Draft Postal Packets (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2023

Robin Millar Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 General Committees

[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.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I thank you, Mr Pritchard, for bringing us to a meaningful debate on this matter. I also thank the Minister; she has been dealt a difficult hand here and she is handling it very well.

The Minister has referred several times to smallness and how this is about small packets, but these are actually big principles. I want to be reassured by what she is saying, but I have a question. It relates specifically to business and the package of information that was brought into the Committee room containing submissions, including the DUP’s submission. I will quote one submission from the Road Haulage Association, on page 15, by way of example. It gives several examples of where the regulations will be changed by this provision:

“after ‘foreign postal packets’ insert ‘and all GB-NI postal packets’”.

So the revised version will read

“foreign postal packets and all GB-NI postal packets”.

In other words,

“movements from GB to NI are no longer considered on the same domestic terms as movements between England, Wales and Scotland”.

Does the Minister understand why there is confusion about this? Does she understand how it causes me and others to have concerns about the introduction of a border within the United Kingdom? Perhaps she can explain why that treatment, in that way, does not constitute an internal border within the United Kingdom.

[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.