First of all, thank you for taking the time to sign this petition.

This is a genuine attempt to try and pressurise Fast Parcel Operators into reassessing their current approach to charges on parcel movements from Great Britain to Northern Ireland and already, despite the small numbers of signatures we’ve got to date, it seems to be beginning to bear fruit!

Yesterday morning, I received correspondence from a senior member of the HMRC team involved with Northern Ireland and the implementation of the Windsor Framework arrangements, asking if it would be possible for myself to provide examples from businesses here in NI of charges that had been applied on parcels they received from GB that could have been cleared under NIAD, Preferential Origin etc. An offer to meet and discuss this further was also made.

Whilst this is obviously a good start and I have already responded, the more signatures we can muster, the stronger our case will be!

With this in mind, I am reaching out to ask if you could please share this appeal throughout your network.

Share it with your colleagues, share it with other businesses here in Northern Ireland and also share it with your suppliers in Great Britain. If we continue to get charged disproportionate disbursement fees by FPOs we will eventually look for alternative suppliers in Ireland etc in which such charges don’t apply, so they have an incentive to get this sorted too!

This petition was started because I want to see the parcel operators honour the promises they made prior to the implementation of the new arrangements and to put pressure on the UKG to provide real guidance not only for businesses here in NI but also for our suppliers in GB.

Thank you for spreading this message as together, we can change things!

Jonathan