Radio Equipment (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2025

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare two interests. I am a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which considered this statutory instrument, and a member of the Government’s Veterinary Medicine Working Group. This is important because those interests are relevant to the general debate on the Windsor Framework. I welcome my noble friend the Minister to this debate and to the ongoing issue of the Windsor Framework.

I acknowledge the regret amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, but that does not mean that I agree with it. I am a firm supporter of the Windsor Framework. I believe we should seek to get back into the European Union because that is the best way to represent our interests. We should be working towards dual market access—not decrying dual market access but actively supporting businesses that are seeking to achieve the benefits of dual market access, not only for their businesses but for the wider community in Northern Ireland.

I remind noble Lords that the root cause of the problem is Brexit. Various events over the past 17 years have undermined the UK economy. We had the economic crash in 2008, which impacted many global economies. We had Brexit in 2016. We had Covid-19 and all the payments for that. Then we had the money to invest in defence for Ukraine and in defence of democracy, and to build up resilience against other powers, such as Russia.

In this instance, Brexit ushered in the Northern Ireland protocol and then the Windsor Framework to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland. I personally do not have a problem with that, as we argued back in 2016 that special arrangements were required on the island of Ireland, where two jurisdictions and two systems would apply. Hence, we have the UK internal market and EU single market. I make a plea that politicians of whatever hue should be encouraging people and businesses to avail themselves of dual market access, and it is wrong to decry them. I remind those who argued for the hardest form of Brexit, either in this House or in the other place, that in some ways we are paying for the consequences of that.

It was remarked on that our committee did not receive any submissions or comments relating to the Windsor Framework for this statutory instrument. That was a surprise, because we have received voluminous comments for other statutory instruments related to the framework. Also, the Government have undertaken stakeholder engagement with a cross-representation of stakeholders, including industry, trade associations and other government departments with an interest. Like my noble friend the Minister said, it will be subject to further review as part of the radio equipment directive provisions in Northern Ireland. I hope that that will prove productive.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

At the commencement of her address to the Chamber, the noble Baroness said that she was a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. I noticed that its 39th report said, at paragraph 35, that the Department for Business and Trade

“therefore does not anticipate ‘any significant impacts’ on the supply of relevant products from Great Britain to NI”.

If the reality turns out to be that there is a significant impact, could the noble Baroness, who supports the Windsor Framework, tell us how it could be rectified?

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. I sincerely hope that there are no particular difficulties, but if there are any hiccups in the situation, I hope that, as part of that, the challenges and the operational difficulties that have presented themselves over the last number of months can be ironed out, and that we have a listening Government who will do everything within their power, working with the EU, to ensure that that is the case.

I will move on to what else I want to say. Undoubtedly, we need to resolve the challenges, the delays, and businesses’ lack of knowledge around the Windsor Framework. Therefore, I ask my noble friend the Minister to outline when we will receive the responses to the following reports, which highlighted those operational difficulties and challenges, and the lack of knowledge for businesses operating within the Windsor Framework. Those reports are: the independent monitoring report, published two weeks ago; my noble friend Lord Murphy’s independent review, published in September; and the report of our Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee, of which I, the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, and the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, are members. We discussed those issues yesterday. When will the Government respond to those three reports, which all highlighted the need for a resolution to the operational difficulties? If operational difficulties and challenges exist for businesses, they should be resolved. To go back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, I imagine that is probably what he is referring to, rather than an outright rejection of the Windsor Framework.

Furthermore, as the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, has said, we also need answers on CBAM, and we need clarification. What will this mean for people’s electricity supply, taking on board that we have a single electricity market on the island of Ireland? We need to know what framework will be operational from 1 January 2026. What discussions have taken place with the EU regarding those interim arrangements for Northern Ireland? I have spoken with representatives from Manufacturing NI, and they have told me that they have had no discussions with the Government since November 2024. I say gently to my noble friend the Minister on the Front Bench that this needs to be resolved quickly. I urge him to work with his ministerial colleagues in the department responsible to resolve these issues and to provide clarity and clarification for businesses and all those involved in manufacturing.

Finally, reference has been made to veterinary medicines and the ongoing difficulties and challenges there. We need a resolution to those issues, which are largely of a market and regulatory nature, and we need to know how many authorisations will be available and how many—because of pack size—will not. We need clear, professional guidance to be issued urgently and communicated to veterinarians and farmers in Northern Ireland. I understand that the BVA and NOAH would be willing to help with this, but we need that briefing in relation to the veterinary medicines directive to go directly to veterinarians, the BVA and farmers. We also need an industry-level co-ordination group to be established to share confidential, category-level supply risk signals, because much of this information, as I know from the Veterinary Medicines Working Group, is confidential and commercial in confidence. It should also be able to agree clinical fallback pathways for when authorised products are unavailable and be able to use the two systems that, thankfully, the Government have brought forward, and co-ordinate communication to vets, SQPs—or suitably qualified persons—and probably agricultural merchants, practices and producers.

I urge the Minister to obtain clarity on those various areas as they relate to the operational challenges and difficulties faced by those who have to work under the auspices of the Windsor Framework. For clarity, I support the Windsor Framework; I would like to see a route back to the European Union, because I believe in full democratic accountability. That can be achieved only through that mechanism and not by decrying the Windsor Framework, because that simply, in many ways, is a denial of democracy, when people argued for the hardest possible Brexit.