No plans to extend grace periods for post-brexit trade, insists NI Secretary
THE Government is not envisaging any extension of grace periods that limit Brexit red tape at the Irish Sea border, the Northern Ireland Secretary has said.
Brandon Lewis faced robust questioning on the new arrangements governing the movement of goods from Great Britain into Northern Ireland as he appeared before a Westminster committee yesterday.
A number of grace periods are currently in operation before the Northern Ireland Protocol, which governs GB to NI trade post-brexit, comes into full force.
They apply to some certificates for animal-based food products; the import of some products from GB that will be banned under the protocol, such as sausages; and declarations on most parcels.
Despite the grace periods, some trade has been disrupted, with some supermarket shelves depleted of goods and hauliers facing difficulties moving products.
Mr Lewis told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that the UK and EU were working to address the issues related to the
protocol but said he did not expect the grace periods to be further extended past their current end dates.
“We’re not at the moment in a position where we want to be looking at extending the grace periods,” he said. “The idea of grace periods, from our point of view, is to find a solution that means that that can continue to flow, to do that working with the industry, working with our partners in the EU as well.”
Mr Lewis said it was the intention to find “fixed permanent solutions” to issues related to the Northern Ireland Protocol “well before” the grace periods came to an end.
DUP MP Ian Paisley told Mr Lewis the protocol operation had been an “unmitigated disaster”.
He said he was aware of haulage companies “haemorrhaging” £100,000 a week and having to lay off staff because they were unable to move produce due to the new red tape.
“Secretary of State, there’s a de facto border administrative, red tape blockade between trade in Northern Ireland and GB and your government promised that there would be unfettered movement,” the North Antrim representative said.
“The first 20 days of January has been an unmitigated disaster for trade, haven’t they?”
Mr Lewis said the Government was working through issues that had emerged. He said progress on problems associated with “groupage” would be announced in the coming days.
The Secretary of State again reiterated his belief that shortages of some products were down to the new Covid variant.
“Some of these issues and challenges have been a mixture of things coming together, whether it was Covid more widely in terms of pressures on supply and the Covid issues that we saw at Dover,” he claimed.