Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 11th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I grew up in Ireland and most of my family still live there, so I want to concentrate on the practical implications of this Bill for ordinary people and ordinary traders on both sides of the border. A good example is Northern Ireland’s 3,000 dairy farmers: together, they produce 2.5 billion litres of milk every year, in turn enabling highly valuable exports. Northern Irish dairy goes to 80 countries around the world, and although the six counties represent just 3% of the UK population, they account for 31% of UK dairy exports by value. However, a third of the milk produced cannot be processed within Northern Ireland because of a lack of processing capacity in the Province. The milk needs to be processed in the only factories with adequate capacity, which happen to be located just across the border in the Republic of Ireland. However, for milk to cross the border, a vet from Northern Ireland’s food safety agency must certify that the milk meets EU standards over its whole life cycle. If it does, it can go into the Republic and come back again—pasteurised and processed—ready to go on to make money for the UK economy around the world.

However, if Northern Ireland operates a dual regulatory regime, as proposed in this Bill, products such as animal feed—some from the EU and some from the UK—are likely to be mixed up within the Province, making it impossible for vets to certify that an animal’s milk genuinely meets EU standards. This means that the cow’s produce will be unable to cross the border and unable to be processed. Noble Lords will be aware that you cannot just throw unusable milk down the drain because of the serious ecological issues that that would cause—doing so is rightly banned in British law. So, of necessity, a massive cull of one-third of Northern Ireland’s dairy herd will be needed. Leaving aside the extraordinary economic and animal welfare implications of that process, Northern Ireland does not have the vets or abattoirs to undertake such a cull. Since the animals will not be able to be certified for export—for the same reasons that their milk cannot be certified—they will not be able to go over the border for slaughter either. It will be a Catch-22 situation, full of crushing uncertainty for Northern Ireland’s farming industry. Indeed, the only certainty is that farmers will find themselves unable to repay loans they took out in good faith, in the expectation of profits from the sale of their milk. A collapse in farming incomes will follow, inevitably destroying the hard-won, peaceful sustainability of every local town and village in Northern Ireland.

The risk with which the Minister must grapple this afternoon is not just to the local economies concerned; there is also an inevitable risk that darker forces will exploit newly impoverished communities, fanning the flames of resentment and driving a wave of renewed unrest. Brexit was not supported by Northern Ireland and was opposed by the Republic. Yet both sides did everything they could to make Brexit work, and the result was the protocol. Bits of these agreements cannot be cherry-picked away: each part of an agreement is a delicate building block of Anglo-Irish relations; move one part, and you risk the whole thing falling over. And for what? After all, if the Government are serious about not having lower standards for food safety and animal welfare than the EU, they surely have nothing to fear from a Swiss-style veterinary agreement with Ireland and the EU, and nothing to gain from this absurd mess of dual regulation.

It is time for a new approach prioritising practical trading relationships, prioritising local economies and, most of all, prioritising hard-won peace over the academic sovereignty that Brexit is alleged to bring. In short, it is time to ditch this rotten Bill.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 7th November 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Doocey]

43B: After Clause 20, insert the following new Clause—
“UK-EU Veterinary Agreement: report to Parliament
Within three months of the day on which this Act is passed a Minister of the Crown must lay before each House of Parliament a report on the progress of negotiations with the European Union regarding the Northern Ireland Protocol which may result in a UK-EU Veterinary Agreement.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires a Minister of the Crown to report to Parliament on the progress of any negotiations with the European Union that may result in a UK-EU Veterinary Agreement.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment seeks to make two important changes to the Bill: it removes the unworkable and discredited notion of dual regulation, and it mandates the Government to negotiate a veterinary agreement with the EU and to report back.

The protocol has facilitated the uninterrupted movement of livestock and livestock products, including milk, across the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. By removing parts of the protocol without a veterinary agreement in place, dairy farmers will bear the brunt of the Government’s dogma.

We are not talking about insignificant trade: farmers in Northern Ireland produce around 2.5 billion litres of milk every year. Of that, around 800 million litres, with a value of £600 million, need to move across the border into the Republic of Ireland for processing. This arrangement is not just economically beneficial but built on necessity, because there is insufficient capacity in Northern Ireland to process all the milk produced there, putting at risk the viability of a £1.5 billion industry and the livelihoods of tens of thousands who depend on it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I know that the noble Baroness, and other noble Lords—the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, among them—have pressed me on the issue of the detail of the draft regulations. That is, again, very much the process we have adopted to make sure that we are speaking to industry and businesses and reflecting those in the draft regulations that will be published. The regulations will be reflective, as I said earlier, of the wealth of the feedback we have received. The scrutiny of the regulations will be done in the usual fashion and, of course, the Government will provide all the usual accompanying material under parliamentary procedures. The full details of the new regime will be set out in and alongside the regulations made under the Bill, including any economic impacts where appropriate. This will allow Parliament to be informed in its scrutiny of the new regime when it has been put in place.

On the issue of a statutory duty to publish such material, as suggested in the amendments, the Government’s view is that it would not be appropriate to place a statutory duty on the Government. The legislation is needed to tackle the urgent problem we have sought to identify with the workings of the protocol in Northern Ireland. While we do not anticipate any issues with providing information before regulations are brought forward, we do not want to tie our hands unnecessarily in this respect.

Finally, I say to all noble Lords who have participated in this debate that I welcome these specifics, and I hope noble Lords will appreciate that I have sought answers and am listening during the course of Committee, as are my colleagues. I am seeking to provide a bit more detail on what we have but, while asking the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment, I do value the insight and the practical and constructive nature of the amendments that have been tabled.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the way he has accepted what I have said. It is very important that there is an agreement—it is absolutely critical. I do not for one moment underestimate how difficult it is for a negotiation at this level, but I urge the Government to move heaven and earth to make sure that at the end of the negotiations there is a veterinary agreement. We simply cannot allow the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people to be put at risk; it is just not an option. But for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 43B withdrawn.