Windsor Framework (Non-Commercial Movement of Pet Animals) Regulations 2024
Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts(3 days, 1 hour ago)
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Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. We are having this debate in your Lordships’ Chamber because the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, has put down a regret amendment. It is important that these matters are debated. We must ensure that the negative instruments that will be coming forward are fully debated. Every one of the statutory instruments that come forward under the Windsor framework must be properly debated, because these laws are being brought forward to implement what a foreign jurisdiction has decided should be the law of the United Kingdom. In the 21st century, we should not accept colonial rule. We abolished it elsewhere. We believe it should not be tolerated for one second. People should have the democratic right to decide their laws for themselves, in their interests. Yet there are many people in this Chamber and the other Chamber who rail against Henry VIII clauses and so on but seem quite happy to take legislation from the European Union made by the European Commission in its interests, and not in the interests of the United Kingdom, without any consultation from any MP or mere MLA in the Northern Ireland Assembly. We are expected at times just to nod it through.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, has gone through in detail the implications of this statutory instrument. I detect some people in the Chamber almost smiling and sort of thinking: “This is all very detailed. We’re talking about dogs and cats. This is not worthy of this Chamber. What’s this all about?” Quite frankly, I believe that these matters need to be properly scrutinised. These things matter to the owners of pets, and it should matter to all citizens who believe in democracy that these laws should be made by us.
We have before us the Windsor Framework (Non-Commercial Movement of Pet Animals) Regulations. The ridiculous part about this debate is that we are having to debate European laws regulating the movement of pet animals owned by British citizens between one part of the United Kingdom and another. That is an outrage. People should not be smiling about that, smirking or thinking it is all a bit of a nonsense. This is serious stuff, and it matters. This is just one of what are going to be hundreds, thousands, of such laws made by the European Union and implemented through these statutory instruments by the process set out in the withdrawal Act. People can say, “Well, on this particular issue, it is not that serious or, on that issue, it does not do any real harm”. But cumulatively over time, all this does grave damage to democracy. It does grave damage and harm to the constitutional position of Northern Ireland within this United Kingdom.
We had a debate earlier on how to safeguard Northern Ireland’s place within the union. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, said, we heard soft words, kind words and all the rest of it. Yet this is the reality of what is happening. One cannot secure the union by undermining the union in this way. If we believe in sovereignty, then it should be sovereignty for all the United Kingdom. We cannot have Brexit for part of the United Kingdom and leave other parts behind. I dare say that if your Lordships and many of those who are not here were presented with the regulations when they were leaving their London homes to go to the shire country estate or to where they live at the weekend and were told, “I am sorry, when you leave London, go to Shropshire, Glasgow, Cardiff, Leicester or wherever it is, you are going to have to apply for a pet passport. You are going to have to enrol for a pet travel scheme. You are going to have to ensure that you declare that your pet will not be moved into a foreign jurisdiction; and it applies, and you can prove that this passport relates entirely to the animal that is in your company”, people in England, Scotland and Wales, Members of Parliament, and Members of your Lordships’ House would not tolerate that for a second, especially when they were told that the reason that they were being asked to do it was that the European Union demanded it. We should be taking these matters much more seriously.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, has said, we will be told—the Minister has said it—that this is a great improvement on what was theoretically going to be a dire situation under the original protocol, when we were going to be subject to the panoply of a full international border for pet movements, as if one was bringing a pet from a third country into the European Union. That was rightly dismissed by many of us who said that it was a disgraceful, unacceptable and unworkable regime. But let us remember, and your Lordships need to be reminded, that there were many in this House, in the other place and in Northern Ireland—Members, the leadership of the SDLP and Sinn Féin, and the leadership of the Alliance Party—who said, knowing the full diabolical terms of that protocol, that it had to be not just implemented but rigorously applied. That is how fervently pro-EU and anti-democratic they were. When we hear some of those representatives now lecture us about what is in the best interests of Northern Ireland, let us remember their position on this—ultra ideologically driven and not in the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland in any shape or form.
Now we are told that things have greatly improved. The grace periods were implemented by the previous Government to prevent that dire protocol being implemented. Even the implementation of the grace periods was fiercely resisted, again by many of the same players and actors and characters. We were told that it was a breach of international law, an outrageous, flagrant breach of the UK’s responsibilities, requirements and obligations under an international treaty. Forget about the harm that it would do to UK citizens and all the things that I have outlined in terms of democracy, sovereignty and so on. Again, that was fiercely resisted. When you hear some of the same people argue in favour of what is now being presented under the Windsor Framework, remember where they are coming from in this debate.
Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)
My Lords, I rise to support the regret amendment, moved so ably by the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and supported by my noble friend Lord Dodds.
The protocol and the Windsor Framework were built on a false and rotten foundation. The Windsor Framework was sold as a great step forward from the original protocol through which Northern Ireland would enter into the promised land flowing with milk and honey and foreign investors would be so excited by Northern Ireland’s favoured position in the United Kingdom, having access to the single market of the European Union, that they would be camping out and patiently waiting in line to invest in the Province.
