27
Examination of witnesses
Roger Pollen and Alexander Kinnear.
Q17 The Chair: Welcome. Today, we are holding the second evidence session of our new inquiry into strengthening Northern Ireland’s voice in the context of the Windsor Framework. We are joined today by two Northern Ireland business representatives of high reputation: Alexander Kinnear is the Parliamentary Officer of the Ulster Farmers’ Union; and Roger Pollen is the Head of the Federation of Small Businesses for Northern Ireland at the Federation of Small Businesses. You are both very welcome; we are very pleased to see you. Could you please introduce yourselves the first time you speak?
I should tell you that today’s meeting is being broadcast. A verbatim transcript will be taken for subsequent publication, which will be sent to you, the witnesses, to check for accuracy. I refer to the list of Members’ interests as published on the committee’s website.
I will start with the first question, if I may. Can you assess for us the extent to which the voices of Northern Ireland businesses are currently being heard in the context of the Windsor Framework? By my reference to “Northern Ireland businesses”, I mean: are the real businesses—the people who run the businesses—being heard, not merely you who represent them?
Roger Pollen: I like the clarification on that because we are a representative body. There is a lot of challenge around the fact that real businesses’ voices are not being heard effectively.
I start by declaring an interest as a panel member of Intertrade UK. I want to put that on the record because we will probably refer to it in the course of this morning.
There has certainly been an awful lot of engagement of business organisations. Where possible, we try to bring members with us to illustrate points and articulate the issues that they are having, but you could not regard it as an effective engagement with the genuine voices of people who run businesses. Irrespective of where people sit on what has happened, how we have got here and whether or not it is working well for businesses, to hear those voices is a rare thing.
At the start of the process, as the Northern Ireland Protocol was coming in, and then the Windsor Framework, we decided to map our entire membership and, by default, the entirety of businesses in Northern Ireland. We have about 6,000 members in Northern Ireland. It is the business owner who joins us as a member, not the business; that is a key distinction. However, we also have about 150,000 members right across the whole of the UK. We have a fairly unique voice to bring to this because when it comes to trading with, into and from Northern Ireland, we have a membership we can engage with to get information there.
When we mapped the businesses, we found that there were five clear cohorts: the ones that were doing very well under the new arrangements; the ones that were largely unaffected; the ones that were largely unaware, which tended to be very small businesses for which somebody else was dealing with the process; the ones that were protected by grace periods; and the ones that were affected very badly. No business in Northern Ireland is not captured by those five cohorts. Some may be in more than one, while some may move from one to another over time, but there is no sixth cohort.
That was what we chose as the group we needed to engage with, in order to make sure that their voices were adequately heard and considered whenever anybody was trying to do anything around the implementation of the framework. That is the short answer. We try to make sure that those voices are heard and brought forward. We use lots of channels to do that, but there is a significant onus on the representative bodies to try to engage.
In mapping the environment, I looked at the terms of reference of your inquiry here. They include the “complex institutional architecture” around the Windsor Framework, and you say that you hope to bring clarity to the picture. We are delighted that you are taking that lead, because there is an immense complexity of organisations that have a responsibility for the implementation and enforcement of the new situation. Nobody has a clear overview of what that entire field looks like. If you can get to it through this organisation, we will be delighted to assist you in that work.
Alexander Kinnear: Good morning to everybody. I say the same as the FSB and Roger: we very much welcome the return of the committee and its good work—and, indeed, the people specifically from Northern Ireland. Your input is very much wanted, and our president thanks the committee for its work. To set the context of where we are at, we are obviously a membership body; we are a grass-roots organisation, and our policies are created from the grass roots up. It is our farmers and our farm family members, of which about 12,000 farm families are included. Those are the people who decide the position and policies of the Ulster Farmers’ Union; that is who I am here to represent today.
At the very start of this journey, we marked success as a deal that worked for all. North-south, things were working very well and continue to do so, but we are experiencing big problems east-west with trade. That has really been the story of Brexit so far. In terms of the extent to which the voices of Northern Ireland are being listened to, I have to say that, at a very high level, those voices are being listened to. Of course, we had different run-ins, if you like—to put it mildly—with the previous Government in terms of their ambitions. We got to a better place with the Windsor Framework, which was of course was welcomed. We then had an election both here and in Europe, and only now are we getting into the crux of a lot of the problems that are still outstanding.
We still have our office out in Brussels, the British Agriculture Bureau, which is an office that the four farming unions put money into and have ownership of. That is our key voice out there going forward. We are still members of Copa-Cogeca as well, which represents the farming unions of Europe; I can go on to explain slightly more about its work later on. At the minute, it feels like we are between significant moments: we are between the Windsor Framework and its implementation, but we are also keeping a very close eye on what the Government are doing in terms of their resetting of our relationship with Europe.
At a membership level, confidence in the Government is at an all-time low. No matter what happens in negotiations, trust is the key issue. The decisions the Government have taken are questionable at the minute, particularly around inheritance tax and other issues. What our members feel is that they are not being valued in the machinery of government; that is posing huge issues right across a number of issues. We are optimistic on the Brexit stuff—again, high-level negotiations and stakeholder engagement are going well—but the problems start arising whenever we look under the bonnet.
The Chair: The co-chairs of the Specialised Committee on the Implementation of the Windsor Framework committed to meet groups of Northern Ireland business and civil society stakeholders before meetings of specialised committees. Has that happened? If so, to what extent?
Alexander Kinnear: That leads us on to the stakeholder engagement at a high level; that engagement happens every few months before the JCWG meets. That is welcomed engagement but, again, it is at a very high level. The problem with a lot of this stuff is around how we interpret what we hear back from those meetings in a public way to our various committees. I come back to the point that we are a democratic organisation, and some detail is at that high level. It is very difficult then to explain to people on the ground the progress that has been gained and how the Commission or the UK Government are taking up our information going forward. Yes, it is happening on paper, but, as to what benefits there are, that is probably questionable at some stages.
The Chair: Mr Pollen, has your organisation—as you said, it is an umbrella organisation for a huge number of businesses—had any direct contact of a meaningful kind with the European Union since the Windsor Framework?
Roger Pollen: Yes, we have. I was struck by the comments that Baroness Foster made in last week’s session about how you can be invited to attend, you can be participating, and you can be engaged and consulted, but does that actually mean there is any meaningful conversation and dialogue? Earlier this week, we had an engagement with the EU, in which we were given a sense of all of the regulations and legislation that will come forward in its work programme and which will have an impact on Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, the terms under which we were given that briefing are such that we cannot go and share it with you or with our members.
We then have the question of how we can make sure that that is of any value. Is that meaningful? We may know about it, but we cannot share it. I would like to get back to the point that we represent our members; we do not live their lived experience, so we need to understand how something that may be happening to them may affect them, get that intelligence and feed it back in. That is what we would regard as engagement.
The Chair: What does it claim is the basis for these non-disclosure arrangements?
Roger Pollen: I do not know that there was a basis for it; we were just asked not to share it more widely outside. There were a lot of people there. It was a large room; there were 100 to 150 people in attendance, including various government departments and so on. If a leak comes from it, it will not be from us, because we were asked to treat the information that we were given confidentially.
The Chair: They asked 150 people not to leak it?
