UK Electricity Prices

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

My Lords, industrial electricity prices are four times the level of the United States of America’s and more than three times the level of China’s. It is no wonder that we face a disaster of deindustrialisation accelerating under this Government with the closure of the oil refineries, ceramics plants and others that the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, rightly mentioned.

This is all avoidable damage. It is self-harm on a huge scale that the Government should be ashamed of. We have signed up for dearer electricity—it was not just this Government, but this Government have signed up to it, doubled the signature and worsened the terms, making it so much worse than even the position they inherited. It was always going to be the case that, if you put on more renewables, you would have dearer electricity. It is completely wrong to suggest otherwise, because you need to pay for two systems: you need the wind power as well as 100% back-up, because on some days, particularly cold, difficult days in winter, there is no wind power at all. So you are paying twice with the back-up.

It was always going to be the case that the more renewables you put on the system, the dearer your cheapest form of energy production, which is gas generation, becomes. When you switch from gas being on baseload to gas being interruptible and brought in only occasionally when there is no wind, it works much less efficiently. The efficiency of the power station drops from over 60% to around 40%, so there will be even more carbon dioxide per amount of energy produced. Of course your costs go up dramatically, because your overhead costs for the gas power station are defrayed by a limited number of days instead of being defrayed by operating every day of the year apart from occasional maintenance. It was baked into the system that this would be less efficient and work less well.

Governments, particularly this one, have then compounded the problem by saying that gas must incur very high carbon tax charges. Of course our electricity was going to get dearer, because customers had to pay additional taxes on the gas. Why are there additional taxes on the gas? It is mainly as the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, implied: the gas was too competitive and was still cheaper even on some of the interruptible runnings that they were proposing. So you needed a big carbon tax to say to people, “This really is the dearest part of the power system, which is why we are trying to get rid of it”.

So the Government go out and sell to the public this unbelievable idea that we have uniquely dear electricity because we are producing some on gas—gas which is diminishing in volume because, when we have windy days now, there is more wind power available, so the amount on gas has reduced proportionately. They are not coming clean with the public that a series of levies and carbon taxes are the cause of very high energy prices in the United Kingdom.

The Government offered £300 off people’s bills as a lovely election offer. We all thought that that meant our bill would go down by £300, but we now learn that their down payment is £150 off a rise, so the bill still goes up. The sting in the tail, which we were not told about, is that we have to pay the £150, but out of general taxes instead of our electricity bills. For most people who go to work and pay taxes, that is no advantage at all. The Government are kidding themselves and undermining their own popularity, industry and commerce by a policy which is all self-harm.

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of Make UK, which represents 26,000 manufacturing businesses in the UK. I declare it not just because it is in the register; I am speaking in this debate because the unfair policy for pricing energy is affecting every one of those 26,000. Our members pay 25p per kilowatt hour. French and German companies in exactly the same field pay 12%.

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

It is 12p.

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Non-Afl)]

Sorry, I stand corrected: 12p. The noble Lord is right. In China, it is 3p. What does this really mean? Is it just a number? Having been on a presentation with the chief executive officer of Nissan, I can tell the Committee that that company pays more for electricity in Sunderland than in any of its other plants globally. Tinsley Bridge Ltd had to shut its automotive division in Sheffield because of energy prices—110 skilled jobs and £20 million of work went to France. That was because of energy prices. Another company, one of our members in Yorkshire, has seen its bills go up from £1.2 million to £2.4 million, not because of Iran or anything else recently but because of the cost of energy.

Why is this? International oil and gas prices are much the same everywhere. It is the price. This is the Government’s choice. Five different levies make the difference. That is policy; it is a choice that can be made. This is what makes the difference. Domestic prices are regulated, I assume for electoral reasons, but industrial prices are not and there are 150,000 small companies in this country that do manufacturing.

