‘Irish sea border will mean higher food bills’

Edwin Poots said one consequence of the Northern Ireland Protocol will see the supply line of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of potatoes from Great Britain to the region’s fish and chip shops potentially severed on January 1.

He added that, while other damaging aspects of the protocol have been delayed as a result of grace periods agreed by the UK and EU, the can has just been “kicked down the road”.

“Every person in Northern Ireland, every consumer in Northern Ireland will foot the bill if we don’t get these things resolved,” Mr Poots told his Assembly scrutiny committee.

The protocol, which is part of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, was designed to avoid the need for border checks on the island of Ireland when the UK leaves the EU.

It achieved that by creating new customs and regulatory processes on the trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

Under the protocol, which comes into effect when the Brexit transition period ends on December 31, Northern Ireland will remain in the single market for goods and will adhere to EU rules on food safety and animal health.

That will require additional regulatory checks on food products entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain and also strict rules on the movement of live animals, including pets.

The UK and EU last week agreed a three-month grace period for supermarkets and other retailers to adjust to new arrangements, such as the requirement for export health certificates on food produce moving from GB to Northern Ireland.

Mr Poots told the committee that the grace period applies to all food retailers, not just supermarkets.

As it stands, under the protocol certain foods will be banned from entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain altogether. These include certain chilled meats and unprocessed potatoes.

Another grace period has been agreed to allow the trade in chilled meats to continue for six months.

Mr Poots told the committee that no such grace period has been achieved for potatoes.

He said that while peeled potatoes can be imported into the region from Britain, the transportation of unprocessed potatoes is not allowed.

The minister fielded questions from a number of MLAs who highlighted that many chip shops in Northern Ireland rely on potatoes grown in England.

Mr Poots said he has repeatedly raised the issue with UK Environment Secretary George Eustice.

“Whilst we have been fighting and fighting and fighting to mitigate the damaging aspects of the protocol and have had a reasonable degree of success, there are areas which are outstanding and this is one of them,” he said.

“I indicated to George Eustice that it’s not our desire to have to import potatoes from Holland, with extra haulage and extra food miles and all of that.

“It is not our desire to do that. But that’s what’s going to end up happening, if we cannot get this resolved to our satisfaction, and currently it is not resolved to our satisfaction.”

During his appearance before the committee, Mr Poots repeatedly stressed that his party – the DUP – had voted against the protocol and is vehemently opposed to it.

However, he acknowledged that it is the law and said his role now is to try to mitigate its impact.

He questioned the need for many of the requirements contained in the protocol, arguing that they apply to the movement of goods which pose no threat to the EU single market.

“There just isn’t one (threat) so why are you going to impose restrictions which, as a consequence of those restrictions, will add thousands of pounds to every lorry load of food that comes to Northern Ireland?” he said.

“And people who are living in Strabane and Newry and in Lisburn and Portadown with some of the lowest disposable incomes anywhere in the United Kingdom, people who are being driven to food banks because they’re already struggling to meet the cost of food, will be affected further as a consequence of the application of rules which are entirely unnecessary to protect the single market.”

He added: “Some of it is complete nonsense. The fact that you have a pet travelling with you to Scotland to visit relatives and coming back home again that that pet is going to have to get a rabies vaccine whenever there is no rabies in this island. It’s just wrong that that’s the case.”

On the prospect of longer term prohibitions on chilled meats and unprocessed potatoes from Great Britain, he said: “Those things are all just a nonsense. But nonetheless they are issues which we have to try to deal with, that we have to try to mitigate, that we have to try to reduce.”

Mr Poots said the number of new regulatory food safety checks at Northern Ireland ports would be “relative small”.

Dr Robert Huey, deputy secretary of Daera’s Veterinary Service and Animal Health Group, told the committee that EU Commission officials had been examining construction of the checking facilities on a weekly basis.

He said there is significant unease among EU member states that the regulatory checks will not be carried out properly in Northern Ireland and that is why the Commission has asked for access to monitor the processes when the transition period ends.

“My attitude to this is to welcome them, to make them a cup of tea and make them feel part of the team, and if I can convince them quite quickly that we are doing the job as they would wish it to be done then I don’t think this arrangement will last very long,” he said.