'We are not sovereign' - DUP peer Lord Dodds hits out as Protocol stops animal welfare law in NI

The DUP peer was speaking as the government’s legislation to stop live animals being exported to other countries for slaughter was debated in the House of Lords.

The practice has been slammed by animal welfare groups as some animals are transported as far as Spain before being killed. Some farming groups support the practice.

However Lord Dodds said that whether or not legislators supported the ban – the issue is that they cannot make a decision because the Windsor Framework prevents it as EU law applies in Northern Ireland. The EU have not banned the practice.

He said it was the Irish Sea border in action – and nothing in the recent government Safeguarding the Union paper – or the deal with his party – changed this.

Lord Dodds said: “The reputation of this country as a country of animal lovers is well earned and well deserved.

“It is to the enormous credit of this country that we have some of the toughest animal welfare legislation on the statue book anywhere.

He said: “This legislation today before us has been heralded by the government as bringing an end to a necessary journeys abroad for slaughter of live animals.

“In the other place the Secretary of State in introducing the Bill at second reading said “taking advantage of Brexit freedoms, we can now legislate to end this trade which we were unable to do so for many years due to European union trade rules”

“I have to say in passing that it has taken the government a long time to bring this legislation to this point, given that it was a pledge that was made during the Brexit campaign itself...”

“However, the more fundamental criticism I have of this Bill is this something that has been referenced by the noble Lord the minister and other speakers in this debate – and that is it only applies to Great Britain and not the entirety of the United Kingdom.

“Why is this?”

Lord Dodds said the government’s position is that it’s because it wants to have unfettered access to the UK and the Irish Republic.

“That makes it sound as if this is a wonderful proactive measure. The government has thought about the situation and has developed its policy. And has proactively decided to omit NI for the best of reasons.

He said the reality is very different – and there needs to be transparency from the government.

“The fact is that the reason that this Bill does not apply to Northern Ireland is because it cannot”. He said it isn’t a choice because of the WF as EU law has supremacy in this whole area.

He said NI didn’t have a choice – but is forced into the position it is in.

He accused the government of spin to hide the reality of the extent to which NI is forced to adopt different laws and rules across hundreds of areas of law.

He said whatever anyone’s views on the bill – it should be a matter for lawmakers in the UK . But in this case the law in Northern Ireland is already decided by a foreign entity in which people have no say.

“This is another example, my Lords of the Irish sea border in action and there is nothing in the new government command paper... and nothing in the deal that was recently done that removes this.

“Otherwise we wouldn’t have this legislation before us today – or we would have legislation which encompassed the whole of the UK – which created an exception for the Irish Republic – would have put an end to journeys going further into the EU, to Spain and elsewhere which the minister has rightly painted as being unacceptable in this day and age”.

My Lords you don’t have to take my word for this. The government’s own impact assessment on live animal exports… states that the proposed option (that is the banning of live experts of animals for slaughter) “cannot be implemented in Northern Ireland”.

“Cannot.”

“‘Northern Ireland will continue to follow EU legislation on animal welfare in transport for as long as the Northern Ireland protocol is in place’”.

He said the question of principle is that this Bill does not and cannot extend to Northern Ireland, not because of any policy decision, one way or the other made by legislators of the United Kingdom, but because European Union law demands that it cannot apply.

But whichever side of the argument you are on one thing should be clear, and that is that “it should be for ourselves as legislators... to make this decision not to have it imposed upon us, and not to have UK Ministers going around trying to gild the lily or portray it as a choice. It is not a choice.”

The DUP peer said: “We are not sovereign and we cannot make our own animal welfare decisions for the whole of the country.

“Once again, the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom has been set to one side, the right to make democratic decisions by UK lawmakers has been set to one side and the sovereignty of our country in this area has been set to one side.

“That is unacceptable and the fight will go on to highlight the denial of equal citizenship to the people of NI as a result of these inequitable arrangements”.