small shed, where the cargo could be transferred to another truck and possibly avoid some of the checks. I felt that that was an omission that the Minister might like to put right—and I am sure that he will do so tonight. I am very grateful that we had a quick chat about it recently.

In addition to the comments made by noble Lords in that debate, there has also been a lot of media coverage, particularly about the import of EU food, and comments about basic questions such as: what is a “consignment”? Noble Lords may not want to know what a consignment is, but can the Minister say whether it is a truckload, several parcels in a truck, or something in between? Several years after Brexit, this should have been sorted out. We are told that there is a shortage of staff and places to have the checks, which is adding cost and delay, particularly to the import of foodstuffs, which have a shelf life, and this is something the Government should have sorted out before now.

However, coincidentally, yesterday the Government published a new document—I am sure that it has nothing to do with the fact that we are having this debate today—called What To Do When Attending an Inland Border Facility. It might be complicated but is only about 10 pages long, so I am sure that all the truckers in the world will be studying it over their tea. It gives good information about what they should and should not do, but it also demonstrates how incredibly complicated the system is. The first thing it says is:

“Get ‘border ready’ … Get ready before you reach Kent”—


I suppose that depends which direction you are going in. But, under the heading “Common Transit Convention movements”—I am not going to read out the whole document because we would be here all night—the document indicates that a good debate that your Lordships held two or three weeks ago seems to have delivered something that may actually be of help to the importers and exporters. Maybe this is a lesson that the Government, who may change after the election, want to be remembered by this wonderful document, which has taken them two or three years to produce. However, there it is, and I look forward to the press comments saying how wonderful it is. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for securing this debate, and I return to issues that I have previously raised with the Minister, particularly about biosecurity and the impacts on small and medium-sized enterprises through the operation of these inland sites. I have three points to make.

First—perhaps the Minister can provide information on this—I have been speaking to the environmental horticulture industry and I declare that, along with the Industry and Parliament Trust, I have a fellowship with the Horticultural Trades Association. What seems to have settled into the pattern for the environmental horticulture sector is that it is seeing large numbers of lorry loads being simply waved through and not being subjected to any checks. I am well aware of the desire to make sure there is not too much obstruction at the border, but there is a general feeling, which I will come back to later, that Sevington does not have enough space or staff capacity at the right times and it is impossible to carry out the biosecurity checks that were previously done on-site when goods arrived at nurseries and other places. That presents a serious biosecurity risk, when we know the pests and diseases that potentially can be imported from the continent. There are also concerns about goods coming from other places.

Secondly, I refer to the comments made in the past few days by the director-general of the Institute of Export and International Trade, which particularly looks at the food aspects. He referred to

“businesses left in the dark with vital information provided much too late, the systems being introduced aren’t working properly. Businesses are frustrated, hauliers are angry and fresh produce has gone off due to repeated delays”.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, I am not going to read out an enormous amount of detail here, but it is worth people in general knowing that, on 17 May, Defra issued a series of updates. These indicated that medium-risk plant products will now be split into two categories: “Medium Risk A”, which need phytosanitary certificate and pre-notification, and “Medium Risk B”, which need a phytosanitary certificate but no pre-notification. So far, only certain fruit, such as quince and stone fruit, are in the latter category; spinach leaves have just moved from the “Low Risk” to the “Medium Risk A” category. We have to look at the usage and what is happening to the facilities created by the instrument that we are discussing and think of how difficult it is for people to manage this system when those kinds of things are happening.

Finally, again referring to Sevington, I want to mention issues that were raised by the Dover port authority at the end of March but that still very much apply. Now that we have had some time for the facility at Sevington to be in operation, perhaps the Minister can comment on the way in which it is going. There was great concern about whether Sevington had sufficient capacity to be able to handle products of animal origin. The reports I am hearing suggest that many lorry loads are either being waved through or ending up having to wait for long periods, which for animal products is a serious issue.

We are going into an election period. I guess that these issues are probably not going to get much of an airing for six weeks or so, but they are continuing issues that will need to be grappled with by whoever is in government and by an industry sector that is giving strong indications that the Government’s systems are causing it to struggle enormously with getting in the goods it needs.

Migrants

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Berkeley

Thursday 25th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in following the noble Lords, Lord Green and Lord Lilley, I want to question one of many points from each of them. The noble Lord, Lord Green, contrasted the people coming across the channel with what he called genuine refugees. Can the Minister confirm the government figures that I have seen that say that the majority of people coming across the channel are granted refugee status? So the noble Lord’s comparison should not be made. The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, quoted the number of applications for US visas from a significant number of countries. None was on the list of the main countries from which the people crossing the channel have come. His figures are therefore entirely irrelevant to this debate.

