Rules on Duty-Free Goods

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Hoey]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that the same rules on duty-free goods apply for those flying from Belfast to the European Union as those flying from the rest of the United Kingdom.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Livermore) (Lab)]

My Lords, duty-free shopping between Northern Ireland and the EU would require the application of personal allowances and associated border checks to prevent the uncontrolled flow of tax-free goods into either Northern Ireland or the EU. The enforcement controls required for this would run counter to the Windsor Framework and to the principle of the frictionless movement of people and goods between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that rather predictable Answer. Could I press him? Does he understand the frustration and anger that families in Northern Ireland have when they travel on their well-earned holidays to sunny parts of the EU and cannot get duty-free, while other citizens of the rest of the United Kingdom can? Does he understand that not having duty-free is costing Northern Ireland’s small airports about £5 million a year? Does he have any sympathy or empathy with the people of Northern Ireland? Will he make a commitment that when His Majesty’s Government are involved in the much-heralded reset, this will be one of the issues—it may seem a minor issue to some people, but it is quite an important one—to be negotiated with the European Union to change?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her question. She says that my Answer was predictable, but one thing that was entirely predictable was the impact of Brexit, which she campaigned for. Back in 2016, Sir John Major and Sir Tony Blair said clearly that Brexit would present specific challenges for Northern Ireland, given its land border with an EU member state and the importance of safeguarding the Good Friday agreement, yet the noble Baroness dismissed those concerns. Now that the reality of Brexit does not match up to the fantasy version which the noble Baroness had, she seeks to blame others for the consequences of her own actions.

Let me be very clear: the Windsor Framework is the best workable solution to Northern Ireland’s unique circumstance. The noble Baroness asked whether I have empathy—absolutely I do. Placing Northern Ireland in a uniquely beneficial position within the United Kingdom, by being part of the UK internal market and the EU single market for goods, provides significant opportunities for growth and ensures that there is no hard border on the island of Ireland. She mentioned the reset. As part of the EU reset, the EU and the UK have agreed to negotiate an SPS agreement. I urge the noble Baroness to support that reset.

Trade Negotiations

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

I will follow that up with the noble Lord.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the Minister will know that not all these trade deals apply to Northern Ireland. Yesterday in the other place, the Secretary of State for Business said basically that that was because of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and the Windsor Framework and we had to protect the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. Could the Minister give me exact detail of where it says in the Belfast/Good Friday agreement that businesses in Northern Ireland should be treated differently and that we should be left under the European Union’s court and rules? Would the Minister perhaps accept that we are getting a little bit tired of the Good Friday/Belfast agreement being used in so many different ways?

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

I hear the noble Baroness’s frustration. We want businesses in Northern Ireland to be able to benefit from this to the fullest extent that they can, and that is absolutely what we expect here. Businesses in Northern Ireland, exporting their goods and services will benefit from this free trade agreement, just as businesses elsewhere within the United Kingdom will. Businesses exporting from Northern Ireland will therefore benefit from the free trade agreement with India, so this should be a good news story. When we think about businesses importing into Northern Ireland from India—India-originating goods entering Northern Ireland—they will do so under the terms of this free trade agreement provided that those goods are not at risk of entering the EU. This is where the Windsor Framework kicks in, making sure that, under the usual process of the Windsor Framework, that is protected. Businesses operating within Northern Ireland will benefit from the terms of the free trade agreement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

I shall repeat some of the statements that I made earlier. We are not giving away more visas or creating new routes as part of the deal. Existing mobility routes have been expanded to cover additional sectors, so a broader number of sectors will now be considered for that mobility visa, but that does not necessarily change the quota. It is the same number of people accessing those facilities. The facilities have not changed; it is just that we will consider a broader range of sectors when considering those visa applications. To qualify for the routes, professionals must demonstrate that they meet strict criteria for professional experience and qualifications, consistent with the current process.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I know the Minister is honest and straightforward, as, of course, all noble Lords are, but would she like to state what it seems no other Government Minister wishes to state: that we would not be having this discussion or these deals if we had not left the European Union?

