Lord Cormack
Main Page: Lord Cormack (Conservative - Life peer)My Lords, I speak as a former chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in another place, and I approach this from a constitutional position. I was very moved by the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin. the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and I came to the same conclusion as they did. It is quite wrong, first of all, to rush this through with one-minute speeches and—now that we have a fully functioning Assembly that has made its concerns abundantly clear—for us to ignore the devolution settlement. We are not ignoring devolution in the battle against Covid-19, and nor should we. The four constituent countries of the UK are taking differing approaches in details. It is absolutely necessary, if you believe in devolution, to honour devolution and to let this decision be taken where it should be: in Stormont.