Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)

I have a couple of brief points. I had thought of making my speech extremely long, because if we got to midnight and this SI had not been implemented, it might not get implemented, but I do not think that that is the case. My theory went out of the way altogether, so I will make just a couple of brief points. I know the Minister has to bring this to the House, but really the damage was done at an early stage, when the protocol and the Windsor Framework were brought into being, and there were poor negotiations at that stage. But I did note one comment that the Minister made, which was that this issue will support relationships with the European Union. What about relationships within the United Kingdom, between Great Britain and Northern Ireland? Those are failing drastically, failing so much that it is having a huge impact on small and medium-sized businesses on the ground. We have heard a number of noble Lords mention the FSB Windsor Framework Realities report. The noble Lords, Lord Empey and Lord Dodds, and others raised that report and quoted some of it, so I am not going to do that, but what I am going to say is that the people who did that report went out on to the ground, spoke to businesses that were impacted and found that those are the hard realities impacting their businesses so significantly. That is why this is a very poor piece of regulation, and it is only adding to the impact on those individuals.