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

I try to be as honest and straightforward as I possibly can. I refer to the numbers that we talked about when we talked about modelling the numbers. There are a lot of what ifs and hows, but the reality is that we have to deal with the state of the world as it is today. That presents threats in some corners but opportunities in others. What was in front of us was the opportunity to build and expand our relationship with India in a way that supports both our nations, and that is an opportunity that we grabbed with both hands and made the most of.

Exports to the European Union

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely correct. As I mentioned a short while ago, in the spring the Government will publish a trade strategy to help reset our relationship with the EU, and a key part of it will be providing more support to small businesses to help them export and particularly to remove some of the barriers that they face to trade with the European Union.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, in any renewing of relationships with the European Union, does the Minister agree that top of that list should be to get back control of our own country—in other words getting Northern Ireland to be part of the United Kingdom and getting rid of the Windsor Framework?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

We remain committed to implementing the Windsor Framework and to protecting the UK internal market.

King’s Speech

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is with genuine pleasure that I congratulate my good friend the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, on his maiden speech. It was informative, eloquent and deeply moving.

I have known the noble Lord for nearly 20 years and have watched him grow from a rather shy young man, a little conscious of his northern roots—perhaps too conscious—to someone who now knows what he wants to achieve. He can be very proud of what he has already achieved. His deep love for his family is evident, and I know how much he depends on the support from his wife Clare. I am not sure whether he has ever told Clare, but, years ago, I tried to matchmake Ben with a very beautiful young woman. I was completely unsuccessful; of course, he was just waiting for Clare to come along.

The noble Lord has, in a relatively short time, been privy to some of the most extraordinary events in politics in our country. At London’s City Hall, he was with the Mayor of London for eight years. As I, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and others know—I worked with the mayor as the unpaid sports commissioner—behind the scenes, he was instrumental in making so many things happen when sometimes it looked as though they would not happen. He was crucial to the mayor’s very successful two terms in office—whatever you think of Boris Johnson.

He continued working with the then Prime Minister, first in the Foreign Office and then in Downing Street, so he lived through the entire leaving the EU saga—always behind the scenes, but he is one of the very few who knows where all the bodies are buried. I am sure that we all can breathe a sigh of relief that, thankfully, the noble Lord is one of the most discreet and decent people in public life. He assures me that he is not writing a book.

Noble Lords should know that he is definitely not a tribal politician; indeed, he could not in any way be described as just another boring politician. He will be another voice here for freedom of speech, tolerance and saying it how it is. I look forward, as we all do, to his future contributions.

Following on from the noble Lord’s remarks on the environment, I too welcome the ban on animal exports. Sadly, it will not apply to Northern Ireland, for the sole reason that this Government have abandoned part of the UK to the rules of the EU, and the EU, disgracefully, does not seem to have any care for the animals suffering on long journeys just to be slaughtered. I say here that we also need more local abattoirs.

In discussing the environment, I will mention a word that has become very trendy but without a great deal of discussion: “rewilding”. It is well intentioned but threatens active harm to our natural environment. All of us see the devastation caused by the worst excesses of human activity and we want to see it undone. As someone brought up on a small farm run on organic principles long before the word “organic” was even thought of, I believe that we should be much tougher on the companies and others responsible for those who pollute our rivers and discharge sewage.

However, rewilding in its fuller sense is a different matter and means different things to different people. The basic problem with rewilding is that it suggests a reversion to some previous state. The problem of course is: which state? What are we rewilding to? Landscapes across the UK have been shaped for centuries by people. It was people who transformed the wildernesses into land that still produces so much of our food. We should be producing more and more, and we should still have a Minister of Agriculture.

It was people who created a thriving rural ecosystem that underpins the UK’s biodiversity strengths, and it was people who have, in doing all this, curated our landscapes as diligently as those who manage the galleries that now house paintings by Constable—that great artist who depicted those landscapes in all their majesty—which we love. Rewilding those landscapes would not mean a reversion to some state of imagined perfection, a mythical past of dark, dramatic forests and endless fields of wild flowers. Ours is not a mythical world but a real world, and applying romantic and emotional ideas in the real world may comfort those who advocate it, but can prove disastrous.

