Draft Postal Packets (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2023

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 General Committees

[The Chair]

I am grateful for that point of order. I remind the hon. Gentleman of my comments earlier about Mr Speaker’s ruling. It is not a one-off. Colleagues may not like it, but Mr Speaker has made his ruling.

As I set out just before the hon. Gentleman joined the Committee again, Standing Order No. 118(5) requires that the Committee debate the motion

“That the committee has considered”

the draft regulations. The Clerk read out the title earlier; I have already called the Minister, and the motion is already in progress. As I said earlier, colleagues, who have clearly been moved to make points of order with such strength, will have other opportunities to raise their concerns with the Government on the Floor of the House about the procedural events, shall we say, of the past few hours.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Pritchard. You were quite entitled not to take the points of order that I tried to make earlier or when we got back, although I would have liked to hear your consideration of them. It is a great pity that the Committee started in such a hurry when people were not back from the Division, including the representatives from Northern Ireland. Surely they, above all, should be here, given that this is such a fundamental measure for them.

I would like, in this point of order, to seek your guidance on how much time, according to your planning of this Committee, we now have left, because presumably the clock has been ticking for a little while during the Divisions. How could you regard that as at all adequate, given the intensity and range of views on what is a fundamental constitutional measure, as well as a very big economic measure, of great interest on both sides of the Irish sea?

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[John Redwood]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Atkins]

If I may, I just want to set out the circumstances, because I very much hope that that will help with some of the concerns that have been raised. I know that there is a great deal of interest in these arrangements, so I am going to be absolutely clear with the Committee what these measures entail and, importantly, what impact they will have not just for our constituents, but for the United Kingdom family.

In short, someone in Great Britain sending a parcel to their friends or family in Northern Ireland will not need to engage with any customs processes. Nothing will change for those movements compared with today. Similarly, Northern Ireland recipients of parcels sent by their friends or family in Great Britain will not need to engage with any customs processes. Nothing changes compared with today. A grandchild in Blackpool—I pick Blackpool because that was where I went to school, and there is a wonderfully rich Irish community in and around Blackpool and Preston—sending a package to his grandparents in Belfast will not need to do anything new to send it and, importantly, the grandparents will not need to do anything new to receive it.

Businesses in Great Britain selling to consumers in Northern Ireland will not need to complete customs declarations, international or otherwise. Nothing changes. Northern Irish consumers buying from British sellers, including—hon. Members have raised this point with me—the likes of Amazon and other online shops, will not need to engage with any customs processes. Nothing changes. They will buy from the British seller and receive their goods without doing anything new; I say that very clearly for the sake of colleagues here today and for others outside this Committee Room who may be listening. Those facts are now recorded in Hansard and can be scrutinised. I say that very deliberately, so that those who have concerns understand exactly what we have set out in the framework.

The Windsor framework explicitly removes those requirements on goods being sold to Northern Ireland consumers and, of course, on goods being sent to friends and family. There will be no routine checks or controls applied to parcels. There will be interventions only on the basis of a risk-based, intelligence-led approach. That means that the overwhelming majority of parcels will not be subject to checks.

Parcels sent from a business in Great Britain to a business in Northern Ireland will be treated the same as equivalent freight movements. They can be moved through the new green lane when eligible, when it is introduced from October 2024.

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[Victoria Atkins]

I must give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham, and then I will give way to the hon. Member for North Antrim.

[John Redwood]

The form of this statutory instrument is to amend regulations relating to foreign postal packets. It includes GB-NI postal packets alongside foreign postal packets in important matters in the regulations specified. How can the Government defend that? They are effectively treating Northern Ireland and GB as foreign countries to each other, accepting a form of regulation designed for a true international border and clearly violating the terms of the internal market legislation governing the United Kingdom? [Interruption.]

[Victoria Atkins]

If I may, I will address that point, and then I promise I will come to the hon. Member for North Antrim in due course. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham used that language, so that I can make it clear for the purposes of Hansard that this is not about trying to differentiate or draw lines around our precious Union.

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[Victoria Atkins]

Again, I will try to answer the hon. Gentleman’s intervention as fully as I can. The Windsor framework does not introduce any discrimination against anyone. Businesses do not have human rights in the same way that individuals do. Articles 6, 2 and 8 do not apply to businesses. On his point about the business treatment, the Windsor framework is a positive step forward from what would have happened under the Northern Irish protocol. We have to operate under what would have been because I cannot pretend that the protocol did not exist or that those strictures would not come in in due course. As I say, that is not a commentary on what was negotiated at the time under those extremely difficult circumstances, but the United Kingdom and the EU have got around the table, acknowledged the significant difficulties that have been identified and come up with the Windsor framework, which answers all those concerns and does so, I would say, in a way that really moves our relationship with the EU forward.

[John Redwood]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Atkins]

If I may, I will make a little progress, but I hope that colleagues feel that I have been generous with interventions.

The Government need to ensure that the powers of HMRC and Border Force are sufficient to allow them to monitor the rules for movements of parcels and that, where certain requirements are in place—the point my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East made—for movements intended ultimately for the EU, they can be enforced. We need to be able to determine that parcels destined for the EU can be detected and to ensure that they follow the requirements of the red lane.

I know from conversations outside the Committee Room that some colleagues have read the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s report into the rationale for bringing the instrument into force on 31 August. As I have said, some existing rules apply to prevent illicit movements of certain categories of goods, such as invasive species or ozone-depleting chemicals, which is why we are bringing these powers forward to HMRC and Border Force at this time, rather than waiting over a year.