Q18 Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee: I must say, if 150 people in Parliament were asked not to leak something, it would quickly be on the front page of some national paper, but I admire your fortitude. Who was this briefing from, Roger? That is what I want to get to. Who were the people from the European Union giving you this briefing? You have already touched on this but how can you come back on that if you do not know what your members’ experience is in relation to these issues?
Roger Pollen: I will draw Alexander in shortly, because he was also in attendance. It seems to me that it is evidence that the process is not yet where it needs to be, where it ought to be and where we hope it will get to. There is an enormous raft of bodies associated with the Windsor Framework. We would like to see it simplified and given the heft of the UK Government—probably in the Cabinet Office or at that sort of level—to engage as we did when the UK was a part of the EU, in order to understand what is coming down the track; to consider the implications of that for businesses generally in the UK and, specifically, how it might impact in Northern Ireland; and to make sure that we have timely notice of what it is like to engage with that market. At the moment, we are seeing it be shared with us in that way. We are now sighted on what the Commission—
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee: Who is sharing it? Sorry.
Alexander Kinnear: Broadly, it is Commission officials, who are the heads of those departments representing the key areas that are going to have an impact on Northern Ireland. We want to respect the confidences of what was said. It is similar to how the Veterinary Medicines Working Group operates: we get information and try to come up with plans on different things. Again, the problem with a lot of this is that the various government structures have to consult and listen but, legally, they do not have to act on anything we say. This leads us back to the big problem.
We are witnessing what is happening in Europe with regard to its work programme and its desire to simplify bureaucracy. They talked about food security and different things. Those are all ambitions that businesses can sign up for. The difficulty that arises is around the fact that we are not a member state; we have all the onus, burden and responsibility of a member state, yet the inability to influence it in a great way. That is why we still have a presence in Brussels with our own office, and that is where we are getting 99% of our information from.
One big request from us as an organisation is that the Northern Ireland Executive Office out there should be the key place for information and should act as a bridge. It does a lot of good work, but it is abundantly clear that it does not have the resources to cover what it needs to do; a blind man on a galloping horse could see that.
Q19 Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick: As a follow-on to that issue, many of us, as former Ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive, have experienced that. Basically, they were more an event-organising authority than anything else. What needs to happen there to act as a conduit or a bridge for engagement purposes? A subset of that is: who instructed confidentiality? Was it the European Commission, the UK Government or both?
Roger Pollen: My recollection of it is that we were invited to the meeting through the Northern Ireland Executive, who set out the terms on which the engagement was going to be conducted. I think that those terms came from the European Commission, but they were certainly reinforced as it made its exposition. Was that jointly, or was one just communicating what it had been asked to do and the terms on which it had been offered it? I am slightly twitchy about the Northern Ireland Executive being the sole repository of this. It needs the heft of the UK Government because this impacts on so many things, and it is about ensuring that trade within the UK flows smoothly.
Our concern is that Northern Ireland is seen by many people—even among some of our members—as, “That problem over there. Too difficult to deal with, we’re going to disengage. It’s only 2.9% of our business”. That is not acceptable; it is not good enough. We cannot allow barriers, or perceived barriers, to arise. That is why, if we allow this to be seen as a Northern Ireland solution to a Northern Ireland problem, it will just be compartmentalised and pushed away. We would like to turn it around the other way and say—accepting that Northern Ireland has a different dispensation from the rest of the UK—that for businesses in GB to engage with Northern Ireland is like the nursery slope for selling into the EU.
That ought to matter to the UK Government. If they want growth in Westminster, they need to make sure that businesses across GB are equipped to engage with the structures and requirements that we have in Northern Ireland, because that is like a baby step into Europe. This puts us at the heart of things, but justifiably and reasonably at the heart of things. That is where we would like to see it going. To give a title to it—you may want to get a more saleable one—an Office of Regulatory Divergence is really what we need, to understand where we have diverged. It is not just about with Europe—it may be with other markets that we see the UK doing trade deals with—but what is the divergence? What does business need to know about that? Where is the opportunity? Where is the threat? Where is the requirement to restructure?
Lord Empey: This has been a fascinating 12 minutes of evidence so far. I am still not quite clear as to under what umbrella this meeting took place, because we have this multiplicity of bodies. Was it one of them, or is this another ad hoc mixture?
Roger Pollen: I believe that it was convened by the Northern Ireland Executive Office in Brussels.
Alexander Kinnear: Yes, it convened it, but this is an annual seminar that the Commission has endeavoured to produce for Northern Ireland stakeholders as its annual work programme is released. It gave an assurance—I assume that it was part of the Windsor Framework—that it would brief stakeholders and give an opportunity to detail specifically.
Lord Empey: Does that mean it was an ad hoc arrangement, as opposed to one of the formal bodies that already exists? That is what I am trying to get at, because we understand the complexities, which are baffling in many respects. Maybe we can clarify this later.
Lord Hain: You talked very interestingly about the issues that you have encountered with Brussels and the UK Government. What about Stormont? Do you use Stormont at all to advance your interests in respect of the impact of European matters?
Roger Pollen: There are several issues there. The first is that, if you go back to August 2016, the then First and deputy First Ministers came together jointly and wrote a letter to the Prime Minister to set out what Northern Ireland wanted from the Brexit settlement that was likely to arise. It was seen as a very positive thing that Stormont was working collectively to articulate its ask. The problem we have at the moment is that Stormont does not really operate in that way. There is a sense that this is slightly dislocated from its day-to-day activity, and it is being ill served.
We have been asked to engage with the Democratic Scrutiny Committee on a couple of occasions on unacceptably short notice, because it had been asked to do a piece of work with unacceptably short notice. It is being asked to do something that is very difficult to do, then it is coming to business organisations to see whether we can we add to its knowledge. That is not a good way for the process to operate. That is why we think that it would be much better served by this single Office of Regulatory Divergence briefing it and letting it understand what the implications of things that are going through the European Commission might be for Northern Ireland. It can then equip itself much better to ask the right questions of business organisations, which will then engage with our members to make sure that it is their experience that actually informs the discussions and the argument.
We were given seven days’ notice—five working days’ notice—to respond to two queries in January of this year. You cannot do that, and you cannot have anybody then tick the box and say, “Well, we consulted with business and business didn’t push back on it”. We have made it clear that writing to us in those terms is not something that will be accepted as saying, “We have consulted with business”.
Lord Hain: Is that a blockage at the official level or the member level?
Roger Pollen: Funnily enough, the committee chair and vice-chair then invited us to come in and meet them, along with their two clerks, to discuss how this can be done better—not, “How can we do this better?”, but, “How can this be done better?” It came back to this point about having much more adequate notice of what they need to consider and the information they need to gather to make a positive contribution to the process.
I would like to make one final point on this. Your mapping of all the bodies, then using that to design a better wrapper around those, may well bring clarity to it in a way that the institutions of Stormont, Westminster and the European Union can then operate much better and more clearly.
Q20 The Chair: We have dwelt on this question because it is a very important one; these have been a very productive few minutes. My reflections, briefly, are that, first, I do not understand how the European Commission—or, indeed, anyone else—can demand that representative organisations do not pass on the information that is given to them to their membership. Secondly, doing that is contrary to the spirit of the Windsor Framework, quite plainly, which is intended to help businesses in Northern Ireland. Thank you very much for highlighting those very important points.
