Northern Ireland After Brexit (Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee Report)

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Redwood, although I do not agree with absolutely everything that he said. It is a pleasure too to take part in today’s debate and to resume that focus on Northern Ireland that I had as chairman of the Sub-Committee of the European Affairs Committee on Northern Ireland—the predecessor of today’s committee. I learned a huge amount about Northern Ireland from the members of that committee, many of whom are present and speaking this afternoon. I was going to tell the noble Lord, Lord Hain, that I will try not to be impenetrably boring, but, fearing that I am going to be impenetrably boring, he has left his seat. However, I very much welcome the report and its recommendations, the excellent report by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and the Government’s reply.

I was struck when I chaired the committee, and I am struck now, although I listened carefully to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Bew, by the real risk of a democratic deficit in the implementation of the Windsor Framework and the need for the people of Northern Ireland and its institutions, particularly Stormont, to be properly involved in forming and making decisions under the Windsor Framework that directly affect them. The excellent report that we are discussing today makes a number of eminently sensible suggestions. If it does not happen, an already complex and contentious scene will become ever more difficult to progress satisfactorily, with potential implications for the government of Northern Ireland. For that to happen, the process of implementing the framework needs to be transparent and comprehensible.

Over my career in public service, I have worked in many different government departments and embassies. Before, of course, I joined your Lordships’ House, I was steeped in bureaucracy. I thought that I understood bureaucracy, but nothing quite prepares you for the labyrinthine charts on pages 24 and 25 of the report that we are now considering. There is a crying need for more simplicity and clarity in substance and form. It would help greatly if the Government were to maintain and publish a record of regulatory divergence in the implementation of the Windsor Framework between Great Britain and Northern Ireland on the one hand and the United Kingdom and the EU on the other. This is not a new point, and it is a point on which I remember the noble Lord, Lord Empey, used to speak eloquently in the committee. I cannot see that the Government have accepted that recommendation from the committee, and I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify that later.

The implementation of the Windsor Framework is of course a dynamic process, as the shifting political scene in Northern Ireland and more widely shows. The establishment and the developing operation of Stormont’s Democratic Scrutiny Committee and the report by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, following the democratic consent vote in December 2024 show that. I am glad to see that the Government have accepted the recommendations in the report from the noble Lord, Lord Murphy.

What is also changing are the Government’s relations with the European Union, not least given the uncertain relationship at present between the United Kingdom and the United States. I personally welcome the more constructive relationship between the UK and the EU—it is in the interests of the United Kingdom—but the evolving UK and EU relationship will have implications for Northern Ireland. I hope that we will have learned the lessons of the past and that both the UK and the EU will consider the implications for Northern Ireland of such closer relations up front, not as an afterthought.

Finally, on a wholly tangential point, there is not much good news in the world at the moment, but the elimination of the predators of puffins and other seabirds on Rathlin Island, to which I sailed in a small boat more than 50 years ago—I hope that the Minister will approve of that—is unquestionably good news. The puffins of Rathlin Island may not have read the Windsor Framework, but their future is at least assured.