(1 day, 7 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Carlile of Berriew
That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee Northern Ireland after Brexit: Strengthening Northern Ireland’s voice in the context of the Windsor Framework (1st Report, HL Paper 182).
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, has pulled out of the debate because she has a Motion in the Chamber.
It is a great privilege to chair the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee, which was appointed in January 2025. In October 2025 we produced our first report—the one we are dealing with today—examining the Windsor Framework. If those two words, “Windsor” and “framework”, conjure in the minds of noble Lords castle-like, symmetrical architecture, a secure moat and fine gardens, think again. We are here under a remarkable Victorian painting of Moses bringing down the tables from the mountain. It is a piece of strong evidence that, if you produce a document that is short, it lasts rather longer than one that is much more complicated—but I do not think that was part of the thinking when the Windsor Framework was created.
In reality, the Windsor Framework is a complex amalgam of diplomacy, politics and sheer necessity, conjured from shakily designed foundations. To me, it bears all the characteristics of having occurred, rather than having been designed. However, it is what Northern Ireland has to live with; it affects everyday life at every level, from the esoterics of company and competition law to the humble task of everyday shopping for it affects consumers above all others, probably. I shall give a small example. Somebody who wishes to buy new socks or a mixing machine from a GB supplier may not be able to do so, because of the duties on the packaging in which their purchase would be brought and because of the bureaucratic complexities that make it all too much trouble for some suppliers in Great Britain to supply to Northern Ireland.
As the committee, we devoted ourselves from the very beginning to the interests of consumers, producers and everything in between, but above all to the public in Northern Ireland. We relied for our report on a large body of evidence and spent time in Northern Ireland talking to stakeholders, including businesses large and small, and, importantly, social enterprises, which are also affected.
I thank my parliamentary colleagues on the committee for their assiduous attention to the evidence, and their constructive and purposeful contribution to the discussion. I know that members of the committee will share this: I particularly thank the clerk of the committee, Liam McNulty, our expert advising counsel, Tim Mitchell, our organising genius, Breda Twomey, and all the secretariat, for their extraordinary contributions. The newly established committee functioned efficiently, was properly briefed on all relevant subjects and was able to produce a full and reasoned report. We are very fortunate in your Lordships’ House to be blessed with staff of such quality to help us in what we do.
The committee’s membership includes a wide range of views on the constitutional status of Northern Ireland and on the protocol and Windsor Framework. Despite colleagues’ divergent views and strong opinions on some issues of principle, I emphasise that it is notable that the report was agreed unanimously. This imbues added force in the conclusions reached by the committee.
We are grateful too for His Majesty’s Government’s positive response to the report—mostly, at least. We recognise the care and attention that Ministers and officials have given to our deliberations in expressing some continuing concerns. I look forward to the Minister’s contribution later in the debate. As noble Lords know, the noble Baroness has a large fan club in your Lordships’ House, and I am one of its members. I ask her not to disappoint me.
We look forward to the EU-UK reset agreement. In that context, I point out a serious matter: the relevance of our report for the formation of some important reset subjects, such as the arrangements for energy supply in Northern Ireland, and the shape and detail of the proposed sanitary and phytosanitary, or SPS, agreement—a phrase I have become used to since I began to chair the committee—which I hope will simplify border and related arrangements for agri-food products between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The issues we have covered and reported on concern Northern Ireland’s voice and stakeholder engagement. I hope that the report will provide important lessons for the prospective dynamic alignment between Great Britain and the EU, which the European Affairs Committee of your Lordships’ House is examining as part of a current inquiry. Our report endorsed proposals to ensure that Northern Ireland’s voice is enhanced at an early stage of every relevant part of the EU’s complex legislative process. This can be done, in particular, through greater resourcing and capability in the United Kingdom mission in Brussels, working closely with the Northern Ireland Civil Service to shape relevant European Commission proposals.
The importance of these points is that, despite the restoration of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing institutions in February 2024, witnesses to our inquiry told us that issues relating to the Windsor Framework, as currently administered, have the capacity to create instability if not handled carefully by the Government and politicians. Thus, our report seeks to improve on the current situation for the benefit of the people of Northern Ireland as a whole. The emphasis of our approach is on the experiences of real people, notwithstanding the vagaries of political life and institutions.
I am delighted by the presence in this debate of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen. He is an admired former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—even better, we were Welsh MPs together—whose statutory Independent Review of the Windsor Framework was presented to Parliament last September. Unsurprisingly —I know that the noble Lord was not at all surprised—our report and his very good report, which has been accepted fully by the Government, have a great deal in common.
The noble Lord focused, as did we, on the increasingly complex governance structure of the framework. A snapshot of the effect of that structure is to be found on the organogram on pages 24 and 25 of our report—I know we are not supposed to hold up illustrations in Grand Committee, but I will—which sets out in magnificent graphic confusion the numerous locations across the EU, the UK Government, the UK Parliament, the Northern Ireland Executive, the Northern Ireland Assembly and elsewhere where the mechanisms of the Windsor Framework can be found. It illustrates the confusion, rather than accessible solutions, and we have clearly identified the need to solve the problem of accessibility.
We followed and amplified several of the findings of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, particularly in relation to the timing and resourcing constraints under which the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee, the DSC, has to work. We are delighted that in one of its many positive responses to both the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and ourselves, the Government have undertaken to re-examine the timescales and required information under which the DSC has to work. It is difficult being a member of the DSC under current arrangements.
We are grateful to the Government for their full response, dated 6 February 2026. Many of our recommendations found favour with the Government, but not all. On the negative side, the Government told us that for stakeholders who have difficulties with European legal provisions and issues, the EUR-Lex website provides an accessible and acceptable digest of information on EU law. Those legal provisions are important, because they may affect everyday trade, particularly for SMEs trying to make their way in business. However, in taking evidence recently, since our report was published, it has become very clear that in reality it is accessible for exploration only by highly paid, black-letter lawyers and provides little assistance to businesses and social enterprises who do not wish to line the entreating pockets of my learned friends.
One very positive development is the Government’s acceptance of the recommendation of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, of a one-stop shop for Windsor Framework-connected inquiries. This was a leading recommendation of his report. The one-stop shop, especially its triage system, uses the best available practices, including the services of artificial intelligence, and should enable businesses quickly to find the answers to real, everyday questions that are asked, but we need to know more about it. Who will run it, the Government or private enterprise? When will it start? It has been suggested that it will be created during the 2026-27 tax year, so will Northern Ireland traders have to wait another 18 months or two years before it exists in any meaningful form? Is it going to be trialled and tested by real people in real industries, so that they can show whether it works?
Whether the business concerned is selling organic eggs to Great Britain or wishes to purchase raw materials in the EU for product manufacture in a bigger supply chain, the one-stop shop and increased legal clarity will, we hope, be a beneficial outcome of the reports from the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and ourselves. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, who is a valuable member of our committee, is unable to be with us today. He has made two valuable points, which I have told him I will pass on.
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
I was just dealing with some points about the one-stop shop that our colleague the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, had raised. First, the one-stop shop really must emphasise its services to traders in Great Britain who wish to trade with Northern Ireland. It is important that they should know what is available to them. Secondly, if the one-stop shop happens to give a trader advice that is wrong, as long as that trader is acting in good faith on that advice, there should be a waiver of any consequent penalties—for example, tax penalties that arise from the actions of the trader in question.
I turn next to the issue widely described as the democratic deficit arising from the 2019 protocol. The history, political institutions and social and community context of Northern Ireland make the democratic deficit an extremely important issue. In our report, we make it clear that, in our view, not enough has been done to mitigate, let alone resolve, this fundamental issue, which causes profound political division in Northern Ireland. With this in mind, our report focuses positively on the ways in which Northern Ireland stakeholders can more effectively participate in the Windsor Framework structures. We believe that our proposals, if followed, will enhance Northern Ireland’s voice in the operation of the framework and promote greater transparency, and not just greater public understanding but some public understanding of the framework.
On behalf of our committee, I express the hope that there will be an easing of complexity as a result of the contributions that we and the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, have made and that real-world business on the ground will find it easier to work with partners in the European Union and Great Britain. The future of the Windsor Framework’s functionality requires a new impetus, with a fresh sense of purpose wisely advocated by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and our report. I commend the report to the Committee.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
My Lords, it is an enormous pleasure to follow my good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the way in which he outlined and gave the details of his report. My report and review entirely paralleled the inquiry held by the committee. Much of it is the same. I thank the members of the committee who produced that report. It was not easy. They come from different political backgrounds and have different views on the issue, but the consensus that arose from it was almost completely the same as the recommendations that I eventually made.
I thank the Government and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for accepting every single one of my recommendations. I will come later to the practicality of that side. I thank the 100 bodies and organisations that I talked to, both in Northern Ireland and here in Great Britain, which gave me great insight into the workings of the Windsor Framework.
As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said, my review was triggered by the fact that there was disagreement, towards the end of 2024, on what to do about the Windsor Framework. The Assembly voted, but not on a cross-community basis. The result of that was that it automatically triggered the review that I was to undertake some months later.
That reflects, in many ways, the disastrous process that followed Brexit. I make no comment on Brexit itself. I was not in favour of it, but it is not about that; it is about the effects of Brexit on Northern Ireland, which simply were not debated enough at the time. The people who decided these things and those who debated the whole issue of Brexit underestimated the impact that it would have on Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland voted in favour of remaining a part of the European Union, but of course, that does not work, because you go in as a member state or not. My own country, Wales, voted the other way, against my recommendations. The consequence of all this is that Governments have to find a way around this unusual situation. One bit of the island of Ireland is in the European Union and the other bit is outside. Inevitably, as a consequence of what we decided 26 years ago in the Good Friday agreement and whether we should have a hard border, this caused enormous complications.
The other thing that I emphasise to your Lordships is that, in my view, if the institutions had been up and running at the time of Brexit, there would have been a much better resolution of this. I am not saying that it would have been easy, but people in Northern Ireland would have made their own decisions about their own future. One thing that I have learned over a quarter of a century of dealing with Northern Ireland business is that imposition in Northern Ireland is always disastrous and that effective solutions to problems have to come from the people in Northern Ireland through their elected representatives all the time. It did not happen. As a consequence of that, we had a protocol that, strangely and bizarrely, was denounced by the Government who created it. That was not very good. Then we had the Windsor Framework, which was undoubtedly better than that. That is what we are debating today.
One problem that I faced during my review were the very deep feelings about the constitutional impact of Brexit and the Windsor Framework. Unionists take a very different view from nationalists on the effect of the Windsor Framework on the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. That was well beyond the remit of what I was allowed to report on; I am not sure that I would have wanted to report on it, but I would have had a bash, even if I would not have got very far in the end. A fundamental problem with my review was that I could not touch those views that every unionist party or representative made to me about the constitutional impact of the Windsor Framework. I very much accept that it is an issue.
It was also made clear to me that the vote in Northern Ireland to accept the framework was not done on a cross-community basis. As a consequence, it went against the spirit of the Good Friday agreement. I am not completely convinced about that, but I am convinced that it went against the spirit of parity of esteem. Whether you are a nationalist, a unionist or neither, parity of esteem means that your views are regarded to the same extent. I am not sure—in fact I am unconvinced—that the parity of esteem principle has not been overlooked in all this. At the end of my remarks, I will come to why I think that that should be looked at again.
There were two issues from looking at the report, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said. One was the democratic deficit. I will not go into the detail of the recommendations that I made, to which the noble Lord has referred, but the Democratic Scrutiny Committee did not and does not operate as well as it could. It operates under great burdens: it does not have enough time, staff or expertise. There is insufficient liaison with the Office of the Northern Ireland Executive in Brussels. Great changes can be made to make that work better. Those points were made to me by everybody, whether nationalists or unionists. The Government have accepted the principle of those recommendations, but we need to see them working in practice.
I am not sure that the Stormont brake has got anybody anywhere. It was regarded as being hugely significant. In theory it probably is, but in reality it has not proved to be the saviour of the situation that people expected. We will wait to see what happens on the Stormont brake, but it was certainly a genuine attempt to try to overcome the difficulties. But these are complex mechanisms, which an ordinary voter in Northern Ireland would find hard to deal with.
I had the pleasure of meeting the Democratic Scrutiny Committee, which wrote to me as well and indicated the difficulties that it faced. I also met the Committee for the Economy of the Northern Ireland Assembly. They were both extremely good meetings and the points made by all members from all political persuasions were very valuable.
One point that they all made was that, if you want to influence a decision on legislation, do it early; do not wait until later. It is the same here: if you want to influence legislation in this Government and Parliament, try to resolve it at an early stage. That is why it is important that the Office of the Northern Ireland Executive in Brussels is properly manned by specialists who can deal with this at that early stage and catch problems before they ever get to Belfast.
The other big issue was the enormous burden on businesses that the framework has brought—not on big ones, which have lots of money and can employ people to deal with the complexities of the bureaucracy, but on small and medium-sized businesses, which cannot do that. Interestingly, I just came back yesterday from the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, which was meeting in Tralee. I was talking to a nationalist MLA who was describing to me the problems that her constituents were having, including small businesses. She quoted a women’s hairdresser, who was probably going to pack up because she could not deal with the bureaucracy surrounding all this. That was interesting because the person saying this to me was from the nationalist community; I get it regularly from the unionist side of things, of course.
Probably the most significant recommendation that the committee and I have made is on the one-stop shop. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, made the point that that is so important for Britain, as it is for businesses in Northern Ireland itself. Very often, a British business simply will not bother with the bureaucracy to send stuff to Northern Ireland to be sold. The organisation chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, InterTrade UK, will have a significant part to play in that, to try to explain those burdens to British business.
There is a definite case, for example, to have trusted trader status for the haulage industry in Northern Ireland—that is one of my recommendations, and I hope it is acted on soon. There is a case for the duty reimbursement scheme to be improved so that businesses do not have cash-flow problems. I made some other recommendations regarding Article 2, dealing with human rights.
