Resetting the UK-EU Relationship (European Affairs Committee Report)

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, and the committee, for the report and the noble Lord for his clear, calm introduction to it. As he said, and as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, agreed, President Trump has broken the bonds of trust and we can no longer depend on the US as our ally, over Greenland and many other matters. That has put the UK and the EU in a very different position compared with where we were in 2016. As a middle-ranking power in an uncertain world, we need to tighten the bonds that have been severed and frayed with the EU and, we must not forget, with the rest of the world, the majority of which is not the US, China or Russia. With the right approach of humility, generosity and realism, we can work in partnership to tackle the many crises we face.

I know that others will cover in detail the utter failure by successive Governments to deal with the critical, often career-threatening, impacts of Brexit on our creative community. That makes us all poorer, not just financially but culturally, with the huge loss to young people of Erasmus+ which now, happily, is to be restored. However, I will focus on an issue that is crucial to the reset and to the public and environmental health of the UK, to which the committee paid only glancing attention. That is not a criticism. As the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, said, there are many highly technical areas that will need to be sorted and Parliament will struggle to have proper oversight of them. This is one of those areas, fitting under the sanitary and phytosanitary standards label: the regulation of pharmaceuticals and chemicals.

The EU is prohibiting the import of animal products from countries that routinely use antibiotics for growth promotion. This will take effect in September. We banned these practices domestically in 2006, yet the UK has not committed to the same rule for imports. Last November, I asked the Government in a Written Question whether the UK would align with these EU import rules. They stopped short of committing to an import ban. Hopefully, this will come with the SPS negotiations, but we need it now. I am not expecting a Dispatch Box declaration, but please will the Government make this a priority?

The public and environmental health gap extends particularly to water. The EU’s 2024 urban wastewater treatment directive mandates advanced treatment of urban wastewater to remove pharmaceutical residues, microplastics and other pollutants, along with harmonised antimicrobial resistance monitoring and producer responsibility schemes. What a contrast to “Dirty Business”, a recent television programme on this issue which provided an account that has horrified so many. Here we have no legally binding requirements for water companies to monitor emerging pollutants, including microplastics, antimicrobial residues or resistant bacteria or genes in effluent. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, spoke about being a rule taker. If others consistently have better rules, why do we not take those rules?

On chemicals, the UK is also falling behind. Since we left EU REACH, the EU has adopted 13 new restrictions and initiated 24 more. The UK has begun only three. We are trailing EU protections on chemicals, including the planned restrictions covering the 10,000 PFAS, the forever chemicals. We are subject to a cocktail of chemicals, of particular concern to the health of our young. We have begun action on only one PFAS restriction, despite civil society calling for alignment with the EU. The EU is also ahead of us on pesticides. Brexit has left us in this area, as in so many others, worse off—left behind and less healthy, with our environment dirtier and without the precautionary principle that we so urgently need to restore.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, please excuse my enthusiasm but the Committee can see that, every time I blinked, somebody else jumped in.

I will speak in support of my Amendment 461B, which is focused on protecting underage girls. Before I do that, I will pose a few questions to the Minister on the back of the debate we have had today. First, an assertion has been made that this is happening all over the place and that many women are being prosecuted. Can the Minister give us access to the figures that she is working on to answer that question?

Secondly, is there any proof that the police are targeting women? That assertion has been made a number of times.

Also, what work are the Government doing to improve the nature of police investigations? The right reverend Prelate made that point very well. Surely, any woman in this situation should be treated as a victim until there is some very strong evidence that she is anything but a victim. What are we doing to help the police perform their duties better?

I will respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika. The notion that you can represent only people that you are of is one that we should fight very hard. I come from a very poor community and have spent my life representing people who have no relation to the way I look, where I come from and who I am. That is something we should fight very hard. I am a man and a father of two. When we talk about pregnant people, there is at least some idea that a man is 50% of how that situation arose, so I think I have some stake in the debate.

Finally, there is no debate on this side about what a woman is. If somebody is pregnant, in my world they are most certainly a woman. I cannot envisage any situation where somebody other than a woman would be pregnant. I am happy to take direction from the noble Baroness if she has such things.

My Amendment 461B is focused particularly on protecting young girls. To address this gap, my amendment would introduce a mandatory safeguarding investigation whenever an abortion is performed on a girl under the age of 16. This measure is in the best interest of vulnerable women and does not impede lawful medical care. It would simply ensure that when a child undergoes an abortion, relevant authorities are alerted and must promptly investigate the circumstances. Specifically, the investigation would seek to determine whether the pregnancy resulted from a criminal offence, such as rape or sexual offences under the Sexual Offences Act; whether the girl was subjected to coercion, exploitation or abuse; and whether any person involved, such as the abuser, may be liable for prosecution under existing laws.

One thing I know from my many decades of community work and dealing with vulnerable people in vulnerable situations is that an investigation-free zone is ripe for abuse. If you are an abuser, what you need is privacy. Clause 191 would provide privacy for many abusers, and that needs to be looked at very seriously.

The idea that there is a surge of young women who are being investigated needs to be taken into account, because this clause stands or falls on the idea that there are a lot of young women who are under a lot of pressure because of the things that are being suggested.

Clause 191 will bring about the most radical change to abortion laws in a generation, and it was done on the back of very little scrutiny and debate in the other place. I believe it falls to us in this Chamber to give it our full, undivided attention.

The other question I pose to the Minister is: what level of support is there for this publicly? We have heard that many of the professional bodies support the Bill, but do the public support it? Are they in the same place? Have they been consulted on what this would mean? I do not mean, “Do they support abortion?”; I mean, “Do they support the effect that this Bill would have?”

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way because I can save the Minister here. A study in 2023 by the National Centre for Social Research found that the majority of people did not want to see women criminalised in the kind of circumstances that we are talking about.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Committee may be pleased to know that I plan to be comparatively brief.

Before the dinner break, the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean, asked how many people in your Lordships’ House have had abortions. Of course I cannot answer that question, but it is worth putting on the record the fact that one in three British women will have an abortion during their reproductive life. That is the reality for very many women in the UK today. They will need this reproductive healthcare.

I will not go over what has been said before, but I want to respond to some of the things that have already been said that need a response, and I will raise a point that has not been raised but which is important for contextualising our debate. It relates to a comment made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, about why we have seen an increase in investigations into what are often entirely natural miscarriages and late-term apparent or possible abortions. We have not discussed how the global political context has changed. There is an extremely well-funded global campaign around the world that is seeking to reduce women’s reproductive rights. For context on that, I went to the website of the Organization of American Historians and read an article by the historian Jennifer L Holland. She notes that,

“the antiabortion movement, in its many iterations, has radically transformed Americans’ ideas about women’s bodies, reproduction, feminist politics, and of course, fetal life. In the two centuries the movement has existed, its constituencies, tactics, and tools have all changed. But what has remained is the effect this movement has had on women’s lives”.

