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.

Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Lord Bew

Report stage
Wednesday 19th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 5 and will speak to Amendment 7, both of which are in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Dodds. In Committee, the name of the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, was also on this. Unfortunately, through a communications error, his name did not appear. He could not be here today, but he wanted me to say clearly at the beginning that he wishes that his name was on it and he supports it fully.

I believe that this amendment goes to the heart of everything that we have been talking about today and, indeed, everything that we talk about in Northern Ireland and in relation to it at the moment: the word “consent”. I have been making a note of every time that consent has been mentioned in this debate, and it is well into double figures, even in this short time.

I will talk about how the Government changed the consent principle in Northern Ireland last year, by inserting a provision, in paragraph 18(5) of Schedule 6A, into the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to expressly disallow the requirements for cross-community consent when it comes to the key vote in the future on the Northern Ireland protocol, if it is still there. Quite simply, this demolishes a core plank of the Belfast agreement and so causes many people to wonder what purpose is actually served by a cross-community protection for key decisions, as set out in paragraph 5(d) of strand one of the Belfast agreement. The consent principle was one of the reasons that men and women in Northern Ireland supported the Belfast agreement in the end, despite their concerns about many aspects of it, like prisoner release, which has been mentioned already. They went in and voted, many of them with a heavy heart, because they thought that it was best for Northern Ireland at the time. As a pro-union community, they had a safeguard to stop something that was harmful in the future to their community.

So the Belfast agreement has been unbalanced with this government move. Even the Government’s own barristers, in the High Court proceedings that I am part of in Belfast, accepted that this subjugated the Acts of Union. As I said in Committee, how can any noble Lord in this House stand over that approach? In their Command Paper, the Government themselves have conceded that the protocol has no consent from the unionist community and identified this as a core problem.

So, in these amendments, we seek to undo that injustice. Amendment 7 seeks to repeal Schedule 6A to, and Section 56A of, the 1998 Act and would undo the Government’s unilateral move to disapply community consent. Amendment 5 ensures that the 2018 Act provisions cannot, by implication or otherwise, subjugate the cross-community consent protections, which are so vital to peace and stability in Northern Ireland.

Of course, the move to disapply cross-community consent conflicts even with the protocol itself, which contains an express requirement to protect the Belfast agreement “in all its parts”. This is further replicated in domestic law in Section 10(1)(a) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, whereby there is a requirement to

“act in a way that is compatible with the terms of the Northern Ireland Act 1998”.

The Government’s approach to apparently acting compatibly with the 1998 Act and protecting the Belfast agreement “in all its parts” was to unilaterally, without the consent of a single unionist elected representative at any political level, disapply one of the key provisions of the agreement and of the 1998 Act. I am sure that many Members of your Lordships’ House did not realise that this was happening. There was never a vote on any of this in our Parliament.

When faced with this issue, the Government’s response was that the protocol consent vote is not devolved. I will make three observations on this. Paragraph 5(d) of strand one of the Belfast agreement and Section 42(1) are directed, respectively, to “key decisions” of the Assembly and

“a matter which is to be voted on by the Assembly”.

There is no constraint on the provision only being applicable to devolved matters. Secondly, if the provision had, in any event, no force or effect, why was it disapplied? Thirdly, in any event, the protocol consent matter is devolved. The 1998 Act lists matters that are excepted or reserved, and any that are not listed are therefore devolved. In paragraph 3 of Schedule 2 to the 1998 Act, “International relations” is listed as an excepted matter. However, paragraph 3(c) of Schedule 2 makes clear that this does not include

“observing and implementing international obligations”.

In undertaking the vote derived from Article 18 of the protocol, the Assembly is implementing and observing an international obligation. Therefore, it is devolved.

The Belfast agreement is essential for protecting peace and stability in Northern Ireland. Protecting that agreement must mean protecting its provisions for the betterment of all citizens in Northern Ireland, rather than simply viewing the agreement through what effectively amounts to a principle of nationalist interpretation. It cannot be the case that cross-community protections are for one community, when it suits, but not the other. Either the Belfast agreement serves the entire community equally or it has no point, from a pro-union perspective. So these amendments are fundamentally about restoring the careful balance negotiated by the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, and others in 1998.

