King’s Speech

Lord Bew Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, as other noble Lords have, I thank the Attorney-General for his impressive, striking and wide-ranging maiden speech.

A passage in the King’s Speech caught my attention. It goes as follows:

“My Government will strengthen its work with the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland so that the best outcomes … are delivered for citizens across the United Kingdom. My Ministers will establish a new Council of the Nations and Regions to renew opportunities for the Prime Minister, heads of devolved governments and mayors of combined authorities to collaborate with each other”.


Understandably, given the last few years, our ears are ringing with the phrase “reset”. There is an element of reset: this is a new institution. As has rightly been stated by the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, there is a question about how this relates to other institutions in this area. But there was an immediate echo in my mind when I read this passage; it not just a reset, but a fundamental return to basics for the Labour leadership.

I refer to Tony Blair’s speech, as the newly elected Prime Minister, given in Balmoral, Belfast, on 16 May 1997—a speech that, in my view, was the sine qua non for the subsequent negotiation of the Good Friday agreement, which was again supported in the King’s Speech, while outlining a concept of devolution throughout the United Kingdom. Tony Blair said:

“I want to see a Union which reflects and accommodates diversity. I am against a rigid, centralised approach … The proposals this government are making, for Scotland and Wales, and for the English regions, are designed to bring Government closer to the people. That will renew and strengthen the Union”.


This was a crucial moment in 1997. It outlines a vision that was put into effect over the next generation.

To take up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Caine, Tony Blair was not neutral on the union. He said, quite clearly:

“The Union binds the four parts of the United Kingdom together … I value the Union”.


Sir Keir Starmer said the same in his interviews with Enda McClafferty of BBC Northern Ireland, which have been mentioned.

There is an understandable view that the commitment to equality of esteem somehow erodes this commitment, but it clearly does not. Tony Blair stated that commitment; he knew it was the price of getting the agreement done and he negotiated equality of esteem. Equality of esteem means fair play for the two communities within Northern Ireland, and it has to be exercised by the sovereign Government.

My final point is that this is actually devolution 2.0. Devolution has been through various traumas in Northern Ireland. It had the massive struggle, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Caine, by which the last Government, through the Windsor Framework and Safeguarding the Union, eventually restored devolution in Northern Ireland. That was indisputably the great achievement of the Government who have just left office.

I was very pleased yesterday by the way in which the new Front Bench, in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, spoke about the functions, role and support it has for the Windsor Framework. That was an important moment and we can expect continuity in that policy area.

But this is devolution 2.0. The fact is that, for long spells, not just in Northern Ireland but in Scotland, it has not worked in the way that anybody happily thought it would in 1997. The Government now have a second chance to restore it to the validity of the original vision that Tony Blair brought to it, in the first instance. All I can say is that that will be difficult and require much effort.