Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response to this rather wide-ranging debate. We tend to have them on statutory instruments, because there seems to be no other way of raising and having debates in this place on the overall issue of the Windsor Framework and how it is affecting Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland officials in the Northern Ireland Office must have it very easy because, with all these SIs, they simply exchange the word “radio” for “motor car” or “dental” and then produce the rest of the speech more or less the same—we hear more or less the same response every time. I appreciate that the Minister is carrying out his party policy. I was very disappointed, as I said, that there was no one here from the Liberal Democrats, because normally what they say is, of course, that it is all about Brexit: “If we hadn’t had Brexit, you wouldn’t have a Windsor Framework protocol”. But I am sure that Liberal Democrat noble Lords will be pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, seems to have taken up that mantle. Indeed, the Minister himself said that the best thing would be to rejoin the customs union and the single market. Has the Labour Party policy changed, or was that just a throwaway line? Clearly, there was absolutely no need to have the Windsor Framework protocol because the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union; they did not have on their ballot paper, “Northern Ireland to be left under 300 areas of law”—absolutely outrageous. The Minister did not raise—and none of the Ministers who respond ever raise—that kind of constitutional issue. It is all about the EU saying that we must comply. There was much agreement between the rest of the noble Lords who spoke about the Government dressing everything up as, “Oh, but you’ve got dual access”. Dual access is a joke. It has not produced a single job; that has been confirmed by Invest Northern Ireland. We might have dual access, but the raw materials and so on need to come in from Great Britain and through an international customs border. This particular SI will affect small businesses. We have had no real response to what might be given in mitigation to help them and no response to a number of the other questions. But I would say one positive thing: I welcome the more critical response of the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, to the SI. Perhaps that is just a bit of movement within the opposition party towards accepting that what was signed up to in the Windsor Framework protocol is not in the interests of the United Kingdom as a whole, never mind the people of Northern Ireland. What we have ended up with is the Minister basically saying, “We didn’t write this law and we can’t change it, so you’re just going to have to put up with it”. Noble Lords will be relieved to know that I withdraw the amendment.