Debate contribution: Windsor Framework

Debate contribution by Dr Steve Aiken OBE on 8 September 2025.

MLA

Dr Steve Aiken OBE

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

8 September 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Windsor Framework

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5068151

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I ask the Assembly to support our amendment to the important motion. There is a subtle difference between what the DUP has proposed and what we are saying. I declare an interest as a Member who supported the Remain campaign and as somebody who was involved in discussions with the then Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, to whom my party and I suggested the idea of a greater consent principle in the Northern Ireland Assembly. We even suggested that an Assembly Committee could act as part of that safeguard. For my sin of hubris, I now sit on the Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee. As many of you have heard from me, or as those of you who have served on the Committee will know, it has categorically failed in its duties, in that it is barely democratic, it does not do much scrutiny, and, worst, for any Committee in the Northern Ireland Assembly, it is remarkably incurious about EU rules and regulations within the very wide remit of the Windsor framework and the Northern Ireland protocol, which is, in fact, growing. It is to that point that our amendment speaks directly. Every Member here who is not blinded by pro-EU or pro-united Ireland ideology must see that the checks, balances and controls of the Windsor framework are not working. Although we welcome the work that Lord Murphy did in his recent report — indeed, we have called for the adoption of his recommendations — it does not go far enough. I know Lord Murphy. He and I have worked on various committees covering the alphabet soup of British-Irish relationships. I knew him before I was even involved in politics. Lord Murphy gets it. Lord Murphy understands the issues. Anybody who understands Lord Murphy, who has read the report closely or who gave evidence as part of the report process, like I and some others here did, will know that the clear point is that he knows that trade diversion is occurring. Trade diversion is not just occurring; it is accelerating. We have heard many people say that a lot of the problems would be resolved by the SPS agreement. We have heard quite a lot of talk about the SPS agreement because it was going to answer the problems in a relatively short period of time. Indeed, that was going to happen in such a short period of time that the Welsh Government, who are, of course, Labour, consulted with the British Government, who are, of course, Labour as well, about spending significant amounts of extra public money on building border support facilities in places such as Holyhead and Fishguard. They have decided that, because of the SPS agreement's coming into place, there is no need whatsoever to spend that money, and, so, that money is not being spent. They have decided that that money can be used for other things, such as additional police, nurses and doctors. However, the Agriculture Minister here in Northern Ireland has stated on several occasions that he wishes to be a faithful implementer. The Secretary of State has used the words "faithful implementation" as well. Faithful implementation works on the assumption that it is going to happen fairly rapidly. My learned friend the Chair of the Agriculture Committee will probably talk to this when he is making his winding-up speech: the SPS agreement is not going to be enacted until about 2028, which is three years away. In the meantime, we will build border infrastructure — it is nearly finished — in Larne, Belfast, Warrenpoint and other places as part of the faithful implementation of that agreement, yet other parts of the United Kingdom will not be implementing it.

I very much thank the Member for her intervention. I take issue with her figure of about £500 million; it is a lot more than that. It is interesting that every time that I, our wonderful MP for South Antrim, Robin Swann, or even some of our Lords have asked those questions, we have not got any answers from the British Government. Lord Elliott asked a question on the Floor and got a written response that mentions a figure of about £160 million, but that is for only a very specific area, not for all the other areas that are involved. We were also told very clearly that, within the consent process for looking at the Windsor framework, there would be break points and the ability for us as an Assembly — that means not just people on these Benches but everybody here — to hold the process to account. The first one was on applicability motions. When the first applicability motion came before the Assembly, we voted on it, and, because it did not pass with cross-community consent, it was deemed to have failed, except, of course, that the Secretary of State did not action it. The second one did not even arrive on time, because the applicability motion was already making its way through the various stages in the House of Commons and we could not even intervene. That should be a concern for every single person in the Chamber, because this issue should have been dealt with as it was part of the consent mechanism and system as well. We have heard about the Stormont brake. We tried to apply the Stormont brake. We brought it through, followed the process, but that was ignored as well. I will say to the Secretary of State that he has probably put into action a lot of the things that were requested that would fix the problems with the Stormont brake. He has put some of those into action, but not all of them. If there is to be faith that we, as an Assembly, have any voice on these things, we must be able to make it heard clearly. My concern is that, every time that we seem to do anything in here, the Secretary of State — let us be honest, it is probably Erskine House or the NIO — gets to a point and then says, "Oh, we are faithfully implementing it, and we do not want to offend anybody". We have heard that time and time again. Many of us who regularly visit Europe or go to Brussels have good friends in the Irish Government and with people across the whole process. We ask time and time again what "faithful implementation" means. A very interesting event happened not so long ago when a certain president on the other side of the Atlantic decided that there was going to be a differential in tax, particularly with taxes on goods going to the United States. There is a differential in that taxation regime, because Northern Ireland would be at the United Kingdom rate and the Republic of Ireland would be at the EU rate. Behind the scenes, many Irish officials were telling people that they were looking at the provisions of the Northern Ireland protocol so that they could call a temporary break in that process. There is a temporary break in that process because there would be — what is it, everybody? — a diversion in trade. There was going to be a significant diversion in trade. Those conversations are ongoing, and I understand that Simon Harris and his officials have been putting their feelers out to try to address that situation so that we can understand it. We are in a situation where the Republic of Ireland, rightly or wrongly, considers that there is going to be a major diversion in trade, and in Northern Ireland, there is a major diversion in trade. Rather than tearing up the entire Windsor framework completely, which will probably be difficult to do under international law, the key issue is that there should be break points in the Windsor framework that the Secretary of State should be adopting. We should be going to the point of saying, "Let us pause this to stop the diversion until such times as the SPS agreement gets across the line, and then we can look at it again". That is what people normally do during trade discussions. Those are the issues.

I thank the Member for that. It is not just Northern Ireland businesses that are having those issues; it is businesses in the whole of the United Kingdom. Indeed, if people were honest, we would find that it is an issue across the whole of these islands, because there are many complaints from Irish businesses that are trying to —.

1,422 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:57 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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