Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for laying out the regulations in detail. She will not be surprised that she has not convinced me. I hope that the short debate that we have tonight—even though there is not much interest on the Labour Back Benches or even the Conservative Back Benches—will get down in Hansard and people might read why many of us will be opposing these regulations. One of the critical problems arising from the Northern Ireland protocol was the way in which—apart from the democratic aspect of disenfranchising people in 300 areas of law—it threatened Northern Ireland’s supply chain. This was said by many people, including noble Lords in this House, from the beginning. The Windsor Framework was supposed to fix that, but the regulations before us today come with Explanatory Notes that recognise that the Windsor Framework green lane “Not for EU” labour provisions, which come into effect tomorrow—in just a few hours’ time—threaten Northern Ireland’s supply chain. Paragraph 5.11 of the Explanatory Memorandum states: “A much greater range of products will be brought into scope of labelling requirements in July 2025, increasing the potential risk of product delisting. Therefore, the government requires a means of intervention to manage this risk and deter businesses from delisting products by providing a credible threat of enforcement”. That all sounds very good. The chief executive officer of Marks & Spencer has described the labelling as “madness”. This madness is particularly pronounced in Northern Ireland, which those of us who live there can appreciate much better than those living in Great Britain. The rationale for the application of “Not for EU” labels was to help protect the integrity of the EU single market, preventing goods produced in Great Britain crossing the border into the Republic of Ireland, the EU territory. The problem is, however, that these labels, which generate huge costs to the UK economy both in terms of packaging and threatening our supply chains, are completely useless.