Lord Bew (CB)

My Lords, it is already apparent that this SI is connected to a wider ideological political debate. We learn from the text of this statutory instrument—we will come back to the text later—that it has virtually no impact, it is already operative in Northern Ireland, and so on. The Minister has said that seed potatoes are one area of great success for the Windsor Framework. I wish that Ministers would make more of those areas of success for the Windsor Framework because the most important thing that it does, for all its many defects, is that it returns to the fundamental negotiating point which led to the Good Friday agreement—that point being that the British Government were not committed in any way to developing an all-island economy, which they were committed to by some of the documents before the Windsor Framework was agreed with the European Union. That is the most important thing. On the current expansion and growth of Northern Ireland, I have recently seen figures which suggest that the Greater Belfast region is doing better than the Greater Manchester region, heaven forfend. That is linked to the fact that the UK as an economy still operates fundamentally as a viable internal single market. Having made that point, I just want to say one thing because the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, has a point: there was no consultation on this document. Looking at the correspondence in and around our own Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, it is very difficult to get a handle on it. You leave with the feeling that because this is small beer and does not affect many people in a significant way, officials do not put the work into it. We should not be coming to this House and saying, “No consultation”. We should be coming to this House to hear an explanation of what the consultation said, and the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, has a point there.