The electronic travel area—ETA—regulations that operate on the island of Ireland are not part of my recommendations, but I touched on them in the report because of the importance that people felt they had. They are causing severe problems for the hospitality and tourist industry in Northern Ireland. Again, at the BIPA conference in Tralee this week, I asked the Irish Government Minister, and it was a matter of debate.
I will not go into any more of the details, suffice it to say that you could not put a cigarette paper between my report and the report of the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. They say the same things because they are the obvious things to say. I conclude by saying just three things. First, I say to the Government that it is wonderful to have the recommendations agreed, but we now await the action on those recommendations, and the sooner the better, particularly on the one-stop shop.
Secondly, the SPS agreement is absolutely vital. The quicker that happens, the better, because my experience of these things is that Europe is not exactly quick in dealing with various negotiations, and the sooner that happens, the better.
Thirdly, all these recommendations are about making the current scheme better, making it work and helping businesses, but they do not go to the heart of the political disagreement on this. That needs to be addressed too. I am not sure how that will be done because it is not easy—but it is never easy in Northern Ireland. When we drew up the Good Friday agreement all those years ago, who would have thought we could have resolved those enormous issues? But we did eventually resolve them. So, if we can do that, perhaps we can also resolve the issues that surround the Windsor Framework because, as long as they are untouched, it will be a running sore.
In the meantime, we have to be practical and make it better for individual business, better for people and better for Northern Ireland. The sooner we have the Government’s recommendations, the better.
Lord Lilley (Con)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lords, Lord Murphy and Lord Carlile. I do so with some temerity; I cannot understand why I have been put so high up the list, since my expertise in these areas is probably less than almost everybody else on this Committee. But I pay tribute to the committee for producing a report that is thorough and detailed in its analysis of a labyrinthine problem. Every tree in the forest of issues has been identified and described, but the report stopped short, as the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, mentioned, of examining why this forest of problems exists and whether there is some way of removing them or finding a permanent route through the forest.
The basic reason for the impenetrable barriers that we have to get through and which prevents the people of Northern Ireland having a proper say, or even a veto, over the laws that govern them is that Northern Ireland is, effectively, a condominium. We should recognise that fact. It is governed jointly by the EU and the UK in many respects. It is a bit like the old condominium of Sudan and Egypt, which was an Anglo-Egyptian condominium, or, more recently, the New Hebrides, which was jointly controlled by a Franco-British condominium. It was such a nightmare that it was known as the pandemonium, not the condominium. I suspect that the consequences of trying jointly to govern Northern Ireland by EU law, 300 areas of law and UK law elsewhere, and a consultation between the UK and EU authorities are inevitably bound to create pandemonium. It is impossible, under that arrangement, to give voice to the local people any more than it was possible in Sudan or the New Hebrides.
That raises two issues. Is this situation permanent? If it is not, is there an alternative that would provide a much more satisfactory long-term arrangement that would allow democracy to return? I was struck when I bumped into some young people from Northern Ireland who said how insulted they felt that they were not allowed to vote for people who would determine the laws in large areas of life that affected them. We have to deal with that issue.
We all agree that there should not be a hard border in Northern Ireland. That is the basis of the present arrangement. The only body ever threatening to erect a hard border with physical facilities and carrying out checks at the border was, of course, the EU itself. The EU has a perfectly legitimate objective, which is to prevent goods that do not conform to its rules entering its territory. It has to maintain the integrity of the single market. To do that, it insisted and persuaded at the very opening of the negotiations on the withdrawal agreement that there should be no hard border. Effectively, that led to the continuation of EU law north of the border. The EU insisted that all goods produced in Northern Ireland must conform to EU rules and all those entering from GB must conform to EU rules if they go into the Republic. This is a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
I want to see whether there is a case for removing this present situation before I come to an alternative. Let us think back to the time when the withdrawal agreement was negotiated. Mrs May—now the noble Baroness, Lady May—asked to negotiate the trade arrangements that would follow on from us leaving the European Union alongside the withdrawal arrangements. She was refused by the EU, which said that it was not possible for it to do that under EU law. It could not reach a permanent agreement on trading arrangements with us until we had left, because the EU had powers to reach agreements only with independent countries—non-members. So we needed first to have left the EU before it was possible to reach any agreement with us.
The EU then went ahead and agreed the withdrawal agreement before it would start proper negotiations on the trade and co-operation agreement, but it insisted on including trading arrangements with Northern Ireland in the withdrawal agreement. Whenever I raised this and said, “Well, hang on, I thought you couldn’t reach trading agreements”, the EU said, “Oh, we can, as long as it is temporary and designed to deal with the problems that may arise if Britain leaves without a permanent trade and co-operation agreement”, or other transitional arrangements to do with us leaving. But it is intrinsically temporary. We need to remember and remind ourselves of that.
This was all discussed in the House of Commons at the time. The then Attorney-General, Geoffrey Cox, explained to the House that
“article 50 of the Treaty on European Union does not provide a legal basis in Union law for permanent future arrangements with non-member states”.
He went on to say that, if European traders felt disadvantaged by aspects of the protocol in future, they should,
“beat a path to the door of the Commission and the Court, and there to say, ‘Didn’t you say that article 50 is not a sound legal foundation for this arrangement?’ And I tell you frankly, Mr Speaker, they are likely to win”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/12/18; cols. 547-55.]
So the Attorney-General, who rarely expresses opinions on the possible outcome of hypothetical legal cases, thought it was absolutely clear-cut that this is a temporary arrangement that cannot continue permanently.
The withdrawal agreement, which is based on Article 50 of the European Union treaties,
“does not aim at establishing a permanent future relationship between the EU and the UK”—
that was the wording in the original protocol. It was not in the second protocol, but that does not mean that it did not apply, because the second protocol was bounded by exactly the same aspects of the treaties of the European Union. So it is temporary and it must sooner or later be replaced. With what can it be replaced that will meet the legitimate objectives of the European Union to maintain the integrity of its single market, the people of Northern Ireland to have a say in their government and the United Kingdom as a whole to maintain the integrity of its own market?
It has been suggested by very distinguished people, such as a former director-general of the EU Commission, Sir Jonathan Faull, and distinguished professors of EU law at both Harvard and Madrid, Joseph Weiler and Daniel Sarmiento, that we should collectively agree mutual enforcement. We do not need to go even that far. We can have unilateral enforcement. Britain can pass a law that will prohibit the export of goods that do not meet EU laws, checks and standards from our territory to the EU.
In the normal way, that law would not be enforced at the border. Indeed, existing export controls to the rest of the world are rarely, if ever, enforced at the border, port or airport. Applications to export goods, or likewise to import goods under customs duties, are analysed electronically. If analysis or intelligence suggests that a company may be exporting or importing non-compliant goods without having obtained an export or import licence, enforcement action would normally be at the point of production or dispatch, not at the port or border. Likewise, should the UK suspect or be informed by the Irish Government that non-EU compliant goods were being or planned to be dispatched across the border, enforcement would take place at the trader’s premises in Great Britain or Northern Ireland, or in transit, not at the Northern Ireland border.
So there is a perfectly workable and enforceable system that we could introduce. We would like it to be reciprocated by similar arrangements for goods coming into Britain from the EU, but we do not need that. HMRC said repeatedly in all our debates and discussions that there were no circumstances in which it would need to carry out checks at the border to maintain the integrity of the United Kingdom internal market.
I congratulate the committee again on having looked at ways to try to ameliorate the problems that are inherent in the present situation, but let us not forget that the present situation is temporary. It legally must be replaced, and there are alternatives to replace it with that meet the legitimate expectations of the EU, as well as the needs of the people of Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)
My Lords, it is an honour to speak in this debate and to be a member of the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. I thank our chairman for how he outlined the contents of the report today and, more broadly, for how skilfully he guides and chairs our committee. It is no mean feat to bring so many diverse views to some form of consensus, as his predecessor the noble Lord, Lord Jay, did, on the letters and reports that we look at. They make a valuable contribution to the overall debate and I pay tribute to him, to his predecessor, and to our clerk and our excellent staff and secretariat, who are across all the details and make our life so much easier.
I come to the contents of this report. It is entitled Northern Ireland after Brexit: Strengthening Northern Ireland’s Voice in the Context of the Windsor Framework, so the first thing we need to do is look at the Windsor Framework itself: it is in that context that we have to look at all these ideas and proposals. So what does the Windsor Framework do? We need to remind ourselves about what it does. It means that foreign laws made by a foreign legislature—a foreign polity, which makes laws in its own interests—are imposed on a third country, part of the United Kingdom, which is the fifth-largest or sixth-largest economy in the world. No Member of Parliament, Member of the Legislative Assembly or citizen in Northern Ireland has any say in the development, amendment or formulation of those laws.
The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, talked about condominium status—it is a form of colonialism. For a part of the United Kingdom and its citizens to be treated in such a way in the 21st century is, quite frankly, an appalling situation, and it does not cover just trade. The 300 areas of law in Articles 2 and 5 of the protocol all deal with various aspects of trade—state aid and so on—but it goes much wider than that: our committee proposes to look at the Dillon judgment and the effects on equality, human rights law and all the rest of it. So it is much wider than just trade; it affects every aspect of society in Northern Ireland, with large swathes of our economy governed by laws not made by us and not capable of being made by us but made by the European Union.
Our committee has wrestled with this notion of the democratic deficit, which really should be described as a democratic denial. It is the denial of democracy; it is not just a deficit. The fourth paragraph of our summary on page 4 says:
“This report examines the action that has been taken to mitigate the democratic deficit, and makes clear that what has been done so far is insufficient to resolve this fundamental issue”.
So anything that we suggest in this report can be only a mitigation of a disastrous situation that all self-respecting lawmakers should be appalled at and should seek to do something about.
What have we ended up with? We have ended up with, as has been described, this labyrinthine and opaque set of arrangements. The diagram on pages 24 and 25, which the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, referred to, shows this complex web of interlocking organisations and bodies, all set up with different purposes, rules, legal responsibilities and obligations.
Part of this is deliberate: every time a problem was raised, a committee was thrown at it. This was done in relation to horticultural movements, for example, which was raised with the Government during the talks leading up to Safeguarding the Union. It was pointed out that we cannot get seeds and certain plants moved to Northern Ireland. It is not just that it is complex; it is a complete bar. They said, “Well, we’ll set up a horticultural working group”. But what has that group done since? We cannot even know the names of some of the people on it. When I have asked the Government for the names—the Minister has replied to me on this—we are not even allowed, as legislators and people in Northern Ireland, to know who is on the committee, yet they are supposed to be coming up with ideas and solutions. It is totally ludicrous, but not just ludicrous: businesses are confused and angry—it is not just that people are bemused—at the unnecessary complexity and at the fact that the EU is insisting on full international customs border arrangements and complexities for internal trade between one part of the United Kingdom and the other. It is just not suitable or appropriate, and it is imposing great difficulties.
We heard evidence from the chamber of commerce in Northern Ireland over the last couple of weeks that this has been one of the most challenging years that it can remember. The FSB representative talked about the chilling effect on small companies and so on. This is happening now, even after the Windsor Framework, Safeguarding the Union and all these step changes that were supposed to make things better. Costs are increasing for consumers. Our committee heard evidence about the restrictions on choice for consumers in Northern Ireland. Many items available in the rest of the country are not available to consumers in Northern Ireland, for no good reason. I advise people to read the excellent recent report from the Federation of Small Businesses, which outlined a lot of these issues in detail.
We have called for the simplification and streamlining of these bodies. I think that it is important that that should be attempted, although I have to say that I have little faith that the EU side will look at this seriously, given the way that it refuses to contemplate any change in the current arrangements. Its attitude seems to be, “We’ve agreed this, everything’s fine, it’s up to the UK Government to deal with it, nothing to do with us”.
Turning to some of the specific recommendations, we heard evidence that the Northern Ireland Government cannot really influence EU legislation upstream early enough, before it is adopted, and that they are largely confined to reactive scrutiny after proposals are made. This is something that the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, addressed in his report. It would be an improvement if there were an increase in resourcing for the UK mission in Brussels, for greater engagement between the Northern Ireland Civil Service and the mission and, through that, with Brussels, but I have to caution that we have a problem, because getting a settled Northern Ireland position in the first place is often not achievable.
We had an illustration of this when our committee tried to get evidence from the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, on behalf of the Executive, about what the Northern Ireland Executive Office in Brussels was doing and what the Northern Ireland Government thought of all this. One would have thought that they would have been interested, but it was vetoed because there has to be agreement between the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister. The Deputy First Minister was quite happy to come and the First Minister vetoed it. So how are we going to get settled positions in terms of Northern Ireland’s view? That has to be factored into the equation. It is not very helpful, and it is to be regretted, that we did not hear from representatives of the Executive.
The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, mentioned proposals to improve the Assembly’s Democratic Scrutiny Committee. I think that everybody agrees that that committee is not able to do its job, lacks sufficient access to information and is struggling to gather evidence within the timescales. I support the proposals that have been suggested to reform that committee. It is something that we should return to in a few months and ask whether this has made any difference, because if the Northern Ireland Assembly scrutiny committees cannot do the job properly and it is left to Westminster, either in the other place or in your Lordships’ House, then that is unsatisfactory. Elected representatives in Northern Ireland should be able to do the job properly.
We also looked at measures such as the Stormont brake and applicability Motions, which we referenced in our report. I have to say that these measures were sold very heavily in order to get Stormont back. We were told that this would give legislators in Northern Ireland the long-awaited answer to their democratic deficit complaints, but what has happened? They have almost disappeared from the political viewpoint. Nobody mentions them any more, because when they were tried the Government knocked them back, doing serious damage to political confidence. Those who warn about instability in Northern Ireland are right to do so, because if these issues are not properly addressed, there will come a reckoning at some point. As I have said before, some people say, “We didn’t see this crisis at Stormont coming”. I think that these issues are going to contribute to future instability if not properly addressed.
