Northern Ireland (Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan) Bill

Debate between Lord Alderdice and Baroness Harris of Richmond

Thursday 21st April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, the Bill emerges from the fresh start agreement of late 2015, in which the main parties in Northern Ireland, most particularly the two senior and largest governing parties, the DUP and Sinn Fein, reached an agreement on a series of matters that had been in contention. Some of them are matters of governance involving the budget and welfare payments, but others involve questions of security and the legacy of the past.

I bring forward this amendment because the Bill before us, which we debated at Second Reading recently, is firmly based on the fresh start agreement; that is perfectly appropriate in general principle terms. However, there was one element of the establishment of the Independent Reporting Commission which, from my own experience of it, I felt was unsatisfactory. The Bill does not spell this out, merely referring to Article 5.1 of the fresh start agreement, but that article says that the commission will produce annual reports. That is the issue of difficulty for me.

When the Independent Monitoring Commission was established by legislation and treaty between the Governments of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland in 2003, it was required by law to report at least twice a year. It could also be asked to produce ad hoc reports but it was required to report twice a year on the situation with paramilitaries and security normalisation. The experience of the subsequent seven years was one of some reasonable success. However, one thing that was clear to the four commissioners and to other thoughtful observers was that the relentless force of reports coming every six months—everybody knew when they were coming: paramilitaries, the security services, civil society, politicians—meant that in the run-up to them, the IMC would receive many representations and questions. People would want to come to talk to us to say, “This is how we perceive things are”, and would look to the reports. The IMC did not make any statements in between times—we did not have any press conferences, and so on—and that gave greater strength to the reports, but only because they were coming out every six months. In the period of the IMC we produced 26 reports in all. Most were six-monthly. Most were on paramilitary issues, some were on security normalisation, and a few were specific ad hoc reports that were asked for on problems such as UVF violence, murders and so on.

When the question of bringing back the IMC arose in the later part of last year because of a couple of murders, we had a debate on it in your Lordships’ House. I said at that time that I did not think it appropriate to bring back the IMC because it would have been working in a particular context. I was also concerned that if people were asked to produce a single snapshot report in a very short time, without the possibility of building a whole network of people, official and otherwise, through which a commission could establish what was going on, it would be possible only for the PSNI and MI5 to produce the kind of report they produce regularly for the Secretary of State and then have two or three distinguished people read it and say, “Yes, I think this is an accurate report”, without being able to do any of the investigatory work that would help to triangulate or give other evidence for the views being expressed by the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the security service.

As it was, the Secretary of State decided to go ahead and establish a body, and the report that came from that body did not provide particular reassurance; in fact, in many ways it was much less reassuring than the last reports of the Independent Monitoring Commission. That is why, when it came to fresh start, another agreement had to be reached, which this time had to set up by the end of December 2015 a panel of three people who would produce by the end of May a strategy for the disbanding of paramilitary groups. I declare an interest, because I was appointed by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister as one of those three panel members. We have been doing our work and we still expect to report by the end of May, as we have been requested to do. I expect it to be published perhaps some time during June, although that is a matter for the First Minister and Deputy First Minister.

The Bill is putting in place an Independent Reporting Commission to take that strategy, if agreed by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, and monitor or report on how it is implemented. That is not the same thing as the IMC; it is quite different, as it is to report on a specific strategy, and there may be various aspects of that, but it also reports only once a year. I ask noble Lords to think about that. It is going to take four or five years before a handful of reports is produced so that you can see what is actually happening.

Nearly 20 years after the Belfast agreement, I do not get a sense that there is sufficient urgency in relation to this matter, and I doubt very much that it will be perceived as sufficiently urgent in the minds of many people in Northern Ireland. They want, on a regular but relatively frequent basis, to hear what is happening so that the Executive can be held to account if they suggest legislative changes, which they may or may not do. However, if they do, is it enough to report back only once a year? An annual report is the sort of thing a company produces to fulfil the regulatory requirements and to provide information for shareholders. It is not the sort of thing you produce when you feel that major changes urgently need to take place. It may well be said that matters can be raised within the Northern Ireland Assembly. That is absolutely true, but that is the case at the moment and, if it were satisfactory, there would not be an Independent Reporting Commission.

I tabled this modest amendment not to put the Bill in conflict with fresh start but to appeal to Her Majesty’s Government to understand the need for a greater sense of pressure and urgency in the fulfilment of whatever comes out of the strategy and other matters. I do this not to create difficulties and not to change the Bill, which would mean that it had to go back to the other place. I absolutely appreciate that this legislation needs to be in place before the House prorogues and before the Northern Ireland Assembly has a new Executive, who will have to reach agreement on a programme for government as quickly as possible. I absolutely appreciate that, partly because of other elements of the Bill, but I seek from the Minister, who has been extremely open, helpful and constructive during the relatively rapid progress of the Bill in parliamentary terms, some kind of reassurance that Her Majesty’s Government understand the question I am raising and that they will do what is necessary to find ways of making more frequent reporting possible. There are processes by which that can be done. I absolutely understand that it does not have to be done in the way I have described, but this is the only way we can do something that is reflected in the Bill.

If the Minister could find a way of reassuring us that there will be maintained momentum in this reporting, that would be extremely helpful not just to those of us in your Lordships’ House who want to see movement but to people in Northern Ireland, who at times are despairing and at other times frustrated and impatient at the lack of progress on this important issue. I beg to move.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment. We hear so little in this House about Northern Ireland. It is really only when we have short debates, reported in Hansard, that we bring what happens in Northern Ireland to the attention of this House and the wider public. Having the IRC report twice a year is the very least we can hope for. I echo my noble friend’s thanks to the Minister and to the Bill team for all the help they have given us on the Bill, and I hope that the noble Lord will consider this matter with great speed and alacrity.