I will give one example. The Hunting Act, passed nearly 20 years ago, was supported by many for what they thought were sound animal welfare reasons. Many of us here warned this would not happen and now we have been vindicated, as we know from the publication just last week of a brilliant book called Rural Wrongs: Hunting and the Unintended Consequences of Bad Law. Written by environmental journalist Charlie Pye-Smith and helped by former League Against Cruel Sports director Jim Barrington, it argues that instead of benefiting wild animals, the precise opposite has occurred. Life for the fox, the brown hare and the red deer of Exmoor is now far worse, their status having been reduced to that of a pest. Those who campaigned and supported this detrimental law have not spent a penny in assessing its impact. We said it would be bad and now we can prove it.

The rewilding argument tells us to ignore similar warnings and wilfully permit the destruction of the landscapes we love. There are better solutions. Farmers and land managers are the best environmental champions we have. England has three-quarters of the world’s chalk streams, and the British Isles have the most heather moorland in the world. These are globally rare, globally significant habitats, and we should be cherishing, celebrating and promoting them, not abandoning them for the sake of a slogan and a brand. If we are serious about reversing biodiversity loss, people and rural communities are key to the solution. Yes, of course solar power is important in the overall policy of climate change, but we should not be so intoxicated by the objective that we allow it to also desecrate our countryside. There are plenty of places to put solar other than on fertile farmland where we should be growing food. Responsible and organised species reintroductions are one thing, but abandoning environmental management would do nothing for the future of the countryside—we need it managed. Government should be empowering and encouraging the managers.

I am so glad that in His Majesty’s gracious Speech there was not one mention of rewilding.

Postal Packets (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2023

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

The approach taken to this statutory instrument, both in this House and when it was introduced earlier this week in another place, has very much been one of, “No worries, there’s nothing to see here”. As with a car crash at the side of the road, we have been directed that there is nothing really to worry us. Indeed, in another place, the Minister tried to give an assurance that this is

“a very, very small SI”.—[Official Report, Commons, Second Delegated Legislation Committee, 17/7/23; col. 16.]

When this instrument was introduced in the other place, reference was made on four occasions to the fact that no change is being made, or words to that effect. That phrase has been echoed today by the Minister here, yet I suggest that significant changes are being made. For example, as has been mentioned, for the first time ever, parcels moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland will be put in a separate category and categorised alongside parcels from a foreign third country. For the first time ever, the UK market is being divided between the rest of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, but we are told that there is no change. For the first time ever, parcels going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland will be categorised and defined in the same way as exports and imports but, again, we are told that no change is being made. These are not simply changes in processes that could be dropped at the whim of any Minister. These are being put in place directly in the law of the land via legislation.

Similarly, let us look at the wording of the regulations. The Explanatory Note makes reference to the fact that part of the purpose of the regulations is

“to make provision to apply such enactments relating to customs and excise as are for the time being in force to goods contained in postal packets sent from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, and to ensure that duties and other charges payable in connection with such postal packets are recoverable by the postal operator concerned”.

They will give directly a power to impose customs duties and a financial burden, albeit one that will supposedly be reimbursed, yet we are told that there is no real change here.

In their boast, the Government also tell us that this SI is an improvement on the protocol. In some ways it is, although we should always remember who brought about the protocol in the first place. The remarkable extent to which the Government are distancing themselves from the protocol that they negotiated is unusual in and of itself but the great boast of the Government—reiterated in both Houses—is that an individual sending a parcel to a friend or family member in Northern Ireland can do so without having to fill in customs declarations. They say we should be grateful that a granny in Liverpool is able to send something to her grandchild in Belfast. However, we should also remember that that is on the basis, as has been particularly referenced in EU legislation recently, of an exemption. The opportunity for the granny to do this is at the grace and favour of the European Union. There is a clear diminution of sovereignty yet we are told that, like grateful natives, we ought to be suitably delighted that this has been given to us.

Similarly, it has been indicated that if a business is sending a package to an individual consumer there will no customs declarations required, but I seek some information from the Minister. For a business to do that, will it have to be part of a trusted trader scheme? Also, because it is put on the same basis as freight, presumably any business-to-business supply could be only where that business is part of the trusted trader scheme.

Leaving aside the general concerns that we have with that, some movements—particularly if we talk about something that is to be moved in a parcel—may be very infrequent between two businesses in different parts of the United Kingdom. Many businesses will come to the conclusion that going through the bureaucracy of having to join a trusted trader scheme for an occasional movement of goods to Northern Ireland is simply not worth it. What we are likely to see, which is also part of the purpose of what has been put in place, is diversion of trade. People and businesses will simply seek to source from outside the United Kingdom.

It has also been indicated in another House that the new powers to be given to HMRC and Border Force are to stop illicit goods—a very accurate but misleading term—moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. Let us remember that we are talking about giving powers to Border Force for movements entirely within the United Kingdom—from one part of it to another. When one talks of illicit goods, it conjures up a mental image of drug packages or another form of something illegal. But the powers already exist to stop movements of those goods, so when we talk about illicit goods we are really talking about goods that contravene what the EU says. This is not for something entering the single market but within the internal UK market.

I note that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has mentioned the question, which has not been answered particularly satisfactorily, of why, despite the fact that provisions are due to take place in 2024, these regulations are effectively being brought in now. When pressed on that in another place, the Minister gave two examples. One was: what if hazardous substances were being moved about? If hazardous substances were being moved by parcel, that should be a concern if it was moving from Glasgow to London, let alone coming into Northern Ireland. I am not quite sure why a provision needs to be put in place for that.

The other example given in another place was the risk of blood diamonds being moved. I have not had a recent conversation with my local postman. I am not altogether sure that they would tell me that they are burdened each day with blood diamonds moving from Sierra Leone or Liberia through Great Britain—because it would have to be there—and then on to Northern Ireland, with the risk of them moving into the EU. But supposedly, that is the excuse as to why these additional powers need to be given. Again, we are told there are no real changes.

Finally, in another place there was a subject of much controversy. This statutory instrument is so innocuous that the Government took the unprecedented step of removing five of their own MPs from the committee that was scrutinising it. One of the MPs said that whenever he indicated any level of scepticism towards it, he was first asked whether he would be happy enough to remove himself from the committee. When he said that he was not, he was then told, “Perhaps you want to take a week off—have a week’s holiday”. I think that MP missed a trick because, if they had held out with the Whips, perhaps the soon to be vacant post at the Ministry of Defence could have been lobbed in their direction as a reward for not being on the committee.

That is against the background that we should all be relaxed, as there is no real change. Rather than that argument, there is an equally strong argument that it changes everything for our sovereignty or is the first step towards that. I simply say to the Government that we are opposed to this statutory instrument, but it is high time that they, instead of doubling down and pretending with spin that everything is perfect, actually face the realities and make the changes that need to take place to restore the internal market of the United Kingdom. Once those changes are properly made and the union is restored, we can begin to see proper progress in Northern Ireland.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, in as short a time as a few months, noble Lords will realise just how serious these regulations are. It will be the first of many statutory instruments that result from the Windsor Framework or, indirectly or directly, from the European Union’s attitude to it. As we all know if we read the Windsor Framework, and what the Government and the EU said, they are very different. Even on these postal packets regulations, it is very different.

A number of noble Lords referred to what the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee said about why there is a rush—why the hurry? Why the Government want to rush this through is very straightforward. They know that, as time goes on and there is more detail, scrutiny and need to work with this in, for example, sub-post offices across the country or through customs officials, we will see that this is not right. It is not going to work. They want to get it through.

