The government has published section two of its Northern Ireland Protocol policy paper, outlining the impacts of moving good from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
As the Protocol makes clear, and the Government set out in our Command Paper, The UK’s approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol, there will be some changes for goods movements into Northern Ireland from Great Britain. The UK as a whole will leave the EU’s customs union and Northern Ireland will remain unequivocally part of the UK’s customs territory.
That means:
- no new customs infrastructure required to be built in Northern Ireland (or in Great Britain ports facing Northern Ireland)
- no export or exit declarations for goods leaving Great Britain for Northern Ireland
- processes will be fully digital and eligible to be facilitated by the Trader Support Service
- the regime will be administered by UK authorities - meaning a minimal proportion of checks only as required by the levels of risk
- the UK Government position remains that there should be no tariffs payable on all internal UK trade, and in any case, full use will be made of waivers and reimbursements to minimise the impact on business in any scenario
- an end-to-end Trader Support Service available at no costs to all businesses who wish to use it
To read the policy paper in it's entirety, click here.