Radio Equipment (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2025

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Hoey]

At end to insert “but that this House regrets that the draft Regulations are being made to give effect to legislation made by the European Commission, without public consultation and without taking account of the needs of small businesses in Northern Ireland.”

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Leong, to his position. He is about the third noble Lord we have had answering SIs, so we are gradually getting round all of them. It is of course very nice to see the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, who is very involved with and supportive of Northern Ireland, and she is very much respected there.

The noble Lord has set out in detail why this is happening, with a lot of words and explanation, but the reality is that it is happening because the United Kingdom Government signed up to the Windsor Framework protocol, which is now ensuring in legislation after legislation that Northern Ireland is treated differently. To comply with the EU law, we are therefore now required to update the EU law as defined in our 2017 regulations to take account of the new directive.

The regulations before us today seek to comply with this European Union diktat by applying a new regulation, Regulation 6A, into the United Kingdom regulations with respect to how they apply to Northern Ireland only. The legislative change does not apply to the rest of the United Kingdom; it does not apply to Great Britain.

I see there is an absence of the Liberal Democrats here today. That is because the Liberal Democrats tend to think that such regulations should be hidden away in the committee room and fail to understand that when it is an affirmative regulation, we have the right to bring it here to the Chamber. We do that because these regulations provide us with an object lesson of all that is wrong with the Windsor Framework protocol and the Irish Sea border that it creates.

To really understand the problems with these regulations and others like them, it is important to assess them from the vantage point not just of their immediate physical impact—which I will mention—but of their wider impact in Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom. The Irish Sea border arose from a decision of Parliament, but unlike the decisions in relation to devolution and joining the European Union, the resulting arrangements were not operated consistently with its ethos as a representative body. From the outset, their very point of conception, they have been fundamentally alien to the political tradition we have in the United Kingdom, because they involve transferring lawmaking powers for a part of the UK to a Government beyond the UK—to legislative arrangements that do not represent the United Kingdom.

This deeply affects the part of the United Kingdom in question, because as participants in a political nation, a political body politic that is nurtured, upheld and sustained by representative principles, this does not just take from us the ability to make some of our own laws but necessarily disinherits us from a key aspect of our identity.

In this context, the Radio Equipment (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations, along with all other imposed legislation, are deeply problematic. It is worth reminding the House that while the Northern Ireland protocol was addressed through primary legislation, since February 2023 every piece of legislation that has been introduced and given effect to the Windsor Framework—without any say from people in Northern Ireland—has been by means of statutory instrument.

Someone engaging with this subject for the first time—perhaps a noble Lord today—might come to one debate and see that it highlights the imposition of EU law in one narrow area. However, that is very narrow; we have to regard the cumulative effect of all the different statutory instruments that have been brought in, and will be brought in, in the past and coming months. That is why, along with other noble friends from Northern Ireland, we will continue to bring these debates to the House. The House needs to understand that this is not just about one law—radio equipment—this is about the whole way we are now being governed in Northern Ireland.

That said, the draft Explanatory Memorandum makes the position very clear, and the Minister has gone through the far-reaching effects of the radio equipment regulations. Everyone needs to read paragraphs 5 and 6, which state:

“The essential requirement not to harm the network or its functioning applies to any internet-connected radio equipment … consumer electronics and smart devices … the protection of user/subscriber personal data and privacy also applies to the following radio equipment, where that equipment is capable of processing personal data, traffic data or location data: Internet-connected radio equipment; and Radio equipment, whether internet-connected or not, that is: (i) designed or intended exclusively for childcare; (ii) covered by the EU Toys Directive; or (iii) designed or intended, to be worn on, strapped to, or hung from the body or clothing”.


The final bit of the explanation states:

“The essential requirement to ensure protection from fraud also applies to internet-connected radio equipment, if that equipment enables the user to transfer money, monetary value or virtual currency”.


It is very wide-ranging.

Turning to those who will be impacted by the legislation, the draft Explanatory Memorandum is very clear that the effects on business are far-reaching. It states:

“This instrument will impact on manufacturers of specific types of radio equipment that are placed on the Northern Ireland marketplace, authorised representatives carrying out manufacturers’ tasks on their behalf, importers who place these products on the Northern Ireland marketplace, and distributors who make these products available on the Northern Ireland marketplace”.


