Withdrawal Agreement (Windsor Framework and Governance) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I am deeply grateful for being given permission to take part in this debate. I welcome these regulations, like I have welcomed the Windsor Framework on many occasions, because it deals with special arrangements to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland. I do not want to see borders anywhere between the UK and Ireland and between Northern Ireland and Britain. Therefore, it is important that the challenges and impediments presented by the Windsor Framework are ironed out—hence the appointment 18 months ago by the then Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, to deal with particular issues regarding implementation.

The noble Lord was fairly circumscribed in what he could do, but some of those recommendations looked at democratic scrutiny and the democratic deficit. He also proposed that Assembly Members on the Democratic Scrutiny Committee would have a greater amount of time for scrutiny. A committee that I am a member of, the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee, met the Democratic Scrutiny Committee on several occasions and it raised with us the lack of time that it has been given to do scrutiny, so I was very pleased when the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, proposed that the instrument would extend by five days the time by which that Democratic Scrutiny Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly must vote on whether to hold an inquiry. That recommendation was accepted by the Government and now we are giving it legal effect. I welcome that.

I also ask this of my noble friend the Minister. Our Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee and the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, proposed a hub. I note that I am sitting beside my noble friend Lady Anderson, who has met me on that specific issue to seek an update on the hub. How far is it progressing and what work has been done already? When will there be a report to the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee and to your Lordships’ Chamber on the progress that has been made? In summary, I support this instrument and the changes that it seeks to introduce as they will bring greater accountability from the work carried out by the Democratic Scrutiny Committee.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

My Lords, I suppose it comes as no surprise that I have a different opinion on the Windsor Framework. Rather than it being the answer to many problems, it has also created many problems in its impact on Northern Ireland businesses and the rest of the United Kingdom. I am fed up, when ordering something from the mainland, to be told, “It cannot be posted to your address”. That has happened countless times, but that would not be accepted in any other part of the United Kingdom. Why are we supposed to be thankful, when we are looked upon as the poor relation within the United Kingdom?

As regards the theatrics of what happened today with Michelle O’Neill, I remind everyone that the First Minister has no power whatever to sign any memorandum of understanding as the First Minister. She can do so as the deputy leader of the Sinn Féin party, but she has no authority to sign anything on behalf of the Northern Ireland Assembly or the elected representatives of Northern Ireland in Stormont.

This SI flows from the Murphy review. We have great respect for the noble Lord, Lord Murphy. It was to strengthen the place of the Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee, yet one aspect has been deleted. Members of the other place have already drawn attention to this. It is Section 15C of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to today’s debate. The instrument is a key element of the Government’s commitments made following the independent review, and I hope that it demonstrates that we continue to take action to ensure that the Windsor Framework works for the people and businesses of Northern Ireland, which is this Government’s intention for it to do.

In relation to a couple of the points that came up in the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Bew, raised an important point. I fully agree with him that Northern Ireland’s dual market access is a unique opportunity that has potential to drive real growth for Northern Ireland. The Government are committed to taking all necessary steps to protect the internal market while implementing the Windsor Framework in good faith, including having regard to all aspects of the Northern Ireland economy.

In relation to the points raised by my noble friend Lady Ritchie, I am happy to meet to discuss progress on the hub.

With regard to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, the robust parliamentary oversight frameworks already in place remain entirely unchanged. I hope that provides him with some reassurance. The written procedure simply ensures that, when the UK’s interests depend on swift action between the scheduled meetings, bearing in mind that they might take place only once or twice a year, we can take that action and Parliament will continue to be provided with explanatory memoranda on decisions made in the joint committee. I clarify that, in our view, this does not weaken the accountability of the Government at the joint committee. The scrutiny process for joint committee decisions made by the Government is not changed by this SI. That includes the role for Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly, as set down in law and in writing, which is very important.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

Will the Minister clarify whether the Government are removing Section 15C or not? We cannot have it both ways.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

We are removing Section 15C.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

The Minister is saying that the protection is there, but Section 15C was inserted by Section 35 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, which was very clear that the reason for precluding Ministers was simply to ensure that nothing could be slipped through and that there had to be accountability. That is its purpose, so to remove Section 15C is to remove its purpose of providing a safeguard. Removing the safeguard cannot be the same as protecting the safeguard.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

We think that there is a sufficient safeguard in place, but I would be happy to meet the noble Lord to discuss this further if he would find that helpful.

I return to my concluding remarks on the SI. This is not the only action that the Government are taking to protect the internal market. We have announced £16.6 million to strengthen the UK internal market and help Northern Ireland boost trade with Great Britain. This includes a comprehensive one-stop shop regulatory support service, beyond what is currently available on GOV.UK. This will help businesses trade across UK and EU markets and benefit from Northern Ireland’s unique dual market access. We have also established a triage process to support co-ordination between the Government and Northern Ireland departments on relevant EU legislation. This Government are clear that Northern Ireland is and should be a core player in that relationship. Arrangements that necessarily protect Northern Ireland’s place in the union and its internal market prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland and deliver certainty to businesses on the basis of the agreement with the EU.

I recognise and respect that noble Lords may have different views on how we arrived where we are now from Brexit, and on its merits and otherwise. However, on behalf of the Government, I should be very clear that our focus must remain on what we do next to ensure that our relationship with the EU works best for all parts of the UK.

We are focused on looking forward to a new strategic partnership with the EU, which stands to benefit Northern Ireland. I assure the Committee that we will also remain focused on smoothing flows of goods to Northern Ireland where we can, with the arrangements that apply now, with an eye to the new and beneficial arrangements that we are seeking to obtain in future.

