Queen’s Speech

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to make my maiden speech on the gracious Speech. Allow me to introduce myself. I am from Downpatrick in Northern Ireland. I have been steeped in politics and have represented the Downpatrick area for decades: as MP for South Down, as a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and before that as a local councillor. I have also had the privilege of being the SDLP party leader and of representing my party in government as Minister for Social Development in the power-sharing Executive.

I have been delighted to be able to include Downpatrick in my title in this House. It captures the place where I live and where I have dedicated my political service to date. Downpatrick is also well known as the last resting place of our national saint, Patrick, and the place most closely associated with him. Patrick was a fifth-century pluralist who championed the Christian message in Ireland and whose heritage today belongs to everyone. His unifying message, which long predates any of our historical quarrels or divisions, can bring people together in our divided land. It also informs how I go about the business of politics. I believe that we have to transcend political, ethnic, religious and other differences to compromise and co-operate so as to bring about the essential healing that is required in our fractious world today. So that is Downpatrick—my origins and my title.

I am also an Irish nationalist of the social democratic tradition and a firm believer in pluralism, inclusion and building reconciliation. I am a firm supporter of the principles of the Good Friday agreement, and sit next to the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, one of the negotiators of that agreement. Indeed, the Good Friday agreement is the embodiment of my political philosophy—respect for difference, partnership, unity in diversity.

The Queen’s Speech deals with so many issues that it is impossible to address them in a short contribution. Today’s selected topics are all, shall we say, impacted upon by Brexit. Of course I want to deal with that and Northern Ireland. Brexit has now become one of the greatest political issues in, and between, Britain and Ireland. It has consumed all aspects of our lives in Northern Ireland since the referendum of June 2016, where in the majority people voted to remain. It has impacted on and reawakened controversy around issues of identity, nationality and sovereignty. It has also undermined the very principles of the Good Friday agreement in relation to reconciliation and building a shared society. It has deepened political divisions at a time when our political institutions were already unstable and has allowed some parties to characterise proposed trading arrangements as “life or death” constitutional determinations.

Like the majority in Northern Ireland, I prefer and want to remain in the EU but acknowledge that with the Government’s majority in this Parliament we will soon leave. But we will be leaving the one institution that has helped provide so much political, social and economic stability on the island of Ireland. Membership of the EU has contributed significantly to reconciliation and to the development of our economy and infra- structure.

I hope that in their forthcoming EU negotiations, the Government ensure that this international underpinning can be sustained in any new working arrangements. I come from an area that includes our two most important fishing ports in County Down. I have heard and understood the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, referring to the fishing industry and the fisheries Bill. However, the fishing industry has a great deal of insistence that our current unfettered access to the British market must continue. Put simply, we do not want borders in Ireland or the Irish Sea, or any increase in bureaucracy. I hope this can be addressed and resolved.

In my final few minutes, I want to address the pressing issue of the need to reinstall political institutions in Northern Ireland and the principal institutions of the Good Friday agreement. People abdicated the responsibility some three years ago. That led to the collapse of those institutions. At the door, the one thing that people said that they wanted was those institutions up and running, delivering for our people in health and education and dealing with the impact of Brexit. They also wanted people to take their seats in the other place, because they wanted all these issues to be urgently addressed.

Along with other noble Lords, my priority will be to work towards building reconciliation, fairness, equality and a shared society in Northern Ireland. This must include a plan to end division and to bring down the physical and mental walls of division. I hope that we can work across this House to support a process of moderation and peaceful politics in Northern Ireland, a comprehensive trading deal with the EU to assist our economy and a plan to end austerity and poverty, particularly the ongoing punitive nature of welfare reform.

Above all, I hope to contribute to a recovering politics in this Parliament, a politics that must recover from the battering it has taken from the intolerance, dishonesty and revisionism that have surrounded the Brexit discourse. Many of us are horrified at the state of politics today. We now live in a world of lies and exaggeration, of voter distrust and of fake news. We must pass on better politics to the next generation and get beyond slogans and spin. In this context, I am reminded of a quotation from a famous Irish thinker and poet, George Russell, who said:

“No blazoned banner we unfold—


One charge alone we give to youth,

Against the sceptred myth to hold

The golden heresy of truth.”

Along with your Lordships, I want to make my contribution to ensuring that we can make that plan towards reconciliation, within Britain and between Britain and Northern Ireland.