I am for ever genuinely astounded by those who shout loudest, as guardians of the Belfast agreement, if they do not really mean it. They seem to demand that the Belfast agreement be construed in a manner conducive to certain objectives by certain communities. So we hear nothing from the SDLP, Sinn Féin or even the Alliance Party on the heinous move to trash cross-community consent protections at the very time that it seems to be working to the benefit of those who have overwhelmingly rejected the protocol.

Over many months, the record will show that many of us have warned the Government and raised the alarm on this issue. If the Belfast agreement is to continue, the fundamental balance must be restored. Otherwise, even those within unionism who supported the agreement could not conceivably recommend continuing in a process that is fundamentally imbalanced and to the detriment of the pro-union community and, indeed, the union as a whole of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—the United Kingdom.

We met with the shadow Ministers and, obviously, the government Ministers on this, and the former showed some genuine understanding of this and an acceptance of how it was causing real problems in Northern Ireland. I also know that the noble Lord, Lord Caine, was given very little time in Committee when this was proposed, because it came in quite late, and I am hopeful that he will be able to give us a little more of his real views on it today, having, I hope, gone back and talked to people in government.

I do not need to say much on the second amendment because its objective is clear: it seeks again to undo the damage done to the Belfast agreement by the unilateral move to disapply cross-community consent. It is restoring cross-community protections on the protocol vote to ensure that, if there is to be a protocol applying in Northern Ireland, it will require cross-community consent. Without that, it cannot survive. It fixes these amendments and the Government’s error—I will put it no stronger than that—in inserting these provisions into the Northern Ireland Act without the consent of a single unionist elected representative at any level in Northern Ireland.

As I and many of us have said many times before, ultimately, the Government will have to choose between the protocol and the Belfast agreement. That is something I do not want our Government to have to do. But the reality of the situation in Northern Ireland, as has been said by many Members in this House, is very serious indeed, and there is very little time to get this sorted. It is not going to go away.

I am pleased there is a statement on the BBC because it probably means there are a few more people here than are normally here when we have debates on Northern Ireland. I appeal to noble Lords who may not have looked into this in great detail to think about this carefully, because this is crucial if we are serious about moving forward in Northern Ireland. If we cannot get this right and we break the Belfast agreement in this deliberate way, I am afraid that its long-term future is at risk.

I hope noble Lords will understand what may seem very technical but is actually very simple: do we mean what we said in the Belfast agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998? I beg to move.

[Lord Bew (CB)]

I have great respect for the gritty texture of the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey—initially, what is important to understand is why we have got to this point. She is absolutely right; there is a major problem with the one-sided, nationalist appropriation of the Belfast agreement and the willingness, on the whole—if you read Michel Barnier’s memoir on the EU, for example—to accept that version. Getting it back to a balance—and in this respect I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness—is the clue to stability in Northern Ireland. That balance has departed.

The reality is that in 2017 the May Government lost an election they were not expecting to lose, and the UK negotiating position on these points collapsed in the autumn. Anybody who looks at it closely can see that Irish officials in recent times have published how amazed they were; one Irish official at the centre of these negotiations writes about how easily they were accepted as the only guardian of the Belfast agreement. That being the case, noble Lords will not be surprised that the version of the agreement that starts to play into the 2018 protocol in particular is one-sided. On 6 November, the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, said in this House that he considered that the negotiators of the 2018 withdrawal agreement for the May Government had failed to take into proper account the complexity and commitments of the Good Friday agreement across the board. To that extent, the underlying emotion impelling the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, today is entirely correct.

However, we are in the process of trying to correct this now, and it is inevitably an imperfect process. What should have happened—it must have been obvious to any child looking at the current negotiation trying to work out how the protocol is to work out—is that we should have said to the Irish Government and the EU: “We will protect the single market, now tell us what you will do to make sure the trading arrangements for Northern Ireland are flexible.” We did not do that. It is so elementary it makes one cry looking at it. We are now desperately trying to reclaim ground that we lost in that negotiation. The trouble is that that ground is lost. When this Government came in, the first letter from the Prime Minister to the EU said we were trying to restore the delicate balance of the Good Friday agreement, which indicated that he recognised the problem—as the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, recognised the problem—and that there was work to be done.

At this point, the agreement with the EU came. The one key difference between the 2018 and 2019 agreements of the Johnson Government is the reference to assent for the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is absolutely clear that the terms of that agreement are not accepted by many unionists. In the earlier version, there were a lot of people in Northern Ireland without democratic rights. It is far better for the people of Northern Ireland across the board that their say at key points, and on how this protocol is implemented, is democratically inscribed.