The Committee’s report also noted the arguments submitted to it that the regulations would contravene the principle of unfettered access within the UK by introducing a customs border. Indeed, I have carefully noted the submission by the Democratic Unionist party about its concerns relating to the Good Friday agreement. We acknowledge, as I have said throughout, that there are a range of views on the Windsor framework itself, but these regulations are discrete and relate solely to the powers available to HMRC and Border Force. That said, I hope that I have been able to clarify for hon. Members and hon. Friends what the framework does and does not do, and therefore what the powers granted by the regulations will monitor and enforce.

[Victoria Atkins]

I genuinely thank my hon. Friend and acknowledge the spirit in which he asked those questions.

Historically, the role of postal parcels has not necessarily been defined in freight. As I said before, with that precise wording we are trying to ensure mirroring for this small cohort—so not between individuals or between businesses to Northern Irish individuals; that does not change. However, we do want to ensure that the mirroring in relation to green lanes and red lanes of freight is clear when it comes to those parcels.

We have been dreaming up interesting examples today in preparation for this, but I have used the example of lace. A business in Great Britain may produce lace and send it to a business in Belfast that makes dresses. If that business sells the dresses within Northern Ireland or back to GB, it will not be affected; it will not see any changes. This kicks in only if some of the dresses are sold to Dublin or further afield. We have tried to ensure that the regulations mirror each other, whether one sends a parcel by post or in a great big container.

I reiterate that the vast majority of parcels will move without any additional requirements on parcel recipients in Northern Ireland. We have pushed genuinely very hard to ensure that the interests of Northern Irish consumers, and of GB businesses selling to Northern Ireland, are protected. There are huge improvements compared with the previous protocol, but we need to manage the risk in relation to movements across the Irish border in order to avoid EU tariffs and regulatory controls. We fully accept that this is a trade-off, but we have put protecting people and businesses in Northern Ireland at the very forefront of our efforts, to try to ensure that we get to a proportioned approach in this mechanism. I hope that answers my hon Friend’s question.

[John Redwood]

I thought that, in law, and certainly politically, the Good Friday agreement took precedence over other agreements, given its importance. How is this measure in any way compatible with the Good Friday agreement when it does not have the consent of the Unionist community—an important underlying principle of the whole agreement? I would also like to assure the Minister that I do not use the phrase “hard compromise”, and I have not been recommending these kinds of proposals.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am sorry; I did not catch my right hon. Friend’s last point. Would he repeat it?

[John Redwood]

I thought the Minister implied earlier that I thought that this was a hard compromise. I do not; I think it is bad policy.

[Victoria Atkins]

I think my right hon. Friend misheard me. I was referring to the Northern Ireland Minister, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker). I would not dream of putting words in the mouth of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham.

A point was made about the Road Haulage Association. The answer to that intervention is that the powers were available to Border Force in respect of international movements. We understand the sensitivities and the concerns raised about making powers available for GB to NI movements, but we would say that that is not the same as making these international movements.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham asked a very important question about the Good Friday agreement. We do not accept that this is contrary to the Good Friday agreement. These regulations are in fact an enabler to the agreement that we have negotiated. As I said, we have ensured that consumer interests in Northern Ireland and the interests of British businesses selling to Northern Ireland are protected, but that means that an incentive now exists to move goods into Northern Ireland and take them across the Irish border to avoid EU tariffs. If we are to manage that risk—[Interruption.]

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[Sammy Wilson]

That is one of the reasons why I say this is dynamite, because it exposes the lie being peddled at present that the Windsor framework actually cements us into the United Kingdom. It does not; it pushes us further out.

The second point I want to make is that businesses have been kept in the dark. In fact, the scrutiny Committee pointed out that many businesses do not know what the arrangements are, and the Government have not even been able to give an answer on what the new arrangements are going to be. What will they entail? What provision will there be? The Minister argues that there will be no effect and that, if anything, be better for person-to-person parcels. She says that there will be no effect on business to consumers and that there will be some effect on business to business. The truth of the matter, though, is that once this legislation is passed, the EU will have total control over what movements need to be checked, and our Government will have no say about what happens in Northern Ireland.

[John Redwood]

Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that there has already been diversion of trade away from GB into Northern Ireland, and is he worried that the draft regulations will create a lot more diversion of trade away from GB?

[Sammy Wilson]

The right hon. Gentleman is quite right: that is the problem. In the absence of detailed knowledge about what the new arrangements will be, businesses will simply turn their back on Northern Ireland. I spoke to a constituent today who wanted to buy a mattress from Argos. Although Argos clearly brings goods into Northern Ireland, that was obviously inconvenient for it and it simply said, “We don’t sell mattresses to Northern Ireland any longer.” That is exactly what is happening. Even if the Minister is correct, the threat that there will be different arrangements for taking goods and postal packages into Northern Ireland will discourage businesses from entering into those kinds of arrangements. We are already seeing the diversion of trade.

The Government’s argument is that the draft regulations improve the situation, but actually, they do not. If we had stopped even with the provisions of the protocol, the grace periods would have prevented this from happening. It does not happen at present. If the Government really want there to be no interference, why not stick with the grace periods? Why not make it clear that the regulations are not needed? There has been no leakage during the grace periods, and there is no evidence that hazardous goods and so on are moving into the EU. Why did the Government not take that stance? Why are the Government still not taking that stance? There would then be no need for the regulations.