My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, who speaks with such knowledge on these issues. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for her presentation of the key issues here, many of which I agree with. I declare my interest as an honorary president of the United Kingdom Warehousing Association. I approach this issue from a northern perspective, and I ask my noble friend in particular about why Teesport, for example, does not seem to be included here? The local authority representing that area is not in the list in Schedule 1, despite obviously being a major port.
Throughout the year, I meet a number of local businesses, particularly in north Yorkshire, two of which have a background in cold storage, logistics and distribution. I would like to share with the Minister that they have impressed on me the clear need for greater prioritisation and use of these northern ports. I am thinking in particular of Immingham, which now has three berths, because it has reclaimed a number of them; there is extra capacity at Hull, because we have sadly lost the passenger route between there and Zeebrugge; and I would also add Teesport to these, as it is not too far away. To what extent can we develop and use the extra capacity, and build on the existing capacity, at these northern ports? That would ease the bottlenecks that we have seen so clearly at the southern ports, as identified by my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft, who lives in Kent.
The other sad thing to record is the closure of a lobster and crab firm, Baron Shellfish of Bridlington, which had been exporting live lobsters and crabs to Europe, most particularly Spain and France, since we entered the Common Market, and has ceased trading. It claims that one of the reasons for this is the forms
and extra bureaucratic and administrative barriers in place since 1 January. To what extent are we in the situation where we need the planning permission set out in this order because we have not gone down the path of digitalisation? We are relying entirely on paper-based forms. Yet as other noble Lords have said, we had four years to prepare for this situation; it was the will of the people to leave the European Union, including, we were told, the single market and the customs union. I firmly believe that we would not be in this position today if we had identified and progressed an advanced digitalisation procedure. I appreciate that my noble friend may not have the details today, but I would be grateful if she could write to noble Lords who have participated this afternoon. By concentrating more on northern ports and a programme of digitalisation, we could have eased some of the bottlenecks that we have seen.
I entirely agree with those who have regretted the lack of consultation on, and parliamentary oversight of, the order before the House today. We are told that, under the order, land used for this purpose has to be reinstated by the end of 2026 unless there are environmental benefits, such as biodiversity and drainage. Who will pay for that? I hope that local authorities are not going to be left to pick up the extra bill. This has presumably been worked out and thought through.
In paragraph 9 of the 26th report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government states that:
“Those invited to make representation must have had no less than 14 days to do so; copies … received must be provided to MHCLG.”
It would be helpful to know to what extent the ministry has publicly refuted any of those concerns.
I will not be voting against the order, but I do regret the manner in which it has been adopted.
5.45 pm