She adds that the movement

“transformed ideas as it also restricted the … ability of American women to access reproductive healthcare”.

The article goes on to note that, until around the 1840s, having an abortion in America was an unexceptional and “largely stigma-free” practice. That was because it had inherited the law from the UK that regarded anything before quickening as not being an issue; that is usually regarded as four to six months of gestation.

There is a reason why the law that we keep referring back to is from the 1860s. That was when we started to see a global movement, particularly an American-driven movement, which is now here in the UK, through very well-funded organisations and with millions of pounds coming from the US, through the huge power of social media, having an impact on whether people will think about these issues—whether they are a medical practitioner, police officer, et cetera. When we look at why we have seen an increase, we really have to consider the framework in which this debate is being conducted.

A long time ago now, the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, who is not in his place, said that

“all investigations in this matter should be conducted with great sensitivity”.

What has become clear from our debate is just how invasive and damaging investigations are. I will not go through the cases that have been rehearsed here today. There have been GCSE students who have had their phones taken away and their lives totally disrupted—it is absolute chaos. That is the reality. I do not think it is possible to do this sensitively.

I will briefly address the amendments that seek to attack—and we have heard a concerted attack on it today—telemedicine. I link the remarks of the noble Baronesses, Lady Gerada and Lady Fox, who both, in very different tones, perhaps, made it very clear that this has been an extremely successful delivery of healthcare. This is a safe and convenient way that has seen the average gestation at treatment for abortion fall substantially, with more than half of all abortions now taking place before seven weeks’ gestation.

If we were to stop telemedicine, as quite a number of noble Lords have called for, there would be a drastic increase in waiting times, women would have to travel long distances for care—even at the earliest gestations—and many women would be driven to buying pills online through legal, quasi-legal or simply illegal sources because of the lack of availability of that provision.

This brings me to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, who spoke about the number of abortions occurring in the UK. I hope the noble Lord and, indeed, the entire Committee would agree that that figure is a reflection of the inadequacy of contraceptive provision in the UK. I hope we can all agree that we want better contraceptive provision and therefore that would be a way to reduce the number of abortions.

I note that a study from BPAS found that nearly half of women found it difficult to access contraception because of long wait times, difficulty in securing appointments, and financial hurdles when they went to secure their preferred method of abortion.

I have two more brief points—

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I hear what the noble Baroness is saying. Is she aware that the World Health Organization defines a safe abortion as

“meaning that they are carried out using a method recommended by WHO, appropriate to the gestational age, and by someone with the necessary skills”,

and that recommendation 30 in its safe abortion guide states that medical abortion at 12 weeks or greater should be managed only by doctors in a healthcare setting—in other words, a self-managed medical abortion from 12 weeks’ gestation is deemed to be “unsafe” by the WHO?

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

The noble Lord has very powerfully made the case for ensuring that we are able to make that provision as early as possible.

I particularly want to address one amendment that we have only really heard the presenter address. Amendment 461B from the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, would subject any female accessing legal abortion under the age of 16 to a mandatory investigation by police and child protection agencies. It is worth stressing that since 1985 it has been the law in England and Wales that under-16s can access contraception, abortion and sexual health care confidentially.

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[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I am taking an intervention. I was more than happy to take an intervention from the newly minted noble Lord, Lord Doyle, but on the basis that wiser and better heads have prevailed, I will continue my words briefly.

The current criminal framework provides an important safeguard for women, particularly those under 16 and those who are vulnerable or at risk of coercion in what is already a highly permissive system. During the debate in the other place, the sponsor of the amendment, the honourable Member for Gower, claimed that legislative changes were needed “to protect the women”, but removing the legal deterrent to late-term abortions will only increase harm to women. It will mean a return to the days of backstreet abortions. A desperate woman will know she can end her pregnancy after 24 weeks without facing any police investigation for it, but she will be unable to obtain the abortion legally and so she will be driven towards illegal and unsafe providers.

A report in advance of the provisions coming into force might highlight all this and give us all a chance to think again, if indeed we are willing to think. There is a fanaticism around support for abortion that makes many people unwilling to consider the evidence. For example, some of the academic literature provides insight into the often-overlooked psychological impact of abortion, which was mentioned earlier. One study of 1.2 million pregnancies in Quebec hospitals followed women over a 17-year period. The results revealed that women who had an abortion were much more likely to be hospitalised for mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety, as well as for substance abuse and suicidal ideation. This risk was higher among women who were under 25 at the time of their abortion and among those with a history of mental health difficulties. Another study found that, for many women, having an abortion is associated with lasting negative emotions such as feelings of guilt, regret, shame and self-unforgiveness. These feelings were strongest among women who reported being coerced.

I am constantly amazed at how little many feminists have to say about coerced abortion. The introduction of telemedicine abortion has undoubtedly made it much more difficult for coercion to be detected. A 2022 survey commissioned by BBC Radio 4 found that 15% of women have experienced pressure to have an abortion. This points to a significant cohort of women who are not exercising choice but are being manipulated into terminating the life of their unborn baby. I give way to the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Stansgate) (Lab)]

If it helps the Committee, I note that an intervention cannot be made when someone is moving an amendment. The noble Lord is moving his amendment.

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[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

As the noble Lord has specifically challenged me on that issue, the point that was raised in earlier groups was that for government Bills there is an impact assessment, an equality impact assessment and pre-legislative scrutiny. There is significant public consultation resulting from the Cabinet Office, as the noble Lord knows very well, and there are guidelines as to public consultation. None of that happened on this occasion. Therefore, let us pay due regard to the deliberations, scrutiny and oversight of the Commons if there is a proper due process in the way that a Bill evolves and is debated, tested and challenged.

That has not been the case on this occasion, and it is very similar to the pills by post situation. The original wording of the pills by post amendment in the Commons was disorderly and had to be rewritten by special advisers in the Department of Health before it was introduced in the House of Lords. That was tacked on to a Health and Care Bill in the same way that this has been tacked on to a mainstream Crime and Policing Bill. So, with all due respect to the noble Lord, I do not think that his analysis stands up to scrutiny.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will just very briefly intervene, as I was going to intervene until I was corrected. I have learned something—it is always good to learn new things in your Lordships’ House. The noble Lord cited a number of statistics suggesting that abortion was something that did emotional damage to women or that they regretted afterwards.

