Swann secures meeting for local businesses impacted by Scotland-NI bureaucratic trade burden

Robin Swann MP has secured a meeting with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland for local businesses struggling to import plants into Northern Ireland from Scotland due to Windsor Framework arrangements.

During Scottish Questions, the Ulster Unionist MP said:

“As the Minister will know, according to McIntyre Fruit in Scotland, which also sells plants, it is easier to supply Japan than to send plants to Coleman’s garden centre in my constituency, and the same company is now seeing orders cancelled in Northern Ireland. At the weekend, Ewing’s Seafoods, Northern Ireland’s oldest fishmonger, had a 40-foot container filled with hundreds of thousands of pounds of fresh fish returned from Belfast to Scotland owing to administrative paperwork errors on seven boxes.”

Mr Swann asked:

“Will the Minister, or the Secretary of State [for Scotland], meet me and representatives of those companies to discuss what can be done to ease the bureaucratic burden on both Northern Ireland and Scottish business?”

Kirsty McNeill, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, responded:

“I would be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman, but let me reassure him: the horticultural working group, co-chaired by senior officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Cabinet Office, was set up specifically to tackle issues involving the movement of seeds to consumers in Northern Ireland as a first priority.

“The hon. Gentleman has also mentioned other topics, and I should be happy to meet him to discuss them, too. The working group meets regularly to address such issues, and includes representatives of the Ulster Farmers Union, the National Farmers Union and the Horticultural Trades Association, as well as business leaders and representatives of a small number of other horticultural businesses.”

Following this, the South Antrim MP welcomed the opportunity to meet with the Horticulture Trade Association. The HTA represents the entire UK environmental horticulture supply chain which includes garden centres, nursery growers, landscapers and manufacturers.

During the meeting with HTA, Mr Swann raised with them the difficulties in transporting plants from Great Britain into Northern Ireland as a result of the Windsor Framework.