Lord Dodds: The Windsor Framework isn’t working. It’s time for the Mutual Enforcement solution

Members of Parliament in both Houses struggle to elicit clear answers to Parliamentary questions designed to probe the far-reaching implications of EU law being applied to Northern Ireland, how red and green lanes will operate in practice and the timetable for implementation.

There has never been a vote on the Framework as a whole, only on individual pieces of secondary legislation of varying degrees of importance.

Sometimes they attract attention such as last week when the Government sacked 5 of its own MPs from a committee to force through the new border for sending parcels to Northern Ireland with greater customs formalities than anything seen thus far.

Such occasional debates highlight the reality of what the Government is actually doing versus the spin it tries to peddle.

Mostly, however, the steady building of the Irish Sea border and increased divergence proceeds under the radar through low-key Parliamentary procedures.

The newly published Select Committee Report, therefore, comes as a welcome overview of what is actually happening.

It is of course a balanced piece of work but it will make uncomfortable reading for the Government.

One key conclusion is that the Windsor Framework renders the situation worse in many areas compared to what has been experienced up to now.

The original Protocol was unworkable and could not be implemented without doing major damage to Northern Ireland’s economy. That led to grace periods and easements.

Now these are to be done away with and replaced with the more burdensome provisions of the Windsor Framework .

The report points to a far greater use of the onerous red lane, with its full EU customs and other checks, for many goods staying in Northern Ireland than previously thought.

It lists retailers which are not able to meet the green lane’s requirements, as well as meat for processing, live animals, poultry, dairy, agri-intermediate goods and grain for animal consumption, goods for manufacturing as well as goods where there is any uncertainty over the end destination.

That’s a considerable amount of trade and is at odds with the claim by Rishi Sunak that the Framework does away with any sense of an Irish Sea border. And there will still be new paperwork and checks for goods moving in the so-called green lane.

The unnecessary imposition of EU laws on Northern Ireland businesses and consumers could put Northern Ireland businesses at a competitive disadvantage in their own market given Great Britain retailers will be able to avoid EU red tape.

Regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK is now embedded and is one of the biggest concerns for business.

For all its talk of disapplying 1,700 pages of EU law from Northern Ireland, the main basis for the Government’s statistic appears to be the 65 EU acts listed in Annex 1 of the EU regulation on rules relating to movements of retail goods moving through the green lane.

While these laws are disapplied for the movement of goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland via the green lane, they will apply for movement of goods via the red lane, and for all goods produced in Northern Ireland itself.

No wonder the Government doesn’t want to answer questions on the topic.

Significantly the Committee finds there has been no substantive change to the Court of Justice of the European Union‘s role as the final arbiter of EU law falling within the scope of the Windsor framework.

EU VAT rules continue to apply in Northern Ireland for goods as a default. Northern Ireland and indeed the rest of the UK are still subject to EU State Aid rules which will bring much uncertainty and inevitably end in prolonged court proceedings.

The supply of over 50 per cent of veterinary medicines to Northern Ireland is at risk as no agreement has been reached posing a risk both to animal and human health.

The movement from Great Britain to Northern Ireland for the planting of a large number of trees and plants, including several of key importance to the ecosystem, remain prohibited.

The Windsor Framework renders us worse off in terms of the Irish Sea border and creates greater checks and barriers to trade with the rest of the UK compared to what we have experienced thus far with grace periods and easements.

A way must be found to restore Northern Ireland’s place in the UK and with it the restoration of devolution at Stormont.

The Mutual Enforcement solution – set out by the Centre for Brexit Policy – and previous government proposals contained in the Protocol Bill suggest ideas that could produce a way through the impasse.

The current position is unlikely to deliver the progress we all wish to see.

Lord Dodds is former deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party. This article first appeared on the website conservativehome.com