It actually states:

“There is no, or no significant, impact on charities or voluntary bodies”,


but the impact on small businesses is also very clear. It states:

“The legislation does impact small or micro businesses … The legal requirements do not differentiate between businesses in terms of their size. Therefore, we are unable to take any mitigating actions to minimise the regulatory burdens on small or micro businesses”.


The officials who drafted this draft Explanatory Memorandum pass over those points very quickly, without acknowledging and confronting the obvious implications of what has been said. This legislation relates only to Northern Ireland and has an impact on small businesses and micro-businesses, yet Northern Ireland is the part of the United Kingdom where the economy is more dependent on such businesses than any other. In that sense, if we were told to apply this to one part of the UK, Northern Ireland would be the last place to start because of the unusual size of its small business sector. Can the Minister say what the Government will do practically to help those small businesses that are already drowning in an Irish Sea border of endless paperwork and bureaucracy?

The Minister will recall—the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, will certainly recall—the Federation of Small Businesses research, which, critically, was conducted before the introduction of the Irish Sea parcels border in May, the used farm machinery border in June and the huge increase in labelling requirements on 1 July, not to mention the impending arrival of the pet medicines Irish Sea border, which is due in January 2026, together with the application, from 1 January, of the much more demanding Import Control System 2.

The report demonstrated that 33% of GB suppliers had already withdrawn since the arrival of the Irish Sea border. I ask the Minister: how much more pain would the Government like to devise for small businesses in Northern Ireland? This imposition of EU legislation on Northern Ireland effectively declared that while the people of England, Wales and Scotland are worthy of the right to stand for election to make all the laws, or to elect a fellow citizen to represent them for this purpose, the people of Northern Ireland are only worthy of the right to stand for election to make some of the laws to which they are subject.

These changes do not have just a narrow functional effect, so that some of our laws are made by others; they actually erode and undermine our place in the nation of the United Kingdom. I do not think that noble Lords will fully appreciate that, until they themselves, perhaps as fellow citizens, find that that has been taken from them. In coming to terms with this, we must also understand that the purpose of all these imposed laws is to create an all-Ireland single market for goods. The political importance is hard to overstate, because the prerequisite of achieving statehood is described internationally as securing economic nationality.

One disturbing consequence of all this is that once people have been subject to the laws of another country or another institution, they not only lose the right to stand for election to make the laws to which they are subject, or to elect someone for this purpose; they also lose the right to be consulted about the law.

The Explanatory Memorandum states:

“The Government has not undertaken a formal public consultation as this instrument’s provisions are confined to the implementation of provisions as required by the terms of the Windsor Framework, ensuring that Northern Ireland has in place EU derived essential product safety requirements.”


In other words, the legislation has to be imposed because the EU has told us to impose it, and we signed up to that, so we do not need to bother with the consultation because there would be no point.

The other striking feature about these regulations is that the Explanatory Memorandum and supplementary paperwork are distinctive in not volunteering that the Government will definitely align GB with the new Northern Ireland legislation, opening the door to regulatory divergence. Paragraph 9.1 says: “Many UK businesses also supply the EU market (as well as the UK market) and have already taken steps to come into compliance with the Radio Equipment Directive. We therefore do not anticipate significant impacts on the supply of products from Great Britain to Northern Ireland”—anyone in Northern Ireland will tell you that they have heard that before—“and the UK’s Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act sets a framework for the cyber security of internet connected products in the UK and works alongside radio equipment directive provisions in Northern Ireland.”

As has been said, the Government intend to review the operation of the PSTI in the coming years, including through an interim post-implementation review in 2026, and will continue to monitor the functioning of the internal market. That is very complacent, and we could be left with legal divergence for a very long time. Why are the Government not more energetically seeking to avoid legislative divergence? If most companies in GB will comply automatically anyway, why accommodate needless legislative divergence?

Finally, I want to pick up the point that the Explanatory Notes suggest that these regulations are a good thing because they are part of the delivery of the wonderful dual market access. We need to be absolutely clear that dual market access is a myth. We have not secured a single piece of inward investment to access this special status, because it does not exist. Businesses are not stupid. If there was a special advantage, they would have come in from across the world.