I will just cite one landmark study, published in Social Science & Medicine in 2020—this is in the context of America, where there is a huge amount of pressure and social discussion around abortion—which said that five years after having had an abortion more than 95% of women said it was exactly the right decision for them. That is a very different figure from those the noble Lord was citing. It is important to put that on the record for anyone who might be reading the debate and thinking about this.

Chinese Embassy

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for her questions. One thing that is really clear, given that this Statement is about our national security, is about being led by our national security experts, who, as she rightly said, have been clear in their opinions about the mitigations that are required but also about the nature of this. With regard to the location of embassies, this is a piece of land that was bought in 2018 and was granted the diplomatic permission to move forward as an embassy, subject to planning permission, under the last Government—or, in fact, as I said, under Boris Johnson. But what is clear is that a quasi-judicial process has since followed. There is a 240-page document which outlines why that decision was made and how it was made, and it is all available to all Members of your Lordships’ House online. But she is absolutely right: my honourable friend the Security Minister in the other place and the directors-general of MI5 and GCHQ, have all made it clear that there are also clear security benefits to the amalgamation of seven sites into one.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Minister acknowledged earlier the concern among Chinese dissidents in the UK about the embassy. She may have heard the comments from Chloe Cheung, a British resident and former Hong Konger—a young woman who has a bounty on her head from China. She has said she feels betrayed by the agreement to this embassy: it looks like a Chinese castle, and it sends a message about overweening Chinese power. Can the Minister sympathise with and understand the fear felt by those dissidents—and more widely than just those who are explicitly identified as dissidents?

I note that the Statement refers to a closed meeting with vice-chancellors that is going to be held next month. We of course have huge numbers of Hong Kong and Chinese students at British universities, and we have had experience of them being intimidated and subject to physical violence. What can the Government do to ensure that universities can protect those students? If we think about a Chinese student who has always followed the line and come here and just starts to ask some questions, what are we going to do to make sure that that student is safe here in the UK?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I have met many Chinese dissidents who live in the UK and did significant work with them in my former iteration. It is really important that we make sure that their voices are heard and that on British soil they have the protections afforded to everybody here.

On academic interference, any attempt by a foreign state to intimidate and coerce universities to limit free speech and academic freedoms in the UK will not be tolerated. The new Office for Students’ guidance makes it explicitly clear that universities should not tolerate attempts by foreign states to suppress academic freedom.

With regard to the closed meeting with the Security Minister, which will be held shortly, there is a reason why that meeting is closed: to make sure that the advice received by people is for them as regards how they manage and mitigate their risks. It would be inappropriate for me to go further on that.

UK-EU Common Understanding Negotiations

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Viscount is absolutely correct. Our trade with the European Union was worth £813 billion in 2024, and it is our most significant trading partner. It is incredibly important that we have a positive relationship with it, and we have sought to do that. The fact that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister held the first EU-UK summit since Brexit earlier this year suggests that our relationship really did need to be rebuilt. We are rebuilding our relationship based on the three pillars of security, tackling migration, and SPS and ETS. I expect to be in front of your Lordships’ House on many occasions to discuss what I hope will be positive announcements.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and others in roundly celebrating this announcement, although we should take a second to reflect on the tragedy of those who missed out in the desert years. Those affected were not only those who might have travelled, but students staying here who did not benefit from having exchange students in their classes and being trained here.

I have two specific questions. David Clarke, professor of languages at Cardiff University, noted that since we were last in the scheme, the bureaucratic hurdles such as visas have become much greater for students travelling. Are the Government working with the European nations to try to minimise those road humps? Secondly, both Scotland and Wales have introduced their own schemes. Are the Government working with the devolved Administrations and the nations to ensure that any interchange is as seamless as possible when Erasmus comes back?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes a very important point about visas. I will have to write to her about the detail of any changes we will need to bring forward. I remind and reassure noble Lords that these are temporary arrangements for Erasmus; people will be here for less than 12 months and will be travelling for less than 12 months.

On existing schemes in Scotland and Wales, obviously, there are ongoing conversations, but the Taith scheme in Wales is hugely respected and regarded. In terms of accessing and working with disadvantaged communities and those from working-class backgrounds, we all have a huge amount to learn from their successes. Given the nature of these schemes and that education is devolved, these decisions will be a matter for the Scottish and Welsh Governments, but, obviously, we will have ongoing conversations with them.

Control of Mercury (Enforcement) (Amendment) Regulations 2025

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Similarly, the issue concerning amalgam should simply be decided within Northern Ireland. The issue may well be how exactly it is meant to be policed with people going across the border. I do not know whether we will see some form of customs posts on the Irish border, where people get their teeth examined on the way out to make sure they are not smuggling fillings into the Irish Republic. That is the kind of ridiculous situation that we have reached. Although a particular solution has been found to this problem, it highlights that there are fundamental flaws within the relationship itself, which shows that the Government have to go a lot further in any reset they have with the European Union. We need long-term solutions, not sticking plasters from issue to issue.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her very clear introduction to this statutory instrument and the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, for raising this issue, even though I will take a very different approach to the SI. I will park the constitutional questions, leaving the Windsor Framework to one side, and raise the issue of why Britain is trailing globally on the issue of mercury dental fillings.

I take issue with the Minister’s introduction, which talked about a stable, safe and typically cheaper material. It is worth stressing that this SI provides bespoke arrangements—here, I am looking at it purely from the medical health side—for a longer transition period away from mercury dental fillings in Northern Ireland compared with the EU, a delayed phase-out that is in line with the rest of the UK. This is bad for the people of Northern Ireland, bad for the UK and bad for the world.

Coincidentally, a new study is out today from the Rivers Trust and Wildlife and Countryside Link that shows that more than 98% of fish and mussels tested in English waters contain mercury levels above EU safety limits. In fact, more than half the fish and mussels tested have mercury levels more than five times above the EU safety limits. We all know that mercury is a potent neurotoxin, even at low levels of exposure. There is the tragedy of Minamata, the disease that resulted from the industrial release of methylmercury in Japan. This has been known for many decades. Some 43 countries have now banned mercury amalgam fillings, including the EU and the Scandinavian countries, but also countries such as Tanzania and Indonesia.

The practical reality is that crematoriums are now the second-largest source of mercury emissions to the air, after the combustion of fossil fuels. We know that fossil fuels are and have to be on the way out for other reasons, so the percentage contribution will only rise higher and higher. As has been mentioned, there is the Minamata convention meeting in November, and there is talk of a global phase-out by 2030, led by African countries including Botswana and Burkina Faso.

