Member

As I mentioned, the Federation of Small Businesses produced a report just this month. I recommend that every noble Lord and noble Baroness takes time to read it, because it injects a dose of reality into what we are talking about when it comes to the Windsor Framework. We have set out many times our constitutional and democratic objections to the Windsor Framework, but this strikes a dagger through the heart of the trade and economic arguments for the Windsor Framework. Noble Lords should read and digest that report. I hope that Government Ministers will respond to the FSB and come back to it with clear answers about the many issues of concern that its businesses are facing, particularly on things such as trader support services, where hundreds of millions of pounds have been wasted. Businesses in Northern Ireland report, in overwhelming numbers, that they have no trust in trader support services, that they have been given contradictory advice, and that they cannot get that advice in writing—it is a joke, according to one of the businesses. The Government need to take these matters very seriously indeed.