Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) (Extension to Maritime Activities) Order 2026
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee Excerpts(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)
Does the noble Lord have any information as to whether the Government have considered this scheme under the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, given that we are told that the exemptions for the Western Isles come from a duty under, I think, the Scotland Act? Surely, the discrimination that is evident here is contrary to that UK internal market Act.
Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)
I thank the noble Baroness, who raises a very important point, because when the Safeguarding the Union Command Paper was published, and was heavily sold in order to get the restoration of the Assembly and the Executive and so on, great emphasis was put upon this guarantee in the United Kingdom Internal Market Act that this would ensure Northern Ireland would not be put at any detriment by the introduction of new measures and so on. So, I echo what the noble Baroness has said and ask the Minister to address that specific piece of legislation, which is meant to protect Northern Ireland as part of the UK internal market. The sad reality, of course, is that that is overridden. Not to pre-empt the Minister’s answer, but I suggest he will probably say that it is overridden by the superior obligation to the EU under Section 7A of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. That is the real answer, even if he does not say it, and until we address that point we will not get any satisfactory resolution to the problems that we have.
I have a number of questions for the Minister. On the issue of the Scottish exemption, he really needs to come forward and explain, on this issue of economic unfairness, what the rationale is for excluding Northern Ireland. What is the rationale for comparing Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic in saying that a 50% reduction is satisfactory, given that this is what applies on trade between the Irish Republic and Great Britain, when Northern Ireland businesses are in competition with their British counterparts on the mainland? This is the comparison that needs to be made. Traders, consumers and businesses in the rest of the United Kingdom do not have to concern themselves so much—hardly at all, most of them—with any maritime transport issues, but Northern Ireland is utterly dependent upon that, so the issue of why the Scottish islands are exempt and Northern Ireland is not needs to be addressed.
There is an issue about where the money is going from this. There is no reference to the fact that this money will be used in any particular way. It is important that the Minister clarifies how the revenue is going to be used to help in relation to decarbonisation, if at all. I want to ask the Minister about the time to prepare, since the order was published on 13 January. It seems to me that there is an inordinate rush to get this through. What is the reason for that? Would one solution not be to give more time for consultation before this is brought into full implementation?
I want to ask about the maritime decarbonisation fund, with £271 million in funding to support shipping and coastal communities. Will Northern Ireland have access to that fund? I want to ask about state aid provisions in this regard, because under the Windsor Framework we are under the EU state aid regime, not the UK state aid regime. Is there any impediment to access to that fund for operators in Northern Ireland as a result of those state aid obligations? I would like a clear answer, because there seems to be some confusion on the issue and it would be helpful if the Minister would spell it out.
This is a very important debate. It raises a number of issues, not only substantive ones to do with the economy and trade. Those are important, but it has exposed a wider issue about the political process, which has been very helpfully and skilfully brought to light by both the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, in introducing their Motions. It will do damage to the political process in Northern Ireland. This type of manoeuvring by the Northern Ireland Office is extremely unhelpful to the Assembly set-up, which is fragile and difficult enough.
It seems that the NIO engages with the Assembly only on its terms and when it is in its advantage to push its particular arguments. It does not seem to operate as a voice for Northern Ireland within the Cabinet or Whitehall machinery, and that really needs to be looked at. We were promised that there would be an engagement unit set up between the Cabinet Office and the Northern Ireland Executive under the Safeguarding the Union Command Paper. What has happened to that? It seems that the NIO picks and chooses whatever it wishes to raise as issues but does so to implement its view of what should happen, rather than advancing the cause of Northern Ireland within the Whitehall set-up.
Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2025
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)
Can the noble Baroness share her views on the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s assessment of this? When Mr Allister from another place raised the issue of consultation, the Minister there gave a very off-handed response; the Minister actually did not come to the committee until after it had commented on it. That adds to the sense that the Government are saying, “For Northern Ireland, we’re going to impose it—that’s the way it is. But for the rest of the country, we’re going to have a consultation”.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
I thank the noble Baroness. She is absolutely right: this is par for the course when it comes to anything to do with Northern Ireland. It is always treated as something that can be waved through. Of course, what they have said this time is that, in relation to the Windsor Framework, what the EU says has to be followed. The letter to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero Minister in the other place—in response, as the noble Baroness said, to Jim Allister, the MP for North Antrim—was even more dogmatic. It said:
“We have assessed the impact of this regulation on Northern Ireland and have found its impact on businesses and consumers to be minimal”.