I had the pleasure of working with the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Whitehead, when I was Energy Minister and he was my shadow. He is very smart and understands all these arguments, but I ask him not to respond to this debate by talking about the supercharger. That is an attempt to lower prices, very successfully, for 400 heavy users. I also ask him not to rely on BICS and its subsidies. This was announced after extensive lobbying by Make UK a year ago, when Jonathan Reynolds, then Secretary of State for Business and Trade, phoned up with glee to say that he had won a big argument around the Cabinet table and that there would be this scheme for manufacturing, affecting thousands of businesses and reducing their prices to the levels of those in France and Germany. A year later, what have we had? We have had consultations and arguments about who is included. Ed Miliband’s department tells us that it is the Treasury; the Treasury tells us that it is Ed Miliband’s department. Our members do not care: they get their bills, which are going up and up. Where is this?

I remind the Minister, who is a student of history, that every industrial revolution has been based on cheap power: water, steam, coal and oil. What now? We cannot allow the deindustrialisation of this country because of inept—I do not use the word easily—energy policy which is penalising jobs, employment and, as the Government are always mentioning, growth.

Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

As ever, my noble friend is exceptionally wise, but I understand why Members across your Lordships’ House have questions about what comes next and about the material. There is, as I have said, a significant volume of it to be released. We want to do this well and effectively, so that we do not return time after time with additional materials, by making sure that reviews are done effectively and internally. That is one of the reasons why additional materials were passed to the ISC after we thought all the materials had been. We need to do this in a cross-party way. I am aware that Members of your Lordships’ House have questions. I am sure that, when the next tranche of materials is released, we will be discussing their content in great detail.

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

Why has there has such a long delay in the publication of basic materials, such as Lord Mandelson’s application and his declaration of interests, which are of great interest to everyone but surely cannot pose any difficulties?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, as I just said, we are looking to publish only two key tranches. The first has already been done; the second will follow shortly. The third and final tranche will be after police investigations. Those are the materials that are being withheld because the Met is using them for its work. Rather than repeatedly coming back to your Lordships’ House, we want to do this effectively in a way that works for this House.

King’s Speech

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, is right to warn us all that our relative prosperity and power is waning.

I have always been happy to fully support this Government’s main aim, as set out in the general election and repeated in all the economic speeches that I have heard them make. They are right that this country can achieve so much more. It can grow much faster. It can unleash enterprise and develop more business. However, I fear that my noble friend Lady Finn set out in her brilliant speech just how, for almost two years now, this Government have done everything wrong if we wish to promote growth. They have clobbered entrepreneurs instead of praising them; they have taxed people instead of rewarding them; they have taken incentives out and made it more difficult to employ young people—they seem to have a grudge against young people. Now we are presented, in this gracious Speech, with what they think is one golden thread that I think will turn out to be leaden and depressing: the idea that an EU reset will somehow promote trade, which in turn will give us that missing growth.

Let me try to help the Government think this through. Quite often, Ministers here and elsewhere tell us that we have suffered a 4% GDP loss as a result of Brexit. But all the graphs and charts of what happened to GDP between 2016 and today, in the leading European countries and here, show that there is absolutely no sign of an extra 4% drop as a result of either our voting to leave or actually leaving. If you ask Government Ministers why they think there has been a 4% drop, they say that the OBR has said it. But the OBR report is a forecast, which says that between 2020 and 2035, the British economy might grow its productivity 0.25% per annum less than if we had not left the EU. It is not forecasting any drop in GDP at all; it is not even forecasting a drop in productivity—it says that it might grow a bit slower, and if you compound out 0.25% for 15 years, you get to roughly the 4% they all wrongly cite. Ministers must be honest with themselves and the public: there was no 4% drop, and their reset will not recover the 4% that they wrongly allege has disappeared.