I raised issue with the “cheaper” point. Cost is often cited as the reason why we have to go slower, but countries such as Germany use safer alternatives and the cost is only very marginally higher. If Germany can manage it, surely we can manage it too.

It is also important to understand the issue of mercury pollution on a global scale. It is interesting that the African nations are leading at that November convention, because the rise in the price of and demand for gold is also associated with massive increases in mercury pollution around the world. We are used to the idea of blood diamonds; mercury-poisoning gold might not be such a catchy phrase, but it is something we should really be talking about. The risks are particularly acute in the Amazon, as highlighted by the campaigning priest Miguel Ángel Cadenas, who works in Peru. It is also a huge issue in artisan gold mining in Africa, and globally it is estimated to release 800 tonnes of mercury into the air per year. That is nearly 40% of global emissions.

These are global emissions; they do not stay where the emissions happen. I point the Minister to a very important study that has just been published in the journal of the European Geosciences Union. We are used to the idea that food crops are being contaminated by taking up mercury from the soil, so the mercury has drifted in dust around the world, settled in the soil and then been taken up. This study has demonstrated, which we have not realised before, that the mercury is being taken in from the air by plants when they photosynthesise. It is going directly into the green, leafy crops that we all need.

I put to the Minister that this SI takes Northern Ireland in the wrong direction. More than that, the Government are not taking the steps they need to take for public and environmental health here in the UK and for global One Health.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I will briefly make a few comments on this regret amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey. I am grateful to her for tabling it, as it allows a debate on this important issue, which has caused concern in Northern Ireland about access to NHS dentists and not having massive expense imposed on people seeking dental treatment.

I listened very carefully to the arguments that were put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and by the noble Lord, Lord Reay, who spoke very eloquently about why they believe the EU is right to move to a speedy removal of dental amalgam. I also listened very carefully to other noble Lords who spoke about their real concern about a cliff edge, the impact that there may be on the supply chain and so on, in relation to this ban happening in Northern Ireland and not in other parts of the United Kingdom.

Whichever side of the argument noble Lords are on, whether for implementing an immediate ban, slowing it down, or having it at all, this is an issue that should be debated and decided by us. That is the crucial question. There is a multitude of issues within the Windsor Framework, of which this is one tiny example, ranging from the environment, agriculture, manufacturing and thousands of regulations. In Northern Ireland, we can debate until the cows come home about whether they are good or bad ideas and whether the principle behind them is a good or bad thing—which is good, and we should be debating that—but there is nothing we can do about it. The debate in the Northern Ireland Assembly is irrelevant; the British Parliament has no powers. That point has been highlighted by my noble friends Lord Morrow and Lord Weir, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey.

It is an amazing situation that the arguments that are being put forward in relation to these matters have no relevance in Northern Ireland, because the European Commission and the European Union will decide the matter and not give a fig for what anyone elected in Northern Ireland says about it.

When these issues are raised, with there being example after example, I know that there are people in the generality of Parliament who do not take a great interest in these matters, may find this tedious and may even find it laughable at times. You see people who ask, “What is this all about? What are they going on about again?” But time after time, we are seeing a situation where the impact on Northern Ireland is not just in terms of the economic costs of divergence, as has been recently highlighted by the Federation of Small Businesses report and by the Murphy review of the Windsor Framework, which the noble Lord, Lord Bew, referred to and which was highlighted in the recent report of the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee of this House. I would urge your Lordships to read that report, which sets out in very stark terms the cost and the economic damage in a whole range of areas.

So it is not just the cost but the democratic cost as well. We cannot decide these matters. I thought the most telling remark that the Minister made in her introduction, in recognising the problem and hearing what people were saying in Northern Ireland, was that the UK Government “made representations to the EU”. Somebody mentioned self-respect and dignity; this is what we have come to in Northern Ireland on this issue and across a thousand directives and regulations, across 300 areas, for vast swathes of our economy.

We will continue to highlight this issue, because it is something that is ultimately going to cause major problems down the line. I have been warning for some time about the Northern Ireland Assembly, which has been set up, has worked and has done many good things, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Bew, referred to, the basis on which it has been restored and commitments that were entered into that the Government have been cast aside. EU labelling was to be introduced for the whole of the UK, which was a commitment in Safeguarding the Union. That was one of the reasons why the Assembly was restored, but it has been cast aside, rejected and torn up; commitments have been shredded and have not been implemented. This is another example of where we are going wrong and where, ultimately, the Northern Ireland Assembly will be placed in danger.

It may be a minority concern now—it is hard to know, but we will soon find out at the next election—but the recent Northern Ireland Life and Times survey by Queen’s University indicated growing concern in the unionist community about the implications of all these issues. If that is replicated in an election, it will be very difficult to have the stability within the Assembly that is needed to have a strong unionist and nationalist presence in the Executive. I do not say that out of any desire to see it collapse or anything like it, but I am just pointing out a reality.

Whitehall generally, the Government and the big parties need to understand what is at stake. There is a growing disillusionment, anger and frustration that these debates, which we should be having in the Assembly in Northern Ireland or here, are not happening. The decisions have been made by bureaucrats in Brussels, by the Commission, and imposed on Northern Ireland, and then we have to go and beg for a grace-and-favour extension to not have it implemented immediately. That is happening over and over again.

This has been a useful debate, and I commend those who have spoken and highlighted all these issues. I know that the Minister takes a very strong interest in Northern Ireland, follows these things deeply and cares about Northern Ireland, and I look forward to her response.

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[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I was tempted to make a joke about filling the gap in the noble Lord’s information, given what we are talking about. Noble Lords are aware that I am passionate about Northern Ireland, and there are many issues that I thoroughly enjoy talking about with Members of your Lordships’ House. I did not realise that dental amalgam was going to be one of them, so noble Lords will have to bear with me.

I am very aware of people’s travel arrangements for this evening, so I will be short and sweet, but I will reflect on Hansard in case I have missed anyone’s comments. I also hope that my noble friend Lady Hayman is getting better, but I am not sure that watching your Lordships’ House is going to assist in that, so I hope she is having chicken soup and lying in bed.

Many points have been raised, and I will try to cover them all. There are some on which I would like to reassure noble Lords. On others, I think it might be helpful to Members of your Lordships’ House if I offered a meeting to discuss the constitutional aspects of this with regard to the Windsor Framework, because as the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, highlighted, we have a constitutional issue here and we also have the SI at hand.