For instance, on the Stormont brake, at the end of the process the Government can veto it, and they did. On the applicability Motions, they can veto the process from the start. If they say that no new regulatory border will be created, this disapplies the applicability Motion from being heard in the Assembly. The Government can veto both the major safeguards—one at the start and one at the end. That has caused real concern in Northern Ireland among those who were told that this would be a major plank in getting Stormont restored. It is a disrespectful position, as far as the Assembly is concerned.
We have always been strong on the need to set up a register of applicable EU law—an office where regulatory divergence can be highlighted and exposed. That is something that both the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and our own committee have highlighted. The Government need to take that on board and set up a database and an office that can look at this. The one-stop shop has been an important addition to the ideas that have been brought forward. I thank the Government for their engagement on that matter. As the chairman mentioned—I am not going to go through all the issues that have already been highlighted—we need to see this up and running as quickly as possible. I am glad that the Government are taking it seriously.
I come back to the fundamental point, on which the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, ended as well. We can mitigate all we like; we can introduce tweaks here and changes there; and we can have a whack-a-mole approach, where one issue crops up and we knock it down and another one that we have not foreseen comes up and we try to deal with it. European law is dynamically aligning Northern Ireland all the time, sometimes to the detriment of our trade with Britain and sometimes not so much. Unforeseen things will happen and we will have to address the fundamental problem, which is that you cannot, in a modern democracy, expect people to live in a society where other people, in their interests, decide laws for them. Unless we wake up to that reality, we will have a real problem in the Assembly and the Northern Ireland political set-up. I hope that that does not happen, but it is incumbent on all of us who take an interest in these matters to make sure that it does not.
Baroness Goudie (Lab)
My Lords, I will not delay the Committee in repeating what both the chairman and the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, said, with which I am in complete agreement. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, for working with us on his report. It was wonderful to have these two reports going simultaneously. I thank the clerks of the House of Lords for working with the members of the committee, because it has been great fun and hard work, of course. I thank the organisations, both non-profit and enterprise organisations and companies, that have been in touch with the committee and me to put forward their case on what they feel is the deficit for them within Northern Ireland. I thank the businesses that we had the pleasure to visit and the other ones that invited me.
The one answer that we cannot give them, as others have said, is that we need a one-stop shop. The Government, in their reply to us, have promised this. It should be now, not in 2026-27. It is needed now and it must liaise with Brussels as well. It cannot just be about Britain and Northern Ireland; it must have Brussels’ input.
At the moment, there is a big deficit of goods going to Northern Ireland. We know that there are empty shelves, problems with getting parcels and problems with deliveries. I heard from haulage organisations and the committee heard from large supermarkets and others that they cannot get the goods, fresh goods in particular, across the border in good time to be delivered. There are problems at the ports and everywhere. This is an urgent issue. I know that the Government have heard us going on and on about it, but it is up to us, and it is destroying people’s lives every day, when they cannot get what they need. These are very basic goods: parts for cars and washing machines. There are problems with combi washing machines. These are daily lives. These are not just fancy goods.
Another issue that we need to look at is that, while this is going on, we will not be able to get people to invest in Northern Ireland from other parts of Europe and the world. We desperately need good investment to come to Northern Ireland. Under the Biden Administration, we had support from Joe Kennedy III to bring jobs and employment to Northern Ireland but, under the new regime in America, that has come to a halt. I would very much like to see the Government look at that again. Northern Ireland needs not only good employment but jobs that will bring apprenticeships, and it needs companies that have long-standing agreements that will want to do that. There is a deficit of skilled workers, as we talked about earlier and many times before.
If we do not have that for Northern Ireland’s GDP and education, its people will not have a future. I ask that we look at that as part of the one-stop shop, by having it appendaged to it in one way or another, so that we work on bringing employment and good jobs to Northern Ireland—not just back-office jobs but much more important ones. I hope that we can look at that for the future, because we need it. We also need everybody to work together and no longer in silos. We have started having engagements, but we need more engagement, clarity and transparency. We need the bodies all working around the same table. Now that we have come to this, it has to happen.
Further, as a committee, we should not be doing the scrutiny for Northern Ireland. There has to be some infrastructure in the Northern Ireland Assembly so that it can do its own scrutiny, employing people as clerks and other staff who can help it to do so. We can do the scrutiny, of course—it is a pleasure to do so, and it is interesting—but it is wrong for us to do it, and we said that in our report. I hope that, in the long term, we will be able to support the Northern Ireland Assembly in its scrutiny. We have had joint meetings with its scrutiny committee, but it is important that that comes in the future.
I do not want to delay the Committee any more. We need clarity and more engagement. The one-stop shop, with Brussels as well, must happen now, because this cannot go on. At every meeting we have had we have been told from the outside that there is no proper way of finding out what is going on—how the legislation is working. The Cabinet Office is trying, but there are not enough civil servants and there is not enough contact between Northern Ireland, Brussels and us on these clear issues that could make Northern Ireland go further.
Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie. As a newish member of the committee, it is with some trepidation that I rise to speak in this debate. Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that, at this early stage, I will keep my remarks relatively brief.
I commend the committee on its report. It is a shrewd analysis of the challenges faced by people and businesses in Northern Ireland, and it provides sensible solutions to help them navigate their way through the situation they now find themselves in. As others can speak with far greater insight on the report than I can, I will focus on a couple of reflections—the things that I have been most struck by since joining the committee three months ago. They are all symptomatic of the problems identified in the report.
The overriding issue, which has been mentioned, is the way in which the Windsor Framework affects so many aspects of day-to-day living. I am slightly embarrassed to say that in the present company, but the truth is that I had vastly underestimated just how pervasive it is. I suspect the same goes for the majority of the GB population. I am not talking about the high-stakes policy areas, such as CBAM or the deforestation regulations, although they are obviously significant. What has struck me is the constant drip feed of impositions that chip away at businesses and, in turn, affect consumers in terms of price, choice and availability.
For example, even in my short experience we have seen explanatory memoranda on everything from the school fruit, vegetables and milk scheme to possible labelling changes for poultry meat, unique device identifiers for spectacle frames and handling charges on parcels. The memoranda themselves are telling because some are very thorough and pay proper attention to the possible impacts, but others are cavalier as to the potential costs and burdens. If it were not for the work of the previous committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Jay, the scrutiny of the current committee and its dedicated chair, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the exceptional secretariat, which must get another mention, one cannot help but wonder how much worse things would be.
On that note, the £16.6 million commitment is welcome, and the increased support for businesses, but I am afraid that, like others, I am now going to mention the one-stop shop. Everyone agreed that it is essential that, as per its name, all the information is gathered in one place. However, it is not just about what information and the information itself, but about how people can access and interpret that information. Obviously, this is crucial for small businesses because they do not have the resources to employ specialists in the Windsor Framework.
As the Minister knows, I am a big fan of the new interactive public inquiries recommendations dashboard, and I applaud the Government for implementing it; we tried and tried and failed—so well done. I just want to ask the Minister this. We do not know who will set up the one-stop shop—whether it will be Cabinet Office in-house or whether it will be contracted out—but can the Minister ensure that that very same, very user-friendly, easy-to-access approach will be employed for the one-stop shop? It has now been proved that it can be done, so it can be done again.
I will very briefly repeat a point made by others about the fact that the onus seems very much to lie solely on Northern Ireland businesses when, in fact, it is equally incumbent on Great Britain to get to grips with the current trading landscape. Trade associations have repeatedly highlighted the major lack of understanding on the GB side. Will the Minister therefore also make sure, in rolling out the one-stop shop, that it is not just focused on Northern Ireland, and not even just that it is UK-wide, but that there is appropriate engagement early enough, and that takes place where it is most lacking, which is in Great Britain?
Talking of user-friendly approaches, I agree: EUR-Lex—no. The Government say that we do not need a new tool because EUR-Lex can be used to
“read and consider detailed legal texts”.
That is slightly disingenuous because it simply cannot be used to “read and consider”. If it is the Government’s view that such a database is not necessary then just say so, but if they believe that such a database is important then they need to provide one that is in an accessible form. As it stands, EUR-Lex is just no help at all to anybody.
Finally, I know that the Minister is a strong advocate for Northern Ireland, and the Government should be credited with trying to ease some of the frictions of the framework, which in turn tried to ease some of the frictions of the protocol, but this really comes back to the reality of life for the people of Northern Ireland. The truth is that there is no getting away from the fact that there are real and present dangers in the current trading environment, and there are consequences to that. Even just in my short time on the committee, the businesses and the people of Northern Ireland have shown great forbearance in the many frustrations that they face on a daily basis, but ultimately, they have an absolute right to be on an equal footing. This report, as the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, says, does not fix everything but it helps to mitigate that inequity. I therefore hope that the Government will perhaps just give further consideration to some of the very good recommendations in the report.
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)
It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. I agree with all that she had to say in relation to the issues in the report.
I am delighted to speak to this report as a member of the scrutiny committee. I declare my interests, in particular as chair of InterTrade UK and of Boyce Precision Engineering, and as a member of Co-operation Ireland.
I thank the chair, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for the way in which he set out the detail of the report and I echo his thanks to our wonderful committee staff. I want to concentrate on the action taken to mitigate the democratic deficit for Northern Ireland and its people, given that, as we have heard, aspects of EU laws apply in Northern Ireland without the consent of parliamentarians either here or in Stormont.
It is clear from the evidence that we took in our committee and indeed from reports of the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee in another place that the arrangements set up to try and mitigate the democratic deficit have, to date, been insufficient. We can never truly deal with the issues arising from the Windsor Framework or the protocol until they are replaced with much more realistic and proportionate arrangements and agreements. Until that happens, we must try to make the mitigations as effective as they can be within the constraints set by these flawed agreements.
When I was reflecting on the comments of the noble Lord the chair at the start of his speech around the Windsor Framework, it reminded me of the old joke: a tourist comes along a country road, sees a farmer hanging over a gate and asks for directions, and the farmer replies, “Well, I wouldn’t start from here”. I think that is certainly the feeling of a lot of us but we have to start from here because that is what we have at the moment.
Lord Bew (CB)
I support what the noble Baroness has been saying. There is a problem with democratic deficit but it is perhaps worth reminding ourselves that the leading thrust of the Windsor Framework is not the democratic deficit. It is about the move away from the British Government’s commitment to supporting an island economy. That is there in the 2017 May Government agreement and the 2019 agreement. It is partly concerned with the democratic deficit but it has transformed the shape of, and the debate about, the Northern Ireland economy. These problems of the democratic deficit absolutely remain, as so many speakers, including the noble Baroness, have said, but they are now in a different context. When the NIO Minister, Matthew Patrick, spoke at the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, it is striking that when he talked about the relative success now of the Northern Ireland economy he was stressing areas—most obviously defence and fintechs—that are unambiguously part of the British economy.
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)
I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. I agree that that is an important part of the Windsor Framework but, unfortunately, the current architecture of the framework is the product of a number of political developments to try to make it more workable for businesses and consumers. When you try to retrofit solutions on to an already-flawed agreement, it often does not end well. That is, unfortunately, where we are today.
The number of bodies that have been set up have led our report to say that it is,
“a complex and opaque set of arrangements which makes it difficult for Northern Ireland stakeholders to engage effectively with key decision-makers and have their voices heard”.
We attempted to construct a diagram of all the bodies in the report, as the noble Lord the chairman has pointed out, but even that does not do the situation justice in terms of the complexity.
The first task, of course, when there are problems and barriers to trade within the UK internal market, is to have those recognised by our own Government and the European Union. But denial, I have to say, has been a huge source of frustration for businesspeople and consumers alike across the UK: “Barriers—what barriers? Costs—what costs?” That is what you are dealt. When there is an air of denial, the problem is not going to go away. Of course, the difficulties are still there. There are small businesses in particular in GB that have decided to stop supplying goods into Northern Ireland altogether. That was the evidence from the Federation of Small Businesses, which carried out an effective and timely survey across the UK, which it was able to share with the committee. I think members will agree that it was very useful at that time and is surely something that should concern His Majesty’s Government.
As we have heard, some new bodies were set up under the Safeguarding the Union Command Paper, which allowed the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive to resume operation after a two-year hiatus. The independent monitoring panel looks at data and trade flows in the UK internal market, then provides evidence on the workability of the internal market guarantee, while the organisation I chair, InterTrade UK, provides advice to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on issues relating to the operability of the Windsor Framework, as well as looking at connectivity across the UK. InterTrade UK started life without a budget line and with the burden whereby many believed that it had the same powers and resources as InterTradeIreland—it does not. We now have a small budget, for which I am grateful, but it will not be able to match the wherewithal of InterTradeIreland, as the two bodies are totally different entities; InterTrade UK is a non-statutory body.
One of the suggestions from our evidence to the committee is that InterTrade UK should have representation from Great Britain as well as from Northern Ireland; that is the recommendation at paragraph 301—the noble Lord, Lord Empey, was very strong on this issue. We have a lot of trading difficulties with small GB-based companies selling into Northern Ireland, therefore there should be GB representation on the board of InterTrade UK. As the chair of that organisation, I fully support that recommendation and hope that the Government will act on it in their response. The response said that the Government “will give further consideration” to the recommendation at paragraph 301, and I hope the Minister has an update on that.
The work that InterTrade UK has undertaken thus far has been to raise issues of concern to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on general policy. In the absence of another vehicle, we have also been raising specific issues that have come directly to our attention. The most recent letter in my name to the Secretary of State was on the availability of white goods in Northern Ireland and the price of pet prescriptions. Incidentally, they have doubled in the instance that was brought to my attention. I hope that the much-anticipated one-stop shop, which has to get going as quickly as possible, will help consumers and businesses alike when it is set up. We await a clear timeline and design—I hope as soon as possible.
One of the most impactive evidence sessions that we had as a committee is not actually in the report before us, because it came after the report was concluded. It was from the Road Haulage Association, which brought forward some very important evidence that I will briefly mention. It told us that the latest Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency trade data indicates a sustained decline in GB-NI freight volumes. The increasing administrative and regulatory burden associated with moving goods from GB to NI is acting as a deterrent to operator participation. It showed us that the number of GB-based fleets operating in Northern Ireland has declined by approximately 36%, and that GB-to-Northern Ireland journeys undertaken by GB-registered vehicles had fallen by 52% in 2024.
