Responding to the Prime Minister’s visit to Northern Ireland, the Policy Chair of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) in Northern Ireland, Alan Lowry said:
“We welcome the Prime Minister’s engagement with political parties in Northern Ireland. The positive temperament and tone of the parties’ responses is helping to create an environment in which the UK and EU can overcome the problems facing business.
“All five main political parties - plus the UK Government, the Irish Government and the EU - have each accepted that the Protocol needs to be fixed or adapted, at the very least.
“The reason they have come to that conclusion is in large part because businesses have highlighted the problems it is causing them.
“FSB and a number of other business organisations and individual businesses have found common cause in this for the past two years. We have spent that time establishing with our respective members what works, what doesn’t work, and what needs to be adapted.
“That’s a remarkable coalition of political parties, business organisations and businesses who agree that the Protocol is not working as intended, and that it can be improved without losing the benefits.
“FSB’s membership is very broad, covering almost the entire economy, so members have a wide range of experiences of the Protocol and our engagement work has consistently reflected that.
“It is vital that the respective negotiation teams remember the five broad cohorts of businesses, for whom the protocol affects them in different ways:
- There are those for whom the Protocol is working well and who gain a strategic advantage, due in large part to the dual market access it gives them to the rest of the UK and to the EU.
- There are those who are largely unaffected – principally in services.
- There is a third cohort who are largely unaware of the detail of the impact, other than increased cost, usually because they source from a NI-based wholesaler who is taking the pain, undertaking all of the process, paperwork and extra costs, and then simply passing on a Protocol-admin charge.
- The fourth cohort are a cause for concern because whilst they are largely able to continue operating more as less as normal, it is only because of the existence of ‘grace periods’ which are, at best, unstable and liable to cease.
- Finally, the fifth cohort are those for whom the Protocol is causing difficulty – in some cases risking the entire viability of the business.
“We hope the UK Government and EU will imminently reach agreement and deliver joint solutions that address all of the concerns that business has highlighted over the past two years.
“When they publish their work, we will take time to consider it, discuss it with our members, and see if it moves things forward in a way that secures the benefits that the Protocol originally delivered whilst overcoming the problems and unintended consequences it has created.”
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