Road Vehicles (Type-Approval) (Amendment) Regulations 2025

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Lord Bew

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to support my noble friend Lord Dodds’s Motions and to listen to his detailed analysis of the effects that they will have on the garages that sell these cars, on consumers and on the economy of Northern Ireland.

We have raised a number of issues over a period of time around how the Irish Sea border has affected so many issues in Northern Ireland, ranging from pets to dentists, as well as around the huge amount of extra bureaucracy that is now involved, with the paperwork, the duties, the duty reimbursement schemes—all of that. Yet this Irish Sea car border is qualitatively different and even worse because, as has been said, in three months’ time, these SIs will create an absolute prohibition on the movement of new cars for sale in Northern Ireland from GB if they have not been manufactured fully—I stress “fully”—to the EU-type approval regulations, as laid down by the European Union.

The Irish Sea new cars border, as I will call it, presents an absolute barrier to vehicles that have only GB-type approval. The initial government answer, as was mentioned earlier, was that manufacturers should manufacture to both GB and EU vehicle type approval standards. However, as the National Franchised Dealers Association pointed out recently, in Northern Ireland, manufacturing a car to the EU vehicle type approval standard can make it up to £4,000 more expensive than a car manufactured to the GB vehicle type approval standard; it is also more expensive because of the extra burdensome environmental requirements. Car manufacturers are in the business to make a profit, so I can see why many of them have decided that they are not going to bother to send to Northern Ireland: it does not make sense to sell their models here because of the smaller market in Northern Ireland, as distinct from the GB market.

I know that the Government seem to have realised that they have to do something about this; and that the only solution is to require that all cars produced for sale in the UK must be made to the same standard if there is to be a UK internal market for goods for new cars. They have stated that their policy is now to subject GB vehicle type approval to what is, in effect, EU vehicle type approval; of course, that is what these regulations will do today. The problems with this are that, as has been pointed out, it is going to happen not all at once but over a period of time—there have already been something like three regulations in the last few months—and it still will not make a difference to Northern Ireland sales.

Of course, what we are also seeing—I know that there are noble Lords who will be happy about this—is the Government falling again for the European Union’s strategy of keeping part of the UK in the EU, in effect, then giving the EU the leverage to undermine our leaving the European Union across the whole UK and working towards what I imagine this Government would like to do but cannot quite do yet because it was not in their manifesto: bringing the whole of the UK back into line with the whole of EU law.

Part of the rationale for many people, in voting to leave the European Union, was that they would be able to produce goods more cheaply as a result of not having to bow to the EU’s excessive bureaucracy requirements. Having reflected on this, car manufacturers have concluded that the economic gains to be had from fully exploiting the Brexit pricing benefits in the 2 million-unit GB market are worth more to them than the loss of not being able to sell some of their cars in the much smaller Northern Ireland market.

More worrying, of course, is the fact that this will have an effect—indeed, it already is having an effect—on jobs in the motor car sales market. When any of us who come from Northern Ireland speak to the garages selling the various types of vehicle that have been mentioned—some of us have already done so, I think—they all say that they are already beginning to look at redundancies. This will lead to a very serious situation, quite apart from the fact that people are losing choice in terms of what kind of car they want.

The Government need to move quickly on this. If they think that it is necessary for GB producers to have the same type of regulations as Northern Ireland is going to have to have—or that we are being told we will have to have, because of the Windsor Framework and being left in the European Union—they should be doing that very quickly indeed. I know that they are not going to do this, but I would prefer it if they said, “Sorry, European Union, that’s not what we’re going to do. We’re going to align Northern Ireland with GB. So what about the Windsor Framework? That’s just too bad. You’re being far too pedantic over this, and it’s not necessary”.

We are now seeing more of a move towards getting alignment. It is fair enough if people want to have that, but let us have it for the whole of the United Kingdom and not drip by drip, with little bits here and there. I know that the Minister understands the pressure that will be put on people and garages in Northern Ireland, especially in terms of sales. I hope that he will look at this matter and give a commitment that the Government will speed up the changes and get a move on—or, at the very least, postpone the date of 1 February, because that is less than three months away and will be ruinous for so many people. I ask the Minister to respond to those questions—plus the questions put by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and the noble Lord, Lord Dodds—because we need answers and we need action.