Let us explore the idea that increasing trade would uniquely provide growth. I fear that Ministers are again mistaken, because our trade with the European Union results in a very large trade deficit, particularly in goods. It sells us a lot more than we sell it, so if we could agree a set of policies with the EU that might increase the exports of each side by, say, 10%, which is quite a sizeable number, the deficit would rise and our GDP would fall, because the EU would export much more to us than we export to it and we would have to close down things in Britain to receive the exports we decided were cheaper or better as a result of the changes. To have the same volume, we would need to grow our exports by 17% to match the 10% growth in the EU’s exports. If you wanted to get more GDP, you would have to grow our exports a lot faster than the European Union because—I repeat to the Government—exports add to our GDP, but imports do not. If we import more German cars and close a UK car factory, our GDP goes down; it does not miraculously go up because our trade figures with the EU have gone up.

That is exactly the Government’s strategy, thanks mainly to their net-zero policies. My noble friend Lord Lilley set it all out very well. They are literally going to ban us making any diesel or petrol cars from 2030, five years earlier than they would stupidly ban them on the continent. Do they not see that that means that we would close our factories first, and definitely lose all the jobs, while Europe was still thinking about making more of these cars that people want to buy? The Government will say, “Well, we’re going to buy battery cars”. Yes, some people will buy battery cars if they cannot buy diesel or petrol cars, but most of them will probably be imported from China, or they might be made in eastern Europe and imported via that route, so the Government will not get more jobs, growth or economic activity from that source.

Here is my friendly proposal. I really want this country to do well; I want this Government to do well. I know that they are not about to fall—Prime Ministers might come and go, but they will presumably carry on governing—so I say to them: please govern well. Instead of having the wrong idea that promoting more imports from Europe and perhaps a few more exports to Europe will miraculously transform the position, I want them to put in place in Britain a series of policies for import substitution.

It is much easier for small companies to sell to people, shops and businesses near them than to go through all the hassle of exporting, however much red tape the Government think they can reduce. That would give our small businesses more chance by creating more opportunity for British production. It should be much cheaper and easier to replace imports than to try to develop exports to markets with different languages and customs which may not like what you are doing or offering. I know this well from my experience running industrial businesses, when we found that by far and away the most difficult markets to export to were France and Germany, although they were geographically much nearer. We always hired staff who loved the countries and spoke the language, but it was still much more difficult to sell there than it was to the English-speaking world, including America, or to Asian countries where English was the common business language.

We need to lift the ban on making our own petrol and diesel cars, because they have always been one of our leading exports to the continent. We need to lift the ban on getting our own oil and gas out, because they too have been leading exports to the continent. We need to get energy prices down, as my noble friend Lord Lilley rightly said. We have in the past exported a lot of petrochemicals and refined oil product, and if we are shutting all our refineries, petrochemical works, ethylene plants and so on, we will not export anything like that volume in the future.

The Government need a dose of reality and common sense and an examination of the data. It is not good enough for Ministers to say, “We will get the British economy to grow as soon as we have signed away our powers to make our own business laws and given some more money to Brussels”. They cannot identify billions of pounds of extra exports we can make at a time when they, through their policies, are ensuring that we export fewer and fewer cars and chemicals and less and less oil, gas and refined product, and are in the process of closing 21 plastics recycling plants.

As my noble friend Lord Hunt set out in another brilliant speech, there is no plan to save steel. Indeed, I heard the Minister say in her opening remarks that it is still the Government’s policy to go over to electric arc furnaces. They need to be honest to the workers in Scunthorpe: the Government are not going to permanently save the Scunthorpe jobs. They still want to sack all those people, but just a bit later, after they have wasted billions of pounds of public money on keeping open a works that is struggling to compete, in the way that my noble friend set out. I ask the Government to please level with the workers in Scunthorpe about the fact that their plan is anti-blast furnace and anti-burning coal in any sense, and to come to a decent settlement with them. The workers should not think that the Government have a solution to steel, because they clearly do not.

Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975 (Amendment) Order 2026

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 21st April 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, this order is a necessary measure to address the historical misapplication of the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975, which sets ministerial and other officeholders’ pay. The other officeholders are the Leaders of the Opposition in both Houses, the Speakers in both Houses, the Opposition Chief Whips in both Houses and two Opposition Assistant Whips in the House of Commons.

In 1997, a formula was introduced to link pay increases for Ministers and certain officeholders to senior Civil Service pay bands. The formula set out that ministerial salaries should be increased by the average annual change in the midpoint of the senior Civil Service pay bands. During the financial year 2023-24, the Cabinet Office identified that the formula had been misapplied. Since the introduction of the formula in 1997, the salaries of Permanent Secretaries had often been excluded from the calculation, despite the legislation not permitting such an exclusion. This technical misapplication of the law has happened under successive Administrations, over several decades. The formula was originally proposed by the Senior Salaries Review Body, which recommended that Permanent Secretary pay should not be included in the calculation for ministerial pay. The Government believe the policy that has been often applied since 1997, in line with the Senior Salaries Review Body recommendation, is the correct approach and are introducing this Order in Council to ensure the law aligns with long-standing policy.

The order performs two primary functions. First, it resets the statutory salary levels for all Ministers and specified officeholders. Given the misapplication has been applied for several decades, resetting the salaries in law provides legal clarity and a baseline for any future uplifts. These reset figures were calculated based on the average annual change in the midpoint of the senior Civil Service pay bands including the Permanent Secretary pay band for each financial year since the misapplication was identified, in line with the formula set out in the legislation.

Secondly, the order amends the formula to exclude the Permanent Secretary pay band from future calculations. This change simply formalises the policy approach that has been applied in practice, by all Administrations, for over two decades. For the initial year beginning 1 April 2026, the order sets out a transitional measure where the higher of the old or new formula will be applied to ensure that no individual is disadvantaged by the order’s retrospective effect. The impact of this order is minimal; it affects only ministerial office holders and a small number of other office holders in Westminster. Due to incomplete records, it has not been possible to determine the exact financial impact of this misapplication. Analysis shows that no individual has gained or lost a substantial amount.

I want to be clear that for Ministers, this order will result in no change to actual take-home pay. The Prime Minister has maintained the policy of freezing ministerial salaries, and Ministers will continue to waive their statutory entitlement. In fact, ministerial salaries for Members of the House of Commons have not increased since 2008. Ministerial salaries were actually cut in law, via an Order in Council, in 2011. Lords ministerial salaries have not risen since 2008 and were cut in 2011, but in 2019-20, they began to claim their full salary entitlement. They were again frozen in 2020-21 and remain so today. The other officeholders make a personal decision on whether to take the salary they are entitled to in law or to waive part of the salary in line with the ministerial salary freeze. The order therefore does affect the salaries paid to these individuals who choose to take their entitled salaries. The Government have been unable to calculate their annual pay increases while work on this order was ongoing, so we will provide back payments covering annual pay increases owed to current and former officeholders in these roles dating back to 1 April 2023.

The legislation is also linked to the salaries of the Chairman and Deputy Chairmen of Ways and Means in the other place, whose salaries increase through the same formula but are paid by Parliament. They will also receive back payments dating back to 1 April 2023. The total cost of back payments to the Government is just over £15,000. This is for the roles paid by the Government: the Leaders of the Opposition in both Houses, the Speaker in the House of Commons, the Opposition Chief Whips in both Houses and two Opposition Assistant Whips in the House of Commons. The total cost of back payments to Parliament is between £7,000 and £19,000. This is for the roles paid by Parliament: the Chairman and Deputy Chairmen of Ways and Means in the other place and the Lord Speaker.

It is important to note that the majority of the back payments represent money that would have been paid if the misapplication had not been identified. I am grateful to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments for their consideration of this Order in Council and for their respective reports. I shall briefly address the issues they have raised.

