The structures of the Windsor Framework are “ineffective, opaque and overly bureaucratic”, according to DUP leader Gavin Robinson.
Mr Robinson said that the post-Brexit trading agreement could never be effective until fundamental issues around lack of consent from unionists are addressed.
SDLP Stormont leader Matthew O’Toole said that while he supported the framework, he believed there needed to be improvements in how Northern Ireland voices were heard within its structures.
The House of Lords Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee has been holding evidence sessions examining the operation of the deal.
The Windsor Framework was agreed between the UK and the EU in 2023, amending the Northern Ireland Protocol and governs post-Brexit trading arrangements.
The DUP later reached the Safeguarding the Union deal with the previous UK government to further reduce some checks and paperwork on goods moving from the rest of the UK into Northern Ireland, leading to the restoration of the powersharing Executive at Stormont last year.
However, many unionists remain opposed to the framework, stating it creates a new regulatory border within the United Kingdom and because Northern Ireland continues to follow some EU laws relating to goods.
Robinson has little ‘faith in current structures’
During his appearance before the committee, Mr Robinson was asked to assess the extent to which voices in Northern Ireland could be heard through the structures of the framework.
He said: “I don’t have a lot of faith in the current structures.
“When you consider the ability for politicians, parliamentarians, stakeholders, businesses, to engage with them.
“The structures around the Windsor Framework, though they may have evolved, are ineffective, opaque and overly bureaucratic.
“They frustrate the ability for ordinary, routine and at times complex and serious engagement to either satisfy, resolve or ameliorate some of the harmful impositions that Northern Ireland finds itself in under these arrangements.”
The DUP leader added: “I believe it cannot ever be effective until the fundamentals are resolved around the imposition that Northern Ireland was placed in without the consent of any elected unionist in Northern Ireland, without the consent of party colleagues in Westminster.”
In December, MLAs at Stormont voted to continue with the current arrangements for at least another four years in a democratic consent motion, which was part of the arrangements agreed between the UK and the EU.
However, unlike other votes at Stormont, there was no requirement for cross-community support for the motion.
Mr Robinson said: “Though we have gone through a cycle of a parliamentary vote in Assembly terms in December of 2024, an inversion of cross-community protections.
“A false choice, do you wish this imposition to continue for a period of eight years or four years with a potential review?
“I don’t believe they have been effective at all and if the Government were serious about increasing the opportunity to have voices heard and engage fundamentally in the propositions that are causing material impact, both constitutionally and practically in Northern Ireland, then they wouldn’t only find an effective mechanism for that engagement but they would look at the fundamentals.”
He added: “We have at the heart of this an agreement between the UK and the EU where they decide what is going to happen to Northern Ireland without any recourse to the citizenry of Northern Ireland or the elected representatives.
“Then you have the attempt or the added aspects of inclusion and participation but without any substantial or meaningful outworkings of that participation or inclusion.”
Room for improvement, SDLP says
Mr O’Toole told the committee that Brexit had led to “real political division and controversy in Northern Ireland”.
“I do think there can be a degree of, if not consensus, then some degree of agreement that we can improve the mechanisms by which stakeholders in Northern Ireland – be they politicians, business groups, trade unions, other parts of civic society – can have their voice heard in relation to the provisions of the protocol/Windsor Framework,” he said.
“I think they improved somewhat after the Windsor Framework was agreed in spring 2023, but I don’t think they are there yet.
“Northern Ireland is in the position of being subject to a cohort of EU law, obviously I strongly support that as a necessity, but I probably do agree that our voice could be better heard in terms of making those laws or at least understanding how they are going to apply in Northern Ireland.”
Mr O’Toole added: “The summary answer is not quite where it should be, and I say that as someone who supports the provisions of the Windsor Framework and the protocol.”