I will try to touch on many issues for reassurance, but noble Lords are aware that this is not the first, nor will it be the last, time that we talk about the effectiveness of the Windsor Framework and where some of the challenges are. I would very much welcome the opportunity to have further conversations on it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, touched on the fact that pressure was placed through discussions in Parliament and elsewhere to make sure that this issue was raised. In fact, the noble Baroness had the benefit of being the first person to table a Question of this Government on any issue, and it was on this issue on our first day out. I thought I was going to have my first outing as Northern Ireland spokesperson talking about this issue; it turns out I was not first, but I was not going to escape.

Turning to the specific concerns that were raised, I want to put noble Lords’ minds at rest about poppies. They are available to be bought, with additional materials, and are freely available in Northern Ireland. As noble Lords are aware, I would be horrified if people could not purchase them.

The EU Commission notice was touched on. The Government have considered all our obligations in developing this SI, including the nature of the notice. The arrangements are already in effect and have been since January this year. The SI strengthens the enforcement measures, and we are comfortable with where we are; the SI gives it further practicalities.

On enforcement, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency—an executive agency of DAERA—will keep accurate records of all regulatory and enforcement action undertaken, along with information provided by Northern Ireland’s Department of Health. This will enable assessment, over time, of the impact of the prohibitions and exemptions on Northern Ireland.

I also assure both the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and the other Members of your Lordships’ House who raised this issue that there will be no guards on the border checking people’s teeth. I know that that was a concern, but I assure noble Lords that it will not be how enforcement of this is done.

Dental tourism and members of the republic using these services was raised by several noble Lords. Republic of Ireland patients will not be entitled to NHS dentistry, and residency needs to be proven. People will still be able to access their dentist in Northern Ireland in the same way as they did before non-amalgam fillings, as they can in the Republic of Ireland, but not via the NHS.

The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, and several noble Lords asked about dental amalgam and what the Government are doing to improve dental services. State-funded healthcare is a devolved matter and responsibility of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Governments. I was pleased to see the Northern Ireland Government announce an extra £7 million for dentistry services this year, but we are working together on both the issues that dentists currently face and these issues.

On the proposed updates to mercury regulations in Great Britain and what action is being taken in the UK to reduce mercury use, the UK will be laying legislation this year to prohibit the import, export and manufacture in Great Britain of a number of products containing intentionally added mercury. These products will also be phased out in Northern Ireland by the EU mercury regulations. The legislation will prohibit several mercury-containing products.

I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, as I realise that some of her issues interlay with others. The health impacts of the continued use of dental amalgam were touched upon. Dental amalgam is a well-established, safe and effective dental filling material. There is no evidence that amalgam fillings cause any harm to the health of dental patients. However, mercury, when released into the environment in large volumes, can cause harm and this is carefully managed by the UK to reduce any environmental impact.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord. I will raise that with my colleagues in the Department of Health. Some of these discussions are genuinely active as part of the negotiations at COP next week. We cannot withdraw dental amalgam without having cost-effective alternatives, as I would hope these alternatives are.

As ever, it is a privilege to spend time talking about the impact of legislation on Northern Ireland. I am grateful that everyone has stayed on a Thursday evening to discuss it with us, and I wish everyone safe travels.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the Minister for the offer of a letter about the gold mining issues. All these are related, because it is the amount of mercury in the environment, globally, that matters. I mentioned a study about British seafood—fish and mussels—which was produced literally a couple of hours ago. I am aware that it is not the Minister’s department, but I hope that, when she is recovered soon, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, or the relevant person could write to me on the fish study as well.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

As I said, I will reflect on everything that the noble Baroness said, and I will make sure that she receives the letter.

Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, we often talk about the way in which liberal democracy is in retreat in the part of the world that we have just been hearing about, particularly in Russia. I wonder whether we have not put that question back to front. The Russian state was founded in 882. If we look at the period between its foundation and the present, we see that it has been an autocracy for 1,120 years. There was a little moment of constitutional monarchy in 1905; there was the period between February and October 1917; and then, if we very generously count the early Putin as well as the Yeltsin years, we can come up with 23 years in which Russia has adhered to something that we would recognise as the rule of law and representative government. That is not a whole lot of democratic muscle memory to fall back on.

The point I want to make is that this is very normal. One way of explaining the rise of Putin is to look at what happened in all the other ex-Soviet states—what happened when the USSR suddenly broke apart and, in almost every case outside the Baltics, went into some kind of autocracy. What was it that all those strongmen had in common—the Karimovs and Aliyevs and so on? Was it charisma? Was it some demotic connection with their people? Was it intelligence? No. They just happened to be the Soviet officials who were in charge of the Uzbek SSR—or whatever it was—at the time when the break-up came. They suddenly found themselves in charge of sovereign states and they very quickly set about ensuring that their grip on power would be unchallenged and there would be a kind of one-party state.

That is the norm. That is the sobering thought. We in anglophone western democracies are the exception. It is not the Putins and the Karimovs who are extraordinary but the Washingtons—the people who do not try to set up hereditary dictatorial power. That should make us aware of the fragility of our model and of the constant need to defend it, by being ready not only to deploy arms proportionately in defence of freedom but to defend it intellectually and culturally at home. This is where the challenge of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation comes from. It is a fundamentally illiberal alternative model, and it is growing; it is popular. All these new countries are adhering to it because that autocratic way of government appeals to something very deep in the human psyche. It is how we administered ourselves for the 10,000 years between the discovery of agriculture and a couple of hundred years ago, at most—an eyeblink in evolutionary terms.

That is why this matters. It is not because of the strategic importance of the region—every region thinks it is strategically important, including central Asia. When I was a new MEP, my noble friend Lord Callanan and I were put on the central Asia delegation. As an MEP, if you were a goody-goody federalist they gave you the Caribbean or South Africa. We were critics of the single currency, so they gave us central Asia, and I am very glad they did. I got to know the region pretty well, and I loved it. I visit it still; I have friends there. But with the best will in the world, it is not of great strategic importance to us—not as a maritime country. Sir Halford Mackinder used to say that it was the inventor of geostrategy, the key region, the heartland:

“he who controls the heartland controls the world”.

Barely had he said that than the First World War came along and disproved him, as did the Second World War. It may have had some tangential strategic relevance to us at the height of the great game, when Stoddart and Conolly were murdered in Bukhara in 1842, but it is a stretch to say that it matters to us now, as an archipelago at the western tip of the Eurasian land mass.

This matters not for reasons of direct geostrategic interest but because there is this cultural challenge—this alternative way of running our affairs—which appeals to people, including in the west. The reason that India, Pakistan, Iran and all these places are adhering to organisations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation —the clue as to who runs it is in the name, by the way—is that they think that our system is in decline. One reason they think that is because we keep telling them. We have become so ready to dismiss and distance ourselves from our own past. We have this extraordinary lack of self-confidence. If our children get any history at all, we tend to present it as a hateful chronicle of racism and exploitation.