Baroness O’Loan: Thank you very much for your evidence thus far, because it has been really interesting. Mr Pollen, you talked about the overall structure around the Windsor Framework. We have various diagrams that show us the multiplicity of organisations. One of our aims is to work out what sits where; what is effective and what is not; how the various terms of reference cross each other; and, therefore, where there is duplication of work, et cetera.
Having said that, and having observed the Chair’s contribution there, have you informed the United Kingdom Government that, if such a meeting were to be held again, it should be made very clear that you need the opportunity to represent your businesses not simply by being there but by bringing the information back to them? I can quite easily see that there is a need to protect commercial interests but, even allowing for the protection of commercial interests, when the Commission’s work programmes and things like that are published, you need to put bones on them and understand what these words mean.
I suppose my question is: how can you possibly prepare to engage with something when you have been told it is going to happen, but you cannot tell anyone about it? Where you have these critically short time limits that you are talking about, if you had the opportunity to share what you had learned in theory—which it sounds like you had—that would enable you to identify possible problems and solutions. If you are reacting in very short time periods, that is not possible. Have you asked the Government to change that modus operandi?
Roger Pollen: No, we have not. I think we will. To be honest, I spent some time with my team yesterday trying to understand exactly what the origins of this commitment were. Tracing it back, I think there was a commitment in February 2023 to give this annual update. I was trying to understand who had made the commitment to whom, how binding it was, and so on. We are at the start of the process of understanding, if 27 member states know what the work programme is and we know what it is, where is the value is in retaining some degree of wrapper around that? That is something we will be doing. We first need to work out what we will learn from it and why it might have been structured the way it was, and then go and ask the questions.
Alexander Kinnear: It adds an unnecessary complexity to the system, but it is as a result of Europe explaining its work programme—it has assured us that it is going to do that—another body dealing with the everyday Brexit problems, but then there is this issue of future EU law. Roger made a key distinction between tracking divergence within the UK and what that meant with the EU, but also future EU law which applies in Northern Ireland. That is of direct consequence to our members and our farmers, because they are going to have to farm every day. Whether it is the animal welfare and transport regulations that have to be amended, or whatever it is, there needs to be somebody in the system lobbying within Europe.
That is the key thing going forward. We are all doing this because our farmers pay a membership, and we are doing it privately. We are doing it through our BAB office—as I explained—Copa-Cogeca, and different things. Our vision for the Executive office in Brussels, particularly from an agriculture point of view, is that there needs to be somebody keeping an eye on what all these various changes are going to mean for Northern Ireland. Other member states are in early, and they are getting derogations for problems that do not suit. I sat before this committee a couple of years ago explaining the different problems around glyphosate, while other member states were in there lobbying with the Commission.
EU law applying in Northern Ireland is not necessarily a bad thing; if we want to sell our product into the single market, we have no choice but to sign up to those rules. There is no way around that. But as we adjust to this new normal and it becomes more set in stone, we need to address that democratic deficit in the system currently, and that is the key thing. It is very clear the Northern Ireland Civil Service does not have the capacity to do it. It has a lot of knowledge and willpower, but it needs the resource to be able to check out what this law is going to mean in a practical way in Northern Ireland. We are trying our best to do that, but again, it should not be on us to do the Government’s work.
The Chair: Forgive me for interrupting you, but you used the phrase “other member states” twice. Is that the problem?
Alexander Kinnear: Northern Ireland is within the EU regulatory zone, so there are no questions about that. As a result of that, EU law will apply, and that is fine. We have accepted that as an organisation. The issue is how we use other member states, how we act as other member states, to begin lobbying the Commission for specific derogations, for example, for Northern Ireland.
Take animal welfare and transport: because of Northern Ireland’s geographical location, we export hundreds of thousands of lambs to the Republic of Ireland and then they go to mainland Europe. Currently, Europe is bringing in a regime to improve animal welfare. How do we get that message across from Northern Ireland over to Brussels about the mitigations that are needed? That is the key role. DAERA has the knowledge of the industry at home, but how is that bridge then crossed between Belfast, London and Brussels?
Q21 Baroness O’Loan: The question I was supposed to ask you was about the generality of working with the European Union under the Windsor Framework, but particularly through the Joint Consultative Working Group’s thematic subgroups. Mr Kinnear, you said you are a member of the veterinary medicines one, is that correct?
Alexander Kinnear: The veterinary medicines group is not one of those groups, it is a separate one.
Baroness O’Loan: One of our questions from looking at the evidence we received last week was: have these thematic subgroups ever met? What are the terms of reference, et cetera? How would you assess the effectiveness of the thematic subgroups and other relevant structures, and how could they be improved?
Roger Pollen: That is not an area that we have huge engagement with. Alexander may have through the farmers’ union because it is more subject-specific, whereas we are a general representative body. In terms of the engagement, it goes back to this point that you can meet or engage, and they can be quite different things. Yesterday alone, we took two calls in the office. One was a walk-in, and one was a phone call from non-members who are experiencing difficulty in trading between GB and Northern Ireland. They came to us as the portal for finding out who would know about what they need to know to get on with their business.
That shows that there is a need for some sort of one-stop shop. It also shows the need for the regulatory divergence office sitting behind that, which understands and maps all of that and then makes it available in an understandable and very user-friendly and accessible way. That is what seems to be missing. All these bits of engagement, sub-committees and everything else are all very well, provided you know that you are getting the right people to come in to bring the knowledge they have from their industry into play. You had horticulture last week, I believe; you have farming; —you have so many different subsectors that have something relevant to contribute. It is unclear where they should take the knowledge they have to improve the system.
Baroness O’Loan: Have you actually met with any one of the subgroups, whether it is customs or whatever it is?
Roger Pollen: I believe so.
Baroness O’Loan: It is just because you described meetings, and I fully accept that meetings are necessary vehicles for communication, but you do not seem to be getting a communication that can proceed on.
The Chair: It does not sound like a very memorable meeting.
Baroness O’Loan: The question is whether they are operational. Are they doing what they should do? What is it that they should do anyway, for you as businesses in Northern Ireland? That is why I asked the question. Maybe you could come back to the committee on that.
Roger Pollen: This is part of the mapping exercise as well, to know who they are and what they are meant to be achieving. Are they doing what they are meant to achieve? Who is aware of that? Who is contributing into them? At the moment it is known unknowns; it is Donald Rumsfeld. We do not know what we do not know.
Baroness O’Loan: Mr Kinnear, you have the advantage of actually sitting on a working group, do you not?
Alexander Kinnear: Well, again, the Veterinary Medicines Working Group was formed out of Safeguarding the Union, so that sits outside. Whenever the Joint Consultative Working Group and the subgroups were announced, we took great delight in thinking this was going to be an opportunity for stakeholders to physically be there, to challenge but also work with the commissioner, whoever it was. Then we were told after the announcement that stakeholders would not be permitted to attend those things.
The way it works at the minute is that, before the subgroups sit, the UK Mission officials out in Brussels would approach our office out there and ask what is currently happening and what has happened since the last time we met. They are not working very effectively; that is how I would summarise it. We are back to the crux of the matter. If Europe is saying it is 100% compliance and nothing else, and if the Labour Government are saying it is full and faithful implementation, then what is the purpose of raising issues about current Brexit problems if everybody is going to go with 100% compliance?
