European Union: Border Control Checks

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I have had the opportunity to look briefly at the report that is referred to, which as always is an extremely comprehensive and worthwhile assessment of the state of play. We have never denied that there are new processes that need to be followed by UK exporters, but experience over the year is that UK business has come to grips with them very successfully and we have brought in, for example, our new export support service to help support smaller companies. On the question of an SPS equivalence arrangement, we asked last year for the TCA to include an equivalence process. That was not possible and, as far as we know, still is not possible, but obviously it would help if the EU was willing to look at that again and move forward.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

Further to the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, he and I are both members of the committee that reported today. Part of the recommendations is a warning that there is likely to be further Brexit disruption in the new year as these controls are phased in. The Minister has indicated that he made a statement yesterday, but will he spell out exactly what the attitude of the Government will be? That will be crucial to whether these rules will cause further disruption, particularly to small and medium enterprises.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, as I said, businesses have already shown a great capacity to adapt to new rules; people will need to adjust to them. The controls coming into force in January are UK controls, so we can handle them in a sensible and pragmatic way as they come in. We are in close touch with key border industry players and have been running online events such as webinars with companies. We talk constantly to border industry bodies and hauliers both in the UK and in the EU, and we have published explanatory material and so on. We are doing the best we can, and it is our belief that companies and bodies are engaging well with this and that the controls will be introduced successfully.