Northern Ireland: Violence

Lord Caine Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

As the noble Baroness will respect, the immediate priority is to provide the Executive and the PSNI with the support needed to manage the current unrest. However, we continue to consider a range of options to support their efforts in the medium term. These include the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference—the BIIGC, to which the noble Baroness referred—which is an important element of strand 3 of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and stands to promote bilateral co-operation at all levels and in all matters of mutual interest.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the recent disgraceful, totally unjustified and counterproductive violence in Northern Ireland has a number of different causes, many of them going back many years? To suggest that this is solely about Brexit is wilfully ignorant of the situation in Northern Ireland. Is it not the case that this Government remain wholly committed to upholding all strands of the Belfast agreement and, in addition to a robust criminal justice response, the Executive urgently need to focus on those policies designed to build a genuinely shared future for all the people of Northern Ireland?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My noble friend makes some sensible points. He is right that the reasons for the unrest are complex and multifarious, some to do with localised issues. The House will know that 10 April this year marks 23 years since the Belfast/Good Friday agreement was signed—an achievement of which the UK, Ireland and the US are justifiably proud and which led to transformative change. Today it falls to the people of Northern Ireland to decide what sort of society they want. It is clear that they are choosing the right path, which is to build an inclusive, prosperous and hopeful society that builds on the hard-won peace.