Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)

I urge my noble friend the Minister to put pragmatism before some of the concerns that we have heard already this evening. There have been some rather purist ideas, I would say, from the noble Lord, Lord Frost, which he holds very dearly and consistently, and I respect him for that, but I think we have to remind ourselves that we are talking about tomatoes, ginger and peppers here, about some diseases and pests and avoiding their importation into the United Kingdom. Yes, the EU is the originator of these measures; that does not mean, in and of itself, that they are wrong or unnecessary. The benefit of passing these regulations is that we maintain the integrity of the UK single market. That is something that I would have thought would be of great concern to those who are interested in affairs in Northern Ireland. I note that the issues that were raised by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee were around the border within the UK and the desire, which I share, to maintain as frictionless trade as possible between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. If we were to not pass these regulations, we would be making those concerns more sharply—it would be worse. There is, of course, an alternative, which would be dynamic alignment, it would be a full SPS agreement and it would perhaps be being a member of the customs union and the single market. Some of those things are easier to deliver than others, because they all have consequences, and some of them, I am sure, would be opposed deeply by the noble Lord and others in this House. For now, this is an imperfect solution, it is a pragmatic solution, it is a fudge, but it is where we have arrived. Having gone through the trade agreement, the Northern Ireland protocol, all those debates, this is the solution that we have today. I favour closer alignment, but these regulations are needed, it is important that they are passed, in order to allow for as frictionless trade as possible, and I expect and hope that my noble friend will put pragmatism and the needs of producers first.