It has been mentioned, so I do not want to go into what happened in more detail. I sat through the committee on this SI in the other place, and it is absolutely shocking that our Government have so little confidence in their own Members that they had to remove five of them because they knew that they would not get their support. That was because those Members had read it. They had read it and listened, and they knew what they needed to do, because what the Government had decided was not right or good for the people of Northern Ireland and certainly not for the union.

These regulations are, without doubt, changing the status of Northern Ireland such that it is being treated as a foreign country and a foreign part of the administration of the United Kingdom. For some people, that is fine. Some people do not really care about Northern Ireland. Let us face it: there are an awful lot of Members, not necessarily in this House but in Parliament generally, who probably think, “Oh, Northern Ireland—what a nuisance. If only we could forget about it”. This is precisely what many people who do not care about Northern Ireland want to see happening—this dividing, this moving, this drip, drip, drip taking Northern Ireland further and further from the rest of the United Kingdom.

Imagine a young person coming to this country as a student, sending a parcel. The Government are saying that it will not be very different, but we know that the European Union will eventually decide whether even individual parcels from person to person will need authorisation from somewhere. That is not for the person at the moment, but someone in the sub-post office will have to get the authorisation and that is going to cost money. Who is going to pay for that? There are business-to-business costs from that. More and more costs mean more businesses in Great Britain being clear that they will not bother sending things to Northern Ireland. This is happening already and is going to happen even more.

Imagine a young student coming over here to England and deciding to send a parcel to their grandfather. They will be told that they are sending it to a foreign country. That is quite outrageous. The instrument has the same instruction for Regulations 5, 6, 9, 15, 20 and 21, namely to insert

“and all GB-NI postal packets”

after “foreign postal packets”. It is quite outrageous that people in Northern Ireland who have given so much loyalty to this country—so many people died during world wars—are now being repaid by this glibness around how they are treated.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

Again, that takes me back to what these regulations do versus the wider process around how parcels will move under the Windsor Framework. These powers do not and cannot do anything to impose anything on businesses.

I come to a few of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, about understanding and beginning to quantify how the new process will work. It is not possible to give precise numbers on volumes of parcels and how they will fall into the different lanes, because volumes are not consistent year on year. However, based on estimates and commercial information provided by the parcel industry, we understand that about 5% of parcels are sent from business to business, with 90% moving from businesses to consumers and 5% from individuals to individuals. Based on those figures, for 95% of movements no difference will be felt in how customs operate now, under the easement that we have to the protocol. Compared to the protocol itself, they will face significantly fewer burdens.

There will be no routine checks or controls applied to consignments, with interventions made only on a risk-based, intelligence-led approach. This is decided by HMRC and Border Force. We expect a very small proportion of parcels to be checked or opened, only when there is reason to suspect circumvention of the rules.

The 5% of business-to-business goods will be treated the same, as if they were moving in freight. They can access the UK internal market scheme and the green lane, and they will benefit from radically reduced checks and data requirements compared to those under the protocol. Businesses can apply to HMRC to become a trusted trader and access the green lane. It is a simple process. Tens of thousands of traders are already in the scheme, and the Windsor Framework extends eligibility to it further. New arrangements under the framework are being phased in over nearly two and a half years. We will continue to use that time to undertake extensive engagement with stakeholders, including businesses in Northern Ireland and Great Britain, trader support services and parcel operators, to provide support and ensure that everyone is ready.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

As part of that work, will the Government look at the extra cost to business? There will definitely be an extra cost to businesses in GB that want to send to Northern Ireland, whether they go through the green or the red lane. Those costs will eventually end up with consumers in Northern Ireland. Do the Government agree?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The whole purpose of the Windsor Framework is to reduce any extra costs and burdens from moving from business to business in Northern Ireland. We need to put this in the context of the figures that I gave earlier about personal packages and business-to-consumer packages which, on some estimates, account for around 95% of parcel movements from GB to NI. The aim of our ongoing engagement with parcel operators, in both GB and NI, is to make sure that this process is as easy and seamless as possible for those that rely on existing information and data, where that is possible.

