Nigel Mills
Main Page: Nigel Mills (Conservative - Amber Valley)Department Debates - View all Nigel Mills's debates with the Northern Ireland Office
Northern Ireland Protocol
Nigel Mills Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Brandon Lewis
The issues that companies such as Mr Norman’s have found are the very issues we want to resolve as part of the wider package. It is important to note, as we look at the Command Paper, that we want to deal with a wide range of issues. That is my point about dealing with the fundamental problems, rather than going piecemeal through the symptoms. That is why there is a range of options in there, some of which will make a veterinary agreement redundant, because it will not be required in that kind of process, potentially. That is part of the discussion we want to have with the EU to get a resolution to all these issues; it is more than just the food and chilled meats issue.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con) [V]
I welcome the proposal in paragraph 48 of the Command Paper for a light-touch customs regime for goods that are staying in Northern Ireland and not moving on to the Republic, but will the Secretary of State confirm how small businesses could comply with the requirement to provide
“complete transparency of their supply chains”
to the various authorities? I can see how a large supermarket chain could do that, but how could a small trader do that?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend highlights an important point. We are talking to small businesses and, indeed, the wholesale groups that they often work with to make sure that there is a way for them to be able to work through this, and we will continue to work with them as we go forward. There is technology now, similar to the technology that large companies use, that smaller businesses can use—the trader support service is hugely helpful in this—but my hon. Friend highlights one of the core problems: making sure that goods that are moving to Northern Ireland purely to be consumed in Northern Ireland do not have the same kind of rigmarole and checks. I think that I have mentioned before in the House a large supermarket chain that has no stores in Ireland yet has to go through the same checks. That cannot be right and needs to be resolved.