Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether workers and short-term travellers will be able to travel from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland using an electronic travel authorisation.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

The ETA scheme applies to passengers visiting or transiting the UK, who do not currently need a visa for short stays and who do not have a valid UK immigration status prior to travelling.

British and Irish nationals do not require an ETA, and an exemption also exists for legal residents of Ireland entering the UK from Ireland.

Other individuals crossing the land border into Northern Ireland will need to continue to enter in accordance with the UK’s immigration framework, including the requirement to obtain an ETA when the scheme is fully rolled out.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Migration Advisory Committee Review of the Seasonal Worker visa, published on 16 July, what is the status of the future of the Seasonal Workers Scheme.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Government is carefully considering the Migration Advisory Committee’s review of the Seasonal Worker route and will announce a detailed response in due course.

On 21 October 2024, the Government underlined its commitment to the horticultural and poultry sectors by confirming that the quota of visas for Seasonal Workers would be 43,000 visas for the horticultural sector in 2025, with 2,000 visas for the poultry sector.

Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what were the overall costs associated with all aspects of implementing the Windsor Framework Agreement for Northern Ireland, including the installation and staffing of border inspection posts.

Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

As set out in the Statement of Funding Policy, the UK Government has committed to fund the direct costs associated with reaching the required level of compliance to implement its obligations under the Windsor Framework. The provision under this commitment is set out in the Northern Ireland Office’s Main Estimates 2024-25 Memoranda.

The UK Government is committed to implementing the Windsor Framework in good faith and protecting the UK internal market. Implementing arrangements have been designed to ease the flow of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and reduce administrative and other business burdens.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many farms, if transferred in (1) England, (2) Wales, (3) Scotland, and (4) Northern Ireland, are eligible for the payment of inheritance tax following the Budget of 30 October.

Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Government published information about the reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief [1].

It is expected that up to around 2,000 estates will be affected by the changes to APR and BPR. Up to around 520 of these are expected to relate to claims for APR (including those that also claim for BPR), and this number falls to around 430 when claims that include AIM shares are excluded. Almost three-quarters of estates claiming agricultural property relief (or those claiming agricultural property relief and business property relief together) each year are expected to be unaffected by these reforms.

Estates claiming agricultural property relief are required to provide HMRC with the value of agricultural assets, and this is used when calculating whether tax is due. However, it is not possible to provide constituency level analysis on claims which may be made in the future.

[1] www.gov.uk/government/publications/agricultural-property-relief-and-business-property-relief-reforms

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they plan to take to ensure a fair distribution of finance to the Northern Ireland agricultural sector following the decision not to ring-fence the farm support package.

Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Northern Ireland Executive’s (NIE) Spending Review settlement for 2025-26 is the largest in real terms of any settlement since devolution. The NIE is receiving £18.2 billion in 2025-26, including an additional £1.5 billion through the operation of the Barnett formula.

The NIE is responsible for the allocation of its settlement to its devolved responsibilities, including the agricultural sector in Northern Ireland. To support this principle, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has agreed to baseline into 2025-26 the full amount provided to farmers, land managers, and fisheries in 2024-25.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to assist in the introduction of a renewable energy support scheme in Northern Ireland.

Answered by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

Energy policy is devolved to Northern Ireland. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is engaging closely with the Northern Ireland Department for the Economy (DfE) in the development of a renewable electricity support scheme. Officials and I engage regularly with ministerial counterparts from the DfE. The DfE published information last year on the scheme’s high-level design considerations[1] .

^[1] https://www.economy-ni.gov.uk/publications/design-considerations-renewable-electricity-support-scheme-northern-ireland-response

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many migrants in 2024 were (1) returned from the Republic of Ireland to the UK, and (2) returned from the UK to the Republic of Ireland.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office does not hold data on returns to the UK.

Data on returns from the UK are published in the 'Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release'. Data on returns to the Republic of Ireland are published in table Ret_D02 of the Returns detailed datasets accompanying the release. Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data relates to the end of September 2024. Data up to the end of December 2024 will be released in February 2025.