My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response, particularly for his commitment to unionists and to the union. I appreciate that he has had to stray—or perhaps not—off his brief, which is business to do with Defra. Noble Lords will realise that the problem with a debate such as this is that we do not get many opportunities to discuss anything about the constitutional position of Northern Ireland and the wider aspects that the Windsor Framework has brought about. Tonight, although this statutory instrument has been widened, we have seen some of that debate. The Minister might suggest to his noble friend sitting beside him, the noble Lord, Lord Caine, that we have a proper debate, in government time, on the situation in Northern Ireland and the whole question of the constitutional position so that we do not have to have these statutory instrument debates.
Having said that, I thank everyone who has spoken. It has been a very interesting debate. I really appreciate that some noble Lords spoke who were not from Northern Ireland. I was particularly pleased that the noble Lords, Lord Jackson and Lord Moylan, spoke, as did the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who made a comment which will resonate with many people—that the very quiet majority in Great Britain do support Northern Ireland being part of the union. The Government and His Majesty’s Opposition might sometimes bear that in mind.
Tonight we have seen general support for the regret Motion. It is interesting that we do not get many people speaking against it; we never seem to on Northern Ireland issues. It is simply the same numbers of us who come along, so it was particularly good to have those from outside Northern Ireland speak tonight. We also
saw an agreement that there must be a fundamentally different approach from the Government to deal with this. It is not going to go away. It is not going to be accepted by pro-union people in Northern Ireland.
The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, referred to the many questions, debates and discussions that we had on the protocol. When I look back to them, everyone was saying how wonderful it was and how we must accept it. Then, suddenly, it shifted; everyone was saying, “No, no, we’ve got to change”, and that is when we got the Windsor Framework. We are now in that same position. The Windsor Framework is not going to work. It is not sustainable. It is not going to bring about democratic institutions again in Northern Ireland. We really must start thinking about why Northern Ireland was left out so much in the negotiations over the EU settlement. Even at this stage, the Government must rethink. I hope that the Labour Opposition, if they are going to be in government, will realise that this is something that they will have to deal with if the Government do nothing about it in the meantime.
This is a regret Motion. Every time that we have regret Motions we do not vote. People back in Northern Ireland and in other places say to me, “What’s the point of a regret Motion if you don’t actually show that you have regret?” Therefore, I would like to press this to a vote. I hope that at least some noble Lords will feel that, if they cannot actually oppose their Government on this and support my Motion, they can abstain.