Imports from EU to UK: Grace Period

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, obviously there is a distinction in how we manage goods imported from the rest of the world compared to those from the European Union. That is consistent with WTO law and is obviously dependent on the special circumstances of us leaving the customs union and the single market. It is our intention, of course, to have a single set of world-class rules by 2025—if possible, earlier—for all goods that will give us the best border in the world. The decisions that we have taken on import controls are consistent with that and on that trajectory.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

I welcome my noble friend’s decision to prolong the grace periods, for the reasons that my noble friend Lord Moylan spelled out earlier, but will he confirm that experience of grace periods in Northern Ireland shows the wisdom of what he is doing: that refraining from introducing the additional controls that the EU wanted us to impose on trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland has not resulted in a flow of goods into the EU across the Irish border or undermined EU standards in any way, and that the only reason the EU is persisting in wanting us to apply those controls is to punish us and the people of Northern Ireland for Brexit?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

Of course, I agree very much with the thrust of my noble friend’s question. We believe that in the decisions we have taken, both in the context of the protocol and on trade more broadly, we are showing pragmatism in the way we are managing our borders, with a due focus on the real levels of risk involved. We hope that the European Union will do the same in the context of Northern Ireland and allow us to put in place arrangements, as set out in our Command Paper, that are consistent with those levels of risk.