Trade Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con) [V]]

My Lords, Lords Amendment 8 aims to ensure that there is no discrimination within the UK internal market against Northern Ireland goods and services or against services provided to customers in Northern Ireland as a result of UK trade agreements.

When this amendment was previously considered in this Chamber, many noble Lords expressed concerns around the flow of goods into Northern Ireland. The Government are committed to addressing any challenges that may arise with the Ireland/Northern Ireland protocol. There have been no significant queues at Northern Ireland’s ports, and supermarkets are now generally reporting healthy delivery of supplies into Northern Ireland. The Government have put in place three end-to-end systems—the GVMS, the CDS and the trader support service—to deliver the Northern Ireland protocol and successfully implement a functioning model that facilitates the flow of trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The Government are committed to ensuring unfettered access for Northern Ireland goods moving to the rest of the UK market. To be clear, when we say “unfettered access”, we mean that there will be no declarations, tariffs, new regulatory checks or customs checks, or additional approvals for Northern Ireland businesses to place goods on the GB market. The Government’s commitment to this goal is evidenced by the fact that we secured the removal of any requirement for export declarations as goods move from Northern Ireland to Great Britain in discussions at the withdrawal agreement joint committee.

The Northern Ireland protocol applies only to a small subset of EU rules on goods and electricity, related to the good functioning of the Northern Ireland-Republic of Ireland border. There will be the same freedom to regulate for the services industries of the future in Northern Ireland as in the rest of the United Kingdom, and regulations will be consistent across the UK internal market.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

The noble Lord, Lord Hain, has withdrawn and there are no unlisted speakers, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister’s reassurance on this is slightly jarring with the latest news, which is most unwelcome in Northern Ireland, about the security threat to many staff working to process at the ports of Northern Ireland. The Government are right to have indicated that any threats to them are unacceptable, but it draws stark attention to the fact that considerable tensions remain in Northern Ireland. I do not think that anybody could have seen the recent debacle on vaccines between the EU and UK without feeling a degree of foreboding about the potential consequences of some elements of the protocol.

The hour is late, the Trade Bill has debated these issues well and they are not going away, so I will just ask the Minister one question. I do not expect him to respond immediately, but I would be grateful if he could write to me. I am on a distribution list for HMRC, which provides information to businesses trading between GB and Northern Ireland. I will quote from the most recent email I received, and ask the Minister to clarify. This is for all businesses. The email says:

“You must have an Economic Operators Registration and Identification (EORI) number that starts with GB if you wish to move goods between Great Britain or the Isle of Man, and other countries. Without it you will not be able to complete your customs declarations and you may experience increased costs and delays.


You will also need a separate EORI number that starts with XI if you: move goods between Northern Ireland and non-EU countries (including Great Britain), make a declaration in Northern Ireland, get a customs decision in Northern Ireland. To get an EORI number that starts with XI, you must already have an EORI number that starts with GB.”


I hitherto had not been aware that, to have a separate business registration for conducting fettered business between GB and Northern Ireland, and Northern Ireland and GB, you need a separate registration number. Within the United Kingdom, businesses trading between Northern Ireland and GB now have two separate processes to cover trade over the new border down the Irish Sea.

My question to the Minister—and I would be grateful if he would write to me—is: how many UK businesses that conduct trade between Northern Ireland and GB, and vice versa, currently have an XI EORI number, and what is the Government’s estimate of what proportion of businesses have it?