Northern Ireland After Brexit (Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee Report)

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee Northern Ireland after Brexit: Strengthening Northern Ireland’s voice in the context of the Windsor Framework (1st Report, HL Paper 182).

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, has pulled out of the debate because she has a Motion in the Chamber.

It is a great privilege to chair the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee, which was appointed in January 2025. In October 2025 we produced our first report—the one we are dealing with today—examining the Windsor Framework. If those two words, “Windsor” and “framework”, conjure in the minds of noble Lords castle-like, symmetrical architecture, a secure moat and fine gardens, think again. We are here under a remarkable Victorian painting of Moses bringing down the tables from the mountain. It is a piece of strong evidence that, if you produce a document that is short, it lasts rather longer than one that is much more complicated—but I do not think that was part of the thinking when the Windsor Framework was created.

In reality, the Windsor Framework is a complex amalgam of diplomacy, politics and sheer necessity, conjured from shakily designed foundations. To me, it bears all the characteristics of having occurred, rather than having been designed. However, it is what Northern Ireland has to live with; it affects everyday life at every level, from the esoterics of company and competition law to the humble task of everyday shopping for it affects consumers above all others, probably. I shall give a small example. Somebody who wishes to buy new socks or a mixing machine from a GB supplier may not be able to do so, because of the duties on the packaging in which their purchase would be brought and because of the bureaucratic complexities that make it all too much trouble for some suppliers in Great Britain to supply to Northern Ireland.

As the committee, we devoted ourselves from the very beginning to the interests of consumers, producers and everything in between, but above all to the public in Northern Ireland. We relied for our report on a large body of evidence and spent time in Northern Ireland talking to stakeholders, including businesses large and small, and, importantly, social enterprises, which are also affected.

I thank my parliamentary colleagues on the committee for their assiduous attention to the evidence, and their constructive and purposeful contribution to the discussion. I know that members of the committee will share this: I particularly thank the clerk of the committee, Liam McNulty, our expert advising counsel, Tim Mitchell, our organising genius, Breda Twomey, and all the secretariat, for their extraordinary contributions. The newly established committee functioned efficiently, was properly briefed on all relevant subjects and was able to produce a full and reasoned report. We are very fortunate in your Lordships’ House to be blessed with staff of such quality to help us in what we do.

The committee’s membership includes a wide range of views on the constitutional status of Northern Ireland and on the protocol and Windsor Framework. Despite colleagues’ divergent views and strong opinions on some issues of principle, I emphasise that it is notable that the report was agreed unanimously. This imbues added force in the conclusions reached by the committee.

We are grateful too for His Majesty’s Government’s positive response to the report—mostly, at least. We recognise the care and attention that Ministers and officials have given to our deliberations in expressing some continuing concerns. I look forward to the Minister’s contribution later in the debate. As noble Lords know, the noble Baroness has a large fan club in your Lordships’ House, and I am one of its members. I ask her not to disappoint me.

We look forward to the EU-UK reset agreement. In that context, I point out a serious matter: the relevance of our report for the formation of some important reset subjects, such as the arrangements for energy supply in Northern Ireland, and the shape and detail of the proposed sanitary and phytosanitary, or SPS, agreement—a phrase I have become used to since I began to chair the committee—which I hope will simplify border and related arrangements for agri-food products between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The issues we have covered and reported on concern Northern Ireland’s voice and stakeholder engagement. I hope that the report will provide important lessons for the prospective dynamic alignment between Great Britain and the EU, which the European Affairs Committee of your Lordships’ House is examining as part of a current inquiry. Our report endorsed proposals to ensure that Northern Ireland’s voice is enhanced at an early stage of every relevant part of the EU’s complex legislative process. This can be done, in particular, through greater resourcing and capability in the United Kingdom mission in Brussels, working closely with the Northern Ireland Civil Service to shape relevant European Commission proposals.

The importance of these points is that, despite the restoration of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing institutions in February 2024, witnesses to our inquiry told us that issues relating to the Windsor Framework, as currently administered, have the capacity to create instability if not handled carefully by the Government and politicians. Thus, our report seeks to improve on the current situation for the benefit of the people of Northern Ireland as a whole. The emphasis of our approach is on the experiences of real people, notwithstanding the vagaries of political life and institutions.

I am delighted by the presence in this debate of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen. He is an admired former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—even better, we were Welsh MPs together—whose statutory Independent Review of the Windsor Framework was presented to Parliament last September. Unsurprisingly —I know that the noble Lord was not at all surprised—our report and his very good report, which has been accepted fully by the Government, have a great deal in common.

The noble Lord focused, as did we, on the increasingly complex governance structure of the framework. A snapshot of the effect of that structure is to be found on the organogram on pages 24 and 25 of our report—I know we are not supposed to hold up illustrations in Grand Committee, but I will—which sets out in magnificent graphic confusion the numerous locations across the EU, the UK Government, the UK Parliament, the Northern Ireland Executive, the Northern Ireland Assembly and elsewhere where the mechanisms of the Windsor Framework can be found. It illustrates the confusion, rather than accessible solutions, and we have clearly identified the need to solve the problem of accessibility.