Again, the key distinction is separating day-to-day Brexit problems—whether that is veterinary medicines or plant protection products—from future EU law. We could apply the learnings from the mistakes made around Brexit to future EU law applying in Northern Ireland, and that is the key thing. The Windsor Framework is full of a litany of consultations, bodies, promises, hopes and dreams, but have they been fulfilled? The answer is no. But can they be? Yes.
Baroness O’Loan: The essence of a Joint Consultative Working Group is that it consults, not that it provides information in a one-way structure and does not allow you to come to the meeting in order to be consulted. The purpose of the thematic subgroup must also be to consult. It sounds like you are saying to us that actually it is not working the way it should.
Alexander Kinnear: Not the way it was promoted at the start. That is the key thing. It could work a lot better, but allowing the stakeholders to be physically present would be the best way to do that, in my opinion.
Q22 Lord McInnes of Kilwinning: You have both answered very well the issues around the number of structures that form the architecture of the Windsor Framework, and we would have a pretty good guess at how you might answer how easy and clear it is for your members to engage. I want to ask something slightly different. You are obviously both completely immersed in this process, and your members get the benefit of that, but what about stakeholders outside the big membership bodies?
Both your organisations are very lucky to have you doing the job. For those outside those big membership organisations, what do you think their perception would be of the architecture around the Windsor Framework and the structures that they should engage? Mr Pollen, could you also speak a bit more about the idea of a one-stop shop?
Roger Pollen: I suspect that the further you go away from the representative organisations, the less people are aware of those structures. They probably know the bit that they have to engage with and are not aware of all the other things. Genuinely, I do not think we are aware of all the bodies that have some sort of purview on it, so how could they be? I am just trying to pick up the second part of your question, if you would not mind just giving it to me again.
Lord McInnes of Kilwinning: The idea of a one-stop shop.
Roger Pollen: You need to map it first to understand what is being done. I am sure there is a vast amount of really good work being done that matters somewhere in the system. We need to map it all and then see how that could be put into, I repeat, the Office of Regulatory Divergence, and then have a front end of that, which is the one-stop shop—in the way that, whenever you go to buy a new phone, you will go into a nice, shiny high street store, and they will tell you everything you need to know. You will not know about masts, satellites, regulatory agreements, roaming charges and contracts. You do not need to know that; you just get what you need out of it.
That is what we need. We need the back end to be hugely competent and fully aware of all the issues, and the front end to make it very usable for businesses. It is not just in Northern Ireland; this is the point we need to keep getting across. This is about businesses across the UK, because Northern Ireland is in some ways the canary in the mine. If you cannot easily engage with Northern Ireland, you cannot easily engage with the European Union, and why would you cut off that market? Let us focus on getting this working as well and in as high-profile a way as possible. It seems to us that the one-stop shop is a good way of achieving that. The risk will be that every one of those bodies will set up a one-stop shop.
Q23 Lord Willis of Knaresborough: I want to come down to some basics now, because I am a basic thinker. The reason for my question is that some 30 organisations have been set up to have some input into the governance of the Windsor Framework, and we have obviously said that that needs to be clarified. Yet, according to the Open University—some research I was involved with—and British Chambers of Commerce, some 44% of business organisations in Northern Ireland are reporting worrying skills shortages, which are basically the things that matter to companies, not just the stuff at the top.
Much of our discussion this morning has been at the top of the pile rather than at the bottom, which is where so many businesses are concerned. In particular, out of that 44%, 67% have reported a lack of confidence in adopting new AI technologies, and a further 51% in applying green technologies. They are the two areas that are going to make the most fundamental difference to Northern Ireland’s economy in the next 10, 15 or 20 years.
How can we start addressing those very high-placed but basic issues that are absolutely crucial to get in with the EU? If you take the EU AI legislation, which came in over two years ago, the UK has not done its own yet. It is thinking of doing it, but it is not doing it. When it came to Northern Ireland, everything was agreed. You are now facing AI regulations that are based in Europe, when Britain does not have its own in yet. I just wonder how on earth we are going to get an organisation that is going to enable that to happen, so that the ordinary small businesses, which many using AI will be, can possibly operate.
Alexander Kinnear: I just want to make a specific point on the previous question. To be fair to Queen’s University, it does a great job of explaining a lot of this detail, and I use it as a reference tool most days when it comes to speaking on Brexit. The other point I would make to people who are not a part of our organisations is the importance of being in them. Of course we are going to say that, but it has made our argument for us.
On your point about Northern Ireland’s economy and dealing with issues, one good example in terms of agriculture is the secondary legislation to implement the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act, which is currently going through this House. There is not a farmer in the land who would not welcome the fact that the Government are pushing on with that. The problem is that we have to follow Europe’s rules on that, and it has its own version of precision breeding, which is slightly different. It poses a question about grasping the future and Europe being caught up in bureaucracy. Obviously, we are trying to get 27 member states to agree to a proposal, and we are trying to work out how that is all going to balance out.
I would make the point again, as I did at the start, about Northern Ireland’s economy. What the Government have done as a result of the Budget, particularly to the agriculture sector, needs to be addressed—first and foremost in relation to inheritance tax and protecting family farms—before we can have conversations about shoring up our economy. Agri-food is putting about £6 billion through Northern Ireland’s economy. We represent all our farm members. There are about 630,000 people living rurally in Northern Ireland. Until that sole issue is addressed, there is not much point in the Government worrying about Northern Ireland’s economy, because whenever that tax comes in, our farm families will be in serious difficulty.
Roger Pollen: You touched on three areas there. Skills are a devolved matter. Today, we are getting the Spring Statement. There is always the risk that skills could be cut to compensate for something else. We are trying to keep the pressure on making sure that that is not where any savings might be made, because the skills needs in Northern Ireland are huge.
In terms of AI, you are on to a really interesting area for several reasons. First, in the implementation of the Protocol and then into the Windsor Framework there were opportunities, and FSB members came together to develop and explore them, as to how to use frictionless trade using technology. You can have stuff moving from GB into Northern Ireland without it ever having to be stopped in the port, because you have an authenticated trail locked on to the blockchain: unimpeachable integrity and a single source of the truth. That was developed by our members, and we trialled it and demonstrated it to lots of Ministers and officials to show that it could be done without the impediments we have today. Unfortunately, we have developed an analogue system when the rest of the world is moving beyond digital into AI. That is an unwise place for anybody to be, but it is where we are.
Regarding your point on AI that goods in Northern Ireland will be subject to EU regulation, we are genuinely trying to get to grips with the implications of that at the moment. We have asked a lot of people about it, what their thoughts are, and so on. Where are the opportunities? Where are the threats? Where are the challenges from it? We are at the start of the slope on learning what that might mean. You are absolutely right to have identified it as an issue that could bring lots of opportunity but also challenges.
The Chair: That leads us very nicely into a question that Baroness Ritchie is going to ask about the timeliness of engagement and consultation.
Q24 Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick: You are both very welcome. In terms of the office of regulatory divergence, where should it be located?
Roger Pollen: Our sense is that it should probably be right at the heart of government because so many other—
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick: Should it be in the Cabinet Office?
