Debate contribution: The Animals (Identification, Records, Movement and Enforcement) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2025: Prayer of Annulment
Debate contribution by Mr Tom Buchanan on .
- MLA
- Mr Tom Buchanan
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 24 February 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- The Animals (Identification, Records, Movement and Enforcement) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2025: Prayer of Annulment
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4813571
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I will make a few comments in my winding-up speech on the prayer of annulment. The Animals (Identification, Records, Movement and Enforcement) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2025 are nothing short of a devious move to implement further EU law in Northern Ireland. Therefore, it is no surprise in the House that the Alliance Party and others support the regulations. By implementing these changes to EU animal health law, we are drawing a clear distinction in law and in practice between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. When the departmental officials were questioned on the regulations in the AERA Committee, they were clear in their response that they do not apply to Great Britain. I ask the Minister and others: why not? Why apply the regulations to Northern Ireland when they are not being applied in GB? If we support the regulations, we are, in fact, driving the wedge further, separating Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom. Is that what people in this House really want? We will not accept the undermining of the United Kingdom internal market in this way. As my colleague Michelle McIlveen said when she proposed the motion, the bottom line is that there should be no circumstances in which exports into the EU from Northern Ireland are distinguished from those that enter the EU from other parts of the United Kingdom. If others in the House want to implement EU law, which we have no say or control over, that is a matter for them, but I want to make it clear that the Democratic Unionist Party will not be implementing EU law over which we have no control or no say in, nor can we be expected to implement it. The Alliance Party talks about being on the side of the farmer. When will the Alliance Party waken up to the fact that it is not on the side of the farmer — far from it. All that it has to do is to go out into rural communities to see that, far from the farmers supporting that party, they are totally against the way in which it is driving agriculture policy forward. Therefore, I urge the House to support our prayer of annulment against the regulations.
374 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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