Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: Follow-up Report (European Affairs Committee)

Baroness Goudie Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Goudie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Jay, for using every bit of his diplomatic skills on the last two reports we have worked on together. It has been a great pleasure to work with Stuart Stoner and his team, who have given us great advice and attention to detail at every moment. Every question was answered. I really appreciate all their advice.

Going forward, I am so pleased that President Biden appointed Senator Kennedy to lead the team to bring more employment and work to Northern Ireland, both from America and from Ireland itself, from the United Kingdom and from other parts of Europe. I am hopeful about the meetings over the next few days and have been privileged to know some of the company leaders and Senator Kennedy. I know that, if anyone can do this, he will be able to, and he will stick with it until they can get to some resolution. Although, there will not be a resolution—it will just be bringing in more people, because they know that there is a great workforce in Northern Ireland.

I thank the Government for their response, which I had a quick glance at after receiving it early this afternoon. I will look at it more closely ahead of our committee meeting on Wednesday. The committee report rightly underlines the importance of restoring the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly. The restoration of these vital institutions is essential and increasingly urgent, not least in order to enable Northern Ireland to have a greater say over the operation of the Windsor Framework, upon which the committee has reported.

It is a scandal that Northern Ireland has been without a fully functioning Executive for more than 18 months. The Northern Ireland Assembly elections have not been implemented for well over a year since the Northern Ireland electorate spoke in clear terms. It is disgraceful that power-sharing remains suspended. The people of Northern Ireland must not be held hostage by the DUP. Enough is more than enough. The Windsor Framework is good for Northern Ireland, good for the United Kingdom and good for the European Union. It is not perfect but, as the committee has recognised, it is an improvement on the protocol.

No party should have a veto. The best has to be done in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. The fact is that, as long as the partition of Ireland remains, the United Kingdom and the EU have a land frontier across the island of Ireland, and the United Kingdom is split between the mainland, which has the sea frontier with the EU, and Northern Ireland, which does not.

This is a mess. There is a contradiction between the preservation of the entire United Kingdom on the one hand and Brexit on the other, and we have to do our best to manage this. The Northern Ireland elections in May last year and the Windsor Framework since enabled this to be done in a way that does not threaten the Good Friday agreement and the Irish peace process. We must disapprove when, in the United States, the loser of democratic elections will not accept the result, and we should disapprove when the results of elections in parts of the UK are not accepted on all sides. There needs to be a transition to a new working Northern Ireland Assembly in accordance with the election outcome, and this needs to be done very soon. There needs to be a functioning Northern Ireland Executive. These are categorical imperatives. If the devolved institutions are not restored, devolution in its present form may have to be suspended. The present impasse is not acceptable, and it is time to end the drift. The basis for a working Assembly and Executive, and the solidarity, is here.