Member

There was a recent debate on the Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2025—if you ever want to know what a technical regulation is, that is certainly one of them. During that debate, there was a bit of discussion on whether or not we were being dynamically aligned with the EU. Just after that, we received evidence in our Select Committee from Dr Lisa Claire Whitten of Queen’s University in which she explained how we were affected by the dynamic regulatory alignment of Northern Ireland under the Windsor Framework. I hope that nobody will dispute that issue. It is very insidious situation, where laws are being changed without even coming to the attention of the Democratic Scrutiny Committee of the Assembly in Northern Ireland. Many of them are delegated acts or implementing legislation that is not covered by the so-called Stormont brake, the applicability Motion or any such like.