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee noted that it has taken three years for the Cabinet Office to resolve this issue. Although a small issue, it is a complex and technical one; it is right that the Government took the time to ensure that the misapplication was addressed correctly, and I am sure that noble Lords will support this order which addresses this long-standing misapplication of the law.

The Joint Committee on Statutory Instrument has reported that this Order in Council appears to have retrospective effect without the express authority of the parent legislation. The Cabinet Office considers that the Act provides power for limited retrospection, and that the retrospective effect of this order is justified and fair. This is because backdating of salary increases is normal practice given that, for senior civil servants, salary increases are usually not known until the summer but pay increases take effect from the 1 April. In addition, as I have set out, the impact of this order is minimal, affecting Ministers and a small number of other officeholders.

In summary, the Government are bringing forward this Order in Council to address a historical misapplication of the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975, which sets ministerial and certain officeholders’ pay. This is a necessary measure to address a technical misapplication of the law and will ensure that the law aligns with long-standing policy. I beg to move.

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for the technical explanation of a complex matter, but could she also answer a couple of relevant questions? First, what is the progress on having more Lords Ministers in receipt of salaries, after our recent discussions and legislation on extending the number of paid posts? What progress is there on helping Ministers rather more by clearer definitions of their aims and their targets, with suitable mentoring and support and, if necessary, performance reporting, so that we can all see that these well-justified salaries are indeed well justified and are resulting in better government?

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this order. As she has set out, it is a sensible and largely technical measure that would bring the law on ministerial and officeholder salaries in line with the current practice of excluding Permanent Secretary salaries from the calculation of annual salary increases. It brings the statutory framework in line with the approach that has in practice been followed by successive Governments since 1997. It does not change the underlying policy; rather, it corrects a discrepancy in the legislation relating to the treatment of Permanent Secretary salaries within the relevant calculation. It also addresses the criticism, as the Minister pointed out, from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee that this issue has not been previously addressed despite the discrepancy being noted by the Cabinet Office in the 2023-24 financial year. On that basis, I do not take issue with the intent of the order.

The principal point on which I would welcome further clarity relates to ministerial pensions. The Government have been clear that ministerial salaries will remain frozen in practice and that take-home pay will therefore be unaffected by this order. However, the order alters the maximum salary that they may receive under the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975. It would be helpful, therefore, to understand whether future pension entitlements will be calculated on the basis of that legal maximum salary or on the salary actually received. If it is the former, this measure may have the effect of increasing pension accrual despite the continuation of the pay freeze. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister could set out how pension calculations will operate, and whether any additional cost to the public purse is expected as a result.

More broadly, this measure raises a question regarding the scope of the ministerial pension scheme itself. Unlike with other public service pension schemes, there does not appear to be any provision for forfeiture in cases of serious misconduct. In contrast, we have long accepted in principle across the public sector that pensions may, in defined and exceptional circumstances, be subject to forfeiture where there has been criminal conduct connected to office. Given that disparity, it would be helpful to understand whether the Government have considered bringing forward legislative changes to place ministerial pensions on a more consistent footing with other public service pension schemes in this respect.

I note that similar issues are already being examined elsewhere in relation to standards in public life, and it would seem desirable for the legislative framework here to be equally coherent. In that context, I would be grateful if the Minister would inform the House whether the Government intend to bring forward an amendment to the current Pension Schemes Bill to address this issue, or whether they have concluded that no legislative change is required. If the latter is the case, I ask the Minister to outline the reason for maintaining the present position, given the clear precedent for forfeiture provisions in other public service pension schemes. It would also be helpful to know whether this matter is under active consideration within government, or whether it has been ruled out entirely.

Northern Ireland After Brexit (Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee Report)

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

My Lords, I intervene in this debate not as a Northern Ireland specialist or representative, which I am clearly not, but as someone who has taken a strong special interest over many years in the economy and economic growth, and in the trading patterns of our great United Kingdom. I am not surprised that much of the debate so far has been about these economic issues. We have heard eloquent testimony to the barriers and difficulties that small businesses in particular but also some big businesses are experiencing as a result of the dreadful settlement of the so-called Northern Ireland problem, embedded first in the protocol and subsequently in the Windsor Framework.