Where is that assessment? Where have they done that? Earlier, I asked the Minister here to define “substantive”, but can he now define “minimal”? What does that word mean in that letter from the Minister in the other place? The businesses dealing with all these products certainly do not find this minimal, given the bureaucracy and the worry they now have around complying with this law.
Surely His Majesty’s Government are supposed to stand up equally for the interests of all their citizens, but here they are bowing down, once again, to the EU, without any sign that, even if they have to do this because of the law of the Windsor Framework, they are actually not happy about it and they wish they did not have to do this. As we look around the world today, there is no other developed western country that has agreed, in the face of pressure from a group of 27 foreign countries—including one that aspires to annex the part of the United Kingdom that we are talking about, Northern Ireland—to subject a portion of its citizens to this almost neocolonial situation.
The anger arises on two bases from this. The first is the substantive effect of the removal of the rights of equal citizenship that we have enjoyed for over a century. The second is what I would describe as hurt arising from our being rendered, as I said, second-class compared to the rest of the country on account of the fact that, while our rights to consultation can be dismissed as not important, the rights of other UK citizens must be defended.
Another difficulty arising from paragraph 7.2 relates to the fact that it demonstrates how the mistreatment of Northern Ireland is creating pressures, not for this mistreatment to end, which would be great, but for attempts to be made to limit the destructive effects of divergence with the rest of the country. This is a huge issue, because it demonstrates how the failure to try to deliver Brexit for Northern Ireland is actually undermining Brexit for the whole of the United Kingdom, aligning Great Britain—drip, drip, drip—with Northern Ireland and thus the European Union. This demonstrates how, rather than respecting the biggest democratic vote, we are undermining and destroying Brexit freedoms for the whole United Kingdom and, I believe, greatly weakening the integrity of our political system and a belief in that referendum result.
Of course, we know that the European Union stated that the price of Brexit for the United Kingdom would be Northern Ireland, and I am afraid that weak leadership was shown by the former Prime Minister, now the noble Baroness, Lady May, who started this whole process by almost kowtowing to the European Union in the way that we started to discuss Brexit.
It is striking that, when challenged on these matters by the already mentioned honourable Member for North Antrim, Jim Allister, the Government made no attempt whatever to defend themselves. They simply acknowledged what the Explanatory Memorandum failed to acknowledge: namely, that there had been and would be no consultation in Northern Ireland because the laws from the EU apply to us automatically. Just let that sink in, because I genuinely believe that many noble Lords in this House, Members of Parliament and very many members of the public just do not realise that Northern Ireland has been left in the EU for so many areas of law.
Once again, the Minister in the other place was blunt:
“There is no requirement to consult on this legislation. These regulations apply automatically in Northern Ireland under the terms of the Windsor Framework and the European Union (Withdrawal) Act”.
There was not a single sentence of regret, or a statement that the Government understood the outrageous nature of what the protocol had done to their own citizens in Northern Ireland, or perhaps a commitment to work to withdraw from that agreement with the EU. But no: nothing. Just a simple acceptance: the EU says; we must accept. Put bluntly, our citizenship has been traded away to get a trade and co-operation agreement for GB, despite it violating the cross-community consent principle of the Belfast agreement.
The Minister also plainly stated the Government’s intention to undermine the Brexit gains of Great Britain by consulting on the introduction of the EU Commission’s legislation in GB:
“We will therefore consult on the introduction of aligning regulations in the rest of the UK as soon as possible”.
That was in March, but in February I got a letter from the Minister for Energy Consumers telling me about this statutory instrument and saying at the end of it, on GB:
“We will consult as soon as practically possible on the merits of alignment with new EU regulations and will align where it makes sense to do so. GB may not align unless in the interests of consumers, businesses, and our wider policy goals”.
So can the Minister say what has happened since that letter in February from the Minister saying that they would align only where it made sense to do so, and that they would be taking into account the interests of consumers and businesses, and the Government’s statement, which said very clearly that they would want to align as soon as possible? So there has been a change, and is it part of the Government’s reset policies which we keep hearing about?
On the difference in respect to Northern Ireland, it was said that the EU regulations automatically apply under the terms, and we know that. This idea that, if we in Northern Ireland have EU laws and GB then aligns with them in order to bring Northern Ireland and Great Britain into alignment, that somehow changes things, is deeply flawed.