Roger Pollen: We think so. It is probably not unlike a beefed-up version of what we used to have in Brussels as the Mission there, when we were a member state. It needs that heft to it. I will give an example; we went on to the HMRC website last Tuesday to look at the change in the regulations to parcels. There were various links through to all the bits and pieces that people need to apply, except for one on SPS parcels. It said, “Defra will be providing guidance on this”, but it was not there. There was no link; there was not even a timeline for expecting one. So there were two bits of government addressing the one area. From a business point of view, it is one area and yet it is not fully joined up, not to a conclusion. We think we need something that is upstream of that, which pulls it all together and takes ownership.
Back to the point you asked earlier, Baroness Ritchie, about the Executive’s role in this, you would like to think that the Executive would take a degree of ownership of the outputs of this office and say, “Okay, where is the opportunity for Northern Ireland, where might we need to put pressure to try to get some degree of change there, but act coherently to try to make sure that it works well for Northern Ireland?” At the moment they have so many inputs to grapple with, it does not happen.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick: Before I proceed, just for the benefit of the committee, if you have any detail about the Office of Regulatory Divergence and how it would work, it would be useful maybe if you could send that on to the Chair, for the benefit of the Chair and members of the committee. It would be useful for us in writing our report.
I will move on to the other issue. In evidence taken by the former sub-committee on the Windsor Framework—to which you both probably contributed—witnesses emphasised the importance of upstream engagement, meaning early engagement with the EU—not engaging with the joint consultative committee after it has done all its work, but engaging with it originally and being allowed to do that.
In that view, to what extent do you think the Protocol/Windsor Framework’s engagement structures enable Northern Ireland stakeholders to engage with relevant EU legislation at an early stage of the legislative process? Do you think that businesses and public representatives from Northern Ireland should be involved in an active way in that process with the joint consultative committee, not simply sitting there, but actively participating, helping to shape future decision-making and future policies?
Alexander Kinnear: The answer is yes, we obviously should be in the room and should have every opportunity we can. To re-emphasise, that is why we have maintained our position out in Brussels. I suppose we have the ability to respond to EU consultations when it announces a change in legislation or whatever that may be, but of course, as we have discussed previously, that is very high-level.
The other matter comes down to the resources of ourselves as organisations.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick: That is the second part of the question.
Alexander Kinnear: Of course, we will do our best to represent our members, but we cannot cross-reference every piece of legislation that comes out of Europe, whether it is to do with agriculture or a rural way of life or whatever angle of business it takes. That is a collaboration between the devolved departments at home, in our case obviously DAERA and then Defra on a London scale, and then the UK Mission office. It is about drilling down into what these problems are actually going to mean. As our BAB director often makes the case, it is not about high-level legislation, it is about the secondary pieces and the pieces below that, it is about roll-out and implementation, and that is really where we are becoming unstuck. The rest of our Brexit issues act as a mask and take away from the importance of dealing with future EU law. That is the key thing, and a key message we want to get out of today.
There are lots of pieces coming forward; to oversimplify it, everything in Europe regarding agriculture, apart from direct environment legislation, will apply in Northern Ireland. That is a massive task. Again, when we mentioned earlier about the Executive Office, there are only about two DAERA staff in that office keeping an eye on things, and that is an impossible task. So it is a collaboration between the devolved departments and the businesses in Northern Ireland and how we can best feed into the wider networks and bring that information where they need it.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick: As a consequence of that, you both believe that you and your representative bodies should be in there at the very beginning to shape those discussions and ultimately shape the decision making.
Alexander Kinnear: Yes. If stuff directly applies in Northern Ireland, we should have a say.
The Chair: Can I suggest to you that we are talking about two subjects here? One is methodology: what should be happening between the EU and Government in Northern Ireland or in London? The other subject is issues: how can individual issues be dealt with? Now, if people are lucky enough to be represented by a group of farming unions in Brussels, the issues are going to be dealt with in some way or another. But it seems to me that you are saying the methodology is lacking.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick: Hear, hear.
The Chair: Is that right?
Alexander Kinnear: Yes, that is a good summary. On Brexit issues specifically, the lesson has been that whoever shouted the loudest got an answer. Farmers are quite good at shouting. We have plenty of experience from the Budget with the amount of protests we have had to attend. That should not be the way it happens. We often hear from civil servants back home that they have no input or ability to control or manage EU legislation. That is an inaccurate phrase, because the Windsor Framework is full of opportunities to have the ability to influence change, it is about how we use them.
But, again, who is responsible? That is the key question. Is it the Northern Ireland Office? Is it the Department for Business and Trade? Is it Defra? Is it the Cabinet Office? Is it DAERA? Is it the Executive Office? Is it us? Is it the Commission?
The Chair: Mr Pollen, if I can use another metaphor; we have the metaphor of the glass half-full. We have the metaphor of the glass that is full. Do we have here a glass that is overflowing with so many structures and bodies involved that the job of actually providing the methodology is failing?
Roger Pollen: That is a reasonable analogy. It brings us back to the challenge that Baroness Ritchie has thrown us, to come up with a paper that articulates what the Office for Regulatory Divergence might look like, because we would need to go and understand all those bodies and see what they are actually doing to make sure that a single office would be able to encapsulate all that and do it effectively.
Alexander made a very good and interesting point about how those with the loudest voices managed to get their issue pushed up the agenda and resolved. I go back to the five cohorts that we mapped. Those in the fifth cohort were the ones that were badly affected. They may not be the largest number, they may not have the loudest voice, they may or may not be members of a representative body, but they should not be trampled on just because of that. So we need to find a way of making sure that the system does it.
Before Brexit, we had the same number of staff, who were very busy doing all our other work. Now this has come along, we need to engage in ways that our members would expect, but it is quite a burden on those members to fund the operation to try to change the dial on an international relationship. So we need to get a better structure in place, one that we can feed into rather than be the lead on.
The Chair: Let us bring in Baroness Foster’s experience here.
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee: We are talking a lot about methodology, and I think this is a fascinating evidence session. But surely the fundamental is, if you are not allowed to share the work programme with your members then you can have all the structures you want but you cannot actually feed what you need to feed into the structures at a very early stage, which is what Margaret is talking about: upstream information going into the stream. So you can have all those structures, but if you are not allowed by the European Commission—we need to bottom out who has said you cannot share this information—then there is no real purpose to it because you are reacting when the regulations actually come out.
Roger Pollen: You are right. We are pulling on a chain and there is a broken link in it. We need to understand why it was broken and, if it was deliberately put in as a broken link, we need to repair it.
The Chair: These are great metaphors this morning.
Roger Pollen: What would it take to repair it, and then make it work seamlessly? If we are expected to comply with the EU regulations in Northern Ireland it should not be to anybody’s disadvantage that we share what is likely to be changing in the year ahead with our members in advance, and then they can inform the process. They may not like what comes down, but at least they will have been party to it and have adapted so that we can be more compliant. So the force of the argument will be on our side. I would be surprised if we do not get somewhere with it.
The Chair: That neatly brings us to the question that Lord Dodds is going to ask.
Q20 Lord Dodds of Duncairn: Thanks for your evidence thus far. It has been very interesting. In this talk about the high-level work programme of the European Commission, I was very struck by what Alexander said: it is really the hundreds of regulations and directives that come out that you need to keep an eye on. That is where the real changes happen, and even with an engagement in that, it is very high-level. It is the day-to-day stuff, as we have discovered in this committee, which makes the cumulative difference regulatory-wise between Britain and Northern Ireland.
