Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)

My Lords, time does not permit me to reiterate or examine the constitutional issues that this SI raises. They have been dealt with by a number of other speakers. Nor can I comment on whether those constitutional concerns are in any way ameliorated in practice by the impact on the plant health trade. I have to confess that plant health is not something I know a great deal about; I suspect I may not be alone in the Chamber on that. In the Explanatory Memorandum for this SI, the Government themselves indicate that there was no consultation on the SI. It was felt to be not necessary, so it is hard to see how the Government can also say with confidence that this is of practical benefit. It is clear that while this SI would align the whole of the UK with the EU, it does not create any compensating removal of the internal border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It leaves in place, for retail movements, an export licence, customs declarations, SPS checks and identity checks. The Government may be able to claim that this is at a reduced level than it would otherwise have been, but the one thing they cannot do is claim that this creates an unfettered or frictionless border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. That creates a major problem for the future. As has been indicated, we are moving into further reset discussions. We wait to see what direction the new Prime Minister takes. I simply say that if we reach a point at which, at the end of those reset arrangements, we have full alignment on SPS with the EU while leaving in place an internal border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, it is not the much-vaunted best of both worlds. We are leaving ourselves in the worst of all possible worlds.