Official Controls (Plant Health) and Phytosanitary Conditions (Amendment) Regulations 2025
Lord Bew Excerpts(6 days, 3 hours ago)
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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.
Official Controls (Amendment) Regulations 2024
Lord Bew Excerpts(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Bew (CB)
My Lords, I support this legislation but I accept completely the argument made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, about it throwing a light on the flexibility. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, used “flexibility” four times in her introduction. The flexibility, the methodology, which is in place here was exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Frost, might remember the EU describing as the usual unicorn thinking—nonsense, fantastical thinking. Now we discover that, when it suits the EU, you can be amazingly flexible and light-touch with what you are going to do. That point has to be conceded and I will return to it.
Since we are talking about the basic state functions of the United Kingdom, which we are today, perhaps the Minister might say, when she concludes, whether the UFU, for example, has expressed opinions about this legislation to the Government. More generally, with respect to the Windsor Framework, is the business community sending messages about the broad working of that framework? That is really quite an interesting area.
Let me return to the issue of biosecurity. The original much-loved—or much-hated—protocol of 2019 said that the UK retains its basic state functions. One of the things that happened between that original protocol and the Windsor Framework of 2023 is that there was, shall we say, a serious discussion between the United Kingdom and the European Union as to what its basic state functions were. It was resolved, for example, that the original position in the 2019 protocol that certain medicines should not be available in the EU’s agreement with Northern Ireland was wrong, and that the basic state functions of the United Kingdom implied strongly that all the medicines that the United Kingdom Government believed should be available in the hospitals should be there. That is one of the clear-cut victories of the Windsor Framework, from a unionist point of view. That issue of medicines was the top item in the DUP election manifesto for the recent Assembly elections and it is rare that parties get the top item.
I am drawing attention to the importance of the concept of basic state functions and pointing out what happened—by the own account of the noble Lord, Lord Dodds—on the question of biosecurity. I want the Minister to confirm, as she may later on, whether the UK has abdicated its responsibility for basic state functions for Northern Ireland on biosecurity. Rather like in the case of medicines, it turned out that it had not. The developments as described by the noble Lord suggest, again, that it is an example of how the UK then responded to the fact that it had basic state functions in this area. I do not think there is evidence that the UK has abandoned its concept of having basic state functions in Northern Ireland which have to be maintained.
More broadly, let me again express sympathy for the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, on her regret amendment. There is no question that two things came together politically in 2016 or 2017. One was the near defeat in the general election of the May Government, which hugely weakened the hand of the British Government in negotiations with the European Union; the other was a shift in Irish elite opinion from a view that it might be possible to do certain checks on the Irish land border and so on. This was discussed in Dáil committees and in a number of books, and it is perfectly clear that there was a shift. Those two things came together to produce the outcome of the 2017 joint agreement, which was international law.
When Michel Barnier said that David Davis was ridiculous to stand up in Parliament a couple of days later and say that it was not international law, he was quite right. But it is also clear from the same book that Michel Barnier’s concept of the significance of European law for the functioning of the institutions of the Good Friday agreement was massively exaggerated, maybe by a factor of 60. It is clear that what he was suggesting at that level was as wrong as what David Davis was suggesting.
That is the context of the much-hated protocol on Northern Ireland. I absolutely accept that there is bad faith on the Irish Government side. It involves a betrayal of the Good Friday agreement and the framework document, both of which insist that there are two economies on the island of Ireland. Now, magically, out of nowhere, it is declared that there is one economy on the island of Ireland and the British Government have a responsibility to support the island economy. I am not saying there is not an island economy in, say, parts of the agricultural industry; I am saying that as a totality the island economy is not a very significant reality.
Windsor Framework (Non-Commercial Movement of Pet Animals) Regulations 2024
Lord Bew Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, there has been some confusion about speaking, so I beg your Lordships’ indulgence and will speak as briefly as I can on this issue.
I put on record the fact that I have never supported the Windsor Framework; I have spoken and voted against it previously. I pay tribute to my friend, the indefatigable and persistent noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, for her amendment, which naturally I support. I also support and pay tribute to Jim Allister KC and Member of Parliament for North Antrim for the excellent evidence he provided to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. He raised important issues, including the potential breach of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and of the UN Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States.
I found the powerful remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, very compelling and astute. We have a lacuna in terms of our scrutiny and oversight of EU issues in this House and the other place. We no longer have the European Scrutiny Committee, chaired by Bill Cash, my former colleague in the other place. Even the European Affairs Committee in this House is not tasked in its terms of reference to look in detail at statutory instruments such as this. As noble Lords will know, we are very unlikely, by convention, to be in a position to amend or strike down statutory instruments.
I will make a few very brief points. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, wished to relitigate Brexit; we are not talking about that, we are talking about this statutory instrument. Nevertheless, it is about the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom. It is about a border in the Irish Sea. It is about treating people in Armagh, Fermanagh, Antrim and Down and other parts of Northern Ireland as second-class citizens vis-à-vis people in Surrey, Shropshire or Kent. That is very important.
It is also so unnecessary because, as I have said before in this House, Lars Karlsson brought forward what the EU rather derisively called “magical thinking” but were technical solutions to enable an SPS regime to be put in place in Northern Ireland. That would have avoided a hard border and would not have led us to these draconian regulations.