The application of the same laws to GB will not save the integrity of the UK’s internal market for goods. This has already been lost for most purposes by the imposition of the international SPS and customs border, which cannot be crossed either on the so-called red or green lanes without an export number, customs and SPS paperwork and checks. Even if we align, all that still goes on. Alignment with the rest of GB does not change the fundamental issue of over 300 areas of law in Northern Ireland continuing to be imposed on citizens by a foreign entity, with no say in those laws for the people of Northern Ireland.
I have a few questions that could have been dealt with earlier had this legislation been developed in line with the norms of respect for citizenship and had there been more time for consultation—indeed, had there been any consultation. One of the distinctive things about Northern Ireland, as my colleagues here from Northern Ireland know, is that a significant proportion of people locate their tumble dryers in garages or outhouses. Not surprisingly, this was not taken into account in the development of the legislation. I am not sure how much the Minister knows about tumble dryers, but there is now real concern because unlike condenser and vented tumble dryers, which work at any temperature, the new heat pump tumble dryers work only at ambient temperatures. Below 5 degrees centigrade, they do not work at all. From 5 degrees up to ambient temperatures, they work, but very inefficiently, and will waste far more energy than condenser and vented tumble dryers. To save energy, many people in Northern Ireland with these new tumble dryers will be spending more on energy. Has any consideration been given to this by the Government?
Can the Minister confirm that it will be illegal for a shop in Northern Ireland to bring in new condenser or vented tumble dryers after 1 July, while it will still be quite legal for similar shops in England, Wales and Scotland? As he may know, there is much toing and froing between Scotland and Northern Ireland. Many people from Northern Ireland who have relatives in Scotland go over on the boat for holidays there. After July, can a member of the public who is perhaps in Scotland for a holiday in their car buy a tumble dryer there and bring it back to their home that few miles across the water? Will they be arrested for having a non-EU-regulated tumble dryer or hairdryer or any of the other goods affected by this regulation if they bring them in from Great Britain? Will shops holding the various utilities mentioned in these regulations be able to continue selling after that date? There is huge confusion among small businesses and how this is being rushed through is not helpful. Those are just a small number of questions that this statutory instrument raises. I appreciate that if the Minister cannot answer them directly, he will write.
This SI should be opposed as wrong in principle and wrong in practice. It is another way of making another hole in the unity of the United Kingdom. I beg to move my amendment.
Lord Bew (CB)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, for that information. I have not heard today’s evidence—although I did watch last week’s evidence to the Select Committee—and I am therefore in the dark. I will simply say that it is essential to accept that we are dealing with a very messy historic compromise. It does not help that there is a tendency on the part of those who are unhappy with the messiness of that compromise to discuss the working out of the Windsor Framework and safeguarding of the union without dealing with the obvious, palpable benefits to a narrowly defined unionist community in Northern Ireland. That is the problem. The consequence is that the people of Northern Ireland still have a sense of pessimism about their future, because there is no answer. Everybody knows that the Windsor Framework passed in this House and the House of Commons by a majority of several hundred, and that if there were another vote like the that on the Windsor Framework—under which, essentially, these regulations exist—there would be an even larger majority. There is no help.
People say that this is terrible and there is not political answer to it. My argument is that it is better and more accurate to describe exactly what is happening under the Windsor Framework and the strengthening of the union, and not just to list the frustrations, of which, I accept, there are many. It is better to have a balanced approach to the meaning of these two documents and their impact in Northern Ireland.
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)
Before the noble Lord sits down, will he reflect on the fact that things could move along better if there were more genuine openness on consultation? He knows the democratic deficit that exists, hence your Lordships’ Select Committee inquiry. That is the difficulty: the consultation issue is key, and yet it has not been acknowledged in the other place. I hope that it is acknowledged in this House.
Cleaner Energy Technologies
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)
My Lords, given the energy trilemma of the cost, the mix and security of supply, and given the year that we have had, should security of supply not be given more prominence in energy policy?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Baroness makes a very good point. Security of supply is vital, and it is one reason why we want to continue to roll out the deployment of renewables in the UK—because, of course, if it is generated in the UK, it is secure. Part of the problem that we have seen over the past year has been our exposure to the vagaries of international markets. Sadly, we get only 40% of our gas supplies now from our own resources in the North Sea, and the rest we have to import, either by LNG or by pipeline. So we want more secure, reliable power generated here in the UK, because of course that is the most secure.