Baroness Hoey has warned that new rules on moving pets within the UK and Ireland could have an impact on tourism – and says alternatives to the Windsor Framework must be found.
Regulations before Parliament will mean that additional burdens will be placed on people travelling inside the United Kingdom with pet dogs, cats and ferrets.
It is part of the Windsor Framework, and is an attempt to ease the draconian rules impose by the original NI Protocol which would have required people in Northern Ireland to obtain pet passports to travel back from Great Britain with their animals.
Baroness Kate Hoey has tabled a regret motion in the House of Lords on the new rules, which criticises the fact that pets travelling to Northern Ireland differently from those travelling to any other part of the United Kingdom.
The crossbench peer told the News Letter: “These pet animal regulations are very clear. Northern Ireland is being treated differently once again from the rest of the United Kingdom.
“Relatives of families living in Northern Ireland coming home to visit with their pet will be subject to bureaucracy, paperwork, extra expense – none of which would be necessary if travelling from England to Scotland or Wales. This is bound to also affect tourism as those travelling will have to sign that they will not take their pet over the border into the Republic.
“Whilst much of the discussion of the effects of the Windsor Framework have been about trade issues this regulation hits home In a a more specific way for residents here just how pernicious the Windsor Framework is.
“I am pleased that we will have a debate in Parliament so that the British public realise just how important it is that alternatives to the Framework are found to, present further separation of NI from the rest of the United Kingdom”.
TUV MP Jim Allister has a private members bill on replacing the Windsor Framework up for debate in early December. It has support from all unionist parties as well as representatives from Labour and the Conservative Party in the House of Commons.
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