Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 24th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)]

My Lords, I promise to be slightly less dramatic. I first want to express my sincere gratitude to all noble Lords who have participated in proceedings on this short Bill and to thank them for their thoughtful and sometimes challenging contributions, not least on the very odd occasion when the debate has strayed beyond the narrow confines of the Bill.

I welcome the positive engagement and constructive support for the Bill from all sides of the House and put on record my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, and all noble Lords from Northern Ireland itself.

I also thank the Bill team at the Northern Ireland Office, officials in the Northern Ireland Assembly and, last but not least, my noble friend, Lord Younger of Leckie—not just for his support and very wise counsel on this piece of legislation, but also for his handling of much Northern Ireland business in your Lordships’ House in recent times.

The Bill has been debated extensively during its passage and I am sure that noble Lords will be relieved to hear that, in accordance with Standing Orders, I do not intend to rehearse its provisions again. It is a faithful implementation of a number of measures contained in the New Decade, New Approach document, which paved the way for the re-establishment of devolved government in Northern Ireland in January 2020 and was itself the product of detailed and lengthy negotiations over a period of nearly three years.

The purpose of the Bill is to seek to give greater resilience to the institutions established under the 1998 Belfast agreement and to provide for greater continuity in decision-making. I am pleased that with the support of opposition parties we have been able to agree on early commencement of the important measures contained in it.

This Government remain deeply committed to the implementation of the Belfast agreement and its successors, and to building a stable, prosperous and shared Northern Ireland, within this United Kingdom, for everybody—a Northern Ireland where politics works, the economy grows and society is stronger and more united. I hope that this Bill, while in no way a panacea, can make a contribution to supporting those fundamental objectives. I beg to move

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I add our thanks to the Minister. As we have just heard in the drama a moment ago, a Minister’s life is not an easy one. I think that we are all still reeling from the shock resignation of the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, who clearly cared a great deal about his work. His colleagues will mourn his loss from the Front Benches, and this House will admire his integrity. He may go down in history for the way he resigned, showing his integrity.

I thank the Minister for his work on this Bill, which is, I think, the first one that he has taken through the House, although his commitment, interest and work on Northern Ireland issues for many years have preceded him. In many ways this was a short, perhaps relatively non-controversial, Bill, though we had our moments. I thank him for the way in which he and his Bill team engaged with noble Lords across the House. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, if she were here, would say the same, and would thank him for his meetings.

We had our own dramatic moments as we prepared to come to the House to debate a particular amendment. We heard the Prime Minister say, at Prime Minister’s Question Time, that that amendment would not be moved, when we had all expected it in the afternoon. So perhaps this is the time for dramatic moments in the House. Nevertheless, I add our commitment and our thanks to the noble Lord. We await the further Bill on Northern Ireland that we were supposed to be getting and had expected—the legacy Bill—which will also, I am sure, involve detailed discussions, and I hope that he will be willing to engage in the same way with us on that Bill as on this.