The Road Haulage Association brought forward a number of issues to us. First, there were issues with commodity codes, particularly for groupage movement and haulage. In this system, each pallet in the truck can belong to a different sender, as Members know, which contains many individual items. While that is efficient commercially, it creates complexity for customs because every item requires its own commodity code. That is why groupage movements face higher administrative burdens and delays, which can cause real issues for an entire truck.
The complexity of that system has been made even worse, because the UK internal market scheme allows businesses with a turnover of under £2 million to use the simpler green lane with some exemptions for certain sectors. Although that is higher than the previous £500,000 limit, it is still far below the UK’s SME classification threshold of £44 million. As a result, many small and medium-sized businesses are excluded from the UK internal market scheme. Of course, larger companies are not affected by all this, because they can manage it, but it is a real issue for the smaller companies.
The recommendations made by the RHA go some way to help mitigate the problems of the Windsor Framework. I ask the Minister, if she cannot respond today, to think about some of these issues and revert back to me. First, the RHA would like to see the introduction of a trusted haulier scheme. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, also referred to this. It would reduce frictions for logistics and haulage businesses and allow qualifying hauliers to move goods with greater ease at a reduced cost to businesses trading between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Secondly, the RHA would like to see that £2 million threshold for the UKIMS removed.
Lastly, and most importantly, the RHA wants to move the determination of “at risk” from the Irish Sea border to the point of sale. Hauliers often do not have the information required to resolve problems when they are bringing goods across the Irish Sea, but determining which goods are at risk at the GB-NI border will always cause costly and disruptive delays, especially for just-in-time goods, which a lot of these are. It brings additional cost and delay in moving goods that risks unbalancing Northern Ireland’s dual market access and trade diversion.
Determining risk at the point of sale would mean that goods’ end destination would be known for sure and that customs processes could be applied only on goods that are leaving the UK and going into the single market of the European Union. Information about the buyer and seller is already required for all movements of goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, so there is no lost information from allowing goods to move freely across the Irish Sea.
I have managed to speak to only some of the issues raised in what is a very comprehensive report. I am sure other colleagues will deal with the other issues contained therein. But, in concluding, I always come to these matters in a pragmatic way to try to find solutions to problems, because that is what I think politics is about: trying to find solutions. However, to attain solutions to problems, you first have to acknowledge that there is a problem. I am not sure that there is a willingness in either HMG or the EU to admit the scale and nature of the problem that currently exists. With the much-vaunted reset on its way, I hope the closed mindset on what is happening in Northern Ireland can be lifted and that a more open and balanced dialogue can begin, for the benefit of those British citizens who live in Northern Ireland and businesses right across the UK.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, as we just heard, the noble Baroness speaks with great expertise and eloquence, as she has consistently in meetings of our committee, of which she is a valuable member. It is a delight to have madam chair presiding over this meeting, and the fact that it is so well behaved must be a consequence of her skills.
I welcome and thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for chairing our committee so ably—it is a very diverse committee in all sorts of ways, as he knows better than anybody else—with the expert backing of his excellent staff, two members of which are sitting here watching. They are incredible in unpicking these detailed memoranda. As the noble Lord, Lord Jay, will remember from his time chairing the committee, this stuff is complicated and sometimes impenetrably boring. It may be boring, but it is still important, and they provide us with the expertise to deal with it.
I want to get one thing off my chest, and it will cause some disagreement. I believe that the enormous problems that first the protocol and then the Windsor Framework have saddled us with—Northern Ireland citizens in particular—are a direct result of the hard Brexit implemented by the Government and supported by a minority of the parties in Northern Ireland. That has left a huge set of problems for Northern Ireland by putting a border down the Irish Sea, dividing Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom and betraying, in my view, the unionist cause. That is my own view. I am not a unionist—I am not anything. I am an honest broker, as a Secretary of State. It has betrayed the unionist cause and saddled Northern Ireland with a number of problems that are almost insoluble in some respects. On that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, who also makes a valuable contribution to the committee. It is the only part of the United Kingdom bound by the rules of the European single market and customs union, yet it is unable to directly influence those rules. That is the fundamental problem that our committee has sought to wrestle with. In his own excellent report, my noble friend Lord Murphy also sought to wrestle with it, and the Government have to manage it.
That set of problems needs to be remedied. The key for me, as an ardent devolutionist, is to empower the Northern Ireland legislature—the elected legislature of the citizens of Northern Ireland—so that its voice can be heard directly through consultation, as the UK’s voice was heard. The noble Lord, Lord Jay, will remember from his time in the Foreign Office that the UK had a very effective United Kingdom representation unit in Brussels, through which the UK’s voice was heard at the earliest possible stage. That was direct representation. The only option now for the Northern Ireland Assembly is to ensure that its voice is heard through consultation.
As a number of people have mentioned, and as my noble friend Lord Murphy stresses in his report, early consultation is the key. You will not be able to influence something once it is formally part of the process. But as I recall, especially having been UK Europe Minister for two years, and in other Cabinet and ministerial posts, you can influence proposals in Brussels if you get in early, and when we had UKRep we had the ability to do that. Well before things are formalised and start getting set in stone, you can influence through early consultation. That is crucial.
The UK mission in Brussels—I think the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, stressed this as well—needs to be strengthened in its Northern Ireland capabilities and capacity. It is too weak at the moment and it needs to have Northern Ireland officials moving to and fro, listening to officials in Stormont and directly inputting their views and the views of MLAs into the heart of the decision-making process. At the early consultation stage, when something is proposed by the European Commission, typically, a proposal is floated and there is considerable opportunity to influence it. Once it is formalised, that becomes much more difficult. Therefore early consultation is vital, and the UK mission, as I say, must have its Northern Ireland capability massively bolstered in order that Northern Ireland citizens, their MLAs and their officials can influence matters affecting them directly.
I would also like to see the Northern Ireland Office strengthened. To be frank, at the moment it is a shop-window office for Northern Ireland, but, welcome though that is, it is inadequate in representing and expressing all the kind of views that we have heard about so far in this debate and which are explained in a very detailed way in our report. Above all, however, the UK mission in Brussels needs to have its Northern Ireland capabilities massively upgraded.
In my view, MLAs—Members of the Legislative Assembly in Stormont—should be offered a channel of consultation with the European Parliament. They cannot have formal representation because we are not a member state of the European Union, but there are various opportunities and mechanisms through which MLAs, and perhaps their committee in other forms, could be listened to in the consultation process with the European Parliament. In addition, remember that the European Parliament has co-decision rights now; that has evolved over the last decade or so. That means that it can be influenced, and it needs to be influenced, by Northern Ireland if these myriad regulations and matters affecting Northern Ireland as a result of this Brexit process are to be influenced.
The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, told our committee—I do not think I am breaking any sort of rules by revealing this—that, as I think she put it, Ministers are seen but not heard properly; she was of course a very able First Minister for Northern Ireland. I think she is indicating that that is an accurate representation of what she said. That is not good enough. In my view, Northern Ireland Ministers should be directly consulted within the Joint Committee process, either by the committee itself or its detailed sub-committees—it is quite a complex animal—so that again, ministerial input can go directly into the process of formulating these rules and legislation where they affect or are intended to affect Northern Ireland.
I just conclude by saying this, which some members of the committee will disagree with: I do not think that this relationship can be fixed or that Northern Ireland’s interests can be protected on an EU-UK basis alone. I know that the Brexit deal was done by the UK Government negotiating with the European Union and the European Commission but, in my view, the elected representatives of Northern Ireland, who are directly elected through their legislature, need to have their voice heard.
I realise that this is a problem for some members of the committee, because they think that the relationship needs to be UK-EU alone. Northern Ireland citizens and their businesses—the small business sector in particular have been terribly affected by this whole set of arrangements—often do not have the capacity to deal with it. Small businesses in Great Britain simply stop trading with Northern Ireland because the complexities are so enormous. Those problems cannot be fixed by a UK Government-European Union arrangement alone; that is too high up and high-level. It can only be really fixed by Northern Ireland’s voice, and that requires its Ministers to start agreeing with each other and working hard—harder than they are at the moment—to make sure that their voices are heard. Members of the Legislative Assembly’s voices also ought to be heard. The Democratic Scrutiny Committee in Stormont ought to operate more effectively, and Northern Ireland’s officials need to bolster their own capabilities and expertise, so that they can be heard with some conviction and some respect in Brussels, in a way that is sadly not happening at the moment. If that can be tackled—and I hope that my noble friend the Minister, in her reply, will make some remarks on this—the whole problem will not be as formidable and almost impossible as it currently is to many small businesses in Northern Ireland especially, and to many consumers and others. If that is fixed, the problem could at least be remedied.
Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hain. Noble Lords will understand that I do not agree with everything he says. In fact, he does not always agree with me either. I declare my interests: I am member of the Ulster Farmers Union and a farmer. One day, he questioned about me actually being a farmer. Some people at home would probably question that as well. I was not on the committee when the report was brought forward, but I enjoy being on the committee now, under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. The staff are excellent and make an excellent contribution to what we do.
The Northern Ireland protocol, Windsor Framework and Safeguarding the Union—whatever document you want to look at—promised so much for the people of Northern Ireland, but they have not delivered. That is the problem that everybody faces here. Today, we are all trying to address some of those shortfalls, particularly within the Windsor Framework. At this stage, I commend the businesses, farming community and the sectors of Northern Ireland, which have been extremely resilient in the face of adversity, in relation to trying to make their businesses and the economy work and doing it under so much stress and with many difficulties. The reality for businesses on the ground is that there is a fog of uncertainty within that process, and that is something that we need to address.
I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, being here and I welcomed his report, because it went into some of the detail, similar to what the scrutiny committee worked out. But the one recommendation that was mentioned here before the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, brought that out was the one-stop shop. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, that we cannot wait an overly long time for that to be implemented, because businesses just cannot afford that time. If you run a business that is struggling in Northern Ireland, and you are told that you will need to wait another 18 months to two years for a one-stop shop to give you advice, that is not going to be any help to you at that stage. That is one aspect that needs more urgent attention and delivery.
Uncertainty is not a neutral condition; it corrodes investment, deters expansion and punishes smaller firms in particular. Yes, we have heard that larger firms are also impacted, but they can absorb it slightly more easily than the smaller firms, which have huge difficulty within their sector. In the Ulster Unionist Party, certainly, we have vociferous in our opposition to the border in the Irish Sea; it inhibits any trade between GB and Northern Ireland. That is, in effect, what we have. I am sure that we all know loads of people that have tried to order goods online and they cannot get them because that business in GB has stopped trading with Northern Ireland—full-stop.
I want to raise the issue of the importation of machinery from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. There has been a huge impact on that industry and economy in Northern Ireland. Lots of the machinery may be sold outside Northern Ireland, but there is no reason why the inspections could not be simplified and why they could not be done in Northern Ireland for goods that are moving on to the Republic of Ireland or other parts of the EU. It is nonsensical that the inspections have to be done in GB before the goods come to Northern Ireland. There needs to be a much better process for that.
Another issue is veterinary medicines, which has been a problem for a long time. We got the human medicines sorted out at a very early stage in the process; why could we not also sort out the veterinary medicines at a similar time?
I have heard so much talk about the Democratic Scrutiny Committee in the Northern Ireland Assembly, but it is just not working. I accept the point from the noble Lord, Lord Hain, that MLAs in the Northern Ireland Assembly need a bigger role, but we need to persuade the Government and EU that they be allowed that additional role, because at present my understanding is that they are not permitted that extra responsibility. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hain, I feel that they should be. There is a job of work there, whether it is for the UK Government, the European Union or both together, to allow greater input from the Northern Ireland Assembly. The MLAs are the people on the ground who hear daily from businesses and, on most occasions, try to assist and help them.
The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, made the point that this process is temporary. It may be temporary, but it is here. The fact is that we have businesses trying to manage their way around it, and they are finding it so difficult without that one-stop shop. It is temporary until the reset takes place. We hear a lot about what is happening at present. One of the faults of the Windsor Framework—or of implementing it and the protocol before it—was that little or no preparation was done, and the people of Northern Ireland have been the fall people. That is why it is so important that we now start preparation for the UK-EU reset.
I am not hearing much—others may be—from the Government about what is taking place and what process is in place around that EU-UK reset. What is happening and what processes can we expect? Now is the time to get the information, evidence and foresight from those businesses that have had to comply with what we have in Northern Ireland. They should have an input into the reset, and it should be codesigned in parallel with them. Now is the time to start preparing for that, otherwise—I say this to the noble Lord, Lord Lilley—unless we find a better mechanism, it will not improve things, even though this is temporary. Whatever the more final process is, we need to ensure that it is much better.
The list of barriers continues. I have mentioned agricultural machinery and veterinary medicines, but the movement of livestock—sheep and cattle—from GB to Northern Ireland is also a huge problem. That is within the United Kingdom, and it should not be an issue. In particular, people are purchasing pedigree animals on mainland GB and cannot get them imported into Northern Ireland. I know farmers who have bought extremely expensive animals that have now been sitting in what we would call storage or in farm isolation units in Scotland or England for almost 18 months. That is totally unfair to those farmers who are trying to do their best for not only the economy of Northern Ireland but the entirety of the UK.
What is most striking is that we still have not found a resolution to all this, even though we have been at it for a number of years. Most businesses have found their own resolutions in many aspects—they have just got on with business and found ways around it—but the one thing that they find extremely difficult is that they still cannot import some goods that they need from GB into Northern Ireland. They have to look for those goods from other sources, which is not always easy. That is going to be an aspect, as this year goes on, for veterinary medicines, because those arrangements already been implemented. There are quite large stocks within vets, but as those start to run down it will be much more difficult for the veterinarians first and then for the farmers to access the medicines they need. They will have to find other sources that are probably much more expensive and in different bulk sizes. They may have to buy veterinary medicine for 500 animals when they need it for only 50, because they cannot get it in that smaller size.
