Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)

My Lords, I declare two interests. I am a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which considered this statutory instrument, and a member of the Government’s Veterinary Medicine Working Group. This is important because those interests are relevant to the general debate on the Windsor Framework. I welcome my noble friend the Minister to this debate and to the ongoing issue of the Windsor Framework. I acknowledge the regret amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, but that does not mean that I agree with it. I am a firm supporter of the Windsor Framework. I believe we should seek to get back into the European Union because that is the best way to represent our interests. We should be working towards dual market access—not decrying dual market access but actively supporting businesses that are seeking to achieve the benefits of dual market access, not only for their businesses but for the wider community in Northern Ireland. I remind noble Lords that the root cause of the problem is Brexit. Various events over the past 17 years have undermined the UK economy. We had the economic crash in 2008, which impacted many global economies. We had Brexit in 2016. We had Covid-19 and all the payments for that. Then we had the money to invest in defence for Ukraine and in defence of democracy, and to build up resilience against other powers, such as Russia. In this instance, Brexit ushered in the Northern Ireland protocol and then the Windsor Framework to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland. I personally do not have a problem with that, as we argued back in 2016 that special arrangements were required on the island of Ireland, where two jurisdictions and two systems would apply. Hence, we have the UK internal market and EU single market. I make a plea that politicians of whatever hue should be encouraging people and businesses to avail themselves of dual market access, and it is wrong to decry them. I remind those who argued for the hardest form of Brexit, either in this House or in the other place, that in some ways we are paying for the consequences of that. It was remarked on that our committee did not receive any submissions or comments relating to the Windsor Framework for this statutory instrument. That was a surprise, because we have received voluminous comments for other statutory instruments related to the framework. Also, the Government have undertaken stakeholder engagement with a cross-representation of stakeholders, including industry, trade associations and other government departments with an interest. Like my noble friend the Minister said, it will be subject to further review as part of the radio equipment directive provisions in Northern Ireland. I hope that that will prove productive.