Member

The next day, businesses began cottoning on to the problem and asking Defra how the protections the Minister had spoken of in relation to Northern Ireland could be enforced. How were people to know whether the imports were coming from one part of Germany or another? Britain had taken the wise decision to ban it all to be absolutely sure. A bit of scrambling was done within Whitehall, which produced a bit of panic, followed by an announcement before the end of the day that all beef imports from Germany to the island of Ireland had been banned. That is such a chaotic, unacceptable way to proceed, especially in the context of these regulations, which make it clear that it is possible to enforce an SPS border without hard infra- structure, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, outlined. There is no need for Northern Ireland to be fobbed off with EU biosecurity protections that will be changed only when there is some kind of crisis and, apparently, when the Republic of Ireland is given a special dispensation to keep the UK Government onside.