Lord Redwood (Con)
My Lords, I intervene in this debate not as a Northern Ireland specialist or representative, which I am clearly not, but as someone who has taken a strong special interest over many years in the economy and economic growth, and in the trading patterns of our great United Kingdom. I am not surprised that much of the debate so far has been about these economic issues. We have heard eloquent testimony to the barriers and difficulties that small businesses in particular but also some big businesses are experiencing as a result of the dreadful settlement of the so-called Northern Ireland problem, embedded first in the protocol and subsequently in the Windsor Framework.
I fully support what my noble friend Lord Lilley said and will explain to the Committee that my noble friend and I, and other Conservative MPs and Peers, held regular meetings over the Brexit years to discuss how our country can get the most out of the freedoms we can enjoy and could develop now that we have left the European Union, and how the £17 billion we are now saving in annual contributions can be best spent to our wider benefit and related issues. We have often, as a result, had joint meetings or exchanges of MPs and Peers with our unionist colleagues here today.
In our meetings, we took on board that Northern Ireland had a particularly bad deal out of the form of Brexit entry that the EU cajoled or persuaded successive British Governments into accepting. There is no doubt that absorbing so much European Union law into Northern Ireland is a constraint on growth, on small businesses and on trade. I urge the Government to think carefully about this, because they wish to align the whole United Kingdom with more of these laws, charges and impositions. Yet it is the case that where it is being tried in Northern Ireland, far from being a golden scenario, as some suggested, it is clearly a negative that is causing trouble.
In a previous speech in the Chamber of the House of Lords, I set out my own research findings for the period 1952 to 2020—from 20 years before we entered the EEC, from the 20 years in the EEC customs union from 1972 to 1992, and from the 28 years in the single market from 1992. The data is overwhelmingly convincing that the closer the alignment—the more European law, costs and taxes we absorbed—the slower we grew. I fully accept that there were other factors affecting our growth rates over those long periods, but you cannot reach a conclusion from the data that there was ever a time when aligning more closely helped and gave us a boost. There was no boost when we joined the customs union. On the contrary, because a lot of our industry was not fully competitive and was being protected by tariffs, when the tariffs came off, the Labour Government, who had to face the problem, saw mass closures and destruction of large parts of our industry because Italian, German and French textile companies, steel mills, engineering works and vehicle makers were so much more efficient than our own. The shock was too much.
There was also no visible extra growth—indeed, quite a lot to the contrary—after 1992, when the EU had completed its so-called single market, which was actually a major power grab and a whole series of laws that were often negative to the conduct of business. Again, there was no sudden improvement or growth in our economy. In many ways, the problems got worse after the single market had been completed. Of course, it was completely misleading to say that the single market was completed in 1992 because, for the following 28 years of our membership, there were ever more laws, ever more rules, ever more charges and ever more taxes, which had a direct impact on British businesses and clearly did no good.
Northern Ireland is right to say that there are two problems with the settlement we have been persuaded or forced into by the European Union. There is the problem of economic growth, prosperity, and business and trade success, but there is also the fundamental democratic accountability problem, which is a direct result of the EU’s chosen solution of putting Northern Ireland under European Union rules.
The report is wonderfully written. When I first came to it, I found it quite heavy going, complicated and difficult, and I then realised that, in a way, that was a wonderful parody of the issues that the report had to deal with. The authors of the report clearly understood it perfectly well and were showing, by the way they described it, what a dreadful mess there was: just how many contradictions and complexities were built into it, all to the advantage of the EU and not to the United Kingdom or Northern Ireland. I pay great tribute to the committee and to the work done.
The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, pointed out the wonderful organogram, which was meant to be a simplification so that those of us who found it hard going could see a picture. It tells you all you need to know: the thing is quite unworkable, completely incomprehensible and, by any external judgment, completely mad. No sensible country would ever behave like that or have accepted it, yet this is where we have got to by having all these agents and institutions involved in negotiating.
The solution offered by my noble friend Lord Lilley, hammered out as it was with a lot of colleagues—we had the benefit of two expert lawyers in this field, who very kindly worked pro bono for us because they felt, as we did, that things needed to change in a radical direction for the benefit of Northern Ireland—would, of course, resolve the democratic accountability. If, either by agreement or unilaterally, we no longer have to impose European Union laws on Northern Ireland, then the democratic accountability problem vanishes.
However, we are rightly told in the report that an attempt to resolve the problem was the partial solution of saying that, if a law is really so bad that Northern Ireland cannot put up with it, then Northern Ireland should have the right, through the Stormont procedure, to say that it will not apply in Northern Ireland—an override. Although that does not get you around the table to influence and vote on all the other laws that you can put up with—so it is not a full answer to democratic accountability—it is a very good partial answer, because not only would you be able to strike out anything that was really bad but the fact that you had that power would start to influence European Union opinion and attitudes, so that when representations were made on other matters, the European Union would have to bear in mind that you could just decide that it was all too much.
This takes me back down memory lane, which I am normally reluctant about, but on this occasion it is relevant. I remember, as a very young man, that when the 1975 referendum occurred and the British people voted to stay in the European Economic Community, we were assured by the then Labour Government and by the Conservative and Lib Dem opposition parties that our sovereignty would not be taken away or damaged in any way. We were joining a trading arrangement; it was a free trade area, and they called it the common market—they would not even call it the EEC. I made the mistake of reading the treaties and felt that this was an unlikely explanation of what was going on.
When I found myself, some years later, as Single Market Minister, I remembered that we had been told that no sovereignty had been lost, but my job was a visible demonstration that a huge amount of sovereignty had been lost, because I had to spend all my time trying to construct alliances with member states to stop a law being imposed on our country that did not make any sense or could even be positively damaging. I remembered that, over the years, in an attempt to persuade us that we had not been cheated over sovereignty, something had been developed called an emergency brake—language rather similar to the Stormont brake.
Faced with this avalanche of draft laws that I did not want or wanted to change dramatically, and recognising how much work it was to construct an alliance of member states sufficient to dilute or delay in each case, I decided on one—I cannot remember which I chose now—and let it be known that I was going to use the emergency brake. This was just to show Brussels that this was all getting out of hand and that I was prepared to take action to stop its extreme legislative ideas. As soon as I mentioned this within the privacy of government, I could feel the quiver of fear and annoyance that this idea created. The great British governing establishment—the civil servants and quite a few of the Ministers—were so pro the EU having its way on everything that they thought a Minister going maverick, as they saw it, and trying to negotiate from a position of strength was a very bad idea. It was, of course, vetoed before anyone outside government ever knew about it. I conspired with the rest to make sure nobody knew about it, because I did not think it would reflect well on me that I had lost the argument to use the emergency brake, or reflect well on the Government, because they were clearly throwing away a very powerful negotiating tool that could have got us an answer that was a lot better.
I give this as a salutary tale. I know that Northern Ireland bravely got a bit further than I did and once suggested that it was going to use the emergency brake. Once again, the great governing establishment knew better and decided that it was not going to be allowed to. I do not think that the Stormont brake will be used. The European Union does not think it is going to be used, which does not give you any negotiating heft as it tries to put more laws upon you.
My conclusions are this. This is advice to the Government that is heartfelt and well meant, and that would actually help the Government. I fully support the Government’s aims to have a growth strategy for the whole United Kingdom that levels up those parts that need levelling up, and is driven by more trade, industrial activity and small business developments. The Government will not get that in Northern Ireland unless they address this issue. The way to address it is to take up my noble friend’s suggestion: this is a bogus problem; there does not need to be a hard border. In the past, the big trade flows have always been east-west, or GB to Northern Ireland, not north-south, or Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland. The big trade flows are being damaged. This has to be lifted and we have to put it to the EU. If the EU is a friendly and sensible neighbour, it will see that it makes sense. If it is not, we should do it unilaterally.
Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Redwood, although I do not agree with absolutely everything that he said. It is a pleasure too to take part in today’s debate and to resume that focus on Northern Ireland that I had as chairman of the Sub-Committee of the European Affairs Committee on Northern Ireland—the predecessor of today’s committee. I learned a huge amount about Northern Ireland from the members of that committee, many of whom are present and speaking this afternoon. I was going to tell the noble Lord, Lord Hain, that I will try not to be impenetrably boring, but, fearing that I am going to be impenetrably boring, he has left his seat. However, I very much welcome the report and its recommendations, the excellent report by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and the Government’s reply.
I was struck when I chaired the committee, and I am struck now, although I listened carefully to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Bew, by the real risk of a democratic deficit in the implementation of the Windsor Framework and the need for the people of Northern Ireland and its institutions, particularly Stormont, to be properly involved in forming and making decisions under the Windsor Framework that directly affect them. The excellent report that we are discussing today makes a number of eminently sensible suggestions. If it does not happen, an already complex and contentious scene will become ever more difficult to progress satisfactorily, with potential implications for the government of Northern Ireland. For that to happen, the process of implementing the framework needs to be transparent and comprehensible.
Over my career in public service, I have worked in many different government departments and embassies. Before, of course, I joined your Lordships’ House, I was steeped in bureaucracy. I thought that I understood bureaucracy, but nothing quite prepares you for the labyrinthine charts on pages 24 and 25 of the report that we are now considering. There is a crying need for more simplicity and clarity in substance and form. It would help greatly if the Government were to maintain and publish a record of regulatory divergence in the implementation of the Windsor Framework between Great Britain and Northern Ireland on the one hand and the United Kingdom and the EU on the other. This is not a new point, and it is a point on which I remember the noble Lord, Lord Empey, used to speak eloquently in the committee. I cannot see that the Government have accepted that recommendation from the committee, and I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify that later.
The implementation of the Windsor Framework is of course a dynamic process, as the shifting political scene in Northern Ireland and more widely shows. The establishment and the developing operation of Stormont’s Democratic Scrutiny Committee and the report by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, following the democratic consent vote in December 2024 show that. I am glad to see that the Government have accepted the recommendations in the report from the noble Lord, Lord Murphy.
What is also changing are the Government’s relations with the European Union, not least given the uncertain relationship at present between the United Kingdom and the United States. I personally welcome the more constructive relationship between the UK and the EU—it is in the interests of the United Kingdom—but the evolving UK and EU relationship will have implications for Northern Ireland. I hope that we will have learned the lessons of the past and that both the UK and the EU will consider the implications for Northern Ireland of such closer relations up front, not as an afterthought.
Finally, on a wholly tangential point, there is not much good news in the world at the moment, but the elimination of the predators of puffins and other seabirds on Rathlin Island, to which I sailed in a small boat more than 50 years ago—I hope that the Minister will approve of that—is unquestionably good news. The puffins of Rathlin Island may not have read the Windsor Framework, but their future is at least assured.
Lord Rogan (UUP)
My Lords, I commend the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee on producing such a comprehensive and well-considered report. I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, for his independent review, which was carried out with the levels of diligence and common sense for which he has been renowned over many years. Given the presence of several members of the committee here tonight whose individual views I was keen to hear, I will keep my remarks relatively brief.
Despite the best efforts of the committee and the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, Northern Ireland continues to find itself in nothing short of a mess. In common with several of my unionist colleagues here today, I supported Brexit. I felt that it was right for the United Kingdom to regain responsibility for its own future and to become a rule-maker rather than a rule-taker, removing the dominant role played by Brussels. I believe that Brexit offered gilt-edged economic opportunities for Northern Ireland, with its highly educated workforce. I regarded the return of undiluted British sovereignty as a primary means to copper-fasten the Province’s cherished place in the heart of the union.
Unfortunately, in the decade since the UK voted to leave the EU, Northern Ireland’s position in our union has been diminished. The Irish Sea border, the extent of which a former Secretary of State in the previous Conservative Government famously denied, remains in place, causing untold chaos for businesses in the Province and in Great Britain. As noble Lords have noted, prices for Northern Ireland consumers have risen significantly as the range of products available to them has fallen through the floor. All the while, the EU continues to set the rules for so much of everyday life there, with its people having little or no say on new laws being thrust upon us.
The Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee and the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, have done the Province a service in highlighting the areas of the Windsor Framework where improvements can be made. What we now need is clear evidence that His Majesty’s Government are sincere and serious about their commitment to implementing the many recommendations put forward. Tinkering around at the edges will not work, particularly given the prospect of more diktats from Brussels in the months and years ahead. There is an urgent requirement for Ministers to prove to Northern Ireland businesses and consumers that they understand the problems that the framework has caused for them, to demonstrate that change is on the way and to provide some degree of certainty on precisely when the most damaging aspects will be dealt with.
As we are all too aware, the Windsor Framework is remarkably complex, as we have seen this evening. However, one aspect of its operation that was trumpeted by the Government at that time was the so-called Stormont brake. In its report, the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee correctly highlights that some witnesses had questioned the Stormont brake’s effectiveness and suggested that it had been oversold. When the mechanism was triggered by unionist parties in the Assembly in December 2024, the Northern Ireland Secretary said that the conditions for using it had not been met, raising further scepticism about its very existence.
Out of respect for the work put in by the committee and the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, I am trying very hard to be positive. I therefore welcome, as many of the former speakers have done, the Government’s agreement to establish a one-stop shop facility for the Windsor Framework guidance and support. I agree that this has the potential to deliver benefits for businesses in Great Britain as well as Northern Ireland, with an emphasis on the Province’s dual market access.
The one-stop shop is due to be backed by more than £16 million in public spending, announced by the Chancellor in her November Budget. However, I would be grateful if the Minister could provide some clarity on precisely when she expects this to come into operation. The Government have previously indicated that it will be within the next financial year. Noble Lords will obviously be well aware that we are only a matter of days away from the new financial year, which potentially gives Ministers a 12-month window to introduce the one-stop shop. Needless to say, I trust it will be sooner.