We followed and amplified several of the findings of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, particularly in relation to the timing and resourcing constraints under which the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee, the DSC, has to work. We are delighted that in one of its many positive responses to both the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and ourselves, the Government have undertaken to re-examine the timescales and required information under which the DSC has to work. It is difficult being a member of the DSC under current arrangements.

We are grateful to the Government for their full response, dated 6 February 2026. Many of our recommendations found favour with the Government, but not all. On the negative side, the Government told us that for stakeholders who have difficulties with European legal provisions and issues, the EUR-Lex website provides an accessible and acceptable digest of information on EU law. Those legal provisions are important, because they may affect everyday trade, particularly for SMEs trying to make their way in business. However, in taking evidence recently, since our report was published, it has become very clear that in reality it is accessible for exploration only by highly paid, black-letter lawyers and provides little assistance to businesses and social enterprises who do not wish to line the entreating pockets of my learned friends.

One very positive development is the Government’s acceptance of the recommendation of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, of a one-stop shop for Windsor Framework-connected inquiries. This was a leading recommendation of his report. The one-stop shop, especially its triage system, uses the best available practices, including the services of artificial intelligence, and should enable businesses quickly to find the answers to real, everyday questions that are asked, but we need to know more about it. Who will run it, the Government or private enterprise? When will it start? It has been suggested that it will be created during the 2026-27 tax year, so will Northern Ireland traders have to wait another 18 months or two years before it exists in any meaningful form? Is it going to be trialled and tested by real people in real industries, so that they can show whether it works?

Whether the business concerned is selling organic eggs to Great Britain or wishes to purchase raw materials in the EU for product manufacture in a bigger supply chain, the one-stop shop and increased legal clarity will, we hope, be a beneficial outcome of the reports from the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and ourselves. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, who is a valuable member of our committee, is unable to be with us today. He has made two valuable points, which I have told him I will pass on.

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[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

I was just dealing with some points about the one-stop shop that our colleague the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, had raised. First, the one-stop shop really must emphasise its services to traders in Great Britain who wish to trade with Northern Ireland. It is important that they should know what is available to them. Secondly, if the one-stop shop happens to give a trader advice that is wrong, as long as that trader is acting in good faith on that advice, there should be a waiver of any consequent penalties—for example, tax penalties that arise from the actions of the trader in question.

I turn next to the issue widely described as the democratic deficit arising from the 2019 protocol. The history, political institutions and social and community context of Northern Ireland make the democratic deficit an extremely important issue. In our report, we make it clear that, in our view, not enough has been done to mitigate, let alone resolve, this fundamental issue, which causes profound political division in Northern Ireland. With this in mind, our report focuses positively on the ways in which Northern Ireland stakeholders can more effectively participate in the Windsor Framework structures. We believe that our proposals, if followed, will enhance Northern Ireland’s voice in the operation of the framework and promote greater transparency, and not just greater public understanding but some public understanding of the framework.

On behalf of our committee, I express the hope that there will be an easing of complexity as a result of the contributions that we and the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, have made and that real-world business on the ground will find it easier to work with partners in the European Union and Great Britain. The future of the Windsor Framework’s functionality requires a new impetus, with a fresh sense of purpose wisely advocated by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and our report. I commend the report to the Committee.

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[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 Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister. Is she saying that something better than EUR-Lex will be part of the one-stop shop, and that legal problems will therefore be solvable through that structure?

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

I am. Noble Lords heard it here first. Perhaps I do have a little power, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said—or rather, the people behind me do.

My noble friend Lord Murphy touched on the SPS agreement and how important it is. We are currently negotiating with the EU on an SPS agreement to make agri-food trade with our biggest market cheaper and easier, cutting costs and removing barriers to trade for producers and retailers across the whole of the UK. The agreement will benefit Northern Ireland through the interplay with the Windsor Framework, by making a more consistent approach to agri-food and plants. We will smooth the flows of trade still further. On 9 March, the Government provided an update on the changes this would entail for businesses. This includes a call for information from businesses so that the Government can understand exactly what they need.

My noble friends Lord Murphy and Lord Hain asked about the Office of the Northern Ireland Executive in Brussels and the investment provided. The Government have agreed to provide funding to this office to cover up to three additional posts to ensure that Northern Ireland’s interests are accounted for in Brussels and that EU policy-making is accounted for in Belfast.

Parity of esteem was raised by my noble friend Lord Murphy. This seems particularly apt given how close we are to the anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. We are committed to the agreement in all respects, which of course includes parity of esteem for the identities and aspirations of both communities. The application of the Windsor Framework does not shake that commitment.

