Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 31st October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

To prevent the noble Lord, Lord Bew, having to get up and sit down again, I ask him again to appreciate and acknowledge that, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, nobody in the debates we have had, whether at Second Reading, on the first day in Committee or today, is arguing to invoke Article 16. No one is advocating its use, let alone now. All that is being said is that the legal argument of necessity invoked by the Government is undermined by the fact that they have never resorted to the use of Article 16; hence necessity is on very shallow foundations.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, is there not a very short answer to all of this: not to proceed with the Bill?

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, if I may make a short point before the Minister gets up to speak, it is clear that we are going to have a debate on international law and so on about every set of clauses. All I want at this stage is to draw attention to the actual situation and practical reality for people moving goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as a result of the application of EU customs law for those goods coming to Northern Ireland. Briefly, and cutting through the arguments about international law, let us have a look at the reality.

The Government will have spent £340 million through the Trader Support Service helping traders process 2.3 million customs declarations for trade between two parts of the United Kingdom. For those 2.3 million declarations, by the end of the year the taxpayer will have forked out almost £350 million, and that comes on top of the movement and assistance schemes and other schemes designed to help people with the paperwork. According to some estimates, it could amount to £500 million. That support is not guaranteed to continue into the future. It has been extended for another year but at some point those costs will have to be borne by hauliers—the companies which move those goods—and consumers. There will certainly be a massive increase in the cost of living. Already, as a result of the paperwork that people have to go through, even with that support we have seen example after example of firms in Great Britain simply refusing to have any further dealings with Northern Ireland. It is simply not worth their time, effort or money, even with those vast millions going into the Trader Support Service.

I urge noble Lords to look at what people in companies such as McBurney Transport and McCulla—the people who transport goods to the Irish Republic as well, not just Northern Ireland—are saying about the paperwork and the reality of these customs burdens on trade between one part of the United Kingdom and another, and then tell people that this is a sensible way of approaching it. We need change. I understand the arguments about international law and all of that but we need to have this rectified. We cannot continue to fork out this kind of money and still have companies refusing to do business with one part of the United Kingdom; namely, Northern Ireland.