We have talked a lot about methodology and engagement at a high level, but I want to ask about the legal requirements for trade that is going on and the experience of businesses that trade GB to NI and with the EU. You mentioned at the start, Alexander, that there were big problems east-west. Two weeks ago, the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee received very strong evidence from a range of bodies in Northern Ireland representing business—one representing big supermarkets—saying that the tens of thousands of customs declarations had cost millions. There were logistics issues also; they were worried about parcels, particularly business-to-business. A lot of businesses get their materials by parcel. The Horticultural Trade Association was outlining its major concerns, and there were others. It was quite revealing.
So paint us a picture. Consultation, yes, that is what we are looking at, but what is the current state of play in terms of the requirements that businesses are facing on trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and with the EU?
The Chair: Is there a need for more lawyers to answer very difficult questions and, if so, are there lawyers who can answer those questions as yet?
Alexander Kinnear: Well, one example I will draw your attention to, which is quite timely, and I have raised it before at this committee; that is the issue about organic eggs in Northern Ireland and our supplying of those to GB. I have been approaching the Government over this past couple of weeks to get an answer around whether the current derogation on that issue is going to be extended.
Just for the wider context, currently organic egg producers in Northern Ireland are feeding their hens a 95% organic feed topped up with 5% of conventional feed. That is the case right across the United Kingdom. Europe’s organic regulations, however, state that the feed must be 100% organic. Now, among Northern Ireland producers, there are about 25 organic egg farmers who are supplying the vast majority of the product, probably 90% of it, to shelves in GB. We are making the case that Northern Ireland should be aligned with GB for fairness and for everything else. However, if the derogation runs out—again, we have stressed to the Government that we need an answer this week—it will cost those farmers roughly £17,000 extra per year to supply a 100% organic diet. That is a typical example of something that is going to make a huge difference to somebody’s farm business; in the current context of what this Government have done to agriculture, £17,000 is highly significant.
The bigger question is that whenever we present problems to government we would like swift answers, even though we may not like them or they do not agree with us. This scenario nearly turns into an annual birthday.
The Chair: I think you are aware, Mr Kinnear, that this committee’s predecessor, the sub-committee, wrote to the Government about this issue a considerable time ago. It is one we are very aware of.
Alexander Kinnear: Yes, and we are back to the same issue where the clock is running down. The problem arises for our members whenever we say, in a wider context, that we are making progress on issues such as veterinary medicines, for example. But we then have a cohort of members who are organic layer producers who say, “Well, what about my business?” We are a union, which is why I go back to what I said at the start. A deal has to work for all sectors within agriculture. Albeit milk, lambs, pigs and whatever are flowing up and down the border north-south, those farmers who are impacted by east-west movements may be smaller in scale and, in an overall analysis of the industry they may not be worth as much as the dairy industry, but they are still important to us because they are our members.
You mentioned the horticulture bodies. They are under significant pressure, but as well as that, our arable sector wants to continue to import seeds from GB; what will happen now because of the precision breeding legislation? I have raised before the issues around plant protection products, where we follow EU regulation, governed by UK bodies, and Northern Ireland ends up in a no man’s land. Those issues still lie there. That is not to take away from the positives of the current arrangements, but there are many negatives. Again, we would plead with the Government to give us an answer on the organic egg issue.
Baroness O’Loan: I want to make an observation, and I think it is a profoundly important one. We are not just talking about mechanics and structures and all those things; we are talking about very high-quality food which is produced in Northern Ireland, and what you are saying to us, Mr Kinnear, is that we are getting into more and more difficult territory and there will be less and less capacity to produce that food unless these issues can be sorted.
Alexander Kinnear: Exactly, yes. Northern Ireland has a population of 1.9 million people and it is feeding over 10 million, the majority of them in GB. We are supplying 20% of the UK’s indigenous food supply. Labour, in its manifesto, said that “food security is national security”. It is very clear that this is a promise it has not kept nor, indeed, wants to keep. While changes to tax are one thing, we do not want to see Brexit or the outworkings of the Windsor Framework being an impediment to food security, particularly in the global context.
Baroness O’Loan: I think the food security issue is very important.
The Chair: That was very clearly put, if I may say so, Mr Kinnear.
Roger Pollen: The real challenge here is the lack of evidence and data. Lots of bodies will come forward with their ideas and so on, but there has not been a real sense-check across businesses, particularly right across the UK. So we are going to step into that space, and we have a survey going live — I think next week — to our membership across the UK to understand the perceptions and the realities of what businesses in GB see as the issues around this, not just what Northern Ireland businesses or Northern Ireland representative bodies see.
To your point about the cost, it is interesting. We have a fast growth category in our FSB Northern Ireland Awards and two years ago one of the finalists was a customs clearance agency, which had gone from a start-up to a very substantial business in that time. That was due to the amount of cost that they had, in effect, received from businesses to deal with a problem that had been created by the structures we are talking about.
To your point on lawyers, a lot of people will waste — I am sorry, that is pejorative — ‘spend’ a lot of money on lawyers to get opinions about things. They ought to be able to get that from the public domain and the system should be streamlined first. We had a business owner who walked in to see us yesterday morning and we pointed them towards a trade expert, which will come with a cost. It was not a member of ours. We said, “Well, this is who will give you the answers to the questions you need, but they’ll sell you those answers”. That is happening all over the place, all the time, and it is sucking capacity unnecessarily out of Northern Ireland businesses.
The Chair: That brings us neatly to a question about promised mechanisms from Lady Goudie.
Q21 Baroness Goudie: Good morning, it is nice to see you both again. To what extent is the European Commission engaging directly with businesses and stakeholders—for example, through workshops or annual presentations on the Commission’s work programme—and how effective are these initiatives for business and civil society? I have to say that I think it should be engaging more than annually; perhaps it should be quarterly, in the present situation.
Roger Pollen: The fact that we are getting that year-ahead outlook is very welcome. That is a start, and we have identified the fact that we need to be able to do something with that to make it more meaningful. Quarterly would probably be another beneficial update as we are going through that year, because a lot of work is going through in that programme and you do not want to be focusing on something that is in the slow lane and miss something similarly significant in the fast lane. So, yes, more engagement would be beneficial and welcome.
The opportunity of the reset that is coming in the summit on 19 May between Ursula von der Leyen and the Prime Minister is welcome. We will see whether that is going to be the announcement of something or more of a political statement and a spirit of intent on the direction of travel.
It seems to me that if there is a greater degree of co-operation/alignment between the UK and the EU, the challenges that we are facing between GB and NI will shrink proportionately. So we will keep a watching brief on that.
The Chair: Can we move on to a different question now, about the document Safeguarding the Union?
Q22 Lord Lexden: I wonder whether you would assess for us the value of the initiatives, not a small number of initiatives either, contained in Safeguarding the Union? Some has come out already in your evidence and I am conscious of Baroness Foster’s chairmanship of one of the most valuable initiatives, but perhaps I can get your comments on the east-west council, Intertrade UK and the new monitoring panel which seems to be coming into play, with its first meeting this month. Could we get your comments on those things?