When the Prime Minister visited Belfast last week, the Ulster Unionist Party asked him to consider pausing any further introduction of Windsor Framework legislation until the conclusion of the ongoing negotiations between the UK and EU. The reason for doing this was reports that Government Ministers had recently advised farming leaders in Great Britain to prepare for an SPS agreement in 2027. Then, delivering her Mais lecture last week, the Chancellor announced that UK divergence from EU regulations would be
“the exception, not the norm”.
Rather than forcing Northern Ireland into yet further costly and unnecessary divergence from the market in Great Britain, might it not be prudent for the implication of the new EU regulations in Northern Ireland to be halted until the direction of travel of the negotiations with Brussels is known? I would welcome a response from the Minister.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, although I cannot say that I agree with what he says. I declare my interest as a member of the Government’s Veterinary Medicine Working Group. I thank our chairperson, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and our staff for their direction and guidance in preparation, arranging witnesses and arranging inquiry sessions over that seven-month to eight-month period. It was a very interesting process. I come to this as somebody who supports the Windsor Framework, but I freely acknowledge and recognise that many businesses in Northern Ireland and Britain are encountering difficulties that need to be resolved.
I thank my noble friend Lord Murphy for his detailed report. He was circumscribed by certain conditions set down by the Government, on the basis that he had to find points of agreement within his report. The good thing was that what he brought forward was implemented by the Government, but now we want to see it happen and not just be words on paper. We want to see action and help for businesses.
I come to all this as somebody who supports the Windsor Framework. I want to see businesses being able to avail themselves of the dual market access, which means the Government, the Northern Ireland Executive, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the EU utilising and promoting the benefits of dual market access. There is a role there for the community and businesses in doing that.
I believe that there is an opportunity to leverage market opportunities by promoting the unique benefits of dual market access to attract foreign direct investment. There are significant economic benefits to be realised in raising awareness among businesses in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Britain of the competitive advantages offered by the access that they can have to both the UK internal market and EU single market. I do not regard this in any sense from a negative point of view; I think businesses want to get on with the job that they are involved in—business—and do not want to get involved in the politics. We have to be mindful of that. It is important that we, through our political machinations, do not undermine or deny their business opportunities.
Only last week, I was at the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly in Brussels, where there was a reaffirmation of the commitments to the full implementation of the withdrawal agreement, including the Windsor Framework and the TCA, because they believe that they remain the foundation for the continued strengthening of relations between the UK and the EU. Of course, as my noble friend Lord Hain said, all this is a result of Brexit. Those who argued for Brexit must remember that this is what we have ended up with. If we had not had Brexit, we definitely would not be having today’s debate.
We must not forget that businesses urgently want a resolution to those bureaucratic challenges and trade frictions between Britain and Northern Ireland, including those taxation matters—some things are very complex—and they do not want to get involved in that political point scoring. With the support of government, they just want to grow the economy through building and expanding their enterprises, recruiting more people and helping the employment situation.
Notwithstanding this, the US tariff situation and the wars in Ukraine and Iran impact all this in terms of the difficulties that our agri-food industry will meet, because the vast majority of fertilisers that are used in the farming industry in Northern Ireland come through the Strait of Hormuz.
As identified through our subsequent evidence sessions after our report was published—we took evidence in the last few weeks—progress has been made through the £16.6 million allocation in the Autumn Budget for the implementation of many of the recommendations in our report and the report by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, improvements to the Trader Support Service and the establishment of the Northern Ireland business support group, which should include membership for InterTradeIreland. It should be involved, as it has people with certain levels of expertise and already has a hub and one-stop shop, so things could be co-designed there. If it could be availed of in these early stages, that would be of benefit.
On the democratic deficit, I agree with my noble friend Lord Hain that Assembly Members and Northern Ireland Ministers need to be directly involved, because they are at the coalface and they know exactly what those issues are and what the best forms of solution are. So far, they have not been. They need to be seen, heard and part of the decision-making process.
We need a database or register of ongoing EU legislation established in the Cabinet Office to assist businesses and others. I ask my noble friend the Minister when this will happen and what work has been done to assess the impact of regulatory divergence. This issue was raised in our committee and in our previous committee. I am very pleased to see that the noble Lord, Lord Jay, who chaired that committee, is present. We put that point, and we need to see this, because I believe in dynamic alignment.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, already referred to, the Road Haulage Association, which gave evidence to us, has three particular issues that need resolution: the complexity concerning community code classification; the £2 million turnover threshold for the UK internal market scheme, which restricts access to the green lane and introduces delays for many operators; and the implementation of Import Control System 2, which will add further administrative requirements. Therefore, I ask my noble friend the Minister what further useful work the Government will undertake to resolve these issues. What further discussions will take place with the RHA to resolve or mitigate the impact of those trade frictions?
As already referred to, InterTradeIreland’s specialist knowledge of Northern Ireland and the Ireland economies is fully recognised. It was born out of the Good Friday agreement, of which my noble friend Lord Murphy was one of the principal architects, and it deals with north-south trade. There needs to be movement between north-south and east-west, and all that knowledge needs to be garnered and utilised so that things can be resolved. It deals with customs issues, including commodity codes, customs duty waivers and the correct use of UKIMS declarations, including the “at risk” distinction.
I also urge that the one-stop shop is implemented with clear timelines as quickly as possible. I know that the start of the next financial year is just over a week away, but we need to see it implemented. On staff, is the work going to be contracted out or will Cabinet Office staff do it?
The other issue is the UK-EU reset. We need to see the successful conclusion of these negotiations, with full sight of the implementation of the legislation in the new parliamentary Session.
I should like to see a route back to full membership of the EU. I realise and acknowledge that others have a different viewpoint, but I want to see the implementation of the SPS agreement and that is what our Ulster Farmers’ Union wants as well. There are other issues, such as the legislation that needs to be implemented that will mandate that vehicles placed on the market in Britain must hold GB and EU type approvals and markings to enable their sale in both Britain and Northern Ireland. I was a victim of that in the last few years, and we received evidence on it whenever we visited Newry. When will that legislation be published? Will it be in the King’s Speech or will it be through secondary legislation? What is the expected date of implementation?
With veterinary medicines, much progress has been made but we need to look around the issue of optimal medicines and the costs thereof, and to ensure that there are no impacts on our agri-food industry. So I ask my noble friend the Minister to talk to her colleagues in Defra and DAERA to ensure that any paperwork issues are resolved as quickly as possible, and that farmers and veterinarians can use the correct veterinary medicines that bring benefit to the animals, the agri-food industry and food security. Of equal importance is a need for the authorities with responsibility for the EU deforestation regulations and CBAM to be identified and affirmed. Again, I ask the Minister to identify those authorities.
Finally, all of us want to copper-fasten and underpin the Northern Ireland economy. We want promotion of our assets and selling points. We want food security, less trade friction and less regulatory divergence. We want that centre of our regulatory divergence and to see that EU register updated, so that we know what we are talking about. For my part, I prefer dynamic alignment, which I hope would be achieved through the UK-EU reset. In the meantime, we want to promote Northern Ireland and its business, and do so in a positive and effective manner for the benefit of all the community, for job creation and to further solidify our local economic base.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, I speak in the gap. I was a member of the committee when this report was written. I wanted to be here to support it and suggest that it should be read, particularly by those who perhaps have only a peripheral knowledge of Northern Ireland. We were greatly assisted by our staff. I had the pleasure of being on the previous committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Jay. With him and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, we have been well served by two excellent chairs and a great team to back it up.
My first point is to suggest that the committee’s remit is temporary; it is only two years since it was set up. I cannot see circumstances in the immediate future when there will not be a necessity for this committee to carry out scrutiny of Northern Ireland issues. While I know it is not the Minister’s responsibility but a matter for the House, I want to put it on record that this committee should continue. It is inconceivable that such significant matters, affecting not only constitutional but economic areas, should not be looked at somewhere in Parliament. I commend that to the parties in the House.
The issue that is now called the one-stop shop, from the sub-committee that was formed in 2021, has been a consistent theme. How is it that we cannot record each divergence as we go along? Now we will have to go back five years, but it should have been obvious to anybody at the beginning that there should be somewhere that a business or a member of the public can go to see what the divergence is. Or, if you are going to a potential inward investor, you should have somewhere to show them that this is how we do it here and how we do it there. It is not rocket science and I hope that we can resolve it, because it has been a unified theme throughout this debate.
I have to say that the Minister has just been accorded a well-deserved promotion to the Cabinet Office. She is roaring with power; now is the chance to strike and get a commitment that this will be dealt with and that she will deliver the response.
I gently remind the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, of the phrase—attributed, I think, to Dr Johnson—that there is nothing as permanent as the temporary. I fear that this problem will be around for some time. He is right to say that the European Union is entitled to protect its market, but I have to say that we have gone OTT. There is the potential for somebody to bring goods into Northern Ireland that are inappropriately manufactured and inconsistent with European regulations, they could theoretically get across the border, but to do that the person would have to go through two or three different sea journeys at enormous expense. I think there is an alternative way. The noble Lord mentioned one, but there are others that could involve the Northern Ireland Assembly and perhaps other institutions that have been set up in recent years. There is no reason why we should have to punish our local businesses and consumers. I am quite sure that, with the right attitude in the negotiations, that can be achieved.
I have asked several Parliamentary Questions about this. Under the trade and co-operation agreement, 2026 is a year of review. I would like to believe that the Government have a clear strategy for this review and that these issues will be in it—not simply in the reset but in the review that is under the terms of the treaty.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to take part in this debate, although I was not a member of the committee until January, so did not have the advantage of taking part in the drawing up of this report, which, as our chairman noted, was agreed unanimously. I share in the tributes to our staff, our chair and the other members. As not only a new girl on the committee but one who does not come from Northern Ireland, I am confining myself, certainly in my early days, to comments that are mainly, I hope, relatively non-controversial and constructive.
Of course, as committee members, our views on Brexit and its aftermath differ. Mine have been expressed vocally over the past decade, but I will not be tempted to repeat them here, despite the naughty example of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, let alone the noble Lords, Lord Redwood and Lord Lilley. I will focus on how I can contribute to understanding and trying to resolve the practical challenges and difficulties for businesses, other organisations and consumers in Northern Ireland. The noble Baronesses, Lady Foster, Lady Goudie and Lady Ritchie, described those practical problems so well, as did the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, who highlighted farmers in particular.
The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, had a point when she said that she thought there is a culture of denial about the existence and extent of some of these problems. I was struck by a comment, reflected in the report, from Ian Jeffers, CEO of the charity Co-operation Ireland—of which the noble Baroness is, I understand, a board member. He said that the Windsor Framework
“is to some extent opening up old wounds, or reminding us of some of the things from the past … We are in some ways isolating, as a result of the framework and Brexit, the largely Protestant, unionist, loyalist community. The feedback that I am getting from community groups that we work with in the PUL … community is a feeling of loss”.
That is something I note for my own awareness and understanding, not to either endorse or contest it or, of course, to exclude other views.
I admit that some things have surprised me, not least how long it seems to be taking to set up promised structures since the TCA and the Northern Ireland protocol six years ago, and the Windsor Framework three years ago, though I acknowledge that, for part of that time, there was no Northern Ireland Assembly or Executive. I was also surprised to learn that the First Minister declined to engage with our committee and, since she does so decline, that also bars the Deputy First Minister from engaging with us. I will no doubt be reproached for being either ignorant or naive—I am probably both—but, since there was a Sinn Féin member on the delegation from the Irish Parliament that recently visited and met our committee, I would have hoped for more flexibility in attitudes.
On the information and support services for businesses, there is frustration about delay. We learn from the Government’s response that the promised and much-needed one-stop shop requested by the excellent review from the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, which is designed to answer queries and assist businesses, gets its £16 million funding only in the next financial year, 2026-27. It will presumably be at least 2027-28 before that is up and running. Others, such as the noble Baronesses, Lady Sanderson and Lady Foster, have talked about the one-stop shop, so all I add is that our witnesses stressed, for both the trader support service and the one-stop shop, the need to avoid total reliance on AI and chatbots and to provide what is becoming a vital but vanishing resource in customer service, which is human beings to talk to with specific queries.
I turn to divergence between UK and EU law, and hence between applicable laws in GB and NI. The committee stressed the need for legal clarity on regulatory divergence for Northern Ireland businesses and those in GB. It pointed out:
“The former Windsor Framework Sub-Committee”,
whose chair the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, helpfully contributed to this debate,
“repeatedly argued (and recommended) that the Government should take responsibility for monitoring regulatory divergence both within the UK (GB/NI) and between the UK and the EU, and place that information in the public domain”.
The report we are debating insisted:
“This should take the form of a database of EU law which applies in Northern Ireland … This is vital if the public and businesses are to understand the regulatory landscape and the laws which apply to them in Northern Ireland. We recommend that this work be the responsibility of a new unit”,
or office, which might sensibly be located
“in the Cabinet Office responsible for regulatory divergence”.
Such a call predates the UK-EU reset, but surely acquires even more urgency and scope with it.
Dr Lisa Claire Whitten, research fellow at Queen’s University Belfast School of Law, told the committee that for
“policy-makers and stakeholders seeking to understand which laws currently apply to Northern Ireland under the Windsor Framework there is no authoritative, agreed and updated source available”.
That is a pretty shocking state of affairs. Unfortunately, the Government’s response to the report says
“we would not be pursuing a specific UK-developed database of EU rules as we do not believe this would deliver the same value that a significantly enhanced support offer for SMEs could from the funding available”.
I contend that this is to misunderstand; it is comparing apples and pears. Traders need both a database of laws and a centre staffed by people who can answer specific queries. They are not alternatives to be set against one another.
The reset that the Government are pursuing in the relations of the whole of the UK with the EU, which I thoroughly welcome, could help reduce divergence between GB and Northern Ireland, as has been said by others, particularly with an SPS agreement. Perhaps it could even remove the infamous “not for EU” labelling. Crucially, however, it will not cover the customs obligations which weigh so heavily on GB-Northern Ireland trade.
