Lord Bew (CB)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his statement, particularly his concluding words acknowledging Northern Ireland’s unique dependence on heating oil and how his department will maintain a vigilant eye. There are issues of timing around this SI, which I am sure will be debated this evening. There were also issues of timing around the last SI that the Minister introduced, in March. I had substantial doubts about that one, more than I have about this one, but, in both cases, I am mindful of the fact that there has been serious dialogue with the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Executive. Although I was very uneasy about the last SI, which was on greenhouse gases and was introduced in the Chamber, I did not vote against it because the fundamental job of the Government here is to pay close attention to and have a proper dialogue with the Executive in Northern Ireland. That said, I will say something in favour of this SI, as against the last one. The danger with the last SI on greenhouse gases was that paragraph 51 of the Windsor Framework commits the United Kingdom Government to ensuring that Northern Ireland goods appear in the UK market without any advantage to either Scotland or Wales, on exactly the same equality of treatment. That seemed to be a major problem—an implicit conflict—because the last statutory instrument favoured Scotland. But this one, by and large, is driven by a proper and correct concern with the future of energy supply in Northern Ireland, and I thank the Minister for his introduction to it.