Alexander Kinnear: First, I have to say that yesterday I had to look up what the Independent Monitoring Panel was because I had forgotten, so that tells you about some bodies within that. The other two bodies you mentioned are maybe just not of much direct relevance to agriculture. The two bodies within Safeguarding the Union I would bring you to are the veterinary medicines working group and the horticulture working group. I sit on both for our organisation.
I cannot go into a lot of detail on the veterinary medicines working group in terms of what it is coming up with and what the plans are, but it is pretty clear that the Government are to be congratulated on their work in that regard. The big problem we had with the last Administration was that they would not let the Civil Service go off and do the work that needed to be done in terms of research, identifying how deep the problem was, and possible solutions. I know that the Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, and Baroness Hayman have led that group well and it is making significant progress.
However, I suppose one thing I would say is that we may get solutions for some problems in terms of this, but NOAH—the body that this committee has met with a number of times and which represents the pharmaceutical industries and ourselves—are very much making the case that veterinary medicine sits outside an SPS veterinary agreement in this wider UK-EU reset. We are saying that there is no earthly reason not to align the UK and EU in terms of veterinary medicine, for the foreseeable future. That is a key thing. The group is making good progress and that is to be welcomed.
The horticulture working group has met less frequently and its issues are quite large. Obviously, there are horticulture bodies on it, farmers, suppliers, wholesalers, and others. I noticed in some press today that issues were raised around horticulture, and I know that horticulture bodies have raised things. These issues are very challenging unless SPS arrangements are changed. The Government can come up with all the plans they want but Europe have to agree to them, so that group needs to do a lot more work.
How we judge Safeguarding the Union is how it is responding to new challenges and new problems, and how those three groups that you identified at the start are going to respond to them. When new problems have arisen—I have spoken about the precision breeding legislation—have bodies monitoring divergence kicked in and picked up that issue to give Northern Ireland stakeholders an answer? The answer to that is no, they have not. We have been shut out of the process. We are watching the UK internal market review quite closely. We are engaging with it but, again, a lot of these bodies are only getting going. We await the results.
The Chair: Mr Pollen, have you been able to engage with Lord Murphy in his review on the sort of issues that we are now discussing?
Roger Pollen: No, but we are looking forward to it. On Monday evening he gave a television interview on “View from Stormont”, and he set out the sequence which he is meeting; I commented on it afterwards. We will have business with him in the next week or two, and we are very much looking forward to that. We welcome the review he is conducting, which obviously came about for very specific reasons. The Safeguarding the Union Command Paper is an interesting piece, because it arose from the previous Government. This Government has now come forward and set about implementing a lot of it. That was welcome, because it was the foundation for getting the Executive to return, so it is a very important piece in the jigsaw. Alexander rightly says that we are waiting to see the commencement of some of the outworkings from it.
Intertrade UK has commenced, and it is starting to map out its work programme, which is good and welcome, but for us there are other things in it that need to be seized. For instance — if I remember rightly, it was on page 76 in the Command Paper — there is a commitment to working at pace with the Finance Minister to devolve corporation tax powers and see them enacted. We would see that as a key part of making Northern Ireland a different but very dynamic economy: one that has access across Europe, not just to the single market but all the 30 countries within it, and the EEA. A lower rate of corporation tax would remove the imbalance with the Republic of Ireland and allow us to compete on better terms. It is in the Command Paper, and Westminster has passed the legislation — it got Royal Assent in 2015 — but we still do not have it in place. We are very good at squandering time and opportunity, and the fact that it was in there should not be missed. We need to keep a focus on it.
The Chair: Thank you, that is very clear again. I will remember that phrase, “squandering time and opportunity”. Would anybody else like to ask any further questions on this particular issue? No, so, let us move on then to the question about the Stormont brake.
Q23 Lord Empey: These are relatively political issues in many respects, so I understand, but have you assessed the effectiveness of the Stormont brake and the applicability motion procedures? Clearly you have referred to quite a number of engagements which we could label as political, but have your respective members formed a view on it? Do you have a view personally?
Roger Pollen: I have a view on it personally. We have not consulted our members on it, so this is only my reflection of what I suspect our members would think. It is a tool in the box to be used in certain circumstances, and it is always important to have a tool if those circumstances arise. It is also useful because it probably slightly lessens the likelihood of those circumstances arising, if everybody knows that you have that way of addressing them. We think it probably has value. There is a lot of subjectivity about it; for instance, what are communities? Is it the farming community or the rural community? There is a lot of subjectivity in there. We think it probably has the safeguards in it—that it needs to be from MLAs who are elected to represent the people of Northern Ireland at Stormont, and it has to be from more than one party, so there is a degree of a united voice having a concern about an issue. So, it seems to me personally, not the FSB, that it is probably a wise mechanism to have in place, but it is far too early to see whether it is effective, because it has only been tested once.
Alexander Kinnear: Yes, it is probably too political and that is the problem. If an issue comes up that impacts agriculture or a rural way of life, of course we will engage in the process. As Roger rightly points out, it is there to protect communities. It is another tool in the toolbox, but we have not got there yet. If and when an opportunity arises, or we are called upon to give an opinion on it and it is something directly related to us, we will do so.
The Chair: One of the occasions it was used related to pet foods, but it was not applied. Is that the subject that you expected the Stormont brake to be applied to, or did you expect it to be applied to much more mainstream political issues?
Alexander Kinnear: The issues that are involved are both of significant importance and lower-tier importance. If it is an issue of significance to a particular business, you can see the merits of why it was pulled. But again, we have had very limited input into the process, and our knowledge of it is just what the Government have presented in terms of the mechanics of the process.
Lord Empey: We have only had two applicability cases; one has gone one way and one has gone another and there has only been one application of the Stormont brake, so it is probably a bit early. We have been advised about the very high threshold, particularly with regard to the Stormont brake. One of the applicability motions has not even been responded to yet, so I suppose it is a work in progress. Is that how you would assess it at the moment?
Roger Pollen: I think that is a fair assessment, and it probably allows the fact of it being potentially triggered maybe to change and colour those discussions that other engagement with the EU is leading to, so you do not get to a point where you need to pull the brake. Hopefully, it is more about actually getting to what you think is a reasonable place to get to, rather than the tools you deploy to get there.
The Chair: What is your assessment of the role and function of the Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee, the DSC, and how could the UK Government facilitate more productive stakeholder engagement with the DSC? The DSC seems to me, from what I have seen so far, to have some operational difficulties. It is given most information far too late and only has a very small number of days to respond to any issue. Do you agree that this presents real problems, or not? If so, how would you like to see the DSC operating more effectively?
Roger Pollen: We received correspondence from the DSC, and we went back to say that it was an unacceptable way for it to do its business and for us to be engaged on it. The chair and vice-chair and two clerks invited us to have a conversation about how things could be done better, and that is where we put the idea of the Office of Regulatory Divergence, giving it the material far earlier so that it can consider the role that it has to discharge.
In some ways it is quite an easy answer. This is a bit of a repetition of what we said earlier, but you need better information coming from upstream much earlier on, then the machinery of the system can actually do its job properly. At the moment, it is being asked to do a very difficult job without the proper resources or timeline to do it, and it will probably be judged harshly for not getting the job done. It is not something it can do, so I guess we are creating an unfortunate situation.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick: Roger, you mentioned the need for better information upstream coming earlier. I go back to my previous question: do you think that representative business organisations and political representatives should be in there with the Joint Consultative Working Committee before they actually decide on things, to be part of shaping the policy and the decision-making process?