I want to make three points in the brief time available to me. The first is about practicality. A lot of our discussion in this debate focuses on what we can do to stop the boats. Of course we do not want anyone crossing the world’s busiest shipping channel in inadequate, flimsy vehicles. However, I go back to a bleak January day in 2016 when I went to the memorial service for a 15 year-old Afghan boy called Masud who died in the back of a lorry while trying to get across the channel to join his sister here in the UK.

In the year to that death, about a dozen refugees died trying to cross the channel in the back of boats, on trains and through other vehicles. At that time— five years ago—there were almost no crossings. Those routes, through a combination of Covid and government action, have essentially been closed off, so people have taken to the boats. If the Government could somehow just snap their fingers and stop the boats, desperate people who have ties to the UK, such as the Afghan soldier documented in the Times this morning, would still seek to come here. The odds are that those routes will become more and more dangerous, and, as several noble Lords have said—I associate myself with essentially everything said by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—at great profit to nasty, illegal criminals.

There has been a lot of discussion about so-called pull-factors. It is worth looking at what we actually do to the refugees who arrive here seeking to exercise the right to which they are entitled. We often detain them indefinitely, in a way that no other European country does. We often reject their applications when we should not. Three quarters of rejected claims are appealed, a third successfully. I have seen the great difficulty in taking on those. I have no doubt that many more should be upheld.

Unlike many other countries, we do not allow people seeking asylum to work while their claims are being processed. According to the latest figure, from September, 67,547 claims are awaiting decision—up 41% year on year and the highest figure on record. Refugees, who are often victims of human rights abuses and have had to flee in the most desperate circumstances and in the most awful conditions, are trapped in limbo for years. They are living on an absolutely inadequate sum of money in frequently horrendous accommodation. There is no pull-factor there.

Finally, we must consider how many more people might seek to come because of our actions and policies. I will highlight two points. The first is the recent slashing of official development assistance. The other is the failure of the COP 26 climate talks, of which we were chair, to secure any funds, beyond a contribution from Scotland, for what is known as loss and damage. These funds are reparation for the climate damage caused by our actions that is impacting on people’s lives and making it impossible for them to live in their own country.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, it is difficult to follow the noble Baroness because she made so many good points. I have been following the cross-channel movement of people ever since I worked on building the Channel Tunnel 30 or 40 years ago. At that time, all we were doing was trying to keep rabid foxes out. Sadly, the situation has got much worse than that. What happened last night was a horrible example of the dangers of crossing in small boats, but, as other noble Lords have said, it was not the first such incident and it probably will not be the last.

There was a time when people smuggled themselves on passenger trains and freight trains and virtually killed the traffic across the channel at that time. They then moved on to trucks; we have heard about that. There was that terrible incident a couple of years ago when 39 people were discovered asphyxiated in a truck in Essex, having come across and been there for several days. Now, boats are used. However, it is not even comparable with the number of people who have come across the Mediterranean—not just from Libya, but from other places as well—into the European Union. There have been problems between Turkey and Greece, of course, and now between Poland, Ukraine and Belarus.

These people have one thing in common. They are coming to seek a better life from war-torn, demolished famine areas. One cannot blame them. Why do they want to come to the UK? Many noble Lords have talked about that but apart from English becoming a bit of a world language, we also do not require people to carry ID cards, and certainly do not enforce it. I can understand why the French authorities and local police are not very enthusiastic about looking after refugees and probably want shot of them. However, we must find a solution. Having worked with French authorities all those years ago, I am convinced that if the Government and the French Government tried, there could be a very good joint policy and implementation to sort this out in a humanitarian way that does not involve people going across in small boats or smuggling themselves in lorries, but gives those who are justified in seeking asylum what they want. The others would be sent back where they came from.

However, at the moment, we seem to enjoy having a verbal war with the French. It may be fishing one day and agriculture the next. There are now joint statements from the Prime Minister and the President of France that they will work together, which is nice to see but they must deliver, at Calais and the other places along the coast, as well as in this country, and come up with a policy that is fair to everyone.

The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, commented that the only people who can afford to pay the smugglers are the middle classes. He may remember that a couple of years ago, when we had our medical crisis and there was a shortage of doctors, the Government started recruiting doctors and nurses from other countries where they were desperately needed. That is unfair. We should be training our own doctors and nurses and not poaching them from other countries. If some of them are having such a rough time in Syria, for example, that they seek asylum here, so be it, but we should not be poaching them.

