Draft Plant Health, Seeds, Seed Potatoes and Plant Propagating Material (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2026

I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Plant Health, Seeds, Seed Potatoes and Plant Propagating Material (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2026. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Alec. This draft instrument was laid before the House on 22 June. It applies to Northern Ireland only and was developed in close collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs. It is a necessary measure to update Northern Ireland’s domestic legislation and enforcement provisions relating to plant health, ensuring the continued protection of Northern Ireland’s biosecurity and fulfilment of the Windsor framework obligations. As Members will be aware, under the terms of the Windsor framework, limited parts of European Union law falling under annex 2 of the framework continue to apply to Northern Ireland. They include the movement of goods, agrifood standards and animal and plant health. The draft instrument makes no changes to the Windsor framework. It amends six pieces of Northern Ireland legislation covering plant health, seeds, seed potatoes and plant propagating material. The amendments are technical in nature and ensure that Northern Ireland’s domestic legislation remains clear, operable and aligned with requirements that already apply there under the Windsor agreement and framework. These legislative frameworks govern matters such as plant varieties, documentation requirements, traceability and plant health quality standards for fruit, vegetables, propagating material, forest reproductive materials and seed potatoes. They help to protect growers, traders and consumers by setting standards for products placed on the market and by ensuring that plant material can be traced and verified. The draft instrument updates outdated references throughout the legislation, including references related to Northern Ireland, Great Britain and EU member states, following the UK’s exit from the European Union. It also reflects relevant EU plant health legislation that is already directly applicable to Northern Ireland, including provisions related to regulated pests, diseases and reporting requirements. The draft instrument also strengthens the domestic enforcement framework by ensuring that DAERA has clear powers to take proportionate action where plant health requirements are not met. While the requirements already apply to Northern Ireland, the draft instrument ensures that they can be fully enforced where necessary, including through penalties and prosecution in cases of serious non-compliance. That is important in protecting Northern Ireland’s biosecurity and maintaining a level playing field for businesses that comply with the rules. Members will be aware that the Windsor framework restored the movement of seed potatoes from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, supporting growers and businesses across the sector. The draft instrument helps the legislative framework governing seed potatoes, alongside the other plant health controls, to remain effective and enforceable. Importantly, the draft instrument does not introduce new requirements for businesses. It ensures that domestic legislation accurately reflects arrangements that are already in operation and supports Northern Ireland’s high standards of plant health and biosecurity. No formal public consultation was undertaken on the draft instrument because it introduces no new policy requirements. However, DAERA and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have engaged extensively with stakeholders on the wider plant health arrangements operating under the Windsor framework. I emphasise that it is essential that the amendments in the draft instrument update the Northern Ireland statute book and enable effective compliance with plant health requirements to uphold our commitment to full and faithful implementation of the Windsor framework. The draft instrument does not alter the Windsor framework, nor does it introduce new policy requirements. Its purpose is to ensure that Northern Ireland’s domestic legislation remains accurate, operable and capable of enforcing requirements that already apply. This is a technical but important measure. It updates Northern Ireland’s statute book, strengthens biosecurity protections, supports effective enforcement and introduces no new requirements for businesses. I therefore commend the regulations to the House.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. These regulations make necessary amendments to Northern Ireland’s legislation governing plant health, seeds, seed potatoes and plant propagating material and ensure that it operates in accordance with the Windsor framework. Maintaining strong plant health protections is essential to safeguarding Northern Irish growers, Northern Irish food security and the natural environment. An outbreak of a serious pest or disease could have devastating consequences for agricultural production and rural businesses across Northern Ireland. Plant health legislation is included under article 5(4) of the Windsor framework. The amendments in these draft regulations ensure that DEFRA has the necessary powers to enforce the plant health rules applying in Northern Ireland. They update prohibited lists of plants and pests, phytosanitary controls that govern the movement of plants for planting and other objects and conditions in relation to planting material and requirements for reporting and disposing of infected material. The instrument also removes provisions relating to movements between Great Britain and Northern Ireland that are no longer applicable, introduces a GB-NI code for official labelling and makes several technical corrections. These are important protections and the official Opposition will not be opposing the amendments laid today. It is right that DAERA possesses the powers that it needs to enforce the rules properly and to act where non-compliance is identified. However, we do have