It will be interesting to see whether the reset influences the Government’s thinking and action on engagement and consultation, on how to make information on applicable legislation transparently available and on capacity for monitoring and scrutiny, not least in this Parliament. At present, only our Northern Ireland Committee does this monitoring job in Westminster, so will the Government encourage the reincarnation of a European affairs or scrutiny committee in the other place?
The committee rightly wondered
“whether the commitments made at the UK-EU summit regarding ‘decision-shaping’ deliver opportunities for the UK to engage effectively at the pre-legislative stage”.
Whatever one’s scepticism about “decision-shaping”, of course any opportunities that might arise can be exploited only if businesses and others actually know what is coming up so they can engage with the Government and the European Commission. Awareness needs to be followed by transparency of work and ease of access. SDLP MLA Matthew O’Toole remarked that some of the UK-EU structures, such as the Joint Committee, Specialised Committee and Joint Consultative Working Group—I have already mentioned three committees—
“are a little opaque and convoluted”.
DUP MP Gavin Robinson noted of bodies such as the Joint Committee and the JCWG—I am sorry, I have lapsed into acronyms—
“you will not find an address, contact point, published minutes or an agenda for those. In the specialist groups, you might find a published minute, and it will be so high level and repetitive it is thoroughly useless”.
Oh dear, that is a harsh judgment—but probably true. It is obviously not good enough and hardly helps reconcile people to the structures and processes of the Windsor Framework.
The committee explains that it sees its task as
“not to argue for or against the Windsor Framework itself, but rather to scrutinise its operation in an objective and evidence-based manner”.
I will try to take my inspiration from that. However, I can say, not least as I did not take part in drawing up this report, that I believe it has done a very valuable job, including in highlighting how the aspirations of transparency, participation, engagement and dialogue are being met only patchily in the operation of the framework, and that improving that record is essential for business, the whole community and the economy in Northern Ireland, as well as GB as a whole.
The experience of Northern Ireland will be either a beacon or a lesson for the whole UK as the reset proceeds, so a lot depends on getting things right in the operation of the Windsor Framework. Unfortunately, we will all then be in the fax democracy, not just Northern Ireland, and we must at least be informed in a transparent manner. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, commented in his review that the Government should not only be transparent about the functioning of the Stormont brake and applicability Motion, but
“should also go further to acknowledge the impact EU legislation is having on Northern Ireland, and where it has acted to address those concerns”.
This seems to me not only to be very wide advice but to have wider relevance to the process of reset. Otherwise, we are going to lose the support of people. The fact that the Windsor Framework arrangements can be described to the committee as being of “labyrinthine complexity” and “extraordinary complexity” is not only a poor service to the people of Northern Ireland, to put it mildly, but a poor omen for reception of the output from the reset.
I conclude by saying that the Government therefore need not only to try to implement a Rolls-Royce information system for Northern Ireland but to be ready for the demands of dynamic alignment with EU law for the whole UK. We might not get a say or a voice, which of course would be my solution, but we need at least to know what it is all about.
Lord Caine (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure, on behalf of the Official Opposition, to congratulate the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee, so ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, on producing such a comprehensive and stimulating report. In addition, I put on record our thanks to the distinguished former Secretary of State the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, for conducting his independent review of the Windsor Framework, commissioned following the democratic consent vote in the Assembly in December 2024. Both the committee’s report and the noble Lord’s review contain a number of important recommendations that complement each other and which should be read side by side.
It was a privilege to be a Northern Ireland Office Minister when both the Windsor Framework and the Safeguarding the Union Command Paper were negotiated and published. As such, I was responsible for—some might say guilty of—taking a number of the measures contained in both documents through your Lordships’ House, including the Stormont brake, to which reference has been made today and which I genuinely hope that I did not try to oversell.
Like my noble friend Lady Foster of Aghadrumsee, I, too, would not start from here. However, the origins of the Windsor Framework were of course in the desire of the previous Government to deal with the consequences of the flawed and highly defective protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland that had been negotiated in October 2019—although I am of course fully aware of the context in which that negotiation took place. Within a short space of time from the coming into force of the protocol in January 2021, those consequences had become all too apparent. As I put it in a debate in Grand Committee on 13 September 2021, while a member of the former sub-committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme:
“It has disrupted trade, damaged businesses, hit consumers and contributed to growing political instability … we now risk rushing headlong into a full-blown political crisis from which the institutions established under the 1998 agreement could take years to recover”.—[Official Report, 13/9/21; col. GC 253.]
That crisis manifested itself only a few short months later, in February 2022, when the DUP First Minister resigned, triggering the collapse of the institutions—I should add, just weeks after I had taken through legislation as a Minister, part of which was designed to make it more difficult for that to happen. Instead, and as a result of the DUP’s decision, devolved government ceased to function for another two years.
The Windsor Framework was, therefore, an attempt—a valiant one, in my view—by the Sunak Government to address these issues, motivated, as I can assure noble Lords, by a desire significantly to reduce checks on goods that the protocol had introduced, protect Northern Ireland’s position within the UK internal market, and of course copper-fasten Northern Ireland’s place as an integral part of our United Kingdom. Taken with the subsequent Command Paper, Safeguarding the Union, in January 2024, it ameliorated some of the worst impacts of the protocol. It has led to the freer flow of goods coming from Great Britain to Northern Ireland and vice versa, while at the same time ensuring that Northern Ireland has unfettered access to the EU single market—a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick—so vital for industries such as the agri-food sector. In addition, both the framework and Safeguarding the Union in particular facilitated the restoration of devolved government at Stormont in February 2024—and we should not lose sight of the importance of that.
However, that is only one side of the story. When I took the Stormont brake regulations through your Lordships’ House, I said, rather too candidly for the Cabinet Office officials, who sought to censor my speech, that
“the Windsor Framework is not a perfect document”,
but that it
“represents very significant improvements on the old protocol negotiated in 2019”.—[Official Report, 29/3/23; col. 318.]
Taken alongside Safeguarding the Union, I still hold to that view. However, I fully accept that we clearly did not get everything right or solve every problem—although, given the unfortunate history of the protocol and the joint report of December 2017, it might be argued that it was the best we could have achieved in the circumstances. Anyone with experience of dealing with the EU, of which there are a number in the Committee today, will testify as to just how difficult it can be to persuade the Commission even to consider reopening agreements, especially ones that have only recently been reached.
As a number of noble Lords have pointed out, despite our best endeavours as a Government, significant problems remain. There is clear evidence of trade diversion, and my noble friend Lady Foster of Aghadrumsee highlighted figures from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency just this month that I was going to cite in full to support this. What consideration are the Government giving to the sensible proposals put forward by the Road Haulage Association that could reduce the burdens deterring operators from moving goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland? I agree that a trusted haulier scheme, also endorsed by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, lifting the existing £2 million turnover threshold for the inclusion of SMEs into the UK internal market scheme—and, crucially, moving the determination of at-risk goods from the point of entry into Northern Ireland to the point of sale—would be important and welcome measures. My noble friend Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard also raised significant problems around the movement of agricultural machinery and ongoing problems over veterinary medicines.
On democratic scrutiny, whatever the measures to improve this in the Windsor Framework and Safeguarding the Union, such as the Stormont brake and the applicability Motion, it is at least arguable—I put it mildly—that these have not necessarily worked as effectively or strongly as we might have hoped at the time. As a result, as many noble Lords pointed out, Northern Ireland, uniquely in the United Kingdom, has to accept and implement laws put forward by a supranational body of which we are not a member and over the shaping of which it still has little or no influence. The noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, put that point powerfully in his contribution, as did the noble Lord, Lord Hain.
We have never taken the view that the Windsor Framework was the final word or beyond improvement in what is an evolving or, as the noble Lord, Lord Jay, put it, dynamic situation. We will always look at constructive proposals for change and reform. It is in that spirit that the Opposition approach both the committee’s report and the independent review. I will confine my comments to a few of the recommendations.
I fully accept what the report describes as the “labyrinthine complexity” of the arrangements under the framework, highlighted graphically by the impenetrable charts on pages 24 and 25, to which the noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lord Jay, drew attention. Like my noble friend Lady Sanderson of Welton, I sometimes wonder how a party whose instinct is, or at least always should be, to make life for business and consumers easier could have settled for such a mind-boggling set of arrangements.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Empey, who said that we had gone completely OTT on this, and with my noble friend Lord Lilley, who described the current arrangements as a “sledgehammer to crack a nut”—a phrase I used in the debate to which I referred earlier, in 2021. There must surely, therefore, be scope to streamline and reduce the number of bodies involved in the implementation of the framework, and anything that simplifies matters for business, particularly for SMEs—which are the overwhelming majority in Northern Ireland—has to be welcomed.
Like everyone else who spoke, we particularly support, therefore, the establishment of the one-stop shop, also recommended by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, as a place where business can seek advice and support to assist with problems that arise during the course of its trade and transactions. I strongly agree with the points transmitted to the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, in this respect. Like others, I invite the Minister to give an update on progress towards establishing that one-stop shop when she winds.
The Government have accepted that the Democratic Scrutiny Committee should have more time to decide whether to launch an inquiry into replacement EU legislation, and will legislate when parliamentary time allows. Can the noble Baroness give us an assurance that this will take place in the next Session, which we anticipate beginning in May?
On commitments in Safeguarding the Union, which is covered by the committee’s report, will the Minister commit both to the long-term funding and longevity of the principal bodies established under the Command Paper: the independent monitoring panel, InterTrade UK and the east-west council? Can she also tell the Committee what is the status of the pledge in Annex B of Safeguarding the Union to publish a series of papers by sector that highlight the benefits of Northern Ireland’s place within the union? This is something that I have pursued through Written Questions but, sadly, the replies have been hardly enlightening.
Time prevents me from commenting on the so-called reset and proposed future dynamic alignment, although these will obviously have significant implications.
In conclusion, the recommendations in both the committee’s report and the review from the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, are to be welcomed. They are overwhelmingly positive and should, if taken forward, make a number of improvements to the operation of the framework, including maximising Northern Ireland’s influence in Brussels and ending a number of the complexities regarding the current arrangements. But looking ahead, it is clear that at some point more fundamental changes are going to be needed to deal with the outstanding problems, and a number of noble Lords, not least my noble friend Lord Lilley, put forward suggestions in that respect. As a constructive Opposition, we are open to ideas and meaningful dialogue with all interested parties and organisations as to how this might be done, consistent always with the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom, which we hold so dear.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)
My Lords, there are many parts of the Windsor Framework, and every time I have a conversation or a briefing about it, there is always something new, and a new part of that world. However, puffins was not where I believed today’s debate was going to go. I hate to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Empey, but I have been in post for three weeks and the power part may still yet be lacking—but I will see what I can do for him, because I would never seek to disappoint.
We have had a truly substantive and insightful debate this afternoon. I begin by thanking my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for securing this debate and for his stewardship of the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee. I also take this opportunity to wish my noble friend Lady Ritchie a very happy birthday.
The report we are considering today is very important, not just because of the detailed work clearly undertaken but because the engagement of businesses and civic society with Northern Ireland’s trading arrangements is important at both a constitutional and economic level. Similar themes were also developed by the very thoughtful review of the Windsor Framework conducted by my noble friend Lord Murphy of Torfaen, and I am grateful to hear his further reflections today. There is something so special and addictive about Northern Ireland that means that those of us exposed to it become completely addicted and can never walk away from it. I think that is reflected by the fact that we have two former Secretaries of State participating today.
I have listened with great care to the contributions made from all sides of the House and I want to thank the noble Lords, Lord Dodds and Lord Caine, for reminding us of the stakes at play in Northern Ireland, both economic and cultural. Although noble Lords have different views across the diverse range of issues discussed today, a common thread has been our collective pledge to Northern Ireland’s prosperity, security and economic success, and a shared agreement that businesses, civic society, organisations and public authorities alike should have their voice heard in the very trading arrangements that necessarily underpin that success. Many specific points were raised today, and I will reflect on Hansard to see if I have missed any, but I shall endeavour to answer all the points raised.
I think it will be helpful if we place today’s discussion in context. I should first like to set out the Government’s ongoing commitment to the Windsor Framework and protecting the UK internal market—I assure the noble Lord, Lord Caine, that my speech has not been doctored—while appreciating that there can always be room for improvement. As we have heard today, not least from the noble Lord, those commitments were set out in our manifesto, and we consider them vitally important. They guide our reset with the EU, and they are our guiding approach to securing a vital new agreement with the EU that will smooth trade flows of agri-food goods. Those twin commitments are also important as they reflect the importance of trading arrangements that respect Northern Ireland’s place in the union, avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, and which work on an agreed basis with the EU.
It is only through this approach that we can give certainty to businesses and consumers in Northern Ireland on the rules that apply, as they trade uniquely across two markets. That is why it contains important mechanisms to enable participation and facilitate that voice; the ability of the Northern Ireland Assembly to scrutinise EU rules; structures for businesses and civic society to engage with the UK and EU on the framework’s implementation; arrangements for the Government and Northern Ireland Executive to work together and ensure that Northern Ireland’s voice is heard; and a periodic vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly on continuing these arrangements. The first such vote, as we heard, triggered a review of the framework that was carefully and thoughtfully conducted by my noble friend Lord Murphy with a wide range of stakeholders. The Government are now taking action on all the recommendations set out in that review.
That brings me to the real topic of today’s debate: the one-stop shop. Noble Lords are very aware, it seems, of the announced £16.6 million for an enhanced one-stop shop regulatory support service, designed to navigate the knowledge gap facing small and medium-sized enterprises. This will be operational in the next financial year, which I gently remind noble Lords begins next week. We are working to make sure that this can work. I assure your Lordships’ Committee that the one-stop shop will support GB businesses as much as it will support businesses operating in Northern Ireland. I will come on to some of the other points that were raised in relation to that shortly.
Progress has also been made on veterinary medicine—something I will again touch on, in terms of the detail raised today. The UK Government worked extensively with industry in the run-up to the end of the grace period. I am pleased to say that the transition has been without significant disruption—I am not saying there has not been any—and there have been no significant supply issues or other impacts, although we continue to monitor this closely.
