Northern Ireland: Devolved Government

Lord Caine Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The noble Lord is correct. There have been 1,000 lost days for the people of Northern Ireland. This cannot go on, but I have said that many times. The reality remains very simple: the parties are remarkably close, as only a few issues divide them, and it is time to resolve those few issues.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

My noble friend has very clearly expressed the deeply held and legitimate concerns shared by a number of unionists right across this United Kingdom about aspects of the withdrawal agreement. Does the Minister believe that the prospects of restoring devolved government are improved by an agreement that places a de facto border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland? What further assurances can he give this House that the agreement will not seriously undermine and weaken the political and economic integrity of the union?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

My noble friend would, rightly, question my veracity if I said that Brexit had no influence in Northern Ireland. Right now, it is important to ensure that we are able to seek and deliver a withdrawal agreement that works for all parts of Northern Ireland. That will be the final test. However, I hope that the parties of Northern Ireland do not wait for that to happen but resolve to bring themselves into an Executive.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019: Section 3(5)

Lord Caine Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

I am aware that many may attend. That is not the point. The issues being referred to cannot be decided by the Assembly in the absence of an Executive. Anybody who knows about the politics of Northern Ireland—and the noble Baroness does—knows perfectly well that this is not yet the time for some people to participate in the Executive. That is political reality and it is ill advised for the Chamber to feel that another possibility for next Tuesday is a real one.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

Before an Executive can be formed, the first item of business is the election of a Speaker, as the noble Lord well knows, having served in that position himself. There is absolutely no prospect on Monday of a Speaker being elected.

Report Pursuant to Sections 3(1), 3(6), 3(7), 3(8), 3(9) and 3(10) the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019

Lord Caine Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Caine (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, it is a great honour and privilege to finally make my maiden speech as a Conservative and Unionist Member of this great House. I say “finally” because, despite taking my seat on 20 October 2016, I have until now been bound by a Cabinet Office rule that serving government advisers can sit and vote but not speak in your Lordships’ House. Following the events of 24 July, this is no longer the case for me, so it is with a sense of great relief and anticipation that I am now able to take my place as a fully functioning Member of the House.

I would at the outset like to give thanks to a number of people: noble Lords on all sides of the House for their understanding during my three years of enforced silence; the doorkeepers and other staff of the House, who carry out their responsibilities with such diligence, kindness and good cheer whatever the hour; my two supporters at my introduction in 2016, my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood, who was my first head of section in the Conservative Research Department back in 1987, and my noble friend Lord Empey who, I am sure all noble Lords will agree, embodies all that is best in Ulster unionism; and the former Prime Minister David Cameron for giving me the opportunity to serve in this House. Leaving aside the referendum, if I may, I strongly believe that the Governments—plural—which he led achieved a great deal, particularly in restoring our economy, job creation and education reform. I was proud to have played a role in one of the seminal moments of his premiership when I helped to draft his statement on the events of Bloody Sunday.

While I join a number of former members of the Conservative Research Department and special advisers in this House, my route here—to use a phrase that will be familiar to friends from Northern Ireland—was hardly a traditional one. I was not born into the Conservative Party. In fact, I was born in a staunchly working-class area of Leeds called Harehills, where my late father was a builder and my mother a hairdresser. Yet their values were very much Conservative values, particularly those closely associated with the late Baroness Thatcher of hard work, enterprise and aspiration. It was that which led them to found a business and which allowed me, the product of a local state school in Leeds, to become the first member of our family to attend university.

That also enabled my parents to move to a relatively more prosperous part of Leeds, Temple Newsam, which forms the geographical part of my title. Temple Newsam is the ward on Leeds City Council where I was brought up and where I return most weekends. Leeds is also the part of the world where I currently pursue most of my interests outside this House, as a supporter of the Leeds Rhinos rugby league club and its charitable foundation that does such sterling work in the community to turn around young lives through sport, and as a patron of the Danny Jones Defibrillator Fund, which raises money to provide sports clubs with potentially life-saving defibrillators.

For most of my time in politics and public service, I have been deeply involved in the affairs of Northern Ireland. In the 1990s I was a special adviser to Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, and then to the late Lord Mayhew of Twysden, both men of the utmost integrity whose contributions in Northern Ireland should never be underestimated. From May 2010 until July this year I advised two Prime Ministers and four successive Secretaries of State on Northern Ireland affairs. It was a period that encompassed the statement to which I have referred on Bloody Sunday, the G8 summit, the Stormont House and fresh start agreements, the EU referendum and the confidence and supply agreement, in which I confess to having played a small part. I say with respect to some noble Lords that hands-off it certainly was not. Regrettably, it also saw us go from the longest unbroken run of devolved government in Northern Ireland since the 1960s to over two and a half deeply frustrating years of no government at all. Like noble Lords across the House, I profoundly hope that devolved government is restored and fully functioning as soon as possible.

My involvement in Northern Ireland affairs has given me a deep and enduring affection for the place and all its people. It has strengthened my unshakeable belief in the union of our United Kingdom. I am an unashamed and unapologetic unionist who believes that the best future for Northern Ireland is, and always will be, within a stronger United Kingdom. I am, though, a unionist who deeply values and respects nationalism and who wants the closest possible relationship with our friends and neighbours in the Republic of Ireland, while always respecting the constitutional proprieties. Indeed, part of the genius of the 1998 Belfast agreement is that it enables all traditions to be accommodated, through the constitutional framework it sets out, the institutions it establishes and the rights it guarantees for everyone. I remain a steadfast supporter of that agreement, in which my noble friends Lord Trimble, who was here earlier, Lord Empey and Lord Maginnis played such key roles.

Of course, I am acutely aware of the pressures created as a result of the 2016 referendum. One reason that I, as an instinctive Brexiteer, in the end voted remain was over my concern about the impact that leaving might have on the delicate and precious equilibrium established by the 1998 agreement. However, since the referendum I have been in no doubt that, for the sake of our democracy and for trust in politics, the result must be delivered and the UK must leave the EU. I remain convinced, however, that it must be done in an orderly and managed way that protects the 1998 agreement but preserves political stability on the island of Ireland and, of course, preserves the unity of our United Kingdom. I will always be a unionist before I am a Eurosceptic.

Turning briefly to the debate, I welcome the publication of the reports mentioned in the Motions of my noble friend Lord Duncan of Springbank, with whom I had the privilege of working in the Northern Ireland Office until recently. Indeed, I am pleased to see that some of my sentences have actually survived the change of administration. I wish to single out one of the reports for very quick comment: that relating to legacy cases and the prosecution of veterans. Many of my most difficult and moving meetings in Northern Ireland over many years have been with victims and survivors of the Troubles. It is clear that more needs to be done for them and I commend the work of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and others towards a victims’ payment. At the same time, as many people have said, we must ensure that there is not a disproportionate focus on former members of the security forces, to whom we own an enormous debt. This is a complex and difficult area. I have always believed that everybody should be accountable to the law and I have a number of concerns about some of the remedies that have been suggested in this respect.

One possible way forward, which I have discussed with the Attorney-General for Northern Ireland at length, might involve modifications to Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1967 around what constitutes reasonable self-defence. The purpose would be to give clearer legal meaning to the moral distinction between somebody who commits a split-second error of law while carrying out their duty and somebody who sets out with the clear and deliberate intention to commit murder. Now is not the appropriate time to pursue this in detail, but I hope to return to this matter on a future occasion and I hope that my noble friend the Minister will undertake to look at this option seriously. For now, however, conscious of the clock, I am grateful for the opportunity to open my account, so to speak, in your Lordships’ House and I look forward to playing a much fuller role from now on.