Absolutely. The customs checks I was referring to were in the context of proposals that the Government had introduced in the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill—and that they proposed to introduce in the Finance Bill—which would have removed the need for customs checks on goods circulating within the United Kingdom. My point to the BBC at the time was that customs checks on goods moving into the EU do not represent constitutional change, but what does represent constitutional change, as confirmed by the High Court and the Court of Appeal, is placing those checks on goods staying within the United Kingdom.
My party and I have been consistent on this point. If the hon. Lady refers back to the speeches made when the protocol was debated in this House, she will see that the view of the Democratic Unionist party has been clear from the outset that the protocol, if unchanged, would threaten Northern Ireland’s place within the UK and impact our ability to trade with the rest of our country, and that we opposed the notion that we could have customs checks on goods moving within the UK internal market. That has consistently been our position, because that alters our constitutional status as part of the United Kingdom.
I believe that what the Government propose is a serious endeavour to correct that problem and address that difficulty, to ensure that we can regulate our own
internal market and that where goods are moving within the United Kingdom and staying within the United Kingdom, they are not subject to customs checks, which, in our opinion, are unnecessary.
As the Minister rightly indicated, clause 7 introduces a system of dual regulation in Northern Ireland. I will not repeat what I said to the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), but I listened very carefully to what he had to say. If a business in his constituency wants to export goods to the United States of America, it must comply with US standards. It is the same for businesses in any part of the United Kingdom wanting to export to the EU: they must comply with EU standards.
I will use the example of the dairy sector to set out what is different for Northern Ireland. Farmers in my constituency who are part of the Lakeland Dairies co-operative have their milk collected in tankers at their farms in County Down and County Antrim and driven to the processing plant across the border. Very often, that milk comes back to Northern Ireland and is sold on our supermarket shelves, so we need a bespoke solution for the dairy sector. Dual regulation does not prevent that from happening. In fact, it enables it, because although one third of milk crosses the border, two thirds of it remains in Northern Ireland for processing. It is as if we are ignoring the reality that the majority of farmers in Northern Ireland do not send their milk across the border to be processed; it stays in Northern Ireland, and much of it is sold in Great Britain. No provision has been made for that.
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This is our difficulty, and this is why the concept of dual regulation is important. Dual regulation is a compromise—a compromise between my desire for British standards to apply throughout the United Kingdom and the desire of some in business, and political parties from Northern Ireland, for us to take measures to protect cross-border trade. My party wants to ensure that we do protect cross-border trade, and I believe the concept of dual regulation allows us to do that, although we need to understand how it will work in practice for each sector. I do not believe it is beyond the capacity of the dairy sector to present the Government with proposals for a bespoke solution based on this concept that will work for all dairy farmers—not just those who sell their milk across the border, but those who have their milk processed within Northern Ireland and want to sell it into Great Britain.
I think that where there is a will, there is a way. We are happy to engage with Mike Johnston—whom I respect—and the Dairy Council for Northern Ireland and to talk this through, and I welcome the fact that the Government are now engaged in consultation with business. I do not pretend, as a politician, that I have all the answers—I recognise that there will be some difficulties—but let us identify those difficulties and find solutions, because it is in finding solutions that we will move towards the restoration of political and economic stability in Northern Ireland and give businesses the certainty that they are crying out for.
I do not see how the choice brought about by a system of dual regulation will harm the Northern Ireland economy in the long run. In fact, I think it will help us to maximise the potential of dual market access, and
will enable businesses and sectors to make choices that constitute commercial decisions. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) made an important point. Yes, regulation is important, but in the end, business thrives on its ability to make commercial decisions, and to take advantage of what my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) described as the commercial opportunities.
Of course regulations change, but one of the difficulties I have is that the Northern Ireland dairy sector is now subject to regulations over which I, as a representative of many farmers in my constituency, have no say. When my dairy farmers come to me and say, “Jeffrey, we are concerned about these regulations coming from the EU”, where do I go with that? Do I go to the Minister in Stormont and say, “There is a problem here”? Yes, I can do that, but the Minister has no control over how those EU regulations are drawn up, and it is the same with the Minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs here at Westminster. There is a democratic deficit that needs to be addressed, and we believe that there are solutions in what the Government are proposing which will help to take care of not only the regulatory issue, but the democratic deficit that flows from it.
Clause 9, as the Minister said, is designed to give effect to the aspects of the Bill that will require further regulation. Let me say to the Minister and his colleagues that I think it important for both business and politics in Northern Ireland for the draft regulations to be published as soon as the initial consultations with the business sector have been completed. It would be helpful to see what the Government’s thinking is, in respect of the schemes that they intend to introduce—not least those relating to the green and red lane concept—but also in respect of matters such as dual regulation. We could then look at the regulations and suggest changes, or the industry and business sectors could suggest changes, and hopefully we would come up with solutions that worked within the concept of the Bill’s aim of delivering solutions to the problems created by the protocol. I therefore urge the Government to publish the draft regulations at the earliest stage possible.
Let me now turn to the amendments tabled by both the Alliance party and the SDLP. While I understand where they are coming from, I tend to agree with the Minister. I think that much of this is unnecessary, and that we can work out much of the detail when we see the regulations. We would certainly not be in favour of fettering the Government in respect of their ability to regulate the UK internal market by requiring them to seek permission from the EU every time they wanted to change the way in which they regulate it. I would not expect the EU to accept the UK Government having a veto over how the EU regulates its internal market, given that we have left the European Union, but the EU must accept that the UK has the right to regulate its own market. I do not think we should be imposing requirements that necessitate the approval of the European Union for the internal regulation of the UK internal market, except perhaps where there is a cross-border element.
That brings me to the North South Ministerial Council and the SDLP’s amendment, which would effectively almost hand a veto to the North South Ministerial Council in respect to this. That is not something we
would, or could, support. I recognise that the council can be a forum within which we discuss practical issues with the Irish Government and how those problems might be resolved, and it might be a forum in which ideas can come forward.