I am not sure that I have managed to answer all noble Lords’ questions. I will ask my office to write to all those who have taken part in today’s debate as I am happy to have a continued conversation about these very important matters. I commend these regulations to the Committee.

Online Safety Bill

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th April 2023 Lords Chamber

Finally, to the noble Lords who are promoting this group of amendments I say that I would be very supportive if they could find some interventions that simplify the processes companies have to do in the early stages to establish levels of risk, and then we can get heavy on the mitigation of harm. That is something upon which we all agree; if we could find a very low bar of entry, check whether there is harm and then escalate, I believe that would be something we could all work on together.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 4 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley.

At Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Morrow raised the point that the Bill needs to cover all online pornography. A factsheet on the Bill, helpfully circulated to Peers last week by the Government, says:

“The Bill’s regulatory framework will cover all online sites with pornographic content, including commercial pornography sites, social media, video-sharing platforms and fora. It will also cover search engines, which play a significant role in enabling children to access pornography”.


This is a welcome commitment but I would like to explore it further.

The Government say “all”, but the definition of which services are in scope of the Bill, as set out in Clause 3(5) and Clause 71(4), requires that there are either

“a significant number of United Kingdom users, or … United Kingdom users form one of the target markets for the service (or the only target market)”.

At Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Morrow asked the Minister what will be considered as “significant”. Is it significant in terms of the total UK adult users who could use a service, or significant in terms of potential global users?

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, is exploring the same issue in her Amendment 4. She is proposing that the Bill’s current definition be replaced with something much easier to understand: that a site must have at least 1 million users per month in the UK to be within the scope of the Bill. That definition is certainly clear. However, I am looking forward to hearing whether it reflects the Government’s intention. For my part, I am concerned about what it might mean for clarifying which pornographic websites would fall into Part 3.

In December, the Government published an analysis carried out in January 2021 by the British Board of Film Classification on the top 200 pornographic websites. It reported that these 200 sites received 76% of the total UK visits to adult sites, based on data during August 2020. Ofcom published a similar list of the top 10 sites visited in September 2020—the site at number 10 had 3.8 million visitors. We do not know how many visitors there were to websites 100 or 200, but it is not unreasonable to speculate that it could be less than a million and would therefore fall outside the definition proposed by the noble Baroness, and nor is it clear whether those websites would fall within the Government’s original definition.

It is important for the Minister to tell the Committee quite clearly whether he expects the top 200 pornographic websites to be within the scope of Parts 3 and 5 of the Bill. If he does, I ask him to explain how that will be possible within the current definition in the Bill, not because I am trying to trip him up but as a genuine inquiry that the Bill does what we are expect it to do. If he does not expect the top 200 pornographic websites to be in scope, how many does he estimate would fall within Parts 3 and 5? Either way, it seems to me that there could be pornographic websites accessed in the United Kingdom that are not required to have age verification to protect those aged under 18 from accessing this content.

As I said, I doubt that this is what parents expect from this flagship Bill, especially as the Government set out in their factsheet that their own commissioned evidence says,

“exposure to pornography may impact children's perceptions of sex and relationships, may lead to replication of practices found in pornography, increased likelihood of engaging in sexual activities and harmful or aggressive behaviour, and reduced concern for consent from partners”.

It seems to me that “significant” should focus on the significant harm a website or content provider would cause if it were accessed in the UK. The number of visitors or popularity of the site should be irrelevant when considering whether or not children should be allowed to access it. My view is quite simple: if a website, social media or content provider wishes to host pornographic material, that is of potential significant harm to children and should be age-verified. I am therefore interested, given what the Government have said previously, to know whether the Minister agrees that all pornographic content must be age-verified if it is to be accessed in the UK. That is certainly what I believe most parents expect, and I will listen carefully to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

I will speak in support of my noble friend Lord Moylan and Amendment 9. I declare an interest as an author and publisher.

Last week, we had the London Book Fair, and proposed new paragraph 10A could read almost like an executive summary of the main talking point, which was how AI will influence all aspects of the media but particularly publishing. For the sake of future-proofing, paragraph 10A would be a particularly useful step to adopt. Proposed new paragraph 10B would be in the interest of fairness because publishing, and a lot of media, is made up of micro-businesses, often one-man or one-woman companies. This is certain to happen with AI as well, as the intermediary roles are taken up by these. In the interest of future-proofing and fairness, I recommend this amendment.

BBC: Dyson Report

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I can only repeat what I said earlier, which is that that appears to me to sit as an editorial decision for the BBC.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP) [V]]

Does the Minister accept that now is an opportune time for the BBC to acknowledge the serious flaws within the system and to learn the lessons from the failures of the past, not only in the Bashir saga but in other unbalanced reporting of events? Is the mid-term review not an opportunity to have a radical change within the BBC? Are the Government determined to make any fundamental changes necessary?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The mid-term review is really a health check point that was built in to the charter review process to look at the effectiveness of governance and regulation, rather than the more widespread suggestions the noble Lord makes.

Television Licences

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

There will be a very wide range of issues, I am sure, to be discussed between my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and the new director-general of the BBC when he comes into post. The Government are clear that everyone entitled to claim pension credit should do so, and we are aware that that is not the case universally, so we are also working in particular on that.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP) [V]]

In light of what our elderly have already experienced with Covid-19—the isolation and loneliness they have endured—many will have serious long-term effects. Does the Minister agree that it is time for the BBC to stop the blame game and honour the clear commitment already given to the over-75s?

[Baroness Barran]

The noble Lord is right to highlight the sacrifices made by the over-75s, but we are all aware that sacrifices have been made in many age groups. It is critical that we are clear that the BBC remains operationally independent of government.