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UK hopes that controversial Brexit checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea can be lifted after preliminary analysis of government data showed that at least 85% of goods coming from Great Britain to Northern Ireland end up in factories or shops in the region.
The research comes from a new HM Revenue and Customs database, the EU Access System, which tracked the movement of 1m goods crossing the Irish Sea in 2021.
Under the Northern Ireland Protocol, suppliers of goods from Britain to the region must complete customs declarations to move goods into Northern Ireland to avoid the border on the island of Ireland.
The need for a protocol has shattered the political settlement in Northern Ireland, where the Democratic Unionist Party refuses to sit in a devolved government.
The database, which the EU has been testing since November 7, provides real-time customs and business data on everything from agrifood to tractor parts and product components placed on ferries bound for Northern Ireland ports.
The UK hopes it will provide EU officials with the data they need to monitor trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and assure them that systems are in place to prevent rogue operators from smuggling low-quality goods across the border.
The data will not be published because it is commercially sensitive, but it is understood that preliminary analysis in the UK showed that a sixth or 16% of goods by value were considered to be at risk of crossing the border.
The 85% figure is unlikely to comfort the EU on the need for a border on the island of Ireland, although it is understood that a significant proportion of goods classified as a risk to cross the border remained in Northern Ireland, but were classified as such. Such as because the accompanying paperwork does not meet the requirements.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said last week that a deal on the protocol was within reach if the UK had the political will.
A database is considered central to any solution.
A government spokesman said: “To meet the UK’s customs data sharing obligations, HMRC has delivered a new system called the EU Access System. It provides real-time Northern Ireland data from five different HMRC systems in one place.
“The system is operational from January 2022 and we are working closely with the EU to ensure the system meets their requirements.”
HMRC data disclosed but not made public in September showed that in 2021 “just over 1m full declarations were approved for the movement of goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland”.
The 34.3m declarations made by British businesses selling to Europe in 2021 represent a tiny fraction of the overall trade carried out with the EU after Brexit, according to HMRC figures.
To resolve the protocol dispute, the UK is exploring a new “green lane and red lane” system that would separate lorries destined for the Republic of Ireland from those in Northern Ireland.
He believes that suppliers passing through the green lane should not be required to fill customs declarations. Suppliers have told the government that they found the requirement to list a commodity code for each item to be burdensome.
Instead the UK argues that commercial manifests, which list the contents, origin and destination of lorries on ferries, are sufficient if the database works, and a robust trusted trade system with heavy penalties for rogue operators is a viable solution.
The EU’s proposal for an “express lane” is similar, but it still requires manufacturers to complete customs declarations.
European Commission Vice President, Maroš Šefčovič, recently told EU and UK parliamentarians at a meeting in Westminster that they are “not worlds apart”.
He said EU proposals could reduce checks on lorries to two or three a day.
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