My Lords, this amendment seeks to make two important changes to the Bill: it removes the unworkable and discredited notion of dual regulation, and it mandates the Government to negotiate a veterinary agreement with the EU and to report back.
The protocol has facilitated the uninterrupted movement of livestock and livestock products, including milk, across the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. By removing parts of the protocol without a veterinary agreement in place, dairy farmers will bear the brunt of the Government’s dogma.
We are not talking about insignificant trade: farmers in Northern Ireland produce around 2.5 billion litres of milk every year. Of that, around 800 million litres, with a value of £600 million, need to move across the border into the Republic of Ireland for processing. This arrangement is not just economically beneficial but built on necessity, because there is insufficient capacity in Northern Ireland to process all the milk produced there, putting at risk the viability of a £1.5 billion industry and the livelihoods of tens of thousands who depend on it.
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The dairy industry is deeply concerned by the real prospect that the changes to the protocol we are discussing in the Bill could plunge milk producers into poverty. Dairy farmers are not the only ones at risk. Each year, 400,000 lambs move from Northern Ireland into the Republic for processing. Pig farmers and others also benefit from current arrangements. It is clearly time to provide stability for the communities of hard-working people relying on food production for their livelihoods by negotiating a veterinary agreement between the UK and the EU. Such an agreement has been called for by business groups in the UK, such as the British Irish Chamber of Commerce, the CBI, the British Meat Processors Association, the British Veterinary Association and Dairy UK.
The two alternatives in play—the red and green lane approach proposed by the Government in the Bill and the express lane on offer from the EU—will both require checks on goods coming to Northern Ireland from Great Britain, as long as there is the possibility of a significant divergence between standards for goods of animal origin. By contrast, a bespoke and tailored veterinary agreement between the EU and the UK could retain trade across the island of Ireland and drastically reduce the necessity of SPS checks. Keeping checks to an absolute minimum requires either a dynamic alignment of veterinary standards or a veterinary alignment retaining common standards between the two jurisdictions.
We know that this can be achieved because the EU already has veterinary agreements in place with Switzerland and New Zealand. Switzerland, for example, has essentially no documentary or physical checks on goods travelling between it and the EU, amounting to a common veterinary area. The implementation of the agreement is overseen by a joint veterinary committee, and such a veterinary agreement is already on offer from the EU to the UK. A New Zealand-style agreement does not provide the same freedoms for the movement of goods because there is no shared land border. None the less, physical checks take place on only 1% to 10% of shipments. In that context, it is plainly absurd that checks are in place for 30% of UK agri-food products currently entering the EU. That is to say, as many as 30 times more checks are happening on products coming from Great Britain as on those coming from the other side of the world.
The amendment gives Ministers the flexibility to come up with a British veterinary agreement that they and this Parliament can live with. It is a pragmatic approach, seeking not to bind Ministers’ hands but to empower them to put the Northern Ireland relationship right. I hope the Minister can respond positively to that intention. I beg to move.