DEFRA officials met Kings Seeds on 19 January. The Department regularly meets a range of businesses, including through the working group established with the Horticultural Trades Association, which met most recently on 18 January.
The Minister will know that Kings Seeds is what is known as a well established local business, having been based in Kelvedon since 1888. It trades in horticultural seeds and is known for its sweet peas, but as he will be aware, it cannot send its products to Northern Ireland, which it says is because of barriers related to the Windsor framework. Will he clarify whether the announcements made earlier this week—we will discuss the statutory instruments relating to them later today—will resolve the issue? If not, will he work with me and teams across Government to ensure that we deal with the issue? Perhaps he would like to come to Kelvedon to meet the company.
As I said, DEFRA officials met Kings Seeds on 19 January. I am more than happy to meet my right hon. Friend and the company to discuss its concerns and see how we can support it in all its excellent work in her constituency.
We appreciate the concerns of Kings Seeds. We are inviting it to the new horticulture working group announced in yesterday’s Command Paper, along with industry representatives. The Government will ask the group to address the movement of seeds to consumers in Northern Ireland as a priority. I look forward to hearing its recommendations.
I apologise for my earlier misdemeanour, Mr Speaker.
Now that we have significant progress towards the restoration of devolution, will the Minister agree to work with DUP Members and his ministerial colleagues to ensure that issues such as the horticultural one continue to be resolved, so that we have maximum efficiency across the North channel?
I am delighted to work with the hon. Gentleman. We have a track record of working with our DUP friends to solve the challenges that we face. That conversation can continue, and I look forward to working with him to continue to solve those challenges.