Esmond Birnie: Secretary of State wrong about Windsor Framework gains to Northern Ireland economy

If one compares the official index of total output in the Northern Ireland economy with UK GDP over the period since 2016 (or since January 2021 when the NI Protocol kicked in) then this does show a growth advantage to Northern Ireland.

Leaving aside the technical issue that the two statistical measures are not the same it should be remembered that much of the growth in Northern Ireland has come from the private services sector or the public sector. The Windsor Framework is unlikely to have contributed to that.

Similarly, Sir Chris Bryant points to “huge inflows of US investment in cyber” but the attractiveness of Belfast in particular and Northern Ireland in general to US service sector investment, for IT or back offices, owes little to the Windsor Framework.

It owes something to a combination of a good supply of graduates alongside salary costs which are lower than in London/South East England.

The secretary of state forefronts the alleged opportunities of the Windsor Framework: “And the Windsor Framework has created a unique advantage. No other territory in the world can act as a gateway to both a massive trade bloc like the EU and one of the largest G7 economies in the world.”

If the “best of both worlds” gains from this dual market access were really so strong we should expect to see some evidence in terms of an upsurge in the value of inward investment coming into Northern Ireland. There has been no such surge.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) (‘Foreign Direct Investment: UK Subnational Estimates, 2024’, May 12) there was a negative change in the value of foreign direct investment (FDI) funds coming into Northern Ireland during 2023 and 2024.

In other words, international firms chose to run down their investment in the region.

There was disinvestment - hardly a vote of confidence in the Windsor Framework arrangements.

Using UK Business Department statistics, the number of new FDI jobs created in Northern Ireland per head of the population during 2025-26 was only 60% of the UK average (Department of Business and Trade, and Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade: ‘Trade and investment core statistics’, August 20).

As a former trade minister Sir Chris should be aware of such statistics.

It is certainly true that Northern Ireland’s trade with the Republic of Ireland has boomed in recent years.

During 2019-24 Northern Ireland’s exports of goods to the Republic of Ireland grew by 128% in cash terms (‘NISRA Data Portal- NIETS02’, March 2026).

At the same time, Northern Ireland’s exports of goods to the EU beyond the Republic have grown by a much smaller amount: 25% during 2019-24.

Some of the cross-border expansion may be attributable to the NI Protocol/Windsor Framework though other factors are at play (Northern Ireland continues to be advantaged in terms of cross-border shopping, in the second hand car market and in terms of wholesaling to the South).

Rather worryingly, but you get no sense of this in the secretary of state’s article, trade diversion may be going on: North-South growing at the expense of East-West.

A range of sources - the Federation of Small Businesses survey, the Office for National Statistics Business Insights and Conditions survey and Road Haulage Association – all indicate that some suppliers in GB have stopped selling into the Northern Ireland market.

Could it be the case that Northern Ireland customers, whether households or firms, are being forced to shift to higher cost suppliers?

Sir Chris’s intentions about the economy may be positive but he does rather remind me of Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen who famously placed his telescope to his blind eye.

The secretary of state simply will not accept the weight of negative evidence about the Windsor Framework.

l Dr Esmond Birnie, Senior Economist, Ulster University Business School