some concerns. The Minister mentioned that no public consultation was undertaken on these amendments, but while DAERA and DEFRA engaged with key stakeholders, it is important to note that Northern Irish growers, seed potato producers and other affected businesses must also have a meaningful opportunity to make their views heard. Therefore, I would like to understand from the Minister if a level of engagement was had with those growers and organisations involved in that sector. Will the Minister identify which organisations, if any, DEFRA engaged with? The Government have not produced a full impact assessment or established specific monitoring arrangements because the regulatory requirements already apply in Northern Ireland. They may already apply, but that does not necessarily mean that they impose no cost or administrative burden to businesses. Could the Minister assure us today that any unforeseen costs or practical difficulties will be identified and addressed, particularly if they could disrupt the movement of plant and seed potatoes between Great Britain and Northern Ireland? The official Opposition will not oppose these regulations. Strong and enforceable plant health protections are essential, and these amendments will provide DAERA with the powers it needs to protect Northern Ireland from dangerous pests and disease. However, regulations introduced under the Windsor framework must be accompanied by meaningful engagement, proper democratic scrutiny and close attention to their impact and practical consequences. While not opposing these amendments, we seek clarity from the Minister today around the assurances on consultation with stakeholders and the protection of trade within the United Kingdom.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. The Minister outlined why these regulations were necessary and gave what, to most on the Committee, would be an acceptable argument: they are to protect biodiversity in Northern Ireland and to ensure that diseased plants are not accessing the Northern Ireland market. But of course, that is not the real reason; the real reason is contained in the regulations themselves. The regulations make it quite clear that they are necessary because Northern Ireland has to be regarded as if it were a member state of the European Union. That is the reason for this legislation. Although we have had Brexit, the vote and the decision to leave the EU, Northern Ireland is still to be treated as if it were a member of the European Union. That is the real reason behind it. We would not need these regulations were it not for EU regulations having to apply to a certain part of the United Kingdom because it is regarded as part of the EU, regardless of the democratic vote of the British people to leave the EU. This is not about protecting biodiversity. Most of the goods affected by this legislation will originate in GB. For years, those goods were able to enter the Northern Ireland market without any damage to the agriculture or nature of Northern Ireland. The implication is that, somehow, the majority of the trade coming across from GB in plants, seed potatoes and so on must be suspect. That is why we have to have these separate regulations: to protect us from goods that, for years and years, we sourced from producers in GB. Now, suddenly, we need to protect the Northern Ireland economy from those goods. That is just nonsense. The real reason is that EU laws now apply in Northern Ireland. We are regarded as an EU state, and therefore those EU regulations have to be imposed. There is nothing to do with the protection of biodiversity or anything like that. What exactly will these regulations do? First—the Minister has actually used these words himself—they will fully implement the Windsor framework. They are to fully implement EU laws in Northern Ireland—laws that were never decided by this House or by the Northern Ireland Assembly, but by a foreign Administration, and about which there was never any say. What is the impact of that? Let me give one example. When it comes to the import of seed materials, we would have imported a lot of our seed potatoes from Scotland. Now there are regulations stating that, if someone brings in more than 2 kg of those seed potatoes, there is a whole pile of additional administration. As a keen gardener, I used to send to Fothergill’s—as did a lot of other people—to get my seed potatoes. I cannot get them any longer, because business-to-individual sales of many plants are forbidden under these regulations. If, for example, some of the big potato growers in my constituency want to bring potatoes in from outside, there is a whole range of information that has to be provided if they import more than 2 kg of potatoes, and draft regulation 5(14) states that. What has been the effect? I can think of a number of companies that used to sell to me as an individual consumer or to garden centres in my constituency. They no longer sell. Why? Because they are now subject to all these additional regulations. If they do not abide by those regulations—we have already seen this—those goods can be seized, destroyed, re-exported or detained by DAERA in Northern Ireland. That is not something which is just a maybe; it happens currently. Last year, 43 such consignments were seized by DAERA and either detained, re-exported or destroyed. That begs the question, if DAERA already has the powers to do that, why is the legislation required? It is required because it now gives DAERA the ability to do this with the imprimatur of the EU. We have not only the imprimatur of our Government, which signed up to the Windsor framework agreement; we now have the imprimatur of the EU. The regulations are full of jargon and everything else. I am trying to spell out the practical implications. As I have said, first, Northern Ireland is now treated as part of the EU. I do not know how anyone who claims to be a British parliamentarian can accept that as a reason for this legislation. Secondly, the legislation has disrupted trade significantly. In fact, there are some goods that are not even subject to regulation—they are simply banned. There are some trees that would normally have been imported into Northern Ireland that are now banned from being brought in because the EU has regulations against them. As the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley, pointed out, it was also not even deemed necessary to have a consultation or to get consent. I wonder how much of the information in support of, or even about, the regulations was gathered from many of the garden centre owners in Northern Ireland who are severely impacted by them, whether by not being able to get supplies, supplies becoming more expensive or, more likely, now having to go to the Irish Republic to get their supplies, where they are more expensive and probably inferior goods. That is the irony. In my own constituency, the wee forest at my own house is now affected by Ash dieback. Many of the trees there are now dying and have been cut down. They were not diseased trees that came from GB, where the regulations require that the trees be inspected. They came from other parts of the EU without the necessary inspections. That is the irony. The Minister can talk about protecting biodiversity, but the regulations do not do that. All they do is ensure that a bad agreement, which should never have been signed, and which has constitutionally split up the UK and its internal market, is now going to be fully implemented. I say to Members, regardless of their political persuasions and everything else: that is not right and should not be supported. It is a bit of an irony that we are discussing the Representation of the People Bill in the main Chamber, which is meant to be all about democracy in the United Kingdom, and yet we are not exercising democracy in Northern Ireland if we pass this legislation. It is not just some kind of semantic argument about what democracy is; it has real practical implications for people who live in my constituency.

Order. I remind everybody that this is quite a tight set of regulations, so please try to keep your comments focused on what is before us, rather than expanding the arguments to issues surrounding how we may have got here today.

Thank you, Sir Alec; I can do that by taking the Committee precisely to the words of the regulations. Here we are, a Committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, supposedly, of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, yet the Committee has been invited to write into six separate regulations affecting these issues in Northern Ireland a declaration to the effect that Northern Ireland is not really part of the United Kingdom, and in fact is someone else’s territory. If anyone is interested, I invite them to look at page 17 of the regulations. Things can be found in numerous places, but on page 17 there is an amendment under part 7 of the regulations to the Plant Health (Official Controls and Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2020. At the top of the page, it says: “In these regulations”— these are regulations affecting a part of the United Kingdom— “any reference to a member State is to be read as if Northern Ireland were a member State of the European Union…any reference to the Union”— that is the EU— “or Union territory is to be read so as to include Northern Ireland.” What we are putting into legislation that applies to Northern Ireland and the standards that apply to a range of materials and goods is a formal legal declaration that my part of the United Kingdom is not in truth a part of the United Kingdom. According to this, I am to be read as being part of the EU’s territory. I say to every member of this Committee: if the regulations said that about your constituency, what would you say? I say that in particular to Conservative and Unionist Members. If the regulations said that their part of the United Kingdom is to be treated as if it is not part of the United Kingdom, but as a territory of a foreign jurisdiction—namely, the EU—would they come to this Committee, nod the change through and say, “It is only technical”? It might be technical to the Minister and the official Opposition, but I can tell them it is a lot more than technical to the people of Northern Ireland who we represent in this House. It is a fundamental constitutional slight on our supposed membership of the United Kingdom. Through that slight and through the regulations we have imposed laws that we do not make, that we cannot change and that someone else makes. The regulations do not put into these six statutory instruments standards made, created or thought about by this House; they impose standards made, created and thought about by foreign parliamentarians, none of whom we elect. That is the mischief and the insult of the regulations that we are imposing on those who deal with seed potatoes or any of these plant health issues. They are someone else’s regulations. What sort of parliamentarians are we if we think it is okay to let someone who no one from this United Kingdom elects decide what the standards should be within this United Kingdom? That is precisely what the regulations do today, and that is far more than technical, Minister. It is fundamental. It goes further. Under part 7, we now are imposing sanctions if someone breaches foreign-made regulations. What sort of United Kingdom is it? This House is going to pass regulations that say that people can be fined or dealt with by other sanctions not because they break the regulations of our own Government or the regulations of their own Parliament, but because they break the regulation of someone else’s Parliament. That is the absurdity that the Windsor framework has brought to Northern Ireland. Unless and until this House wakens up to that absurdity and asserts itself as a sovereign Parliament—supposedly—of this United Kingdom, we are going to continue to be subject to this insult. I say to every member of the Committee, particularly those who profess a belief in the Union of the United Kingdom, that it might be a small measure to some—not much more than a technical issue—but the Committee could at least take a small stand against it.