Fault lines in the Windsor Framework exposed by Peter Hardwick at Lords committee
It will soon be easier for Brazilian and New Zealand exporters to send beef to Great Britain than it will for British meat companies to send beef to Northern Ireland. The combined effect of introducing both the Border Target Operating Model and the Windsor Framework will make it more onerous and more expensive (to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds per year for just one company) for British firms to do business in our own domestic market.
Not only that, but it could also force UK companies to pull some of their production sites out of Northern Ireland and re-locate to the mainland because the new rules will restrict how they’re able to move goods between the two.
This and other serious unintended consequences that are set to disadvantage British meat companies is explained succinctly and eloquently, with examples, by BMPA’s Trade Policy Advisor Peter Hardwick who gave evidence this week to the House of Lords Sub-Committee on the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland. It’s a sobering warning that we hope will be heard and acted upon by Government while they still have time to put it right. Our solution: continue, if only on a temporary basis, with SPS alignment with the EU while a better solution is developed that’s the result of a deeper more comprehensive consultation with the companies and industries that will have to make it work.
