Northern Ireland After Brexit (Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee Report)

Baroness Sanderson of Welton Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie. As a newish member of the committee, it is with some trepidation that I rise to speak in this debate. Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that, at this early stage, I will keep my remarks relatively brief.

I commend the committee on its report. It is a shrewd analysis of the challenges faced by people and businesses in Northern Ireland, and it provides sensible solutions to help them navigate their way through the situation they now find themselves in. As others can speak with far greater insight on the report than I can, I will focus on a couple of reflections—the things that I have been most struck by since joining the committee three months ago. They are all symptomatic of the problems identified in the report.

The overriding issue, which has been mentioned, is the way in which the Windsor Framework affects so many aspects of day-to-day living. I am slightly embarrassed to say that in the present company, but the truth is that I had vastly underestimated just how pervasive it is. I suspect the same goes for the majority of the GB population. I am not talking about the high-stakes policy areas, such as CBAM or the deforestation regulations, although they are obviously significant. What has struck me is the constant drip feed of impositions that chip away at businesses and, in turn, affect consumers in terms of price, choice and availability.

For example, even in my short experience we have seen explanatory memoranda on everything from the school fruit, vegetables and milk scheme to possible labelling changes for poultry meat, unique device identifiers for spectacle frames and handling charges on parcels. The memoranda themselves are telling because some are very thorough and pay proper attention to the possible impacts, but others are cavalier as to the potential costs and burdens. If it were not for the work of the previous committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Jay, the scrutiny of the current committee and its dedicated chair, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the exceptional secretariat, which must get another mention, one cannot help but wonder how much worse things would be.

On that note, the £16.6 million commitment is welcome, and the increased support for businesses, but I am afraid that, like others, I am now going to mention the one-stop shop. Everyone agreed that it is essential that, as per its name, all the information is gathered in one place. However, it is not just about what information and the information itself, but about how people can access and interpret that information. Obviously, this is crucial for small businesses because they do not have the resources to employ specialists in the Windsor Framework.

As the Minister knows, I am a big fan of the new interactive public inquiries recommendations dashboard, and I applaud the Government for implementing it; we tried and tried and failed—so well done. I just want to ask the Minister this. We do not know who will set up the one-stop shop—whether it will be Cabinet Office in-house or whether it will be contracted out—but can the Minister ensure that that very same, very user-friendly, easy-to-access approach will be employed for the one-stop shop? It has now been proved that it can be done, so it can be done again.

I will very briefly repeat a point made by others about the fact that the onus seems very much to lie solely on Northern Ireland businesses when, in fact, it is equally incumbent on Great Britain to get to grips with the current trading landscape. Trade associations have repeatedly highlighted the major lack of understanding on the GB side. Will the Minister therefore also make sure, in rolling out the one-stop shop, that it is not just focused on Northern Ireland, and not even just that it is UK-wide, but that there is appropriate engagement early enough, and that takes place where it is most lacking, which is in Great Britain?

Talking of user-friendly approaches, I agree: EUR-Lex—no. The Government say that we do not need a new tool because EUR-Lex can be used to

“read and consider detailed legal texts”.

That is slightly disingenuous because it simply cannot be used to “read and consider”. If it is the Government’s view that such a database is not necessary then just say so, but if they believe that such a database is important then they need to provide one that is in an accessible form. As it stands, EUR-Lex is just no help at all to anybody.

Finally, I know that the Minister is a strong advocate for Northern Ireland, and the Government should be credited with trying to ease some of the frictions of the framework, which in turn tried to ease some of the frictions of the protocol, but this really comes back to the reality of life for the people of Northern Ireland. The truth is that there is no getting away from the fact that there are real and present dangers in the current trading environment, and there are consequences to that. Even just in my short time on the committee, the businesses and the people of Northern Ireland have shown great forbearance in the many frustrations that they face on a daily basis, but ultimately, they have an absolute right to be on an equal footing. This report, as the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, says, does not fix everything but it helps to mitigate that inequity. I therefore hope that the Government will perhaps just give further consideration to some of the very good recommendations in the report.