Ministers have defended a lack of information about what the new sea border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland will look like from next year.
Six months after Brexit the specifics of how goods moving between Northern Ireland and Great Britain will be treated have still not been agreed.
But Northern Ireland minister Robin Walker told a House of Lords committee on Tuesday that “we cannot necessarily provide all the detail that everyone would like on day one”.
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The implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol is subject to negotiation by a “joint committee” between the EU and UK.
The UK argues it should not have to apply some customs controls it agreed to as part of the agreement – such as exit summary declarations for goods moving across the Irish Sea.
The checks are included in the agreement because they are part of the EU’s customs code, which Boris Johnson promised in writing to implement in exchange for a Brexit deal last year.
But during the ensuring election campaign Mr Johnson said would be no checks or exit summary declarations. The British government has since argued that imposing the letter of the agreement would not be a good idea.
The hold-up means that businesses on both sides of the Irish sea still have no detail about what will happen to the border in five months at the end of the year when the transition period ends.
“I absolutely recognise that business will always want as much detail as possible as early as possible and that this is a process where we cannot necessarily provide all the detail that everyone would like on day one,” Mr Walker told the Lords EU committee.
“We do have to ensure that the voice of business is heard and fed into the process, and we also have to make sure we don’t give any misleading information in terms of things that haven’t been fully bottomed out and agreed.
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“There are elements of the approach to the protocol which still require agreement at the joint committee and it would be wrong for us to imply that those were fully decided.”
Mr Walker added that there would be “more guidance coming in the coming weeks” and that it would be “as detailed as possible.
But he added: “Crucially we have to make sure that the process of the joint committee deciding these things is able to move forward.”
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AFP via Getty
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Revellers take part in the annual Gay Pride parade, also called Christopher Street Day in Frankfurt
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Second Republican infantry guard regiment take part in the annual Bastille Day military ceremony on the Place de la Concorde in Paris
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Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty
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AFP via Getty
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Getty
29/50 30 June 2020
A man smokes a pipe while wearing a face mask during a demonstration in Nantes, as part of a nationwide day of protests to demand better working conditions for health workers in France
AFP via Getty
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Lawmakers from Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party scuffle with people from the main opposition Kuomintang party, who have been occupying the Legislature Yuan, in Taipei
Reuters
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Protester holds crosses during a demonstration in honour of the victims of coronavirus in front of Brazil’s National Congress
Getty
32/50 27 June 2020
A demonstrator wearing a face mask holds a sign during a protest against police brutality and racial inequality in the aftermath of the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, at the Victory column in Berlin
Reuters
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Hygienists inside a decontamination area in a coronavirus treatment centre that cares for positive patients that show little or no symptoms in Dakar
AFP via Getty
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A seagull snatches a croissant from a buffet during a press conference at the headquarters of AP Moeller – Maersk in Copenhagen, Denmark
Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Getty
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A volunteer receives an injection from a medical worker during the country’s first human clinical trial for a potential vaccine against coronavirus, at the Baragwanath hospital in Soweto, South Africa
Reuters
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Swiss acrobat Ramon Kathriner performs during the “Glacier 3000” Air show, an event marking the reopening of the Alpine facilities above Les Diablerets
AFP via Getty
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A worker cleans volcanic ash off the stupas at the Borobudur temple in Indonesia, a day after Mount Merapi erupted in nearby Sleman, sending a plume of ash into the sky
AFP via Getty
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AFP via Getty
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National Guards form a line in front of “Black Lives Matter” protestors in Tulsa, Oklahoma where Donald Trump was holding a campaign rally
AFP via Getty
40/50 19 June 2020
Nurses, doctors, midwives and health care workers attend the fourth Zumba dance session organised by the Nursing Council of Kenya at Kenyatta stadium where screening booths and an isolation field hospital have been installed. The dance sessions have been organised to re-energise and uplift health care providers sprits during this pandemic
AFP via Getty
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Alpha jets from the French Air Force Patrouille de France and the Royal Air Force Red Arrows perform a flypast over the statue of Charles de Gaulle on the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris to celebrate the 80th anniversary of wartime leader’s appeal to the French people to resist the Nazi occupation, broadcast from London
Reuters
42/50 17 June 2020
Activists from the Extinction Rebellion movement block a street outside the German Automobile industry association during a protest in Berlin
AFP via Getty
43/50 16 June 2020
Barbers wearing protective suits and face masks inside a salon in Dhaka, Bangladesh
Reuters
44/50 15 June 2020
Siegfried White raises his hand as he protests outside a burned Wendy’s restaurant on the third day following Rayshard Brooks death. The black man was shot by police in the car park in Atlanta. The mayor ordered immediate police reforms on Monday after the fatal shooting by a white officer
AFP via Getty
45/50 14 June 2020
People take part in a Black Lives Matter protest march in central Tokyo
AFP via Getty
46/50 13 June 2020
Protesters raise their fists during a demonstration against police brutality and racism in Paris, France. The march was organised by supporters of Assa Traore, whose brother Adama died in police custody in 2016, in circumstances that remain unclear
EPA
47/50 12 June 2020
A pro-democracy supporter shouts at riot police during an anti-national security law rally in Mongkok district in Hong Kong, China. Protesters heeded online calls to gather as the city marks the one-year anniversary of the major clashes between police and pro-democracy demonstrators over the controversial extradition bill
Getty
48/50 11 June 2020
A section of the River Spree next to the Reichstag building coloured green by activists from “Extinction Rebellion” to protest the German government’s coal policies in Berlin
AFP via Getty
49/50 10 June 2020
A woman poses in front of a decapitated statue of Christopher Columbus at Christopher Columbus Park in Boston Massachusetts. The statue’s head, damaged overnight, was recovered by the Boston Police Department, as a movement to remove statues commemorating slavers and colonisers continues to sweep across the US
AFP via Getty
50/50 9 June 2020
Ivy McGregor, left, reads a resolution during the funeral for George Floyd at The Fountain of Praise church in Houston. George Floyd is being laid to rest in his hometown, the culmination of a long farewell to the 46-year-old African American whose death in custody ignited global protests against police brutality and racism
AFP via Getty
“With regard to the issue of exit declarations the approach we’ve set out is that we don’t think exit declarations should be required for Northern Irish goods going into Great Britain because that is trade within the internal market and customs territory as protocol acknowledges. It also has no possible means of undermining the working of the single market so I think this is something that we need to ensure there’s a discussion about that the joint committee.”
The discussion about the Northern Ireland protocol is running in parallel to talks to sign a free trade agreement between the UK and EU by the end of the year.