I would be prepared to defend the proposition —I cannot prove it—that almost any child in a primary school in this country would be much more familiar with the names of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King than those of Lilburne, Locke, Wycliffe, Wilkes, Milton or Millar; and that is just the Johns. We are not teaching them our own history of freedom and personal responsibility, of the elevation of the individual above the collective and of the importance of the rule of law. That, it seems to me, is our challenge as legislators. We need to emphasise that we are inheritors of this sublime tradition, that it is better than the alternative and that it raised the human race to a pinnacle of wealth and freedom. Keeping that heritage going means teaching the next generation about why it is special, why they are lucky to be the guardians of this sublime patrimony, why they will hold it—as we do—on a repairing lease and why they, too, will have a commensurate obligation to pass it on intact to those who come after.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords—

[Lord Skidelsky (CB)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

No worries. My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart of Edgbaston, for securing this important debate and for her clear introduction, which rightly highlighted Francis Fukuyama, who was always bizarrely hubristic with his end-of-history thesis and indeed now looks very far into the past.

My contribution will have two foci. The first is to urge that we consider the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in the context of the behaviour of its second-most powerful member, Russia, and its allies in the continuing attack on Ukraine, and of other organisation members, including Iran and Belarus and, of course, China. My other focus will be somewhat in disagreement with the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, on one aspect of what has been described as the “Shanghai spirit” and one particular part of it: the so-called respect for the diversity of civilisations.

To return to my first focus, I wish to report to the Committee a little of my experiences last week when I travelled with fellow parliamentarians—with financial support from British companies, which I will be appropriately declaring in due course—to Ukraine as part of a delegation from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Explosive Weapons and their Impact. The focus was on the clearing of mines and unexploded ordnance, something that the Ukrainians have to deal with at a totally unprecedented scale, at least in the form of risk. Some 29% of their nation, or 174,000 square kilometres, is at risk of being affected by mines and unexploded ordnance. We visited the State Emergency Service of Ukraine and the Mines Advisory Group and Halo Trust projects.

We also saw the crucial efforts to treat those who have fallen victim to the mines at the charities Superhumans and Unbroken. We saw the human cost of the continuing Russian assault. We also saw close up the vicious, and sometimes internationally illegal, weapons that the Russians and their allies are using against civilian populations. Holding a submunition, a cluster bomb—obviously, once it had been rendered safe—and seeing a children’s storybook booby-trapped with explosives was an acute demonstration of the sheer difficulties that the Ukrainians face and the nature of the actions of the Russian-led alliance, many of whose members were in Tianjin.

Understandably, in the face of the horrors of the Israeli assault on Gaza and the desperate desire to get the Israeli hostages home, the media and even the political focus have not always been on Ukraine. However, I want to stress the importance of continuing to provide the Ukrainians with practical support and moral support, both directly and through projects such as that of BBC Media Action, which is assisting in the vital task of explosive ordnance risk education. Behind that must be a strong, determined delivery of the message from the international community—or as much of it as we can bring together—that there is a principle that larger countries cannot simply decide to take chunks out of their neighbours. Further, that there are rules of war and breaking these must not just be called out, but must have genuine, long-term, serious consequences for the regimes responsible. The human race has a long way to go. It was back in 697 that the law of innocence was promulgated by Gaelic and Pictish nobles at the Synod of Birr. It extended what had been protection for monks and religious male figures to women and other non-combatants. That is a very long time ago and we still have failed to deliver that, as I saw in Ukraine.

I come now to the to the second part of my contribution today, which is around the term “civilisations”, which, as I noted, is described as part of the Shanghai spirit. This language is increasingly penetrating many international settings, frequently from the influence of China. I note, for example, that on 7 June 2024 the UN General Assembly adopted 10 June as the international day for dialogue among civilisations. I agree with the words of the US representative during that debate that we should instead be talking about cultures. The US representative then urged vigilance over how words such as “civilisation” are used.

This is a term in the form of western civilisation that we are hearing increasingly in your Lordships’ House, and I would ask those who are increasingly using it to consider how they are playing into the hands of dangerous forces which are using it in places such Xinjiang. Making claims of exceptionalism, of the purity of one historical cultural formulation over another, is playing into the hands of the narrative that we are hearing from China and other countries that needs to be challenged, not accepted.

I am pleased to say that there a growing reaction against that, against the idea of discrete, distinct civilisations, an international shedding of civilizational thinking. I note that on display today in your Lordships’ Library is the cover of Josephine Quinn’s excellent book How the World Made the West which addresses this issue. She notes Polybius’s remark that the Romans were a multicultural melting pot willing to substitute their customs for better practices from elsewhere. There is no such thing as pure Roman civilisation or indeed western civilisation. This book explicitly takes aim at Samuel P Huntington’s influential 1996 clash of civilisations thesis, which is effectively being adopted in this debate. It is deeply dangerous and a framing for a great deal of Islamophobic and other xenophobic rhetoric and action. Challenging this claim is an urgent task.

Responding to the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, I point out that democracy and democratic elements have a very long history going back, of course, as is often cited, to ancient Greece, but much further than that to a millennia before in ancient Assyria.

UK Constitution: Oversight and Responsibility (Report from the Constitution Committee)

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Friday 4th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beith, for the committee’s work and for his clear and comprehensive introduction today. I thank the committee for taking on the difficult—indeed, impossible—task of trying to find ways, within the limits of its mandate, to prop up a tottering, failing system. I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, for reasons I will come back to later.

If we start where the committee starts, paragraph 3 of the report says that the system is “uncodified and flexible”, and cites the Supreme Court from 2019: our system

“remains sufficiently flexible to be capable of further development”.

I am afraid that there is a tone there of protesting too much. The vehemency is a measure of desperation. We are stuck, rather visibly, somewhere between the 16th and the 19th centuries. That is rather acknowledged in paragraph 5, where the committee says that the constitution is

“vulnerable to erosion and challenge, and relies to a considerable extent upon individuals respecting and complying with constitutional norms”.

The noble Lord, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, very clearly set out how much that is not happening.

I begin with a practical example. This week marks the 10th anniversary of the slaughter of Cecil the lion by a vile American trophy hunter in Zimbabwe. That reminds me of a disgraceful evening in your Lordships’ House, on 12 September 2023. A Bill had gone through the elected House with the support of all sides. We saw in this House 12 former public schoolboys drive a cart and horses through what we have always been told are the respected traditions of the House—the unwritten, uncodified rules—to filibuster the Hunting Trophies (Importation Prohibition) Bill. The unwritten rules demonstrably were not worth the paper that they were not written on.