Trade Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Berkeley

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I speak to offer the Green group’s support for Amendment 46 and closely associate myself with the remarks of the noble Lords presenting it, particularly the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bull.

I was going to be brief but I really want to respond to what the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said. She suggested that the amendment seeks to recreate what was lost. No, it is trying to save what is threatened: the businesses, livelihoods and professional lives of people who have, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, alluded to, spent many years studying—and invested their time, energy and finances—to develop lives that are now under serious threat.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bull, in her useful setting out of the different ways in which the exchange has happened, spoke about where services are an integral component of a good being sold. We think of companies that have offered long-term service contracts for goods sold into the EU and EEA and the difficulties that they might experience in continuing those service contracts unless we have the kind of mobility framework offered here. We are now on a rescue mission.

I do not think anyone else has referred to this in detail but we have to go back to what we will be missing if we do not have the opportunity for EU/EEA citizens to come into the UK under this kind of mobility framework. There is the important area of language studies. Sadly, we have seen some documentation since the vote in 2016 showing that interest in language study, at least in our schools, has actually fallen. If we are to continue to operate in this world, where we are going to have much more complex relationships with other countries in Europe than we do now, we will desperately need those language skills. The reciprocal side of this is of course that Britons have the very valuable skill of being native English speakers that they can take around the continent and beyond.

We need to have quality of language teaching and development of language skills in the UK. Most of the teaching assistants in our schools are native speakers from other parts of Europe. These are crucial issues, so I commend the amendment to the House.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I too support the amendment. It is very important, and noble Lords who have spoken have made some very good arguments in favour of it. As we all know, free movement within the EU has been very important for education, services and other businesses as well as for people getting to know each other. It could easily and should still happen after Brexit, but that needs the Government to support the idea positively and proactively even after we have left.

Transport is of course part of mobility. It must be cheap, reliable and accessible. Although Covid-19 has caused a massive reduction in demand, it is still there and it still needs to be there. However, the situation regarding the Government’s support is still very confusing and uncertain for services and their users. I have been trying to get answers from the Government for several months on how much in loans, guarantees or grants they have given to each of the international transport sectors, by which I mean air, sea, road and rail. I have had two Written Answers saying that that information per sector is commercially confidential. Surprisingly, maybe, I got a letter from the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, this morning saying that providers have many options as to how to find money, but with no comparators.

I can see why the noble Baroness could not see tell me about comparators. If one digs a little deeper, one finds that in the maritime sector—ferries—the Public Accounts Committee recently reported that the Government had written off £85 million for cancelled ferry contracts, which included a settlement with Eurotunnel of £33 million because apparently the Government had forgotten that Eurotunnel took the same kind of traffic that the ferries do. Noble Lords will remember that the Government spent £14 million on a company called Seaborne Freight, which owned a non-existent ferry and whose terms and conditions of carriage on its website appeared to have been copied from an online takeaway.

In the air sector, airlines have had soft loans to keep them alive. The noble Baroness said in a Written Answer that the Government were

“working closely with the aviation sector to support it to ensure there is sufficient capacity”.

They have spent £3 billion on keeping the franchise railways going, and that is good, but for cross-channel rail there is not a penny to ensure sufficient capacity. According to a presentation by the High Speed 1 chief executive Dyan Crowther to the all-party rail group last week, Eurostar has received no government guarantees or support and is likely to reduce the number of trains a day that it operates, possibly to between three and five or even fewer in order to survive. These are of course low-emission services, and I remind Ministers that, according to Eurostar, if all the passengers who took Eurostar in the last few years were to transfer to air, the increase in emissions would be equivalent to 40 new Luton Airports. We love Luton Airport but the emissions from 40 of them is hard to imagine.

Is there a solution? I suggest there are many that the Government ought to adopt. The European Union Council has adopted emergency measures to give member states the opportunity to reduce infrastructure charges to zero for trains. Italy and France are thinking about it, Austria has done it and the UK could do the same; it would be nothing to do with Europe but they could do it for HS1 to reduce the track access charges to just the direct costs. That might cost HS1 about £100 million but let us not forget that the Government made about £2 billion selling HS1 to the private sector, so they could afford to do this through HS1. It would mean that all train operators got the same benefit on that loan.

I hope the Minister can provide some comfort that Eurostar services can survive, providing the availability of a cost-effective and environmentally friendly transport service for those who want to work, live or study for the purpose of trade and goods. It would be a disaster if it were forced to close.