Jim Allister: These are the 81 MLAs who voted for the absurd ban on importing soil into Northern Ireland, and thus on plants potted in soil

Dr Aiken, Mr Allen, Ms Anderson, Dr Archibald, Ms Armstrong, Ms Bailey, Mrs Barton, Mr Beattie, Mr Blair, Mr Boylan, Mr M Bradley, Ms P Bradley, Ms S Bradley, Ms Bradshaw, Ms Brogan, Mr K Buchanan, Mr T Buchanan, Mr Buckley, Mr Butler, Mrs Cameron, Mr Carroll, Mr Catney, Mr Chambers, Mr Clarke, Mr Dickson, Ms Dillon, Mrs Dodds, Ms Dolan, Mr Dunne, Mr Durkan, Mr Easton, Ms Ennis, Ms Flynn, Mrs Foster, Mr Frew, Mr Gildernew, Mr Givan, Ms Hargey, Mr Harvey, Mr Hilditch, Mr Humphrey, Ms Hunter, Mr Irwin, Mr Kearney, Mrs D Kelly, Mr G Kelly, Ms Kimmins, Mrs Long, Mr Lynch, Mr Lyons, Mr Lyttle, Mr McAleer, Mr McCann, Mr McCrossan, Mr McGlone, Mr McGrath, Mr McGuigan, Mr McHugh, Miss McIlveen, Ms McLaughlin, Mr McNulty, Ms Mallon, Mr Middleton, Mr Muir, Ms Mullan, Mr Murphy, Mr Nesbitt, Mr Newton, Ms Ní Chuilín, Mr O’Dowd, Mrs O’Neill, Mr O’Toole, Mr Poots, Mr Robinson, Ms Rogan, Mr Sheehan, Ms Sheerin, Mr Stewart, Mr Storey, Mr Weir, Miss Woods.

Tellers for the Ayes: Ms Brogan and Mr McGuigan

These are the MLAs who on December 8 2020 voted to impose these restrictions.

On December 8 2020 Gordon Lyons, DUP junior minister, on behalf of the DUP DAERA minister, Edwin Poots, brought before the assembly and proposed ‘The Plant Health and Diseases of Animals (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations (NI) 2020’.

It is these regulations which adopted into the law of Northern Ireland the EU Directive 2000/29/EC which contains the absurd ban on importing soil, and thus roses, azaleas etc potted up in soil, into the EU single market.

The DUP proposed regulations at Article 2 implementing Section 41 of Annex 2 of the Protocol, which expressly details Directive 2000/29/EC and Regulation EU 2016/2031, and it was these which the above MLAs voted to impose.

I spoke in the debate and warned of their folly, but they knew best and sheep-like voted to enslave us in EU laws which are now strangling our garden centres and others.

Only Jim Wells and I voted against this madness.

So, when garden centre operators can’t bring in potted roses because their might be British soil on or in the pots, these businesses and the deprived public know who to blame, these 81 MLAS!

[Debate found here: http://data.niassembly.gov.uk/HansardXml/plenary-08-12-2020.pdf with Jim Allister’s contribution at page 10]

• Jim Allister is TUV leader and MLA for North Antrim

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