The committee’s report refers to the

“primacy of the Prime Minister in safeguarding the constitution”.

There is an obvious, glaring weakness there if our constitution relies on one person. That is not the way for a constitution to organise a structure. More than that, I point out the position of the Prime Minister. Our current Prime Minister and his party, after a landslide election, have the support of 34% of people who voted in the general election last year. If we look at eligible voters, we find that the Prime Minister has the support of 20% of them. Of course, we do not elect the Prime Minister; we elect MPs. If we look at who elected our current Prime Minister, of the people of Holborn and St Pancras who voted, less than half of them voted for Sir Keir Starmer. We are putting all the weight of our constitution on this one person, on those incredibly fragile foundations.

Is it any wonder—a lot of Members of your Lordship’s House commented on this—that, at the start of this year, there was a Channel 4 poll in which 52% of 13 to 27 year-olds said that the UK would be in a better place with a strong leader who does not have to bother with Parliament and elections. I remind your Lordships that that is where we are today. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, said, a wide range of people now regard the idea of coming into Parliament as poison. That is a measure of the problems with where we are.

How about, instead, we start to think much more broadly? I absolutely do not fault the committee for not doing this—I am sure it did not regard this as within its mandate. How about we think about having a proper, modern, democratic, functional constitution? That is where we have to go, because it is not what we have now. We can see the impact of this in the state of the nation—we could even say in the state of this building. It is easy to blame individuals—and I do, very often—but why do we keep having failing Government after failing Government after failing Government? We have to look at the constitutional and institutional structures.

I come to a more specific point. In chapter 5 of the report, about the Council of the Nations and Regions, the committee says:

“The Government should set out who within the UK Government is responsible for the Council of the Nations and Regions”.


It is clear that this is being taken so seriously that we have no idea who is responsible for something that will meet every six months and bring together elected mayors who represent some parts of the country. Again, we are going to see first past the post elections, with elected mayors who may well be elected with 25% to 30% of the vote. That is who is going to be speaking for their regions. These are devolution plans imposed from Westminster.

I come to a very specific point here. It is interesting that this entire report makes no mention of local councils, which are at least rather more representative local organisations. They are not included in the Council of the Nations and Regions. I point to a ministerial Statement in June, when the Government declared that councils must have a leader and cabinet model. This is Westminster directing how local councils should work. This is supposed to ensure that local communities will have the right mechanism to engage with their council. I have a question for the Minister directly. The people of Bristol in 2022 and the people of Sheffield in 2021, through a grass-roots campaign and a referendum of the whole city, decided that they want committee structures in their councils. Are the Government really going to overrule that basic piece of democracy?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

Probably.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I hear “probably” from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench, and I fear that that may be right.

Having just been at the Local Government Association conference in Liverpool, I warn the Minister and the Government that there will be resistance to the plans to abolish district councils—the form of government closest to the people. People are going to fight.

I come to my concluding sentence. We cannot rely on good chaps suddenly discovering a sense of responsibility and honesty. Institutional structures do not support “good chap” behaviour. The Select Committee is trying valiantly to shore up something that is not working. We need to think about getting a modern, functional, democratic constitution for the UK.

Northern Ireland Executive Formation

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Caine (Con)]

The Government are absolutely confident that this deal will guarantee the smooth flow of goods throughout the United Kingdom. That is not just the opinion of the Government but of the noble Lord’s party leader, on which basis he has advised his party to go back into the Northern Ireland Executive. We will have a chance to debate these points more fully, in the interests of other speakers. I am sure we will come back to them during the debate.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I rise to reflect the views of the Green Party in Northern Ireland and join everyone here in welcoming the end of limbo, but I stress that a return to the current form of devolved government is not a cure-all. Does the Minister agree that the return of the Executive has to happen in a framework of understanding the need to do things differently? In particular, empowering local communities through more local democracy and activities such as local people’s assemblies will be very helpful going forward.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

Those will of course all be matters for the new Executive to take forward, not for His Majesty’s Government to impose. However, I am sure that they will take note of the comments of the noble Baroness.

Windsor Framework (Democratic Scrutiny) Regulations 2023

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, we have heard many individual voices in this debate, but far from all the perspectives in Northern Ireland. This really could not be called a representative debate. The Green Party of Northern Ireland held its spring conference at the weekend. I speak today in an attempt to broaden the range of perspectives that your Lordships’ House hears from. In doing so, and in reflecting the debate at that spring conference, I can only agree with the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, that the greatest democratic lack in Northern Ireland is the lack of a functioning Assembly and Executive. That is key to the people of Northern Ireland being able to exercise their democratic rights and have their voices heard.

I do not think anyone has commented on the fact that today marks the six-year anniversary of the UK invoking Article 50, beginning the process of EU withdrawal. I must admit that I have been feeling an acute sense of irony hearing speech after speech lamenting how we do not have any control over EU rules and regulations any more. Of course, we did once have democratic control over those EU regulations, rules and laws—and the Green Parties of the United Kingdom hope that, one day in the not too distant future, we will again have democratic control over those EU rules.

None the less, it is clear that Brexit has been a disaster for all, particularly the most vulnerable. I have to remark on something that was discussed a great deal at the conference at the weekend: in two days, European social funding for charities and community groups will end. That is an absolute cliff edge that the Westminster Government promised would not happen. My direct question to the Minister is: will the Government take some emergency action to deal with that cliff edge, which will rob vulnerable people of essential services and support? That matter has to be raised in the context of this debate.

I come to the much-debated issue of the Irish Sea border. Yes, it is still there under this Windsor Framework, but it is less visible and less expensive. Here we are at the practical reality of Brexit. I had a flashback to a debate at the Greenbelt Festival in 2017, where I found myself in the unusual position of leaping to the defence of a speaker from the Institute of Economic Affairs—it was partly because she was a young woman and I am always inclined to leap to the defence of young women. She was asked what we do about the issues of Northern Ireland and trade, and her answer was, “I don’t know”. The crowd started to barrack her and I said, “There is no answer to this problem. There is no solution. We just have to find the best way forward that we can.” That is essentially what we are trying to do here.

To address the particular point about the Stormont brake, it has been described as similar to the much-contested petition of concern. However, a deep read into the mechanisms makes it clear that this is not the case. I note that, at a recent event by the QUB law school, Gordon Lyons described it as a “sophisticated” piece of constitutional engineering. I admit that the word “sophisticated” is concerning to a degree, but that is what it is. It is structured, from the Northern Ireland Greens’ perspective, to ensure that it cannot be disruptive and destabilising, which is crucial.

