My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 231. This group of amendments is completely different from the previous one. It is about frontier controls between the UK and the EU after Brexit. The amendment would require Ministers to report to Parliament on how any new procedures can be implemented without increasing delays and cost. This is a very serious issue. I regret that there is no separate Bill, so far, on this. We have already been discussing the Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill, which has been a very useful forum, but we are tonight discussing this issue.
Ministers have stated time and again that there will be no border control between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. They might rightly say that but they have also told the Commission that they do not want to remain in the single market and the Commission has taken that into account in its draft withdrawal agreement dated 28 February. To a simple mind like mine, since the Republic will stay in the EU and the UK will not, and since the Government insist we cannot remain in the single market, there has to be some kind of frontier between the Republic and the United Kingdom. Whether it is between the north and the south of Ireland or down the Irish Sea, we have debated many times, but I cannot see how it can be fudged or cherry-picked.
The volume of traffic between the UK and the EU is huge. In 2016, about 67 million tonnes of unitised freight were imported or exported, of which 14 million tonnes were temperature controlled. In 2015, there were 55 million UK customs declarations, and that number is due to multiply by five after Brexit. They have all got to be checked and controlled somewhere. Can that be done electronically at frontiers? The British Ports Association has said that one of the biggest challenges the ports face is accommodating the new environmental health standards inspections at the borders, which will obviously cost a lot of money and time if they go wrong. It is estimated that 3,000 trucks a day carrying temperature-controlled traffic might need checking for environmental health standards.
I have a couple of interesting examples which have come from the Irish Exporters Association, which seems to be more open with its ideas than people on this side of the frontier. A lot of people have talked about the benefits of the EU-Canada free trade agreement. An issue found there was the need to check the compliance of pallets used to carry the product within the container with the ISCN standard. If a load is found to have one non-certified pallet or one non-certified repair to a pallet, the whole lot is sent back to the sender. That will cause chaos. One has to question what proportion of trucks would need checking. The UK will not say.
I have not heard any information from the Government, but the Irish News states that 6% to 8% would need their paperwork checked and some visual inspections at the frontier, which looks to me like roughly 1,000 trucks a day in addition to the temperature-controlled traffic, and the Government say there will be no queues. They have to do something about this.
There is a real problem. If the UK is not in the single market, and the Republic is, there have to be some controls somewhere. It is a great shame that we do not have a representative of Sinn Féin in your Lordships’ House to give a wider view of the problems in Northern Ireland. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, regretted the lack of SNP members here to have a good debate about it.
What are the Government doing about this in terms of IT systems? The tax commentator Richard Murphy reports that there are 85 IT systems at UK borders, of which 30 will need to be replaced or changed. I do not think I need to go into the disasters of some previous UK IT systems, but there is little evidence that the Home Office or Customs will be able to have a system up and running for when we need it. It may take many years.
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I will say a word or two about rail freight. I declare an interest as the chairman of the Rail Freight Group. The problems are much the same, but there is an easier solution, which is to do the controls at the inland terminals that exist at the moment from a security point of view. That would be fine, and discussions are continuing, but the authorities seem to be trying to make it as difficult as possible. They will do security but they will not do anything else. I hope that the Minister may be able to encourage this along, because it is an obvious solution to avoiding queues at the frontiers.
However, there is a ray of light. The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport—I declare an interest as a vice-president—has been working hard with the industry and parts of government to develop something called authorised economic operator status. This could work very well, if only they could get some real buy-in from all the different departments that will be involved in it. It means that there may be a way of getting through frontiers without stopping, for those cargoes that qualify. Another issue the CILT raises is that of self-certification. HMRC accepts self-certification for VAT but appears to reject the same principle when applied to tariffs and import duty payments. Perhaps the Minister could look at that one too, because it is pretty important.
Another issue is to do with taxation. The Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill, which has not come to your Lordships’ House yet, is very long—it has 156 pages, I think, and rather more in other documents—but the CILT has raised two points. One is the value of chargeable goods and the other is something called preferential origin. Your Lordships will be glad to hear I will not go into those tonight, but I am worried about the delay in this taxation Bill and the consequent inability of the industry to plan for these really important tax issues. They may come next year—if we have longer to do it, so much the better, but we have to be prepared.
There are a number of reasons for this amendment. Clearly, it is a probing amendment, but I hope that the Government can accept the need to produce a detailed and comprehensive report of how these frontier control procedures can be implemented and keep to the costs and the programme. There is very little information at the moment. It is the Government’s problem, and they have to sort it out, but I hope that they will integrate and work closely with the industry and maybe even arrange some more meetings before Report so that this can be discussed further. I beg to move.