Of course, you will find companies that would rather have the border in the Irish Sea because their business is based on trading with the Republic of Ireland and not with GB, and which say that they benefit from the current arrangements. However, if you drill down into that, it is not because they get dual market access but because at the end of the day, although the Windsor Framework fetters access to GB production inputs, it provides completely unfettered access to the Republic—that is, single market access to an all-Ireland economy—which is what they actually want. The problem is that most Northern Ireland businesses are based on needing unfettered access to GB, which is denied them by both the red and green lanes. It is therefore a very clear net negative for the Northern Ireland economy as a whole rather than a net positive. I do wish that Ministers would stop saying, every time the Windsor Framework is mentioned, that this is why it is so great.

I want to end by reading out two emails that I got sent yesterday from Northern Ireland relating to the veterinary effect which will come in in January. The first is to a lady who has pets and gets her veterinary medicine from GB:

“Thank you for your query regarding veterinary medication to Northern Ireland. Since Brexit, we have been operating under a grace period that has allowed us to continue medications to Northern Ireland. However, this grace period will come to an end on 31st December 2025. From 1st January it will no longer be possible for suppliers based here on the UK mainland to ship any class of medication, including prescription medications, to Northern Ireland”.


Another email reads:

“Good afternoon and thank you for your email. We will be stopping the last delivery to Northern Ireland on December 19th. This is due to a change in the Windsor Framework, which means medicines now need a Northern Ireland licence or EU licence to be sold there and cannot be imported free”.


This is happening over and again, and it means that many pet owners who cannot afford insurance and who go on to the internet to get the same veterinary medicine more cheaply from Great Britain are not now going to be able to get it.

We are seeing, over and again, ridiculous things that are happening because of the Windsor Framework/protocol. I cannot understand how any sensible person, including ex-Government Ministers from the previous Government, cannot realise that this is not in the long-term interests of Northern Ireland. Therefore, I beg to move this regret amendment with very great pleasure but with sadness that we are having still to come back to this House over and again on this issue.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I too am grateful to the Minister for outlining in detail the impact and effect of the statutory instrument before us today and for clearly setting out the reasons behind it as well. I am also extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, for her regret amendment, which ensures that there is time in this House for your Lordships to consider this latest piece of legislation, which has been consulted upon in Europe, drafted in Europe, devised in Europe and planned in Europe for the benefit of the European Union states, and which has been implemented in part of the United Kingdom without any input into any of that process by any Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, any Member of Parliament or any Member of your Lordships’ House. It is quite a staggering situation in modern Britain, in a modern G7 country, for part of its own country to be subjected to this kind of colonial legislative process. It is quite remarkable when you think about it.

This latest regulation deals with a very important area, which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, outlined, covers a wide range of equipment in Northern Ireland and will have a lot of impacts, particularly on small and medium-sized businesses.

This is the latest in a long line of statutory instruments affecting a very wide range of subjects, all listed in Annex 2 of the Northern Ireland protocol. Last week, I raised the issue of dental amalgam, because that is now under EU law and jurisdiction. Next week, we will be debating in Grant Committee the issue of cars coming into Northern Ireland, whereby now the biggest-selling car in Northern Ireland cannot be shipped from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, even though we sell, from Britain into the Irish Republic, only a handful of cars every year. But this is why consumers and motorists in Northern Ireland are going to have to pay more and come to Britain to buy their cars. This is the modern United Kingdom.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, reminded your Lordships, we have a problem with veterinary medicines, which is going to come in on 1 January 2026. We have an issue to do with the carbon border adjustment mechanism, which again is going to come in on 1 January 2026 in Northern Ireland. We have an issue to do with the Sentencing Bill, which your Lordships considered the other day at Second Reading, in which plans to deport people who come here may not be applicable, with part of the United Kingdom providing a back door and a loophole for all sorts of nefarious activity. We have court challenges in Northern Ireland to immigration policy and to legacy problems, all based on the fact that they do not comply with and conform to European law through the Windsor Framework. Not only are they ruled to be contrary, they actually strike down legislation passed by this House—in part of the United Kingdom.