I fully support what my noble friend Lord Lilley said and will explain to the Committee that my noble friend and I, and other Conservative MPs and Peers, held regular meetings over the Brexit years to discuss how our country can get the most out of the freedoms we can enjoy and could develop now that we have left the European Union, and how the £17 billion we are now saving in annual contributions can be best spent to our wider benefit and related issues. We have often, as a result, had joint meetings or exchanges of MPs and Peers with our unionist colleagues here today.

In our meetings, we took on board that Northern Ireland had a particularly bad deal out of the form of Brexit entry that the EU cajoled or persuaded successive British Governments into accepting. There is no doubt that absorbing so much European Union law into Northern Ireland is a constraint on growth, on small businesses and on trade. I urge the Government to think carefully about this, because they wish to align the whole United Kingdom with more of these laws, charges and impositions. Yet it is the case that where it is being tried in Northern Ireland, far from being a golden scenario, as some suggested, it is clearly a negative that is causing trouble.

In a previous speech in the Chamber of the House of Lords, I set out my own research findings for the period 1952 to 2020—from 20 years before we entered the EEC, from the 20 years in the EEC customs union from 1972 to 1992, and from the 28 years in the single market from 1992. The data is overwhelmingly convincing that the closer the alignment—the more European law, costs and taxes we absorbed—the slower we grew. I fully accept that there were other factors affecting our growth rates over those long periods, but you cannot reach a conclusion from the data that there was ever a time when aligning more closely helped and gave us a boost. There was no boost when we joined the customs union. On the contrary, because a lot of our industry was not fully competitive and was being protected by tariffs, when the tariffs came off, the Labour Government, who had to face the problem, saw mass closures and destruction of large parts of our industry because Italian, German and French textile companies, steel mills, engineering works and vehicle makers were so much more efficient than our own. The shock was too much.

There was also no visible extra growth—indeed, quite a lot to the contrary—after 1992, when the EU had completed its so-called single market, which was actually a major power grab and a whole series of laws that were often negative to the conduct of business. Again, there was no sudden improvement or growth in our economy. In many ways, the problems got worse after the single market had been completed. Of course, it was completely misleading to say that the single market was completed in 1992 because, for the following 28 years of our membership, there were ever more laws, ever more rules, ever more charges and ever more taxes, which had a direct impact on British businesses and clearly did no good.

Northern Ireland is right to say that there are two problems with the settlement we have been persuaded or forced into by the European Union. There is the problem of economic growth, prosperity, and business and trade success, but there is also the fundamental democratic accountability problem, which is a direct result of the EU’s chosen solution of putting Northern Ireland under European Union rules.

The report is wonderfully written. When I first came to it, I found it quite heavy going, complicated and difficult, and I then realised that, in a way, that was a wonderful parody of the issues that the report had to deal with. The authors of the report clearly understood it perfectly well and were showing, by the way they described it, what a dreadful mess there was: just how many contradictions and complexities were built into it, all to the advantage of the EU and not to the United Kingdom or Northern Ireland. I pay great tribute to the committee and to the work done.

The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, pointed out the wonderful organogram, which was meant to be a simplification so that those of us who found it hard going could see a picture. It tells you all you need to know: the thing is quite unworkable, completely incomprehensible and, by any external judgment, completely mad. No sensible country would ever behave like that or have accepted it, yet this is where we have got to by having all these agents and institutions involved in negotiating.

The solution offered by my noble friend Lord Lilley, hammered out as it was with a lot of colleagues—we had the benefit of two expert lawyers in this field, who very kindly worked pro bono for us because they felt, as we did, that things needed to change in a radical direction for the benefit of Northern Ireland—would, of course, resolve the democratic accountability. If, either by agreement or unilaterally, we no longer have to impose European Union laws on Northern Ireland, then the democratic accountability problem vanishes.

