Lord Blencathra (Con)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing this secondary legislation before your Lordships’ House tonight. Once again, noble Lords and Baronesses from Northern Ireland and some of my noble friends have, in my opinion, made a very powerful, unanswerable case regarding the undemocratic way these regulations have been imposed in Northern Ireland without any input from Northern Ireland politicians or the United Kingdom Government. Of course, these regulations have already taken effect across the EU and add operational and enforcement measures. However, like other noble Lords, I have questions and concerns about the process. I share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, whose amendment formally regrets that these regulations were made “without public consultation”. The Explanatory Memorandum states that the Government have “engaged with key stakeholders” to notify them of “the main changes”, but that is not the same as consultation, so will the Minister provide more detail on how the department and the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, DAERA, select stakeholders to engage with and ensure that those impacted are aware of the changes? What exactly was the scope and scale of this engagement? Furthermore, while the Government have said that businesses and stakeholders can participate in formal EU consultations, how do the Government ensure that businesses and stakeholders are aware of these EU consultations? What assessment have the Government made of current participation levels and do they think that EU consultations are adequate in acting on concerns raised? We should not be complacent but proactive in ensuring that the needs and concerns of businesses and key stakeholders in Northern Ireland are heard and acted upon. The Windsor Framework itself, despite its inherent flaws, is a great improvement on the awful Northern Ireland protocol negotiated in October 2019. That is not to say that it is perfect, nor was it ever our view that the Windsor Framework is beyond improvement. As the Official Opposition, we remain open to constructive discussions with all interested parties on how we can best protect the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom, so I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, for his amendment and his valuable insights tonight. As noble Lords have said, while individually these SIs are small, technical and not significant, collectively, slowly and surely, they give the impression that Northern Ireland is being leveraged out of the United Kingdom. That situation is not sustainable and, sooner rather than later, it needs to be addressed by this Parliament. I look forward to the noble Baroness’s response.