Of course, having access to the European single market, we would have to subject ourselves to EU laws over which the elected Members here at Westminster or in the Assembly would have no influence. The concept that 300 areas of EU law should be imposed on Northern Ireland is highly offensive. It recklessly violates our constitutional position in the United Kingdom and dismisses the fundamentals of this heralded Belfast agreement, which demanded that any constitutional issue would have to be decided by a cross-community vote—in other words, by a majority of unionists and nationalists.
The purpose of this instrument is to provide a statutory basis for the Northern Ireland pet travel scheme, which is agreed under that Windsor Framework. According to Defra, the scheme will enable the “smooth and straightforward movement” of pets—pet dogs, including assistant dogs, cats and ferrets—from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, while ensuring that any pet movements from GB into Ireland or any other member state remain subject to the relevant EU law requirement. It has been acknowledged by the department that this is but another example of where a wider consultation would have been desirable. In other words, it did not take place in that wider context.
However, to my mind, deeper consultation would be meaningless whenever we have a Government that have closed their mind as regards the implications of the Windsor Framework. When Europe makes its demands, our Government usually cave in. The United Kingdom Government have got Northern Ireland so entangled with Europe under the protocol and the Windsor Framework that the only way to grant equal constitutional rights to the people of Northern Ireland with the rest of the United Kingdom is, in my opinion, to scrap the protocol and the Windsor Framework.
I listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said about taking the way forward and getting the alternative. But there is a big problem with an alternative because the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, who has spoken, and the noble Baroness who is speaking for the Lib Dems have in fact said that the protocol had to be rigorously implemented. In actual fact the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, said again tonight that she wants the Windsor Framework to be rigorously implemented. Getting an alternative, when there are those who see a need not for change but rather for a rigorous implementation of what is there at present, which is totally unacceptable to many within Northern Ireland as British citizens, is going to be very difficult.
Under these regulations, pets can travel from Northern Ireland to GB and return from GB without needing any pet travel documents and will not be subject to any checks or processes. However, the same does not apply to pets travelling from GB to Northern Ireland. This is another part of the United Kingdom. GB pet owners will need to show that they have a valid pet passport document which applies to the pet that they are travelling with. They will need a valid GB address to obtain a pet travel document and that will be checked during the course of applying for it. Why has this happened? It is simply because the EU has legislated for it to happen within the United Kingdom—a foreign authority legislating what happens between two parts of the same United Kingdom. We have been told constantly that we have left that authority. In fact, listening to the Minister earlier on today we were told that Brexit will not be changed, so therefore we have left.
If persons from GB come to Northern Ireland with their dog and then wish to visit a friend over the border in the Irish Republic, they must subject themselves to a full SPS border check for their pet. Under these regulations, should the EU feel that they are not being implemented to the satisfaction of EU-authorised personnel, their operation can be suspended, or whatever other steps the EU feels appropriate will be taken.
If any animal—pet dogs, including assistance dogs, cats or ferrets—does not meet EU standards regarding documentation or identity checks, the animal can be taken into SPS custody. What impact assessment has been done on the regulations, or is this another example of simply being subservient to EU demands? What detailed consultations were held with guide dog owners? In the other place, the Minister explained the reason for her acceptance of this imposition by Europe and divergence within the United Kingdom:
“We believe in keeping our word and in fulfilling our obligations”.—[Official Report, Commons, Delegated Legislation Committee, 6/11/24; col. 7.]
I ask the Minister: what does she feel about her Government’s obligations to the people of Northern Ireland and respecting the integrity of the United Kingdom? Surely, it is time to take a stand and to reject this Windsor Framework imposition. I, for one, am happy to vote—
Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)
Before the noble Lord sits down, he referred to the necessity and requirement for cross-community support, and he is absolutely right to highlight that important part of the arrangements in Northern Ireland. Therefore, would he accept that when the noble Lord, Lord Empey, read out various paragraphs of the proposal from Boris Johnson to the European Union at that time, he seemed to overlook and omit a key paragraph of part of that? He has done this on a number of occasions. It is that those proposals could happen only with the full consent of unionists and nationalists, not just in the Northern Ireland Assembly but in the Executive—so both nationalists and unionists would have an absolute lock on whether it happened or not. That is something that, of course, now unionists in Northern Ireland would take your right arm off for.
Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)
I thank the noble Lord for his intervention and I wholeheartedly agree with him. It is now on the record, and I think it would have been good to read that part into the record as well.
The sad reality is that the goalposts have been moved recently. Because, in the vote taken in the Northern Ireland Assembly, for the first time—50 years—they have now declared there is no need for a cross-community vote. Members in this House have campaigned that this was so essential. The Belfast agreement was quoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, tonight. The Belfast agreement.
Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)
It is sacrosanct; it cannot be changed. Yet the reality is that, for this vote, it is being put into the bin and now it must be a simple majority vote. That is despicable, that is disgraceful and those who support it ought to be ashamed.