Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard

A grace period arrangement for veterinary medicines remains in place until the end of 2025 and provides for the continuity of supply to Northern Ireland. Maintaining availability of veterinary medicines to Northern Ireland after the end of 2025 is a priority. This Government continues to progress work on this issue as quickly as possible and engage with the agricultural and pharmaceutical industries to fully understand the potential impacts.

The Veterinary Medicines Working Group, including experts, industry representatives and elected representatives, was also re-established to advise the Government on this matter.

The Northern Ireland Executive’s (NIE) Spending Review settlement for 2025-26 is the largest in real terms of any settlement since devolution. The NIE is receiving £18.2 billion in 2025-26, including an additional £1.5 billion through the operation of the Barnett formula.

The NIE is responsible for the allocation of its settlement to its devolved responsibilities, including the agricultural sector in Northern Ireland. To support this principle, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has agreed to baseline into 2025-26 the full amount provided to farmers, land managers, and fisheries in 2024-25.

The Government published information about the reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief [1].

It is expected that up to around 2,000 estates will be affected by the changes to APR and BPR. Up to around 520 of these are expected to relate to claims for APR (including those that also claim for BPR), and this number falls to around 430 when claims that include AIM shares are excluded. Almost three-quarters of estates claiming agricultural property relief (or those claiming agricultural property relief and business property relief together) each year are expected to be unaffected by these reforms.

Estates claiming agricultural property relief are required to provide HMRC with the value of agricultural assets, and this is used when calculating whether tax is due. However, it is not possible to provide constituency level analysis on claims which may be made in the future.

[1] www.gov.uk/government/publications/agricultural-property-relief-and-business-property-relief-reforms

Insurers make commercial decisions about the pricing of insurance following their assessment of the relevant risks. Currently premiums are being affected by specific economic factors that are increasing the cost of claims, such as the rising cost of replacement parts and materials. The Government does not generally intervene in these decisions as this could damage competition in the market.

However, the Government is determined that insurers treat customers fairly and firms are required to do under Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) rules. The FCA requires firms to ensure their products offer fair value (i.e. if the price a consumer pays for a product or service is reasonable compared to the overall benefits they can expect to receive).

On 16 October, the FCA announced a package of work in the insurance market amid concerns about rising prices. This includes a market study on premium finance – a form of credit that allows insurance customers to spread the upfront annual cost of their premium – for both home and motor insurance products.

On the same day, the Government launched a cross-Government taskforce on motor insurance. This Taskforce has a strategic remit to set the direction for UK Government policy, identifying short- and long-term actions for departments that may contribute to stabilising or reducing premiums, while maintaining appropriate levels of cover.

The Government is carefully considering the Migration Advisory Committee’s review of the Seasonal Worker route and will announce a detailed response in due course.

On 21 October 2024, the Government underlined its commitment to the horticultural and poultry sectors by confirming that the quota of visas for Seasonal Workers would be 43,000 visas for the horticultural sector in 2025, with 2,000 visas for the poultry sector.

The ETA scheme applies to passengers visiting or transiting the UK, who do not currently need a visa for short stays and who do not have a valid UK immigration status prior to travelling.

British and Irish nationals do not require an ETA, and an exemption also exists for legal residents of Ireland entering the UK from Ireland.

Other individuals crossing the land border into Northern Ireland will need to continue to enter in accordance with the UK’s immigration framework, including the requirement to obtain an ETA when the scheme is fully rolled out.

As set out in the Statement of Funding Policy, the UK Government has committed to fund the direct costs associated with reaching the required level of compliance to implement its obligations under the Windsor Framework. The provision under this commitment is set out in the Northern Ireland Office’s Main Estimates 2024-25 Memoranda.

The UK Government is committed to implementing the Windsor Framework in good faith and protecting the UK internal market. Implementing arrangements have been designed to ease the flow of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and reduce administrative and other business burdens.