Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee
17 September 2026
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Committee House of Lords
00:03 - 00:54
Speaker 7
Right, so the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee is today in the Senate Chamber of Parliament buildings here in this beautiful and lovely room to sit in. And we're now holding the 10th public evidence session of our inquiry on Article 2 of the Protocol Windsor Framework, the so-called non-diminution of rights provision. We're joined now by Gavin Robinson MP, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, the DUP. Gavin, you're very welcome, and we very much look forward to your evidence. We'd be grateful if you would briefly introduce yourself the first time you speak, and I'd remind you that today's meeting is being broadcast and a verbatim transcript will be taken for subsequent publication, which will be sent to you to check for accuracy.
So would you like to just introduce yourself and any introductory remarks you'd like?
00:54 - 02:55
Speaker 2
My Lord Chair, thank you for the invitation and it's great to be before you all today. It's the second time I think I've appeared in front of your committee and I think it is appropriate to thank your committee for the detailed level of scrutiny that you provide to these important and salient issues, particularly for us in Northern Ireland. As you know, I am yes, parliamentary party leader and party leader, but in the House of Commons I sit on the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee. And we are routinely copied into correspondence of this committee. We see the import of the issues raised, though we don't have the time to dedicate to them in the level of detail that you do.
I formally sat on the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee, where we had much greater ability to focus primarily and purposefully on these issues. And I lament that the House of Commons as the democratically elected side of our parliament does not have the ability or the forum to raise these issues, to scrutinize these issues and to hold government to account. And I think government benefits from keeping a level of European scrutiny in abeyance in the House of Commons. I have heard from time to time the aspiration that a similar type committee may be resurrected, particularly if there was to be a positive conclusion to the ongoing UK-EU negotiations around SPS. And whether it for that reason or just the totality of the issues that do pervade politics in Northern Ireland and that do construct barriers between one part of our nation and another, I genuinely believe that the House of Commons should restore that committee to augment and amplify the issues that you and your committee properly and purposefully do look at.
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