It would be remiss of me not to mention that the Government have also allocated £2.25 million in funding to InterTrade UK over the next three years, led by the noble Baroness, Lady Foster—funding that will allow it to continue its vital work in advising on and promoting trade within the UK. I am sure that the work of InterTrade will assist in continuing to boost the economy of Northern Ireland, as outlined by my noble friend Lady Goudie. I remind noble Lords that Northern Ireland is the fastest-growing part of the United Kingdom. I place on record my personal thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, for her work at InterTrade UK.
My noble friend Lady Ritchie raised an important point about the role of InterTrade UK and the one-stop shop. I hope and would expect that the one-stop shop will work with InterTrade UK and other stakeholders to support trade and that this will be something that works together.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for addressing that issue, but what about InterTradeIreland, which already has a hub and could provide some beneficial information?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
Given the nature of InterTradeIreland, that is a matter for InterTradeIreland and is not something I can comment on from the Dispatch Box.
With regard to the specifics of the report, in short, a lot has been done, but there remains more to do, as this report by the committee highlights. Indeed, the Government’s response to the committee’s report following the independent review shows as much. This leads me to our next steps. We are ensuring that the stakeholder engagement landscape captures a broad spectrum of businesses in a new Northern Ireland business stakeholder group—just to add to the wonderful flowchart that we saw earlier today. We are also looking at how the Government and devolved departments can conduct engagement and capture the views of industry, so that this is joined-up and gets the right outcomes earlier on.
The Northern Ireland Executive participate in all structures under the Windsor Framework, yet we acknowledge that there is more to be done between the Government and the Executive to ensure that public authorities link up and address issues with changes to regulatory proposals earlier in the process. We are therefore implementing new processes to address that and facilitate better engagement at all levels, beyond the Cabinet Office executive office working group.
Lord Redwood (Con)
Can the Minister say whether the United Kingdom will be tabling proposed improvements to the Windsor Framework as part of the reset negotiations?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
The noble Lord, who has been a Member of the other place and only recently of your Lordships’ House, will be aware better than me that I am not in a position to give any detail of ongoing negotiations while they are currently ongoing. The noble Lord will be aware that the impact on Northern Ireland is key to some of the negotiations, which is why we are focusing so much effort on the SPS deal.
We will continue to welcome contributions from the Executive, including at the Joint Committee—the governing body for the Windsor Framework and the withdrawal agreement as a whole. More broadly, looking at the committee’s report, we are taking forward a new phase of the Trader Support Service, which provides vital support to businesses with goods movements. Those issues were covered in the committee’s report and, in December 2025, we set out more information on the consortium to deliver it. We are working to give greater discretion to the Democratic Scrutiny Committee; it will be allowed greater discretion over how it conducts its scrutiny and the timelines for it. We are backing this up in Brussels, increasing resourcing, as requested by the Office of the Northern Ireland Executive in Brussels, so that it can provide vital perspective to the institutions there as proposals are developed and considered.
I move on to transparency and awareness. Our approach seeks to ensure that the broadest range of voices from across Northern Ireland is heard, including from business and civic society. It also ensures that there is the right space for technical engagement between government departments and their counterparts in Northern Ireland and the EU institutions. It seeks to ensure that devolved departments are equipped with the right information about regulatory proposals to consider their impacts and advise the Assembly further on Northern Ireland’s interests.
Where issues are identified, we have already shown our capacity to take action, whether domestically, where we have announced consultation activity on toy safety and chemicals labelling and ensured that the UK internal market is protected in response to concerns from industry; or bilaterally, such as on dental amalgam or the arrangements to protect the supply of pharmaceuticals. On all these issues, we have listened to stakeholders, whether they are business organisations, civic organisations or the vital work of the Democratic Scrutiny Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Just as we will continue to support the scrutiny of the Windsor Framework arrangements and the rules that apply in the Assembly, and by the Independent Monitoring Panel, so too will we support the work of InterTrade UK on promoting the economic bonds and strengths of all parts of the UK, and the east-west council in developing the ties across it.
I move on to some of the specific questions in the order that they were asked and not necessarily grouped by issue. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, touched on EUR-Lex. Although the EU’s EUR-Lex tool can be used to read and consider detailed legal terms, we recognise the need for businesses to have clear and accessible guidance. The enhanced one-stop shop we are delivering will do that, providing businesses with tailored advice to navigate those issues. We believe that this is the best way that we can support businesses with explaining the rules that apply.
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
I apologise for interrupting the Minister. Is she saying that something better than EUR-Lex will be part of the one-stop shop, and that legal problems will therefore be solvable through that structure?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I am. Noble Lords heard it here first. Perhaps I do have a little power, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said—or rather, the people behind me do.
My noble friend Lord Murphy touched on the SPS agreement and how important it is. We are currently negotiating with the EU on an SPS agreement to make agri-food trade with our biggest market cheaper and easier, cutting costs and removing barriers to trade for producers and retailers across the whole of the UK. The agreement will benefit Northern Ireland through the interplay with the Windsor Framework, by making a more consistent approach to agri-food and plants. We will smooth the flows of trade still further. On 9 March, the Government provided an update on the changes this would entail for businesses. This includes a call for information from businesses so that the Government can understand exactly what they need.
My noble friends Lord Murphy and Lord Hain asked about the Office of the Northern Ireland Executive in Brussels and the investment provided. The Government have agreed to provide funding to this office to cover up to three additional posts to ensure that Northern Ireland’s interests are accounted for in Brussels and that EU policy-making is accounted for in Belfast.
Parity of esteem was raised by my noble friend Lord Murphy. This seems particularly apt given how close we are to the anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. We are committed to the agreement in all respects, which of course includes parity of esteem for the identities and aspirations of both communities. The application of the Windsor Framework does not shake that commitment.
Gently, I want to touch on the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lilley. He raised many issues related to how we got to this point and the question of what is temporary. I was given a slight history lesson earlier today about how many pieces of legislation have the word “temporary” in them, and that has not exactly been an unusual part of our legislative framework historically. I gently suggest that the agreements we have been discussing today were signed by his party when in government, and my party is trying to make the Windsor Framework work for the people of Northern Ireland, which is why we are also currently in the process of resetting the relationship.
Lord Lilley (Con)
They were, of course, signed by the past Government, but they were described by the EU as temporary. That was the sole justification the EU gave for including trade with Northern Ireland in the withdrawal agreement. She cannot make a party-political point about it. She is either going to ignore the EU or believe it.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I believe my party is quite clear on our position on the EU, not least because I believe in international law and complying with our agreements.
One of the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, was on veterinary medicines and the prices going up. She raised a specific case. I should very much like to hear the detail of it because to date, we do not have any evidence of prices going up.
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)
I have written to the Secretary of State about the issue.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent
I have not had sight of that question and, apparently, neither has the person who gave me the answer. But online retailers continue to operate in Northern Ireland. As in the rest of the UK, prices between online retailers may vary. We recommend pet owners and others do their research to see which retailer best meets their supply.
The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, and my noble friend Lady Ritchie, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Caine, rightly raised the issue of haulage, logistics and the trusted haulier scheme. We have accepted the recommendations of my noble friend Lord Murphy, in this area and are looking at all possibilities to reduce frictions for logistics and haulage businesses on an ongoing basis. In parallel, we will continue to monitor the effectiveness of the available facilitations. The Government have also established a new Northern Ireland business stakeholders’ group as a formal means of engagement between the Government and Northern Ireland business organisations. This group includes representations from key sectors, including the Road Haulage Association, and provides a direct channel for input into technical UK-EU fora.
The noble Lord, Lord Elliott, raised the issue of animal and livestock movement. He will also be aware that I have met the Ulster Farmers’ Union and some young farmers, and this issue has been raised. The noble Lord will be aware that the best way in which to manage this will be through an SPS agreement and that is why we are seeking to move quickly to deliver on this issue, but I have heard both him and the representations made by others.
The noble Lord, Lord Jay, who previously chaired the committee, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and noble Lord, Lord Rogan, touched, as did other Lords, on the record of regulatory divergence. The Government’s priority is to deliver the enhanced regulatory one-stop shop to advise and support businesses in trading across the whole UK market. We believe that this one-stop shop is far better placed to support small businesses that face challenges. We will seek for this one-stop shop to provide regulatory alerts to businesses on changes to the rules, which we would expect to be accessible to them. The Windsor Framework and a set of online tools provided by the EU can already be used to find regulations of relevance to Northern Ireland. It is for these reasons that our response to the independent review of the Windsor Framework set out that a one-stop shop would be our focus going forward.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
I apologise for interrupting the Minister again. I am a bit like a dog with a bone on this question of a database, because I am still not entirely clear that a one-stop shop answering specific queries is the same thing as a comprehensive database of all applicable laws being kept up to date, which is not static but dynamic. They are two different things, and I am not reassured by the Minister. I am sure that she responds in good faith, but I tried to suggest in my remarks that the two were conflated. I am not sure that her earlier answer to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, fully removes my doubts on the subject.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
The Government have made a decision that we will focus on helping people work with it, rather than keeping a list, so that we can make sure that people have the support they need as they try to navigate the impact on their businesses and on their trade.
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
I apologise for intervening again, but will the Minister agree to meet me to discuss a way in which EUR-Lex change can be incorporated in the one-stop shop, possibly including some very simple ways of using existing techniques to simplify complex legal issues?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
How could I ever turn down an invitation from the noble Lord? Of course, I am more than happy to meet him to go over the debate. More importantly, officials can be there to make sure that what he wants is reflected so that we can actually make this work. We are taking a pragmatic approach to try to make this work and make it as easy as possible, while at the same time hoping to negotiate an SPS deal that takes away a great many of the issues we are talking about.
No one could doubt for a second the commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Caine, to the people of Northern Ireland and to trying to make these issues work. He touched on the issues of Safeguarding the Union and his PQs—obviously, I sign off every one. I realise that I am now over time, but I am more than happy to have a meeting with the noble Lord to discuss Safeguarding the Union, if that is acceptable to him.
I want to reassure noble Lords on some points, starting with noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, whom I assure that the interface will be user-friendly—or else—and will be focused UK-wide. The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, asked about hauliers, and I hope I have responded to her in full. If I have not, I will look at what she said and come back to her.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, asked me about parliamentary committees in the other place. She will be aware that how it chooses to engage is a matter for the other place, and for Parliament as a whole, but I am delighted that noble Lords had the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee doing this very important work. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and the noble Baroness that we have accepted all the noble Lord’s recommendations and are seeking to implement them—one of the questions touched on that.
The noble Lord, Lord Caine, asked me about future legislation. I reassure him that we will talk about this—I would suggest in this Room, but possibly on the Floor of the House—in the next Session, subject to me now getting told off by the Chief Whip.
In conclusion, the message from this debate is clear: we must continue to listen to and act on the voices of businesses and civic society in delivering Northern Ireland’s trading arrangements. I give the Committee the continued commitment of the Government today that we will always take practical actions on concerns to protect the UK internal market and flow of goods, be that east-west or north-south. As we do so, our focus will remain on the prize of delivering real prosperity, where Northern Ireland remains one of the fastest-growing economies of the UK, in part thanks to its unique trading position and businesses having certainty about the facilitations available to move their goods under the Windsor Framework.
However, I am aware of the ongoing complexities of how this is operating on the ground and, on that basis, I will visit Northern Ireland very soon. Noble Lords, especially those in Northern Ireland, will be aware that I am not allowed to say exactly when, but I will be in Northern Ireland imminently to see how the Windsor Framework is operating on the ground. I will meet key stakeholders who are delivering this, as well as businesses, to see what next steps the Government should consider.
The Government will support only those trading arrangements for Northern Ireland that protect its place in the UK and its internal market, avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland and can be agreed. While there is more to be done to ensure that Northern Ireland’s voice is heard in London, Belfast and Brussels, the Windsor Framework really does provide the best basis for that, and we are committed to working alongside our partners in the Northern Ireland Executive and the EU institutions as we take it forward, alongside new agreements with the EU, so that we may build an even brighter and more prosperous future for people in Northern Ireland and across the whole United Kingdom.
I again thank the committee for its report and I look forward to continuing to work with it in the coming months—I really hope that I did not disappoint my noble friend Lord Carlile. On that final note, I wish all members of the committee a happy Easter and chag Pesach sameach.
Lord Empey (UUP)
Before the noble Baroness sits down, I ask for clarification on one point, and if she does not have it right now, perhaps she could write and put it in the Library. There are two parallel processes here. There is the EU reset and there are the specific conditions in the trade and co-operation agreement, where it is specified that there will be a review in 2026. I have asked the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, and others a number of times whether the Government were preparing for those. We have two separate processes, one a treaty obligation and one a set of political negotiations. We need to know what we are doing, otherwise we are going to get confused. If the noble Baroness does not have the minutiae of it at hand, I would be more than happy if she would write to me.
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
My Lords, I will give a short wind up, because we have had a very full debate and I am very grateful to all those who have spoken. I start, however, by correcting an earlier omission. I failed to thank my noble friend Lord Jay for the work that the previous sub-committee did, which helped to set us up, and indeed for what members do not know, which was his kindness to me when I was appointed chair of this committee. He gave me what was a very well-concealed short tutorial, which was of enormous value to me, so I thank him very much. I am very grateful particularly to the Minister, of course, who has not disappointed me at all, and to the noble Lord, Lord Caine, who showed his objective commitment to these issues.
The Division Bell is ringing, so I shall curtail my wind up into a couple of sentences and then we can go and vote. I thank everyone for the part they played in this debate, and in all the issues we have considered. I do not believe that we are looking at pandemonium, a word coined by Milton to describe living hell. I think Northern Ireland is a very good place these days. I have known Northern Ireland through the time I was Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation; it was not always the great place it is now, and we are simply trying to make things better by asking the Government to take the steps that are necessary, and which they appear to accept, to make Northern Ireland that much better a place.