I am also concerned about these regulations because they were foisted on our Government in 2023 after we left the European Union. They have been made by a supranational legal, legislative and political entity over which we have had no control, influence or ability to make our views clear. That is a significant issue.
I will finish with a detail for the Minister. I am sorry that she has had this hospital pass this evening. She is an excellent Minister, if I may say so, but she is in safe hands with the Northern Ireland Whip sat next to her, making sure that she is on the straight and narrow.
I will press the Minister very briefly. Defra said it is going to engage comprehensively in the run-up to the launch in March 2025. Can she elucidate on that a little bit and tell us a bit more about it? As she knows, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee talked about the lack of proper and comprehensive public consultation.
In Regulation 5(3) in Part 3, the threshold of evidence for the individual who owns the pet to have to report to the SPS inspection facility is very low and very arbitrary. Maybe the Minister will say something about that.
Is reasonable doubt built into the regulations in cases of suspension following non-compliance under Regulation 6? It is very important that is not misused.
I have two other points. On the reviews, the speed of response by the competent authority in reviewing the decisions is not included in the regulations and it should be. Finally, how will the storage of data under Regulations 9 and 10 be managed? Quite a lot of data is going to be collected. Will it be safe and how will it be stored?
We cannot vote down this statutory instrument. It is a constitutional and democratic outrage. I find it unacceptable. For that reason, I will strongly support the very reasonable and sensible amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey.
Lord Bew (CB)
My Lords, I support the statutory instrument because it follows logically from the Windsor Framework, which is complex and, in many respects, inevitably unsatisfactory in certain details but a necessary compromise with the European Union and one that is part of the process by which devolution was restored to Northern Ireland. Underneath everything that lies in the statutory instrument is the concept that Ireland is one eco unit. That is what is in the Windsor Framework and what underlies this legislation. It is the most fundamental point underlying it.
However, the Windsor Framework does not say that Ireland is one economic unit. This is an important point to make while we address this subject. Page 5 of the Windsor Framework says:
“Inherent in this new way forward is the prospect of significant divergence between the two distinct economies on the island of Ireland—from food and drink to plants and pets, building on the existing differences in every area of economic and political life such as services”—
which, by the way, appear to be very strong now in Northern Ireland—
“migration, currency and taxation”.
That is the Windsor Framework. That is the international law that the Government, who give a very strong emphasis to their commitment to international law, are committed to.
Yet today I listened to the Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson—at Question Time giving excellent answers, for which I am extremely grateful, to a number of searching questions, but on this point, she said something that is open to misinterpretation. She said there is an island economy. I agree. There is no question that there is an island economy and that for some activity, whether it be dairy products or the single electricity market, which has been mentioned already tonight, as well as a handful of individual companies that operate on an all-Ireland basis, there is an island economy, but there are many more individual companies operating across the UK’s internal market.
The Government are in a position where they cannot leave any ambiguity. This is part of the process by which Stormont was returned, and the Good Friday agreement was returned to operation. The “island economy” is a complex and slippery phrase. I have just said that I can understand completely why somebody might say there is one, but it is also very important to notice the very strong commitment in the Windsor Framework to there being two distinct economies on the island of Ireland. I suppose you can say that the island economy is a fact; it is just not as significant as the fact there are two distinct economies on the island of Ireland. There is a danger here that if we do not get this right, the whole compromise which has led to the re-establishment of Stormont will start to unravel. This is a commitment the Government have entered into in international law.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, I cannot fault virtually anything the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, said in her eloquent analysis from a technical point of view. The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, made a very important point that there is going to be a conveyor belt of these regulations as far as the eye can see at this time. Every time one of these comes along, there will be a wailing and a gnashing of teeth, and we will complain, and quite rightly so, because it is an affront to our status as citizens of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom. The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, mentioned the future and how things can be changed. I think we have to shift our focus to how we change things in a permanent and much more beneficial way.
In 2026, there is a review pencilled in of the trade and co-operation agreement. I believe that we should be putting our heads together now to develop a series of proposals that can rectify, in as far as it is possible, the situation we are in. While politicians do not like to say it, the truth is that this problem is fundamentally insoluble because we are half in and half out of the single market and half in and half of the United Kingdom’s single market. So, ultimately, we are fiddling around with these sorts of things and tweaking them, and tonight the Minister can justifiably say that this instrument is less bad than the one before it and that is true, but, as was pointed by the noble Baroness, what do we do with tourists? Does somebody bring their pet with them and have no intention of staying in Northern Ireland? We can all find ways to chip away at these things, and that is true.
However, we must now focus on working up an alternative that at least would begin to restore some of the sovereignty and remove some of the friction. I have to say that if people had done their homework some years ago, all of this was foreseen and foreseeable. There are no surprises here. The minutiae might be different. We might see something here that we had not quite seen, but we all knew and were told and were warned—we had debates galore in this House and in other places—that when the negotiation on Brexit was taking place, it was probably the worst piece of United Kingdom statecraft that many of us have ever witnessed. It was a bad negotiation and, ironically, some of those who negotiated it who are sitting on their Benches are getting up and attacking the negotiation. The individual who led it is attacking the outcome of his own negotiation, but that is neither here nor there.