However, we are rightly told in the report that an attempt to resolve the problem was the partial solution of saying that, if a law is really so bad that Northern Ireland cannot put up with it, then Northern Ireland should have the right, through the Stormont procedure, to say that it will not apply in Northern Ireland—an override. Although that does not get you around the table to influence and vote on all the other laws that you can put up with—so it is not a full answer to democratic accountability—it is a very good partial answer, because not only would you be able to strike out anything that was really bad but the fact that you had that power would start to influence European Union opinion and attitudes, so that when representations were made on other matters, the European Union would have to bear in mind that you could just decide that it was all too much.

This takes me back down memory lane, which I am normally reluctant about, but on this occasion it is relevant. I remember, as a very young man, that when the 1975 referendum occurred and the British people voted to stay in the European Economic Community, we were assured by the then Labour Government and by the Conservative and Lib Dem opposition parties that our sovereignty would not be taken away or damaged in any way. We were joining a trading arrangement; it was a free trade area, and they called it the common market—they would not even call it the EEC. I made the mistake of reading the treaties and felt that this was an unlikely explanation of what was going on.

When I found myself, some years later, as Single Market Minister, I remembered that we had been told that no sovereignty had been lost, but my job was a visible demonstration that a huge amount of sovereignty had been lost, because I had to spend all my time trying to construct alliances with member states to stop a law being imposed on our country that did not make any sense or could even be positively damaging. I remembered that, over the years, in an attempt to persuade us that we had not been cheated over sovereignty, something had been developed called an emergency brake—language rather similar to the Stormont brake.

Faced with this avalanche of draft laws that I did not want or wanted to change dramatically, and recognising how much work it was to construct an alliance of member states sufficient to dilute or delay in each case, I decided on one—I cannot remember which I chose now—and let it be known that I was going to use the emergency brake. This was just to show Brussels that this was all getting out of hand and that I was prepared to take action to stop its extreme legislative ideas. As soon as I mentioned this within the privacy of government, I could feel the quiver of fear and annoyance that this idea created. The great British governing establishment—the civil servants and quite a few of the Ministers—were so pro the EU having its way on everything that they thought a Minister going maverick, as they saw it, and trying to negotiate from a position of strength was a very bad idea. It was, of course, vetoed before anyone outside government ever knew about it. I conspired with the rest to make sure nobody knew about it, because I did not think it would reflect well on me that I had lost the argument to use the emergency brake, or reflect well on the Government, because they were clearly throwing away a very powerful negotiating tool that could have got us an answer that was a lot better.

I give this as a salutary tale. I know that Northern Ireland bravely got a bit further than I did and once suggested that it was going to use the emergency brake. Once again, the great governing establishment knew better and decided that it was not going to be allowed to. I do not think that the Stormont brake will be used. The European Union does not think it is going to be used, which does not give you any negotiating heft as it tries to put more laws upon you.

My conclusions are this. This is advice to the Government that is heartfelt and well meant, and that would actually help the Government. I fully support the Government’s aims to have a growth strategy for the whole United Kingdom that levels up those parts that need levelling up, and is driven by more trade, industrial activity and small business developments. The Government will not get that in Northern Ireland unless they address this issue. The way to address it is to take up my noble friend’s suggestion: this is a bogus problem; there does not need to be a hard border. In the past, the big trade flows have always been east-west, or GB to Northern Ireland, not north-south, or Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland. The big trade flows are being damaged. This has to be lifted and we have to put it to the EU. If the EU is a friendly and sensible neighbour, it will see that it makes sense. If it is not, we should do it unilaterally.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

Given the nature of InterTradeIreland, that is a matter for InterTradeIreland and is not something I can comment on from the Dispatch Box.