I come back to the point that this is about the reality of the lives of people in Northern Ireland. Some of the things that the Windsor Framework will do are really practical. The green lanes will reduce customs paperwork and the need for checks and will cover parcels from GB to friends and family in Northern Ireland—that is practically sensible and covered by the EU-UK data-sharing agreements. The volume of EU law that traders need to comply with will be reduced. Northern Ireland will be exempt from certain VAT provisions, and the UK will be able to lower the VAT rate on certain goods such as heat pumps and alcohol served in hospitality venues. For pet owners, things will not be completely simple but travel will be simplified.

Where we are is far from ideal, but we are where we are and we need to find a way forward. The position of the Green Parties of the UK is that we support the Windsor Framework and oppose the fatal amendment.

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I have been studying the seven tests referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Lexden and Lord McCrea. It might surprise Members of your Lordships’ House that there is no mention of EU law and only two or three words on the ECJ in the crucial seven tests that the DUP lays out. We have heard an awful lot about it this afternoon; it is the grounds for the objection that we have heard. The DUP, in a very wise statement by Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, made no mention of the seven points.

This is really quite important, because trust cuts both ways. The people who worked on the Windsor Framework took the DUP’s seven tests seriously; they assumed that was what the DUP wanted. I totally accept that it is for the DUP to decide whether they have been met, but those people worked to these seven tests. This is of some importance. Some of the tests are indisputably met, despite claims in the other place by DUP Members that none of the tests has been met. There is no argument that the second test is met, because our statistics show that there has been no diversion of trade. If there were diversion of trade, Article 16—the much-loved Article 16—is designed to deal exactly with that. Unless our statistics can be said to be wrong—and there is no real belief in that—then that test is met already.

There is no question that, if you had worked on the Stormont brake, you might think that it met in part the question of giving people in Northern Ireland a say in making the laws that govern them—I have heard all the criticisms but, none the less, you might think that you had made a contribution to that. You might think that you had done something to stop new regulatory borders developing between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

I say these things because I am among those who always believed that the protocol, in its form under Theresa May, was not to be supported in this House; I spoke against it. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and I said on 5 and 6 December 2018 that this was not the Good Friday agreement—and it was not the Good Friday agreement, as we both knew. It was a downward imposition. Strand 3 of the Good Friday agreement talks about a harmonious model of east-west relations. The layer of endless checks under the protocol was clearly not a harmonious model of relations between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Now, there has been a clear and definite movement towards something that, though not perfect, could much more reasonably be described as a harmonious model of a relationship in trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

I argued this about the Good Friday agreement, because it was essential that, under our international commitments, neither community should be permanently alienated. That is in Article 1 of our international agreement, on a major issue of concern. The unionist community was alienated on this point, as was the nationalist community on the Irish language issue. Rightly, some months ago in this House we voted on the Irish language issue, which dealt with that matter within that community. There has been a major effort here by His Majesty’s Government to deal with the alienation of the unionist community and the concerns raised. They presumed—indeed, I presumed—that the DUP’s seven tests were some indicator as to what needed to be dealt with. European law was something that His Majesty’s Government never offered to deal with at any point during this process. Bluntly, we are coming from too far behind. If you are going to have this type of economic relationship and border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, there will be some role for EU law in Northern Ireland.

If you have accepted, as the Johnson Government and the Truss Government did, no hard border on the island of Ireland and the protection of the UK single market, then there is nothing new in what this Government have done. There was never an offer, during this negotiation, to remove EU law, and never a demand. It is now the demand, but there was never a demand. There was an offer to deal with the alienation of the unionist community; to deal, for example, with its concern that the east-west relationship was not as offered in the Good Friday agreement—this was an entirely correct analysis, which I fully supported—and we had a negotiation which responded to those problems of the incompatibility of the May protocol, and the Johnson protocol, altered in one significant respect to try to meet this problem but fundamentally also deeply flawed. We had a negotiation designed to deal with the argument that the Government stated again and again: “We have a problem; we are not delivering the Good Friday agreement to the people of Northern Ireland”.

That negotiation is over. Questions and answers were involved in that; it has been; it is done. These are the questions, there is now an answer, and everybody accepts that, realistically, it is an improvement. Everybody knows in their heart of hearts, on all sides, that the Windsor Framework is on the upside of what was expected. There is nobody in Northern Ireland who thought, “I have heard the criticisms of the brake. Can I say something? People seem to have forgotten about state power.” The noble Lord, Lord Frost, demonstrated that whatever the EU wanted, if he thought it was important, then there would be derogations and grace periods. He demonstrated this over a two-year period. There was some legal action, somewhere in the sky, which has now disappeared, but the United Kingdom has state power in Northern Ireland.

On the implementation of the details of this thing—in the case of the brake, an international agreement; the EU has signed up to the operation of this brake—is there any reason to believe that the United Kingdom, if it believes it is essential for the stability of Northern Ireland, will suddenly become weak-wristed in the operation of the brake? Is it suddenly going to say, “Oh, we promised all that, but we are not going to do it”, when the almost certain consequence will be the collapse of the Assembly, with the DUP having a genuine grievance, as opposed to what I regard as a much more impossibilist set of arguments at the present time? That is the key thing, really: we just forget these simple things. State power is what is going to matter, ultimately, and what the interests of the United Kingdom will be in any controversy around the brake.

I want to comment on one observation of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, who talked about those going back in the Assembly, if they do go back in, having responsibility for the implementation of this. She is absolutely right, and it is a serious point. Whether she was right to talk about Vichy France in the same breath is another argument. She is absolutely right that those who go back in will get a vote on these arrangements anyway in 2024. They did not get a vote on the arrangements in Vichy France. There is a crucial thing here: the people of Northern Ireland, whose opinions have been much invoked today, and their representatives, will be able to deal with this.

One of the interesting things not discussed, by the way, is the unilateral document that the British Government produced on the operation of the consent mechanism. That was a very interesting new discussion, not discussed at all today. The fundamental thing is that there is a provision for democratic consent if the Assembly restarts.

Then there is the issue of, “I am so unhappy because they’re EU laws”. I am afraid that, at that point, if democratic consent is given, that issue becomes of secondary significance and I respect it, except that I would also say, as a matter of common sense, that Northern Ireland has, for example, a very large state sector. Nobody who works in that sector will ever hear of it: if it is an EU law, it will never impinge significantly on their lives, or on many other areas of economic life. As a practical matter, EU law is not going to be a significant factor. I just say that very simple thing, but I still understand the theoretical objection, until there is democratic consent. But there is going to be a moment when that is going to be available under these arrangements, and at that point, arguments about Vichy France, for example, will really not apply.