It is a sad state of affairs, a lamentable state of affairs, a state of affairs that cannot endure in the long run. Sooner or later, even those who today are prepared to accept anything the European Union passes because it is the European Union, even those who care about democracy but these matters do not matter as much to them, even nationalists in the Northern Ireland Assembly, those who are not unionists, will say: “Hold on a moment, surely we should be making and devising and formulating the laws for the people we represent”. They may not wish to be part of the United Kingdom, but they do not want to have laws imposed upon them by a group of countries which make these laws in their own interests. They do not consult with anyone in Northern Ireland—nationalist, unionist or anyone. So I make a plea on behalf of everybody in Northern Ireland. Citizens and elected representatives of all shades should be saying: “Hold on a minute, we would like to actually make these laws for ourselves”. But here we are, once again, looking at a piece of legislation which applies European law because it is in Annex 2 of the protocol.

I am not going to go through all the issues that the previous speakers have raised. The point about consultation is an extremely important one. The Explanatory Memorandum implies, more or less, that because there is no room for amendment, the legislation must be imposed in Northern Ireland because the EU has decided this and passed this. There is no room for getting rid of it. Therefore, what is the point of consultation? That is, in essence, what the consultation part of the Explanatory Memorandum says on the regulatory divergence point.

As in so many cases, we are now told that while the rest of the United Kingdom may come into line with EU regulations and therefore mitigate the frictions between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, often that is vague, often it is not 100%, and often it is very delayed. What happens in the meantime? I would be grateful if the Minister could outline in more detail the implications of regulatory divergence between Great Britain and Northern Ireland—between the immediate implementation of this statutory instrument and the current position in the rest of the United Kingdom.

The impact on small and medium-sized businesses has been mentioned. I note too that paragraph 9.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum states:

“There is an impact on the public sector because the enforcing authorities … are the Northern Ireland district councils”.


I hear from council members all the time about the straitened fiscal position they find themselves in. They are being lumbered continually with more and more investigatory, regulatory, enforcement and monitoring obligations and responsibilities as a result of European regulation. It is made much more difficult because they are now in a unique position of having to police this without any back-up or support elsewhere in the United Kingdom, because it does not apply elsewhere in the United Kingdom. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us what resources will be given to district councils in this and other cases where they face greater regulatory monitoring and enforcement obligations as a result of the Windsor Framework.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that. I am sure that, as a former Minister, she will know that we will try our best to get that done swiftly. Further to her question on the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism, CBAM, we have always been clear that we will apply the UK’s CBAM across the UK, including in Northern Ireland, and that the EU’s CBAM does not apply to Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee yesterday wrote to the Government on this issue and we will respond in the usual way.

My noble friend Lady Ritchie and the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, also asked about veterinary measures. The vast majority of veterinary medicine will remain available in Northern Ireland from 1 January. The Government continue to engage extensively with industry and have announced two new schemes to support supply to Northern Ireland.

I come now to the question posed by the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, on impact assessments. An impact assessment has not been prepared for this instrument, as measures resulting from the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 are out of scope for assessment. However, my officials have engaged in discussions with a range of industry stakeholders and government departments on Commission delegated regulation (EU) 2022/30 and have not identified any significant impacts or concerns for this instrument. We therefore expect limited impacts, if any, on the supply of goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

As I have set out, this instrument ensures effective implementation in Northern Ireland of Commission delegated regulation (EU) 2022/30, which applies additional essential requirements for manufacturers of certain radio equipment and enables them to be enforced. As a former businessperson, I am constantly encouraging my colleagues at the Department for Business and Trade to engage regularly with micro and small businesses. The Government are committed to engaging and supporting all businesses, not only in Great Britain but across Northern Ireland.

Many businesses have already prepared to comply with these new essential requirements, which came into force on 1 August this year, in order to continue to supply the EU. My officials have not identified significant impacts on this instrument in discussions with industry stakeholders, including trade associations. This is because many businesses have already adapted to these new requirements. We therefore expect the impact on the flow of goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland to be very limited.

This instrument ensures our compliance with international law in relation to Northern Ireland’s continuing dual access. I am therefore pleased to commend this statutory instrument to the House.

[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.

Amendment to the Motion withdrawn.