Call for Evidence

Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee inquiry on Strengthening Northern Ireland’s Voice in the context of the Windsor Framework: Public Call for Written Evidence

The Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee was appointed in January 2025 to consider matters related to the implementation of the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland and the Windsor Framework.

The new Committee is conducting an inquiry into strengthening Northern Ireland’s voice in the context of the Windsor Framework. This new inquiry will take full account of the evidence taken by the former European Affairs Sub-Committee on the Windsor Framework.

The Committee would like to invite you to submit written evidence on any of the questions below which are relevant to you or your organisation. If there are other groups and individuals who you think may be interested in responding, then please do bring this call for evidence to their attention.

Diversity comes in many forms, and hearing from a range of different perspectives means that Committees are better informed and can more effectively scrutinise public policy and legislation. Committees can undertake their role most effectively when they hear from a wide range of individuals, sectors or groups in society affected by a particular policy or piece of legislation. We encourage anyone with experience or expertise of the issues under investigation to share their views with the committee, with the full knowledge that their views have value and are welcome.

The new Committee particularly welcomes evidence offered by public and private entities and those who represent them. The Committee is especially interested in the relevant practical experience of affected businesses and professional practitioners.

Public oral evidence sessions are expected to take place through the Spring and the Committee aims to report to the House after the summer recess.  

The Committee is happy to receive submissions on any issues related to the subject of the inquiry but would particularly welcome responses to the questions listed below. You do not need to answer every question.  In so doing, we ask that contributors do not comment on any relevant ongoing legal proceedings.  

The deadline for submissions is 5pm on Wednesday 30 April.

Information on how to submit evidence is set out below. If you have any questions or require adjustments to enable you to respond, please email HLNIScrutiny@parliament.uk or phone 020 7219 5864. 

BACKGROUND

The Windsor Framework, announced in February 2023, includes a complex institutional architecture, which has evolved over a number of years. The new Committee’s

inquiry hopes to bring clarity to this picture so that opportunities to strengthen the voice of Northern Ireland can be made more accessible, to stakeholders, policymakers and

politicians alike.

The UK and the EU made several commitments as part of the Windsor Framework to enable Northern Ireland to engage with legislation potentially applying under the Windsor Framework at an early stage of policy formation. These mechanisms include:

• Measures to involve Northern Ireland within UK-EU structures, whether at a political level through the Joint Committee or at an official level;
• Mechanisms to enhance Northern Ireland’s participation within intra-UK structures relating to the Windsor Framework; and
• Measures to improve NI access to information at an EU level, for example through the EU Commission’s annual presentation of upcoming policy initiatives and legislative proposals.

A new package of measures was also announced as part of the Government’s January 2024command paper ‘Safeguarding the Union’. The Committee plans to examine these proposals in more detail, particularly the establishment of the new working group with the Northern Ireland Executive, and the operation of the UK East-West Council.

The new Committee’s inquiry proposes to examine these recent measures to enhance the voice of Northern Ireland. This will include those mechanisms which are already functioning, such as official-level structures and the participation of stakeholders in enhanced dialogue.

QUESTIONS

General

1. What is your overall assessment of the various structures and mechanisms through which Northern Ireland politicians, officials and stakeholders can engage with the Windsor Framework?

2. To what extent have the measures which pre-date or were announced as part of the Windsor Framework been successful in promoting the voice of Northern Ireland

         a. at a UK level?

         b. at an EU level?

         c. in UK-EU structures?

3. To what extent do the Windsor Framework’s engagement structures enable the relevant stakeholders in Northern Ireland to engage with EU legislation at an appropriate stage of the legislative process?

4. Should the various structures and mechanisms through which Northern Ireland stakeholders can engage with the Windsor Framework be simplified or rationalised? If so, how? If not, why not?