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I concur with my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim and the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim. This instrument has been presented as a technical one, but there is nothing insignificant about creating new criminal liability under laws imposed on Northern Ireland by the European Union. The regulations amend six separate areas of Northern Ireland law, covering vegetable plants, ornamental plants, forestry material, seed potatoes, fruit plants and official plant health controls. As the Committee has heard, the constitutional language is extraordinary. The instrument states that Northern Ireland is to be read as if it were a member state of the European Union. It replaces references to UK standards with references to European Union standards. In relation to forest reproductive material, Great Britain is classified as an “EU-approved third country”. That is certainly not a tidying up of legislation; it writes Northern Ireland out of its own country and into the regulatory territory of the European Union. Most seriously, regulation 7 inserts a new list of EU instruments into Northern Ireland law and makes non-compliance with them an offence. The instrument expressly states that references to those EU laws include those laws “as amended from time to time.” In other words, future changes made in Brussels can alter the rules with which Northern Ireland businesses must comply, without any vote in this House or the Northern Ireland Assembly. Those rules cover matters including pet passports, the movement of seed potatoes, the destruction of infected plants and even the cleaning or destruction of machinery, vehicles, stores and packaging, yet there was no public consultation, and not one Northern Ireland farmer, grower, nursery seed producer or forestry business was formally asked for their view. That is outrageous, given that it impacts them the most. Nor has a full impact assessment been produced, because the Government claim that there will be no significant financial impact. That is simply not good enough when Parliament is being asked to approve new offences. DAERA already has powers to detain, reject, re-export or destroy consignments, and those powers were used 43 times in 2025. DEFRA has confirmed that the enforcement gap caused no negative effect on compliance or biosecurity. The Minister must therefore explain what failure requires these new offences, who could be prosecuted and why Northern Ireland businesses were denied a consultation. This instrument exposes the reality of the Windsor framework: EU law, EU standards and EU enforcement imposed on one part of the United Kingdom without any democratic consent. I simply ask Committee members to search their hearts. If this was happening to their constituency, their constituents and businesses in their part of this great United Kingdom, they would not like it and they would vote against it. I ask the Committee to do the right thing by Northern Ireland and our place in this United Kingdom.

I thank the shadow Minister for his contribution and his constructive engagement on these matters, and all Members who have shared their insights and views. The shadow Minister noted that there has been no public consultation on this instrument because there is no legal duty to do so. However, DAERA has worked closely with DEFRA to engage with relevant stakeholders on the wider plant health requirements under the Windsor framework, including through the relevant working groups and, I can assure him, through engagement with the Ulster Farmers Union. There is ongoing engagement with relevant stakeholders, and strong relationships are in place. The shadow Minister asked about the impact on trade. I assure all Members that the instrument introduces no new requirements for traders and will not have any impact on trade.

Will the Minister give way?

I will make some progress. A number of Members made broader points about constitutional matters. I appreciate the strength of feeling on the wider constitutional issues, but I assure all Members that the instrument respects Northern Ireland’s integral position as part of the United Kingdom. It is a UK-made and UK-scrutinised piece of legislation, operating within the scope of the UK’s international commitment to introducing and applying domestic legislation to Northern Ireland. It upholds the UK Government’s commitment to implementing the Windsor framework. The Windsor framework is the legal framework currently in force, and this instrument operates within it. That is a clear improvement on the Northern Ireland protocol and the best workable solution to Northern Ireland’s unique circumstances in the long term. Let me turn back to the specifics of the statutory instrument. It serves only to update Northern Ireland’s plant health legislation to ensure that it is clear, operable and accurate. That not only gives clarity to DAERA in the vital roles that it delivers in protecting Northern Ireland’s biosecurity, but gives clarity and stability to Northern Ireland stakeholders, ensuring that all parties play their part in doing what is necessary to maintain plant health in Northern Ireland. By ensuring that the requirements of this instrument are correct and clear, we ensure that there are no legislative gaps or room for confusion in dealing with the complex plant health environment, thus contributing to safeguarding Northern Ireland’s trade and economic success in the agri-food, horticultural and forestry and woodland sectors. The instrument will ensure that the United Kingdom meets its international obligations under the Windsor framework, and will serve to ensure that high biosecurity standards for Northern Ireland are observed for years to come. I commend the regulations to the Committee. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That the Committee has considered the draft Plant Health, Seeds, Seed Potatoes and Plant Propagating Material (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2026.