Windsor Framework (Democratic Scrutiny) Regulations 2023

Lord Hay of Ballyore Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hay of Ballyore (DUP)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Morrow on bringing forward the amendment to the House this afternoon.

It is perhaps good to look back at how we arrived at the situation we have; it certainly did not happen overnight. When the decision was made by the then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, to move ahead with the Northern Ireland protocol without unionist support, a delicate balance was upset and a long-established commitment to cross-community power-sharing was disregarded. It gives me no pleasure to say that, in getting Brexit done, Boris Johnson split the UK by agreeing a border down the Irish Sea. This was a Conservative and Unionist Prime Minister, who knew exactly what he was doing.

To add insult to injury, after telling the people of Northern Ireland that having a border down the Irish Sea would be over his dead body, Boris Johnson came back to Northern Ireland and, when the business community asked him what they would do with the mountain of paperwork, do you know what he said? He said bin it or send it to him. Then we had the Secretary of State, Brandon Lewis, telling the people of Northern Ireland that there was not a border down the Irish Sea—in fact, he said that he could not see one. How ridiculous the whole situation has got in Northern Ireland.

What has happened in Northern Ireland is that there is a total lack of trust in this Government. That is the issue. After all that has happened with former Prime Ministers and Secretaries of State, there is, unfortunately, a total breakdown of trust around how we move forward. Then of course we had the leader of the SDLP out; we had Naomi Long out; and we had Michelle O’Neill telling the Government to fully implement a protocol that was destroying the economic life of Northern Ireland, as if unionist concerns did not exist.

Let us be in no doubt: we are in this unsatisfactory situation because of a failure of the Government to listen to the concerns of unionists when we were operating the Assembly. The Government just sat back and did nothing. Our party leader at the time, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, said on a number of occasions that we could not continue in government in Northern Ireland if the Government did not do something to address the issues within the protocol. We were quite clear, as our party leader said on many occasions, that we could not stay in government. Unfortunately, neither the Secretary of State nor the Prime Minister did anything to try to resolve the issue. That was the point at which to try to resolve it—when we had the Assembly up and running. Unfortunately, that did not happen, and we are now in a total and absolute mess around all these issues.