Contribution
My Lords, there has been some confusion about speaking, so I beg your Lordships’ indulgence and will speak as briefly as I can on this issue.
I put on record the fact that I have never supported the Windsor Framework; I have spoken and voted against it previously. I pay tribute to my friend, the indefatigable and persistent noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, for her amendment, which naturally I support. I also support and pay tribute to Jim Allister KC and Member of Parliament for North Antrim for the excellent evidence he provided to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. He raised important issues, including the potential breach of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and of the UN Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States.
I found the powerful remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, very compelling and astute. We have a lacuna in terms of our scrutiny and oversight of EU issues in this House and the other place. We no longer have the European Scrutiny Committee, chaired by Bill Cash, my former colleague in the other place. Even the European Affairs Committee in this House is not tasked in its terms of reference to look in detail at statutory instruments such as this. As noble Lords will know, we are very unlikely, by convention, to be in a position to amend or strike down statutory instruments.
I will make a few very brief points. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, wished to relitigate Brexit; we are not talking about that, we are talking about this statutory instrument. Nevertheless, it is about the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom. It is about a border in the Irish Sea. It is about treating people in Armagh, Fermanagh, Antrim and Down and other parts of Northern Ireland as second-class citizens vis-à-vis people in Surrey, Shropshire or Kent. That is very important.
It is also so unnecessary because, as I have said before in this House, Lars Karlsson brought forward what the EU rather derisively called “magical thinking” but were technical solutions to enable an SPS regime to be put in place in Northern Ireland. That would have avoided a hard border and would not have led us to these draconian regulations.
I am also concerned about these regulations because they were foisted on our Government in 2023 after we left the European Union. They have been made by a supranational legal, legislative and political entity over which we have had no control, influence or ability to make our views clear. That is a significant issue.
I will finish with a detail for the Minister. I am sorry that she has had this hospital pass this evening. She is an excellent Minister, if I may say so, but she is in safe hands with the Northern Ireland Whip sat next to her, making sure that she is on the straight and narrow.
I will press the Minister very briefly. Defra said it is going to engage comprehensively in the run-up to the launch in March 2025. Can she elucidate on that a little bit and tell us a bit more about it? As she knows, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee talked about the lack of proper and comprehensive public consultation.
In Regulation 5(3) in Part 3, the threshold of evidence for the individual who owns the pet to have to report to the SPS inspection facility is very low and very arbitrary. Maybe the Minister will say something about that.
Is reasonable doubt built into the regulations in cases of suspension following non-compliance under Regulation 6? It is very important that is not misused.
I have two other points. On the reviews, the speed of response by the competent authority in reviewing the decisions is not included in the regulations and it should be. Finally, how will the storage of data under Regulations 9 and 10 be managed? Quite a lot of data is going to be collected. Will it be safe and how will it be stored?
We cannot vote down this statutory instrument. It is a constitutional and democratic outrage. I find it unacceptable. For that reason, I will strongly support the very reasonable and sensible amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey.