Draft Withdrawal Agreement (Windsor Framework and Governance) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Debate between Mike Wood and Christopher Chope

Wednesday 14th October 2026 General Committees

[Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I want to make it clear from the outset that while His Majesty’s Opposition do not object to every provision within these draft regulations, we cannot support them today.

We have no quarrel with the purely technical updates to statutory terminology, nor do we oppose implementing the practical recommendations of Lord Murphy’s review to strengthen the hand of the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Democratic Scrutiny Committee. Giving the committee 10 working days rather than five to decide whether to hold an inquiry and clarifying that Northern Ireland Departments must comply with reasonable requests for information are sensible steps. However, statutory instruments are unamendable and the Government have chosen to package these modest Stormont reforms alongside regulation 2(6), a measure that points in the exact opposite constitutional direction by deleting section 15C of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.

We oppose that approach for three fundamental reasons. First, we resist the use of Henry VIII powers to weaken governance and strip away primary legislation safeguards in this area. Section 15C was not a drafting oversight. When Parliament inserted it via section 35 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act, paragraph 325 of the explanatory notes stated explicitly that its purpose was to preclude a Minister of the Crown from using the written procedure to adopt Joint Committee decisions or recommendations. That lock was enacted by primary legislation to ensure that decisions are taken by a Minister in person, and that there is full ministerial accountability, including to Parliament, for all decisions made in the Joint Committee. Using delegated powers in secondary legislation to reach back into an Act of Parliament and delete a deliberate accountability safeguard placed upon the Executive is a misuse of Henry VIII powers, and it is a particularly concerning precedent ahead of the Government’s EU reset Bill.

Secondly, we strongly oppose removing the prohibition on the Joint Committee making decisions between meetings. We have great sympathy for the submission made by the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. As he rightly exposed, paragraph 5.7 of the Government’s explanatory memorandum merely states the mechanical effect of deleting section 15C, without offering a single word of explanation as to why a safeguard that was once deemed essential is no longer required.

Worse still, there has been no meaningful consultation on removing that safeguard. Section 7 of the explanatory memorandum relies on the Murphy review as its consultation basis, yet Lord Murphy never recommended repealing section 15C. In fact, Lord Murphy noted that the Joint Committee meets at ministerial level alongside the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, and he specifically recommended broadening the inclusion of stakeholders into these meetings to bring greater transparency and openness, not less.

Under section 15C, formal Joint Committee meeting dates are announced well in advance, giving Parliament and the public a clear focal point to track decisions. By repealing section 15C, decisions and recommendations can be signed off on paper between meetings and slipped through at any time without notice. Only when pressed by the Scrutiny Committee in July did the Cabinet Office finally admit that the real driver behind this change is facilitating decision making between meetings for the point when future UK-EU agreements are in force.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

My hon. Friend is making some excellent points. Does he agree that his points are compounded by the fact that the Minister has refused, or expressed himself unable, to respond to any of these issues?

[Mike Wood]

My hon. Friend obviously has a long and strong record of promoting accountability in Government. That was not always to the pleasure of the Whips Office when we were in government, but it is particularly important that he continues that function when measures like this are being implemented through secondary legislation. If the Government want new governance mechanisms for future EU reset deals, they should make that case openly in primary legislation rather than stripping away statutory locks by stealth today.

Thirdly, we need better oversight of the Windsor framework regulation-making process, not weaker scrutiny. As the House of Lords Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee highlighted, we are currently in the extraordinary position of not even having a complete public list of all the EU laws to which Northern Ireland is subject under dynamic alignment. That Committee rightly called on the Cabinet Office to establish a dedicated regulatory divergence unit to maintain an up-to-date public database on the National Archives website, alongside more detailed statements after joint meetings.

Yet in its July responses to the Scrutiny Committee, the Cabinet Office admitted that section 15C provides no statutory notification mechanism and that Westminster scrutiny relies on explanatory memorandums triggered by EU Council decisions establishing the EU’s position, not the UK’s position, which are then followed by publication on the gov.uk website after the fact. Relying on Brussels paperwork to alert the UK Parliament to decisions our own Ministers are taking by written correspondence, and publishing those decisions on gov.uk only after they have been signed, is no substitute for proper parliamentary oversight.

Until the Government bring forward proper transparency and scrutiny over the Windsor framework regulation-making process and stop using inappropriate Henry VIII powers to dismantle primary legislation safeguards on Joint Committee decision making between meetings, His Majesty’s Opposition cannot support these regulations.

Green Belt (Protection) Bill

Debate between Mike Wood and Christopher Chope

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 15th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

There are only just over seven minutes left for debate, but may I start by repeating what I said earlier? The people of the city of Christchurch in New Zealand have been in colleagues’ thoughts and prayers during today’s debates and, appropriately, they have very much been in the thoughts of my constituents as well. I hope I will be forgiven for returning briefly to the issue of Christchurch in the United Kingdom, which has the privilege of being twinned with the city of Christchurch in New Zealand.

When we sing about our green and pleasant land, many of us reflect on how much less green and more ugly it would be but for our green belt. I am a long-standing defender of and campaigner for the green belt. Much of my childhood was spent in the metropolitan green belt. In 1997, when I was a junior Planning Minister at the Department of the Environment, as it then was, we published a really compelling booklet celebrating 50 years of the metropolitan green belt, which was first introduced following the Town and Country Planning Act 1947. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing, whom I am delighted to see on the Front Bench, has a copy of that pamphlet on his bookshelf, because it very succinctly and compellingly sets out the strong case for the green belt.

In those days, the green belt was permanent and unalterable. Sadly, that is no longer the case. In the year to 1 April 2018, 5,070 hectares of green-belt land were lost in England. That is a lot of land. That annual rate of loss is five times as high as the average over the lifetime of the previous Labour Government, thereby giving the lie to the Conservative party being the great protector of the green belt. The Bill is motivated by a concern that I and many of my constituents have about the systematic removal of green-belt land in Christchurch and East Dorset, despite the protestations of the Government that the green belt is sacrosanct. It is no longer sacrosanct, and Government policy is to put pressure on local authorities to release land from the green belt through de-designation. That cynical policy is promoted by the specious defence of localism—a typical approach by the Government of “not me guv”. They are trying to transfer responsibility for taking away the green belt to local communities, which are effectively being given no option other than to de-designate their green belt.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

The problem might be even more complex. Much of the green belt that adjoins my constituency is over the border in South Staffordshire, and my constituents will have next to no say about decisions on the release of the green belt, given that it is the responsibility of South Staffordshire District Council and its local plan. Does my hon. Friend think that that issue needs to be addressed to protect our green belt?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Absolutely, and that is inherent in what I am trying to establish, which is a national register of green-belt land and national responsibility for its protection and maintenance, rather than putting pressure on local authorities to erode the green belt at a local level. The Government are intent on forcing local authorities to bring forward land for development and effectively allowing developers a free-for-all.

To illustrate my concern, let me give some data from Christchurch, which in 2014 had 3,480 hectares of green-belt land. Since then, 210 hectares have been removed—a 7% loss in four years. Since 2014, 160 hectares have been lost in East Dorset District Council, which is partly in my constituency, principally in and around the West Parley and Longham communities. As we speak, local councils are openly inviting bids from owners of green-belt land to offer it up for de-designation and consequent development, meaning that all green-belt land is now vulnerable to losing its protected status. That point was made strongly to me at a meeting last month with Longham residents association. People there who bought houses in the expectation that they would be protected by being in the green belt now find that they no longer have the assurance of that protected designation.

Clause 1 of the Bill is designed to require even greater transparency about the loss of green-belt land. The Campaign to Protect Rural England has been doing a great job, but a national public register of all green-belt land in England, and all land removed from or added to the green belt, would increase that transparency. Clause 2 seeks to remove the incentives for local authorities to de-designate green-belt land, as it would allow that only if alternative land of the same or greater area was added at the same time. The replacement land would need to abut land that is already developed, or that has above average density of housing. Thereby, the new green-belt land would increase that amenity for those living adjacent to it. Most importantly, the Bill would restrict the density of development on former green-belt land. That would be a disincentive to developers to develop green-belt land rather than brownfield land.