European Union: Border Control Checks

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, the Brexit support fund was indeed not fully used, which suggested to us that it was not the best means of providing support to companies. That is why we have brought in the export support service, which I hope will grow and become more focused in time—in particular to help SMEs, which obviously have most difficulty in dealing with the new arrangements.

The noble Lord is obviously correct to say that this is business for the trade specialised committees, and when we have particular evidence of difficulties, we will certainly raise them in those fora.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, in the week that the Government have announced, for very understandable reasons, that they will extend free, unfettered access for firms from the Irish Republic—part of the EU—to the UK market, is it too much to hope that British firms sending goods to the other part of the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland might also benefit from free, unfettered access? Surely that is not too much to ask, and can the Minister tell us when we are likely to see that?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an extremely good point. If I may dwell on it for a moment, it is obviously true that the legal framework for Northern Ireland and Ireland goods coming to Great Britain is different because of the unfettered access commitment. In practice, at the moment, it is not always possible to distinguish between the two categories of goods, but that will change in future and we will need a definitive solution to this question. Of course, the degree of pragmatism that we show in future to Irish goods coming to Great Britain will be related to the degree of pragmatism and flexibility that the EU shows in allowing goods to move freely around all parts of the UK.