Customs Safety and Security Procedures (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-26
Topic: Foreign Trade
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): I too thank the Minister for presenting these SIs. Taking them in the same order as on the Order Paper, the first one concerns customs safety and security procedures. The impact assessment says: "The main purpose of this regulation is to enable the UK to continue to meet its safety and security obligations under the World Customs Organisation … Framework of Standards by introducing a new UK regime" This is the new UK regime. It introduces a safety and security declaration—in a sense, at the UK-EU border—after a six-month transition period. It also introduces an authorised economic operator programme. I could not understand whether this was an asymmetrical situation or a symmetrical one. For the six months while the UK firms do not have to make these declarations, is it possible that EU member states may require declarations from what was to have been this Friday and is now a fortnight on Friday, or do we have a reciprocal deal? The impact assessment gives a feel for the real world. It says: "In the event of a no deal scenario, the UK will no longer be part of the EU security zone and carriers and operators will need to make safety and security declarations for goods moving between the UK and the EU. Whilst many carriers, specifically large economic operators, are experienced in transporting goods to both the EU and non-EU countries, HMRC anticipates that this will present a significant ongoing administrative burden for them, especially when submitting an ENS as it will be a new legal obligation and an additional cost to submitting a customs declaration for import purposes" The intention of this programme is no doubt to smooth the effects of a no-deal scenario but at best it will only reduce the chaos, and chaos there will be—at least, that is what it seems to me. However, let us look at the reason why these instruments are in front of us. Paragraph 3.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum says the reason is that the European Statutory Instruments Committee and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee both recommended that the instruments should be moved from the negative procedure, "to the affirmative resolution procedure, as they believe the House may wish to debate the implications the safety and security requirements may have for trade across the Ireland/Northern Ireland border" The reference to this in the Explanatory Memorandum is: "The amendments to the retained EU law contained in this instrument will not have effect in relation to trade in goods between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Further details on the arrangements for trade between Northern Ireland and Ireland will be published as soon as possible" I looked at the instrument to see how that retained law was disapplied. Almost hiding in plain sight in regulation 1(3) is this simple statement: "They do not have effect in relation to the movement of goods between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland or the reverse" That has a charming, heroic simplicity about it. In one line it says that a problem that completely destroyed the Prime Minister’s agreement—that is, the backstop—can be ended by that simple statement. What are the plans for the border under these circumstances? The regulation says they will be published "as soon as possible". One would have assumed that there was a target to publish them before this Friday because it is the 29th, although we now know that exit day is possibly a fortnight later The question posed is the question that the best minds of Her Majesty’s Government and the EU have failed to solve: what will actually happen at that border? My understanding is that if we fall back on WTO rules, there is an obligation to impose tariffs and for these sorts of safety and security rules to be enforced. We will in fact end up with a border down the Irish Sea. Are the two parties in Northern Ireland simply going to ignore all their obligations under these various international treaties? If we have here tonight, at this late hour, a solution to the Irish border question, I would be delighted to hear it from the Minister.