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<p>The Government is steadfast in our commitment to the Belfast Agreement and will
do everything in our power to ensure no return to a hard border between Northern Ireland
and Ireland.</p><p>On 13 March, the UK Government announced a unilateral approach
to checks, processes and tariffs for trade moving from Ireland to Northern Ireland.
This policy aims to retain the status quo as far as possible by doing all we can to
avoid a hard border. This approach is strictly temporary.</p><p>The UK Government
will not introduce any new checks or controls on goods crossing from Ireland to Northern
Ireland, including any new customs declarations for nearly all goods. The UK temporary
tariff regime would therefore not apply to goods crossing from Ireland into Northern
Ireland.</p><p>We would need to apply a small number of measures strictly necessary
to comply with international legal obligations, protect the biosecurity of the island
of Ireland, or to avoid the highest risks to Northern Ireland businesses - but these
measures would not require checks at the border. Expressly:</p><ul><li><p>Businesses
pay VAT and Excise on goods from Ireland today and the UK Government would continue
to collect these taxes on Irish goods in future. Small businesses trading across the
border and not currently VAT registered would be able to report VAT online periodically
without any new processes at the border. Traders would need to make electronic declarations
for excise goods.</p></li></ul><ul><li><p>To protect human, animal, and plant health,
animals and animal products from countries outside the EU would need to enter Northern
Ireland through a designated entry point and regulated plant material from outside
the EU and high risk EU plant material would require certification. Plants and plant
products which have not been previously checked by an EU Member state would need to
be pre-notified before arriving in the UK and checked at authorised inland trade premises.</p></li></ul><ul><li><p>To
fulfil essential international obligations, there would be new UK import requirements
such as checks on documents or registration for a very limited set of goods, such
as endangered species and hazardous chemicals. This would not involve any infrastructure
or checks at the border including in Northern Ireland.</p></li></ul><p>Because these
are unilateral measures, they only mitigate the impact of exit that are within the
UK Government’s control. These measures do not set out the position in respect of
tariffs or processes to be applied to goods moving from Northern Ireland to Ireland.
The Irish Government has so far not set out their position on the procedures for goods
moving across the land border from Northern Ireland to Ireland.</p><p>In a no deal
scenario, we are committed to entering into discussions urgently with the European
Commission and the Irish Government to jointly agree long-term measures to avoid a
hard border.</p>
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