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(Alliance News) - New post-Brexit labelling rules could see "gaps on shelves" in Northern Ireland by July, a Westminster committee has heard.
Business representatives told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that the Windsor Framework was "an improvement" on previous post-Brexit trade arrangements but there were still challenges.
Concerns were also raised about new parcel delivery requirements needed from March 31, and 'phase three' labelling rules that are to be introduced from July 31.
Nichola Mallon, head of trade & devolved policy at Logistics UK, said a "more trusted" approach was needed on checks.
The former SDLP deputy leader said the Windsor Framework was "an improvement" on the Northern Ireland protocol, but that there were some problems with GB to NI trade.
"I think there is a consensus within our membership that the Windsor Framework was to some extent oversold and it created a misperception that all of the challenges under the Northern Ireland protocol had been removed.
"It has contributed to a lack of awareness, particularly among GB businesses, of the requirements that must be met under the Windsor Framework and, to some degree, there is a reluctance among some GB-based businesses to trade in Northern Ireland because of the administrative and cost requirements."
Neil Johnston, director of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium, repeatedly raised concerns about new labelling requirements in July, which aim to ensure goods are not moved onwards into the EU.
"We are not Del Boy and Rodney," he said.
"We are not trying to get our goods secretly over the border into the south."
He said that for supermarket chains such as Asda and J Sainsbury PLC, they should not need to fill in "vast amount of paperwork" to prove the goods are not travelling south of the border, where they do not have branches in that jurisdiction.
"The risk of any of these products from the supermarkets that don't have southern premises going astray is negligible, so why do we have those levels of checks is certainly a question that we are asking regularly.
"In the case of Marks and Sparks and Tesco [PLC]'s, who have big operations in the Republic of Ireland, they have track and trace technology that they have invested heavily in and they should be relied upon without vast levels of inspections and paperwork to be able to deliver that."
He said that while the Windsor Framework was "an improvement", trading had become "more and more difficult" in recent times.
"I think we started from the wrong position, the wrong place and basically we have an overly bureaucratic approach.
"I think we have successfully achieved what we were required to do, high levels of compliance at the moment, but it's very, very difficult.
"The nature of our businesses, what's in the back of these trucks is highly diverse and regularly changing, it's not about you get this right once and be done. It's just a neverending saga."
He said that work from businesses had meant customers had largely not noticed the scale of the change, but there was a risk they would by July.
"This is like a swan on a lake. The reason consumers haven't noticed anything is because Nichola's members and my members are pedalling furiously to comply and have achieved a lot.
"Going forward, it's going to become more and more difficult, particularly, as mentioned before, the phase three labelling.
"There are branded products that we cannot tell suppliers to brand them for Northern Ireland. The government, to my mind, hasn't really been clear on how they are going to resolve that problem.
"They say they've taken the powers to require those producers to label for Northern Ireland, but it's not very clear as to how that will happen.
"So come July, it's highly likely that there will be gaps on shelves. Household products that people are used to having on their shelves in Northern Ireland may well – I hope not, we've had this before with phase one and phase two – but there may be products that, come the end of July, that disappear."
Mallon said there had been a "change in tone" from the government in the last number of months and said the UK-EU reset had "led to more positive approach to things".
She said there had been a series of webinars and roundtables in Great Britain held about changes.
Anne-Marie Murphy, director of strategy & emerging markets at the NI Consumer Council, said they had already identified "difficulties" in delivering goods from GB to NI.
She said "it isn't going to be business as usual" once the parcel changes come into force on March 31.
"The difficulty about this is that Northern Ireland consumers will be on the receiving end of these arrangements.
"So it is going to be a grandmother sending a gift to her grandchild in Northern Ireland. It is going to be a business sending something to a consumer in Northern Ireland.
"It is going to be a consumer in the UK returning a product to a business in Northern Ireland.
"So there's three different processes already and our parcels research has already identified … that there have been some difficulties in relation to delivering to Northern Ireland, either by business deciding that they are not going to deliver to Northern Ireland or it is too difficult, or by some mistakes in the process."
Jennifer Pheasey, director of public affairs at the Horticultural Trades Association, also appeared before the committee on Wednesday.
By Grainne Ni Aodha
Press Association: News
source: PA
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