Official-level engagement

5. The Windsor Framework established opportunities for engagement at official level, for example through the Joint Consultative Working Group. What engagement has taken place to date involving Northern Ireland officials and has it been effective as a way to enhance Northern Ireland’s voice?

6. The Enhanced Coordination Mechanism on VAT and excise and the Specialised Committee, meeting as the Special Body on Goods, were designed to facilitate early engagement between the UK and the EU with a view to minimising any adverseconsequences of future legislation. To what extent have Northern Ireland officials been engaged in these bodies To what extent have these bodies fulfilled their objectives? Have there been any substantive changes made as a result of this engagement?

Political-level engagement

7. How would you assess the effectiveness of mechanisms such as the Stormont Brake and the applicability motion procedure which are designed to allow the NorthernIreland Assembly to have oversight of EU law which applies in Northern Ireland under the Windsor Framework?

8. Do the Northern Ireland Executive Office and the Northern Ireland Assembly, including the Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee, have access to sufficient information, and in a timely manner to enable the relevantengagement mechanisms to work effectively?

9. What political engagement has taken place so far at a UK level and at an EU level, and what further engagement is planned? Have there been opportunities for Northern Ireland political engagement in UK-EU structures such as the Joint Committee?

10. Is there a role for more direct Northern Ireland engagement with EU structures, for example between the Northern Ireland Executive and the European Commission or the Northern Ireland Assembly and the European Parliament? 

Engagement with business and civil society stakeholders

11. What opportunities are available for Northern Ireland business and civil society stakeholders to engage with the UK and/or the EU under the Windsor Framework?

12. How would you assess the effectiveness of the existing structures for engagement with business and civil society stakeholders? Could they be improved in future? If so, how?

13. As part of the Windsor Framework, the UK and the EU agreed that business and civil society representatives could attend relevant meetings of the Specialised Committee’s Special Body on Goods and the Joint Consultative Working Group’s thematic sub-groups. What is the nature of this involvement? How effective arethese mechanisms?

14. When the Windsor Framework was announced, the European Commission committed to an annual presentation on   upcoming policy initiatives and legislative proposals for Northern Ireland stakeholders, including engagement on the  Commission Work Programme. Is this engagement taking place and, if so, how effective has it been for businesses and civil society?

Safeguarding the Union

15. How would you assess the potential of the new measures announced in‘Safeguarding the Union’, such as Intertrade UK, the new working group with the NI Executive and the UK East-West Council to enhance Northern Ireland’s voice? How do these bodies fit within the existing structures establishing under the Withdrawal Agreement, the Windsor Framework and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement?

16. What progress has been made on establishing the new structures announced in ‘Safeguarding the Union’?

GUIDANCE FOR MAKING SUBMISSIONS

Written submissions should be made online using the form available at: https://committees.parliament.uk/call-for-evidence/3619

This is a public call for evidence. Please bring it to the attention of other groups and individuals who may wish to respond.

Short, concise submissions, of no more than six pages, are preferred. A longer submission should include a one-page summary. Paragraphs should be numbered. Submissions should be dated, with a note of the author’s name, and of whether the author is acting on an individual or corporate basis. All submissions made through the written submission form will be acknowledged automatically by email. This does not constitute formal acceptance of evidence by the Committee, which takes place when the Committee meets.

Personal contact details supplied to the Committee will be removed from submissions before publication but will be retained by the Committee staff for specific purposes relating to the Committee’s work, such as seeking additional information.

Submissions become the property of the Committee, which will decide whether to accept them as evidence. Evidence may be published by the Committee at any stage. It will normally appear on the Committee’s website and will be deposited in the Parliamentary Archives.

Once you have received notification that your submission has been accepted as evidence and published by the Committee, you may publicise or publish it yourself, but in doing so you must indicate that it was prepared for the Committee. If you publish your evidence separately, you should be aware that you will be legally responsible for its content.

You can follow the progress of the inquiry at Strengthening Northern Ireland’s Voice in the context of the Windsor Framework