Windsor Framework

Debate between Jim Allister and Sammy Wilson

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Windsor framework.

When the Windsor framework was introduced, it was the original protocol by another name, because it made no substantive changes to the original text. It was portrayed, sold and packaged as a tremendous opportunity for Northern Ireland. Some time later, we even had the President of the United States, President Biden, talk extravagantly about $6 billion of awaiting investment in Northern Ireland. We had acolytes of the Government talk about Northern Ireland becoming the Singapore of the western hemisphere, and it seemed that no boast was too large to make.

The reality is very different, however, and matters rather came down to earth with a bump just a couple of weeks ago, when Invest Northern Ireland representatives appeared before a Stormont Committee. Remember that the Windsor framework was supposed to unleash an avalanche of foreign direct investment into Northern Ireland because—we were told—our access to the single market of the European Union was the panacea for all things economic. The witness from Invest NI had to confess that there would be no uptake in foreign direct investment, and the framework was not producing the results that were claimed.

There is a very simple reason for that: the counterbalance to accessing the European single market is the fettering of our links to our GB supply market. In order to have that access to the foreign single market of the EU, we had to subject ourselves to EU law. Its customs code says that, with GB not being in the EU but Northern Ireland being treated as an EU territory, GB has to be regarded as a foreign country, hence the erection of the obnoxious border in the Irish sea for the bringing of goods from GB to Northern Ireland. The counterbalance to that alleged wonderful access to the EU single market was the building of a border to fetter trade from GB, and that is why the framework has not produced that magical foreign investment. Anyone looking at investing thinks about not just where they will sell their goods, but where they will get their raw materials from. If the raw material supply line is fettered by an international customs border governed by foreign law—and that is what it is—they are going to think twice about that, and obviously they have thought twice. All the proposals and packaging largely turned out to be insubstantial spin.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The boast was that Northern Ireland would have the best of both worlds—the European market and the UK market. Would the hon. and learned Member accept that all the evidence says that, even apart from just the undemocratic nature of laws being imposed on us, businesses are facing huge tax burdens, where they have to pay taxes and then claim them back? They have been shut off from their markets and cannot get supplies, and there are still many sectors of the economy that cannot get supplies from GB.

[Jim Allister]

It has infected every sector, and none more so than the farming sector, which is topical today. Northern Ireland’s veterinary medicines are now under the regime of the EU, and we are facing a cliff edge in that regard—there could be a cut-off of supply from our primary market of veterinary medicines very shortly.