Several noble Lords also raised the question of timing. As I said, provisions under the Windsor Framework are being brought in over two and a half years and will come into effect on 30 September 2024. As I said in opening, although the majority of Northern Ireland protocol requirements on parcels were not implemented as the Government sought to renegotiate arrangements, we accepted that certain categories of goods moved in parcels, as in freight, should require customs declarations to ensure that both their entry to Northern Ireland and possible onward movement to the EU were notified to HMRC.

These requirements related only to a specific list of prohibited and restricted goods that includes, for example, certain drug precursor chemicals, endangered animals, et cetera, covered under CITES. The powers we are taking now will allow those requirements to be monitored and enforced from now, and those same powers will be used in respect of the new parcels arrangements that come into effect on 30 September 2024.

VAT: Building Repairs and Maintenance

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right that, to target our support on energy-efficiency measures, we have extended VAT relief in that area. I do not have dates for when the consultation will complete or when the results are expected, but I will write to her if I have any more information.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

Can the Minister please tell me which aspects of VAT in Northern Ireland are still governed, and going to be governed, by EU regulations since the Windsor Framework?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

Let me relate that to the topic at hand. The temporary zero rate of VAT that I have referred to, which applies to installations of qualifying energy-saving materials, will be expanded to Northern Ireland on 1 May this year.

Arrivals Duty Free at UK Airports

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I have set out the position on duty free on arrival, but of course my noble friend is right that, following our exit from the EU, we have been able to introduce changes. One of those changes has been outbound duty-free sales of alcohol and tobacco for passengers travelling to the EU from Great Britain, including by rail and on board cruise ships. That is a new opportunity for retailers to offer that service.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I think what the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, said was very sensible and I hope there will be a proper review of this matter. As the noble Baroness is the Minister who has been responding to me on my duty-free Question, could she now please give us a plain and simple answer for why, if Northern Ireland is still part of the EU, duty free cannot be got from Northern Ireland to Great Britain? More importantly, if you can get duty free from anywhere in Great Britain to the rest of the EU, why can we not get it from Belfast?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, Northern Ireland enjoys frictionless trade with both the rest of the UK and the EU, and the Government are committed to ensuring that that remains the case. Introducing duty-free shopping for goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK or the EU would undermine that commitment.

Financial Services

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right to mention the poverty premium. It can take different forms; it may be financial exclusion or being charged more for particular services. The Government progress their work on this area through the Financial Inclusion Policy Forum. For example, we are working with Fair4All Finance, which was set up using funding from dormant assets and seeks to provide more access to fair, affordable and appropriate financial products and services. It has an affordable credit scale-up challenge that seeks to address this area.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

Does the Minister share my concern at the increasing number of shops refusing to take cash? Obviously, they have the right to make that decision, but does she share my concern at the difficulty this poses for many people, particularly the elderly and vulnerable, who do not have bank accounts?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

We absolutely recognise the importance of cash to the people the noble Baroness mentions. As she says, it is for shops and other service providers to determine how they accept payments, but we are legislating to protect access to cash through the Financial Services and Markets Bill. That should help those shops and service providers which wish to continue to accept cash to do so, because we are focusing on this from both a consumer and a wholesale perspective.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I thoroughly agree that what the Government have got us into is not a great negotiating position, but that is because the negotiations have been driven by the best interests of the internal politics of the Conservative party. If the national interest had been considered, we would be in a completely different place.

Trade can exist on WTO terms. It is not that the UK would somehow no longer be a trading nation, but that is not the test of good Government policy. The test is to consider the ramifications of that decision and to decide whether it is in the UK’s best interests, but I cannot believe that anyone would look rationally at what a no-deal outcome means and say, “I would find that acceptable for this country.”

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

Does not my hon. Friend think that it would be irresponsible for any Government not to be making contingency plans for WTO rules in these circumstances? Does he also agree that the Irish Taoiseach has in the past few days looked for the first time at making some changes to his intransigent approach to the backstop, precisely because the Republic of Ireland would suffer so much more from WTO terms than the United Kingdom?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

The merits of the Government undertaking contingency measures are different from the political case that we must consider, which is whether we would find it desirable to undertake a course of action that would mean that we had to use those contingency measures. The focus of the debate in this Finance Bill should be a seriously hard-headed look at the consequences of no deal, and there should be a statement from Members on both sides of the House that that is not what we seek for the UK and that we do not believe that it is possible.

Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

When we had the referendum result, and given the bitterness that existed during the referendum, I had absolutely no doubt that, despite the overwhelming vote, we were going to see guerrilla warfare conducted against the will of the people of the United Kingdom. We have seen it over the past year and a half—fall-outs in this place and fall-outs in TV studios, newspapers and so on. The amendments to this Bill fall into one of those two categories. People will give a whole variety of reasons, but, basically, they want to move amendments to this Bill to keep us in the institutions of the EU, which has bound us for so many years and from which people voted to be free. On the other side, there are those who wish to remain true to the vote of the people and make sure that everything is done to deliver on the promises that were made during the referendum.

Unfortunately, Northern Ireland, which has featured in nearly every speech here tonight, has been caught in the crossfire of that guerrilla warfare between those who wish to keep us in the EU and those who wish to honour the result of the referendum. The Northern Ireland border, the Good Friday agreement and the peace in Northern Ireland have been thrown around willy-nilly. To be quite frank, the people of Northern Ireland feel abused in this whole process. I have heard people in this place talk about the Belfast agreement as if it were their bedtime reading. They probably do not even know what the document looks like.

It has been suggested that if we do not abide by those who wish to keep us in the customs union and the single market, we will have a hard border in Northern Ireland, which will affect the peace. I do not know what this hard border will look like, but I can tell Members one thing: if they think that a couple of border posts along the main road at Newry, the main road into Londonderry and the main road into Enniskillen will represent a hard border that will somehow protect the EU from the incursion of goods that they do not want, then they do not even understand what it means. It could be that they think that a hard border means a minefield around the border with watchtowers so that no lorries can sneak across the 300 or so roads, or that people cannot build sheds in the middle of field where they put goods in one side in Northern Ireland and they come out the other side in the Irish Republic. It is a ridiculous suggestion, yet it is thrown at us all the time.

We heard the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) talk about the impact on the border and that the World Trade Organisation would insist on the provisions because it would have to protect trade. The Irish Republic currently brings in goods from the rest of the world. Does it stop every container that comes in? No, it does not. Does it stop 10% of the containers? No, it does not. It does not even stop 1%. In fact, Gambia stops more trade coming through its borders than the Irish Republic stops. The idea that, somehow or other, every good that comes into the EU via Northern Ireland and then the Republic will have to be stopped does not even match with common-day practice.

When it comes to collecting taxes, 13,000 lorries a year cross the border carrying drink to other parts of the United Kingdom. There is duty to be collected on that, but not one of them is stopped because the duty is collected electronically through pre-notification and trusted trader status. We can protect the border and meet WTO rules without having all the kinds of paraphernalia suggested here tonight.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is quite right; there seem to be an awful lot of people who do not really understand what goes on at the border now. Why would anyone who supports Northern Ireland even think of voting against new clause 37 tonight? The new clause clearly puts it out there that we want Northern Ireland to be treated the same way as the rest of the United Kingdom, so in voting against it, people would actually be supporting the Republic of Ireland.

[Sammy Wilson]

That is the whole point of new clause 37. First, it would deliver on the promises made by the Government; it puts those promises into law. Secondly, it would avoid the break-up of the United Kingdom and the kind of nonsense that we are going to hear from the Scottish National party—that we can redefine the United Kingdom to exclude Northern Ireland when it comes to trade issues. Of course, that would be against the Belfast agreement, because the Belfast agreement does not actually say a great deal about borders, but it says a lot about the integrity of the United Kingdom—that it cannot be changed by diktat from the EU or by demands from Dublin. It can only be changed with the will of the people of Northern Ireland. Yet the suggested backstop arrangement is at the behest of the EU, which seems to disregard the most important part of the Belfast agreement and has destabilised Northern Ireland as a result.