Gently, I want to touch on the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lilley. He raised many issues related to how we got to this point and the question of what is temporary. I was given a slight history lesson earlier today about how many pieces of legislation have the word “temporary” in them, and that has not exactly been an unusual part of our legislative framework historically. I gently suggest that the agreements we have been discussing today were signed by his party when in government, and my party is trying to make the Windsor Framework work for the people of Northern Ireland, which is why we are also currently in the process of resetting the relationship.

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

The Government have made a decision that we will focus on helping people work with it, rather than keeping a list, so that we can make sure that people have the support they need as they try to navigate the impact on their businesses and on their trade.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

I apologise for intervening again, but will the Minister agree to meet me to discuss a way in which EUR-Lex change can be incorporated in the one-stop shop, possibly including some very simple ways of using existing techniques to simplify complex legal issues?

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

How could I ever turn down an invitation from the noble Lord? Of course, I am more than happy to meet him to go over the debate. More importantly, officials can be there to make sure that what he wants is reflected so that we can actually make this work. We are taking a pragmatic approach to try to make this work and make it as easy as possible, while at the same time hoping to negotiate an SPS deal that takes away a great many of the issues we are talking about.

No one could doubt for a second the commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Caine, to the people of Northern Ireland and to trying to make these issues work. He touched on the issues of Safeguarding the Union and his PQs—obviously, I sign off every one. I realise that I am now over time, but I am more than happy to have a meeting with the noble Lord to discuss Safeguarding the Union, if that is acceptable to him.

I want to reassure noble Lords on some points, starting with noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, whom I assure that the interface will be user-friendly—or else—and will be focused UK-wide. The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, asked about hauliers, and I hope I have responded to her in full. If I have not, I will look at what she said and come back to her.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, asked me about parliamentary committees in the other place. She will be aware that how it chooses to engage is a matter for the other place, and for Parliament as a whole, but I am delighted that noble Lords had the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee doing this very important work. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and the noble Baroness that we have accepted all the noble Lord’s recommendations and are seeking to implement them—one of the questions touched on that.

The noble Lord, Lord Caine, asked me about future legislation. I reassure him that we will talk about this—I would suggest in this Room, but possibly on the Floor of the House—in the next Session, subject to me now getting told off by the Chief Whip.

In conclusion, the message from this debate is clear: we must continue to listen to and act on the voices of businesses and civic society in delivering Northern Ireland’s trading arrangements. I give the Committee the continued commitment of the Government today that we will always take practical actions on concerns to protect the UK internal market and flow of goods, be that east-west or north-south. As we do so, our focus will remain on the prize of delivering real prosperity, where Northern Ireland remains one of the fastest-growing economies of the UK, in part thanks to its unique trading position and businesses having certainty about the facilitations available to move their goods under the Windsor Framework.

However, I am aware of the ongoing complexities of how this is operating on the ground and, on that basis, I will visit Northern Ireland very soon. Noble Lords, especially those in Northern Ireland, will be aware that I am not allowed to say exactly when, but I will be in Northern Ireland imminently to see how the Windsor Framework is operating on the ground. I will meet key stakeholders who are delivering this, as well as businesses, to see what next steps the Government should consider.

The Government will support only those trading arrangements for Northern Ireland that protect its place in the UK and its internal market, avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland and can be agreed. While there is more to be done to ensure that Northern Ireland’s voice is heard in London, Belfast and Brussels, the Windsor Framework really does provide the best basis for that, and we are committed to working alongside our partners in the Northern Ireland Executive and the EU institutions as we take it forward, alongside new agreements with the EU, so that we may build an even brighter and more prosperous future for people in Northern Ireland and across the whole United Kingdom.

I again thank the committee for its report and I look forward to continuing to work with it in the coming months—I really hope that I did not disappoint my noble friend Lord Carlile. On that final note, I wish all members of the committee a happy Easter and chag Pesach sameach.

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[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I will give a short wind up, because we have had a very full debate and I am very grateful to all those who have spoken. I start, however, by correcting an earlier omission. I failed to thank my noble friend Lord Jay for the work that the previous sub-committee did, which helped to set us up, and indeed for what members do not know, which was his kindness to me when I was appointed chair of this committee. He gave me what was a very well-concealed short tutorial, which was of enormous value to me, so I thank him very much. I am very grateful particularly to the Minister, of course, who has not disappointed me at all, and to the noble Lord, Lord Caine, who showed his objective commitment to these issues.

The Division Bell is ringing, so I shall curtail my wind up into a couple of sentences and then we can go and vote. I thank everyone for the part they played in this debate, and in all the issues we have considered. I do not believe that we are looking at pandemonium, a word coined by Milton to describe living hell. I think Northern Ireland is a very good place these days. I have known Northern Ireland through the time I was Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation; it was not always the great place it is now, and we are simply trying to make things better by asking the Government to take the steps that are necessary, and which they appear to accept, to make Northern Ireland that much better a place.

Motion agreed.