Windsor Framework (Retail Movement Scheme: Public Health, Marketing and Organic Product Standards and Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2023
Debate between Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown and Lord Jackson of Peterborough
Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)
I will follow on from my noble friend Lord Morrow, and I am interested in the questions that have been asked. A lot of those questions surely should have been asked at the time of the negotiations between the United Kingdom Government and the European Union. That was the time to ask those questions and answer them, rather than leaving Northern Ireland in the present precarious position that it is, without Stormont being able to function.
The real impact of the regulations before us today, in providing what is actually an alternative border experience rather than a border-free experience of the kind suggested by talk of putting Northern Ireland back in the same internal market for goods as the rest of the United Kingdom so that goods can move unfettered across the United Kingdom, is very far-reaching. Indeed, it is so far-reaching that it requires me to ask the Government to reflect further on their stated position, as set out during the debate on the previous set of Windsor regulations, on 18 October. In responding to that debate, the message from the Government Front Bench was that
“the Windsor Framework restores the smooth flow of trade within the UK internal market by removing the unnecessary burdens that have disrupted east-west trade. We are now able to achieve the long-standing UK government objective of restoring the smooth flow of trade within the UK internal market by pursuing a green lane for the movement of goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, supporting Northern Ireland’s place in the UK”.—[Official Report, 18/10/23; col. 269.]
That was the statement that was made.
One of the reasons why the United Kingdom is believed to have been the first country to industrialise is that it was the first country to identify the economic opportunities arising from removing internal barriers to trade, so as to create a coherent internal market for goods, coextensive with the boundaries of the kingdom. The definition of “internal market” was thus the removal of all internal border fettering, so that goods could move completely freely within the United Kingdom. It was the economic opportunities secured by this freedom that other countries identified and sought to exploit over many years.
In the context of the established meaning of “internal market” following these developments, you cannot have an internal market divided by a customs and SPS border. If you have an internal market and divide it with a customs and SPS border, you no longer have one internal market but two internal markets.
The key point here is that an internal market is secured by a right to trade between A and B. German businesses have a right to trade with Japanese businesses and vice versa. Having this right to trade, however, does not have the effect of putting Germany and Japan in the same single market. This means that businesses trading between these two countries have to encounter border formalities. In other words, goods in Germany do not enjoy unfettered access to Japan any more than Japanese goods enjoy unfettered access to Germany. If, however, the border were removed and Germany and Japan were placed in the same internal market, not only would businesses in Germany have a right to trade with Japan and vice versa but their goods would also enjoy unfettered access to Japan, just as Japanese goods would enjoy in relation to Germany, within the newly created internal market.
It simply is not possible to take the regulations before us today or, indeed, other Windsor regulations, and assert, as government Ministers continue to do, that they help to
“restore the smooth flow of trade within the United Kingdom internal market”
or unfettered access. The truth that the regulations before us today confirm is not that Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom internal market has been restored, securing unfettered movement within the United Kingdom internal market. Rather, giving effect to EU regulation 2023/1231, they confirm the termination of the UK internal market for goods and its replacement with a GB single market for goods, which no longer embraces Northern Ireland.
It might be correct to argue that the suspending of 60 EU standards by these regulations eases the flow of goods in some senses—although the requirement for “Not for EU” labels off-set this benefit—but it does not ease the flow of goods within the UK internal market; that is not true. Rather, it eases the movement of goods across an international customs and SPS border between the two different internal markets for goods that the UK now covers.
In the same way, it is time for the Government to level with the British people and acknowledge that, rather than giving effect to a green lane, the regulations before us give rise to an alternative red lane. They also need to be honest and acknowledge that, far from reintegrating Northern Ireland within a UK single market for goods, the regulations confirm that the UK single market for goods no longer exists. It has been replaced, for the first time since 31 December 1800, with a Great Britain internal market for goods, and Northern Ireland has been placed in a different internal market for goods governed by a polity of which it is not a part.
In this, I greatly welcome the timely intervention this week in another place by the right honourable Dame Priti Patel, the Member of Parliament for Witham, who was Home Secretary from 2019 to 2022. She reminded us of the 2019 Conservative manifesto which pledged, on page 44, to
“ensure that Northern Ireland’s businesses and producers enjoy unfettered access to the rest of the UK and that in the implementation of our Brexit deal, we maintain and strengthen the integrity and smooth operation of our internal market”.
She was very clear that Windsor—and thus the regulations before us today, which seek to give effect to it—is not in any way consistent with that pledge. In other words, the Government have broken their election pledge.
Dame Priti Patel wrote:
“For me, as a Conservative and Unionist, maintaining the integrity of the internal market should have been a red line in negotiations with the EU and while the Windsor Framework does improve the situation with some goods facing fewer barriers, the flow of trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland is still being disrupted. Northern Ireland also faces the ongoing imposition of EU rules affecting certain parts of its economy, which undermines democracy”.
She concluded:
“No business should face a barrier or restriction to trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and more work is needed to achieve this outcome. Technology, common sense and a dose of good faith should be at the forefront of the solutions needed to remove these barriers and put an end to the tentacles of EU control over Northern Ireland. The Government needs to act and the Conservative Party’s manifesto at the next General Election must reaffirm our commitment to Northern Ireland and the importance of securing the integrity of the internal market within the UK”.
On her latter point—that they have indeed scrapped their previous promise in the last manifesto—it will take more than words in an election manifesto to prove that they are as good as they say. Some of us are aware that, in the Brexit negotiations, the EU did everything within its power to humiliate the United Kingdom for having the audacity, through the authority of the ballot box, to leave the EU. It has deviously but deliberately sought to undermine the unity of the United Kingdom.
I tell noble Lords, this House and the Government Front Bench: do not treat unionists as fools. We know a good deal when we see it, but we also know a bad deal when we see it. Surely, after all that we have endured over 30 years of IRA terrorism, we have a right to expect that a Government with the title “Conservative and Unionist Party” would tell us the true facts of the protocol and the Windsor Framework. I believe the Windsor Framework is but another part of the gameplay to destroy the union.
There are those who believe they can sleepwalk unionism into a united Ireland by stealth; but unionism is awake and alert, and is aware of the treacherous plan and will not comply. Any action of this Government in response to genuine unionist concerns over the Windsor Framework will be judged in the light of the seven tests already set by the DUP and clearly endorsed by the unionist electorate. Tinkering, sleight of hand or double-talk will not be acceptable. Actions will speak louder than words. I believe that wisdom will demand careful scrutiny of anything that the Government propose.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
Does the noble Lord concur with me, having been involved intimately in the Brexit negotiations in 2017 and 2018, that proposals had been worked up by Lars Karlsson, a customs expert who worked on the Norway/Sweden border, for technical solutions for a frictionless border that were first presented to the European Parliament in November 2017 and subsequently to this House and the other place, but they were ignored, particularly by the EU and the then May Government? That answers the specific issues raised by the noble Lord and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss.