Windsor Framework (Retail Movement Scheme: Plant Health) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

We need to renegotiate the Windsor Framework agreement, which is totally unacceptable. This Parliament needs to govern, and establish the laws for, Northern Ireland, and we need to integrate our internal market across from the mainland of Great Britain to Northern Ireland itself. There is every opportunity in the reset, because we read in the press that the Government have already made massive and unreasonable concessions to the EU, which seems to be getting every item on its wish list. We are giving away billions of pounds of fish for no good purpose. We are substituting our rather good Turing student scheme for a much dearer one which helps the EU more and our students less. We are probably going to concede on mobility of labour for people under 30, so that they will have much more benefit, with many more of them coming to us to take advantage of our jobs, markets and facilities. We are probably going to extend EU lawmaking rights over many more areas.

The Government will undoubtedly end up paying the EU a lot more money, so, Government, wake up—the EU is taking you for fools. It needs to be the case that Britain demands other things. We could certainly put in a much better system to free the borders between Great Britain and Northern Ireland without putting new barriers on the border to the Republic of Ireland, under the mutual enforcement system that I and others have promoted in the past to previous Governments. We can certainly do much more to reduce the costs of Europe by going through, in the negotiations, how the residual financial liabilities are too excessive. Above all, we should reinstate the unity of the United Kingdom by regaining the right to make the laws, in this Parliament and in Northern Ireland, that apply to the people of Northern Ireland, and to reinstate our internal market throughout the whole UK.