Roger Pollen: We need to be very careful about overreach on our part. We have to influence the people whose role it is to do the job, rather than do the job alongside them.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick: Is that about influencing them before they make their decisions?
Roger Pollen: Ideally yes—and also having equipped us with enough information to go out and get the actual intel from people who are affected by it. If we do not do that, all we have is a view on a process; we do not actually have information to come in and shape and change the direction of the process. It is about doing it much better and having officials in our Office for Regulatory Divergence understanding who the key stakeholders are, and how they should use those key stakeholders to get the information that they need to go in and engage properly.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick: So, you should really be involved at minus stage one before they actually discuss this, but you should be in the room when they are discussing it?
Roger Pollen: Yes, or we should at least be having good conversations with the key partners in there, whether we are in the room or not. We have had some experience of sitting in the room with both sides, if we want to call it that, and it is a very sterile environment—because neither side wants to show a bit of leg in front of the guests, as it were. You end up with everybody holding their positions. Nothing moves, so then you think, “Well, we had engagement, but it was not productive, it was never going to be productive”. So, we have to watch how we design a way of making that input meaningful.
Alexander Kinnear: I agree. It is about transparency in the process. There is no point in us bringing our views after decisions are taken, because we are just wasting everybody’s time.
I would like to make one point on the DSC. I share Roger’s comments on that. I know that there is a discussion about explanatory memorandums that the committee receives from the UK Government or devolved departments. We have no input into those at all, because our views are not asked. It is impossible for the Government to put forward what stakeholders think when we have not been asked.
The one final question with the DSC is whether we want scrutiny of the process or not. As an organisation, we very much value devolved government and see the need for democratic scrutiny. If the reins were loosened a little for locally elected MLAs to be able to scrutinise EU legislation, that would answer a couple of problems. It would answer the democratic deficit, but also it would allow the people and the communities of Northern Ireland to see how EU law will impact them at their very own business level. Indeed, our members are a part of that.
Lord Dodds of Duncairn: I suppose the observation that I would make is that we have talked a lot today about consultation, methodology, processes and getting in early to influence. What has struck me—in particular you referred to the organic egg situation earlier—is that there are issues we know about today that are very important to consumers and to sections of business and farmers and the agri-food industry. These are real problems and real issues, and the Government know about them and the EU knows about them, and what has actually been done?
You are saying there is a terrible frustration that those issues are not being tackled in a timely way and that it is hard to get information. That is what strikes me: that there are real problems going on. The BBC carried out a 45-minute report on parcels the other day; businesses were ringing in with exactly the same sort of complaints, saying, “We can’t find out, we don’t know, we’re being penalised, we’re losing money”. It is that sense of, we can have all the talk about processes and consultations, but it is not working as things stand at the moment, with all the panoply of organisations and so on. I am sorry—that is just an observation rather than a question.
Baroness O’Loan: I just wanted to ask a question of Mr Kinnear. This may articulate my lack of understanding of your business, but my understanding is that when we were members of the European Union, agri-food subsidies were paid by the European Union to farmers, and that when we left, the understanding was that the British Government would take over and replace those subsidies. But we are in a situation in which Northern Ireland is within the European Union for such extensive purposes, and is there any recognition in terms of subsidies or money coming from Europe to facilitate that?
Alexander Kinnear: The short answer is no. It is an excellent question and an excellent point. If businesses in Northern Ireland, particularly agricultural businesses, are being asked to improve animal welfare and to do something else, should they be financially supported to do so? The answer is, of course, yes, they should. You mentioned an interesting point around the common agricultural policy. When we left Europe, the Conservative Government assured us that they would maintain the level of funding for five years, which they did until the end of Parliament. Of course, the new Government came in and they lifted the ring-fence in terms of the agriculture budget as of next year, which forms a part of the block grant. That is a seismic change and one of the biggest changes even from joining the European Union, where farmers for the first time will be in competition with health and education departments.
Thankfully, for the financial year 2025-2026—we put it down to our successful lobbying—we managed to get the Executive to agree to ring-fence that funding for one more year. However, it is not index-linked. With ever more demands on our farmers to achieve net zero and a whole host of other issues, we are dealing with the same pot of money but are being asked to do much more. We are also having to comply with European law. So yes, we are at a disadvantage. The north-south differences in farm practices and finances are often talked about, but it would be a very unfair position for Northern Ireland to have to comply with a specific regulation and to cover it basically out of our own pockets.
Baroness O’Loan: Ultimately, that goes to the food security issue, which we have already discussed.
Alexander Kinnear: Exactly.
Q24 Lord Thomas of Gresford: The one thing that I have learned today, which really surprises me, is that when you go to the annual disclosure of the intentions of the European Union, you are not allowed to consult your members. Then later, when we get to the finished work being put before the Democratic Scrutiny Committee—we have a letter on our file—they write to you and ask you, within the 15-day period that they have to consider it, “Can you give us the views of your members?” It seems to me that is the point where there is a great deal to be done to improve transparency. Do you know why you are not allowed to consult your members on the coming programme?
Roger Pollen: Not yet, but we will make it a matter of priority to explore that and see if we can address the issue, because it would be helpful. It would by no means be the answer to all the issues, but it would be a helpful part of working out how we work longer term so that we are more strategic rather than tactical in the way we engage.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: How did you feel about being consulted by the Democratic Scrutiny Committee?
Roger Pollen: We are sympathetic to the role it is trying to play. We pride ourselves in always bringing evidence and data that we have gathered from our members by surveying them and engaging them in focus groups and everything else, and it was deeply unsatisfactory to be asked to go in and represent them when we knew we were not able to take in evidence to do that. We had to make clear that we were unprepared, in the sense that there was no ability to prepare because of the timeline the Committee had been given which they then passed on to us. It was deeply unsatisfactory, but using sessions like this to oxygenate the issue and try to get a change of process is the only way we will really address that.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: Had you known the views of your members following the disclosure of the annual programme, you would have been able to help, presumably?
Roger Pollen: Potentially, yes.
Alexander Kinnear: The sequencing is an issue. I said at the start that at the minute we feel like we are between two seismic moments: the Windsor Framework being agreed to and whatever the UK Government seek with Europe in between. We are caught in this moment. Lord Dodds refers to the Government knowing problems; within Safeguarding the Union, there is a paragraph around gold-plating and the desire not to gold-plate. Roger and I could create a list the length of this room with the gold-plating that has been undertaken. There is no excuse from the UK Government side not to address issues that they have the ability to change. I suppose that around the DSC they have the ability to do that. Of course, whenever issues are not addressed on the UK side, it clouds the issue, and then the wider constituency in Northern Ireland think this is an EU-UK problem when in actual fact it is a London problem. Again, I stress that there is no reason why the UK Government cannot go out of their way to address what they have the ability to do.
The Chair: I want to thank you both very much. I am sure I speak on behalf of the whole committee to say that we feel oxygenated by what you have said to us this morning. You have highlighted some very clear issues, and whatever conclusions we reach, you have really been most helpful to us. I am very glad we have had this session. I declare the evidence session closed.
