There's just days until the Northern Ireland protocol enters into force on 1 Jan. The Joint Committee has made it's decisions, the UK and EU have agreed an FTA (the TCA), and the UK have announced lots of new schemes, but what does this all mean for the Irish Sea Border ⛴️🚛🧵

Tariffs💵The Joint Committee already agreed that most goods moving GB-NI that are for sale or final use in NI will not be subject to tariffs. Businesses will need to register for the UK Trader Scheme to certify that their goods qualify.

Registrations for the UK trade scheme opened on 15 December so cutting it a bit fine. But the JC decision allows for any applications to the scheme to be provisionally approved for up to 4 months. The zero-tariff UK-EU deal has relieved some of the strain on the scheme because..

A lot of goods moving GB-NI will qualify for tariff-free access whether the goods are staying in NI or going to the EU, so many businesses may not bother using it. But it could still be important for goods who don't meet the Rules of Origin threshold

Customs formalities 📑 The same paperwork, including customs declarations, will be required on goods going GB-NI as going GB-EU. The UK-EU have agreed some simplifications in the TCA & UK officials applying EU law in NI will no doubt be as light touch as possible.

Yesterday saw the Government reach a compromise with Peers over the devolution aspects of the UK Internal Market Bill. The Lords were standing strong over an amendment on Common Frameworks - so what has been agreed & where do we go now? 🧵

First a quick recap: the bill enshrines 2 Market Access Principles in law 1) Mutual recognition, anything acceptable for sale in one part of the UK is acceptable in another 2) Non-discrimination, no discrimination against goods from another part of the

The purpose of these is to prevent trade barriers, caused by divergence, between parts of the UK. But the 4 governments were already working on 'common frameworks' to manage divergence *by agreement*. The Scottish & Welsh govs argued these were sufficient

Lord Hope's amendment aimed to exclude areas were divergence has been deemed acceptable through common frameworks from the Market Access Principles. The gov amendment makes it clear existing powers for UK ministers in the bill can be used to do that.

So this is good news on the devolution front. But it doesn't solve everything - common frameworks only cover policy areas returned from the EU & the devolved governments also have concerns about other parts of the bill. So what are the key questions now?