Ms Una Boyd:

I would like to follow up on the question around the common travel area and then address the question about checks on cross-Border transport. The need for the common travel area to be put on a more statutory footing is something we have been raising consistently for the last few years. The concern is that the common travel area is largely an administrative arrangement and a huge amount of the detail of it was essentially sorted by membership of the European Union. A great deal of the intricate parts were never really put on a statutory footing and were never really dealt with properly. One of the very predictable outcomes of Brexit was that it would expose huge gaps. We have seen very clear commitments to the protection of the common travel area. The Senator referred to the memorandum of understanding and the protocol clearly commits to avoiding a hard Border. Article 3 commits to the continued functioning of the common travel area but without a clear statutory footing, we are already seeing a slow creep of changes to the common travel area which are really concerning. The Home Office, for example, changed its guidance on checks between the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain on 2 September. Without changing any legislation, it has now changed the guidance, which seems to state that people are required to provide identification on those journeys. If that is the case, it is a significant alteration to how the common travel area functions.

We have also seen a slow change in language, in talking about the common travel area as something that only applies to British and Irish citizens, which is not accurate in terms of how it has functioned for many years. It is a check-free zone that many people who are not British or Irish have also utilised and relied on. That is really reflected in the memorandum of understanding, which focuses on the rights of British and Irish citizens.

The electronic travel authorisation system, which Mr. Holder mentioned, which is part of the Nationality and Borders Bill, presents a fundamental change in UK immigration law that will significantly change the functioning of the common travel area. Already, quite early in the process and despite commitments, we are seeing changes, most of which are detrimental. If the common travel area had a statutory basis, we would have legislative clarity, which would make it easier to prevent these slow changes, like the Home Office changes which are not based on legislative change.

I also want to mention the common travel area forum. A huge amount is going on in that forum. We requested the minutes and papers and got heavily redacted papers back which showed that both states are clearly very reluctant to show what is happening in that forum. Obviously, that is where these decisions are being made. We would argue that there must be a much stronger statutory footing for the common travel area.

Regarding checks on buses, we have a significant amount of evidence on how often these checks are happening, mostly thanks to collaboration with an organisation called End Deportations Belfast, which has an online reporting tool which allows anyone who witnesses a check to log where it happened and what happened. That organisation has kindly provided us with that information. We saw a massive drop in the number of checks, which we hoped was because the policy was being examined or changed but unfortunately, we now think it was just due to Covid. The fact that people were not travelling as much meant that, naturally, the number of checks fell. They have started to increase again and we are also seeing a change whereby checks have started to occur at Dublin Airport among people getting on buses at the airport that are bound for Belfast. That is new.

In terms of actions that can be taken, this is set out in-----