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I wish briefly to express my solidarity with and sympathy for the concerns that have already been raised by all the previous speakers. This afternoon, we have been presented with an accurate account of the problems that face the car industry in Northern Ireland.

I want simply to make one point. The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, made the point that the situation we are faced with apparently conflicts with the internal market Act 2020—and he is right. However, there is also an issue here around the promise of the Windsor Framework, to which this Government are committed, the previous Government were committed and the European Union is committed. Nobody who reads the Windsor Framework can miss the fact that in it is an attempt to reassure the people of Northern Ireland that the fear of increasing divergence—that is, the fear of the sneaking imposition of an island economy on the island of Ireland or on Northern Ireland—is now over. The language on page 10 is very explicit.

If it turns out that the promise of the Windsor Framework to the people of Northern Ireland is simply something that they misunderstood—I do not think it is—and is not valid, that will have implications for the stability of the political process in Northern Ireland, because it was at least partly on the basis of the Windsor Framework that the return of the devolved institutions happened in Northern Ireland. So there is a lot at stake here. The spirit of the Windsor Framework is very clear, and there is a lot at stake here for both the UK Government and the European Union in maintaining loyalty to that spirit.

Official Controls (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Lord Bew

Wednesday 1st March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

The noble Lord talks, as many people do, about a hard border. Could he quickly define a hard border and then say why it is not possible, given the small amount of trade that goes across it, as we know, for this border to be not at the frontier but inside the Republic of Ireland?

[Lord Bew (CB)]

The noble Baroness has a point. It fits with something which I think is widely misunderstood in this House. The Financial Times, which I believe is regularly read on European matters by those in this House who are pro-Europe, had a report at the beginning of December which said that as a result of this Bill the European Union is pointing out to the Irish Government that it might indeed be the case that as a result of the Bill they will have to consider these checks, which, by the way, were considered by the Irish Government in the early phase of these discussions.

There is another very important point, which is that we have signed two international agreements. I might protest about what happened in the negotiations, but it has happened and there is now no possibility of getting nationalist Northern Ireland to accept any form of checks at the border within the island of Ireland. You can say that is emotional, you can say it is carrying it too far, but lots of things that the unionist community believes are emotional and possibly carried too far. That is just where we are. There needs to be equality of esteem for both communities. We cannot escape that. The Government’s whole case for the past two years has been based on that principle and on trying to level up for the unionist community. They have achieved considerable success with this Bill. These provisions which the Minister has to defend tonight were always advertised as being technically necessary as part of these changes. There is nothing new or surprising about them. The Government’s whole case has been based on a particular line of argument. It has now reached a terminus. We are now in a new place. There is no possibility of carrying on the argument about equality of esteem or neglect of unionists’ interests. There are things that might be done or added or whatever but, in substance, we have reached a logical moment of terminus. This has changed everything. There is no point in just talking in general terms about “I’m unhappy” or “my identity.” We now have to achieve a balance of both identities. That is the heart of my problem with point (4) of this Motion: it does not actually challenge the Good Friday agreement.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

It is important, and I understand what the noble Lord is saying about the feeling there would be—although I am talking about not at the frontier but inside—but does he not accept that there is exactly the same fear and feeling about Northern Ireland people who feel British and pro-union having a border imposed on them in their country? Why does the noble Lord feel that the border at the other frontier is so much more difficult and important than having one within our own country?

[Lord Bew (CB)]

Because as a matter of fact it actually is, and the noble Baroness knows that.

We talk about sovereignty for the people of Northern Ireland. Two years from now there will be a vote in an Assembly on these arrangements. The Assembly will have the right to consider all these matters. There will be no issue of sovereignty then, and we will know what the people of Northern Ireland think. I guarantee that you will not get a majority in the Assembly for any systematic series of checks along the internal border of Ireland—that is just not going to happen—nor will you get the unionist community to accept the protocol as was. It is always a matter of balance. It is very simple.

Many things have been said about sovereignty tonight. Suppose we meet two years from now, and the Assembly has voted and accepted this arrangement, as I think most people believe is extremely likely. All these arguments about sovereignty—“I’ve never heard anything like this”, “It’s outrageous”, “It’s imposed”—would disappear. That vote is coming. To those who are so alarmed about imposition, I say that that vote is coming.