With regard to the specifics of the report, in short, a lot has been done, but there remains more to do, as this report by the committee highlights. Indeed, the Government’s response to the committee’s report following the independent review shows as much. This leads me to our next steps. We are ensuring that the stakeholder engagement landscape captures a broad spectrum of businesses in a new Northern Ireland business stakeholder group—just to add to the wonderful flowchart that we saw earlier today. We are also looking at how the Government and devolved departments can conduct engagement and capture the views of industry, so that this is joined-up and gets the right outcomes earlier on.

The Northern Ireland Executive participate in all structures under the Windsor Framework, yet we acknowledge that there is more to be done between the Government and the Executive to ensure that public authorities link up and address issues with changes to regulatory proposals earlier in the process. We are therefore implementing new processes to address that and facilitate better engagement at all levels, beyond the Cabinet Office executive office working group.

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

Can the Minister say whether the United Kingdom will be tabling proposed improvements to the Windsor Framework as part of the reset negotiations?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord, who has been a Member of the other place and only recently of your Lordships’ House, will be aware better than me that I am not in a position to give any detail of ongoing negotiations while they are currently ongoing. The noble Lord will be aware that the impact on Northern Ireland is key to some of the negotiations, which is why we are focusing so much effort on the SPS deal.

We will continue to welcome contributions from the Executive, including at the Joint Committee—the governing body for the Windsor Framework and the withdrawal agreement as a whole. More broadly, looking at the committee’s report, we are taking forward a new phase of the Trader Support Service, which provides vital support to businesses with goods movements. Those issues were covered in the committee’s report and, in December 2025, we set out more information on the consortium to deliver it. We are working to give greater discretion to the Democratic Scrutiny Committee; it will be allowed greater discretion over how it conducts its scrutiny and the timelines for it. We are backing this up in Brussels, increasing resourcing, as requested by the Office of the Northern Ireland Executive in Brussels, so that it can provide vital perspective to the institutions there as proposals are developed and considered.

I move on to transparency and awareness. Our approach seeks to ensure that the broadest range of voices from across Northern Ireland is heard, including from business and civic society. It also ensures that there is the right space for technical engagement between government departments and their counterparts in Northern Ireland and the EU institutions. It seeks to ensure that devolved departments are equipped with the right information about regulatory proposals to consider their impacts and advise the Assembly further on Northern Ireland’s interests.

Where issues are identified, we have already shown our capacity to take action, whether domestically, where we have announced consultation activity on toy safety and chemicals labelling and ensured that the UK internal market is protected in response to concerns from industry; or bilaterally, such as on dental amalgam or the arrangements to protect the supply of pharmaceuticals. On all these issues, we have listened to stakeholders, whether they are business organisations, civic organisations or the vital work of the Democratic Scrutiny Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Just as we will continue to support the scrutiny of the Windsor Framework arrangements and the rules that apply in the Assembly, and by the Independent Monitoring Panel, so too will we support the work of InterTrade UK on promoting the economic bonds and strengths of all parts of the UK, and the east-west council in developing the ties across it.

I move on to some of the specific questions in the order that they were asked and not necessarily grouped by issue. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, touched on EUR-Lex. Although the EU’s EUR-Lex tool can be used to read and consider detailed legal terms, we recognise the need for businesses to have clear and accessible guidance. The enhanced one-stop shop we are delivering will do that, providing businesses with tailored advice to navigate those issues. We believe that this is the best way that we can support businesses with explaining the rules that apply.

Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address Motion

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I wondered how my noble friend was going to get a warship into this question—and, as ever, he succeeded. My noble friend is right; from my perspective, Peter Mandelson should donate his severance to any charity that campaigns for, or protects, women who have been targeted and have experienced horrendous violence. That is probably the least we are owed.

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

My Lords, is it the Government’s case that Lord Mandelson misled them to get the appointment? Can the Minister give us a couple of examples of what he said to fool the Prime Minister?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord will be able to read any and all correspondence for himself as further tranches are published.