Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 29th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, and join her in welcoming the noble Lord, Lord, Lord Caine, to his place as a Minister in the Northern Ireland Office. He has a lot of experience; I am sure he did not need to read up much on his brief, given that he has written so many of them in the past for other Ministers. He is a truly dedicated Minister in the Northern Ireland Office. As has been said, it is good to have a Minister who is dedicated to Northern Ireland, not just in terms of being a specific Minister but a Minister who is truly, in his own right, dedicated to the best interests of Northern Ireland.

I warmly welcome what he has said this evening about his position and, indeed, that of the Conservative and Unionist Party on the union. Of course, we all join in his tribute to the members of the security forces, the RUC, the Army and the UDR, and all those who paid the ultimate sacrifice or suffered life-changing injuries and still live with the scars of the violence and the protection they gave to all the communities in Northern Ireland over the period of the Troubles.

I want to make a few general comments and raise a few issues on the specifics of the Bill. The first general comment is that we welcome the Bill in so far as it goes; there are improvements that could be made, as has been said, and we will look at those in Committee, but it does implement certain aspects of the New Decade, New Approach agreement that was made some three years ago. There are many other aspects of the NDNA agreement that will be for another day—other pieces of legislation both in the Assembly and here—but one thing that the people of Northern Ireland will be looking for is to ensure that all aspects of NDNA are progressed, that certain issues are not picked out for special treatment, and that everything is brought forward.

In that context, it would be remiss not to raise the commitment that was given by the UK Government in annexe A, paragraph 10, on the integrity of the UK internal market, which, as we know, has been breached by the Northern Ireland protocol. It is important that, as we see progress on aspects of NDNA, we also see progress on that commitment, and that the Northern Ireland protocol is addressed in a way which brings stability to the institutions in Northern Ireland; we have yet to see that happen. Of course, discussions are continuing and we are aware of those negotiations. People said that there could not be any renegotiation; effectively, that is what is happening. People said the original form of the protocol had to be rigorously implemented; we have seen that bypassed. That is all good—it is progress—but the current discussions cannot be strung out much longer. We know the time has almost run out for those discussions, and by the end of the year it will have run out completely.

Action will have to be taken, either in the form of an agreement between the European Union and the Government, addressing the issues that are outstanding in all aspects—both constitutional and economic—or in the form of UK action to fully restore Northern Ireland’s position in the internal market and its constitutional integrity. The invocation of Article 16 may or may not be part of that, but it can be only part of it, because it is not a solution in itself.

If neither of those happens, unionists in the Executive will of course be in a completely untenable position, where the political processes and the political balance will not exist in terms of the institutions. That will have the inevitable consequence of making the institutions which we are debating here tonight inoperable. One thing is certain: it cannot be dragged out to the next election, or even to a time when this Bill may be a matter of law, because things will come to a head before that, and certainly by the end of the year.

I want to come on to another general point about the Bill and the context in which we find ourselves. The Government have said that they are legislating here for those parts that cannot be legislated for in the Northern Ireland Assembly. These are matters that are excepted, but the Government must be consistent in their approach, and it appears to many people in Northern Ireland that there has not been a consistent approach in terms of when and in what circumstances government here legislates in the devolved space. We see it in terms of the cultural package, for instance, where there is no agreement on the timing of its introduction for the reasons that I have mentioned—the protocol and so on—and yet the Government are proceeding without that cross-community agreement in an area which is exclusively devolved.

I gently ask the Minister to address the point about the inconsistency of the Government’s à la carte attitude to legislating in the devolved area, where there does not appear to be a lot of logic and where talk about ensuring the stability of institutions can be at variance with some of the actions that are being taken in that regard.

Coming on to some aspects of the clauses in the Bill, the Minister has outlined the provisions in Clauses 1, 2 and 3, in relation to the appointment of Ministers in circumstances where Ministers can remain in post after an election and so on. In the other place, there was a lengthy discussion about the powers and competences of temporary Ministers who would be in place after an election or if the Executive had collapsed. I would be grateful if the Minister could outline in more detail how we will ensure that Ministers do not overstep the mark or that we do not end up in a situation where civil servants are effectively running the show again. It is a tricky balance—it is a difficult balance—but Northern Ireland went through a very difficult period over three years when the institutions were collapsed as a result of the resignation of Sinn Féin from the Executive, and we do not want to see a similar situation.

The Minister recalled the provisions where the Secretary of State can call an election after the first six-week period to give effect to the purpose of paragraph 3.15 of Annexe C of NDNA, as mentioned in the Explanatory Notes. Can he expand further on the precise circumstances in which that power would be used? The Secretary of State can call an election if two-thirds of the Assembly vote for one, or if the time limits have run out to form a Government. However, there is also this power, which is where they think that paragraph 3.15 of Annexe C of NDNA justifies it. I would be grateful for more explanation of that point.

The Ministerial Code had widespread agreement among the parties in Northern Ireland, but I would be grateful if the Minister could outline how it compares to the situation here in London in terms of the provisions and where it differs from the provisions governing Ministers’ activities and behaviours here in Whitehall and the statutory basis that exists here for any enforcement or measures taken against a Minister for breach of the Ministerial Code.

On the petition of concern, again there was protracted debate among the parties about this. Of course, there has already been a change to the operation of the petition of concern because, when the numbers in the Assembly reduced from 108 to 90, the threshold for activating the petition of concern remained at 30, so that change has already made it more difficult to have a petition of concern by default. In recent years, people have ramped up the attacks on the petition of concern—notably, those parties who agreed, in the Belfast agreement and the original 1998 Act, to this whole structure of the petition of concern—and criticised its use, although it has been used by all parties, particularly in the welfare reform debate, where the SDLP and Sinn Féin used it quite a bit. Interestingly, this has only become a major theme as a result of the unionists in the Assembly having lost the majority due to the reduction in the number of seats per constituency. It is important that there are those safeguards.

The Minister referred to the original purposes of the petition of concern, but can he—or, indeed, other Members who will speak in this debate—point to a specific reference in the Good Friday agreement or the Northern Ireland Act to the actual purpose of the petition of concern? There is none. This is continually stated as a matter of fact, but there is no reference in the Good Friday agreement or the Northern Ireland Act to the specific purposes that have sometimes been ascribed to it by people who speak about the subject.

The reason why the petition of concern was brought in is because it was genuinely felt, on both sides of the community and among the political representatives at the time, that there should be some safeguard mechanism. Actually, when you think about it, when the withdrawal agreement and the agreement on the protocol were made, the first thing the Government did was strip away that safeguard. Instead, the vote on whether the protocol should continue to be implemented became a straight-majority vote in case it might have been defeated. The single vote of any real significance—possibly the only vote—that can happen in the Northern Ireland Assembly by a majority vote is one on the Northern Ireland protocol. Everything else is a cross-community vote or susceptible to being turned into one. That is not lost on the unionist community, I tell you, with them having been told for decades that majoritarianism and majority rule were unacceptable. So when we come to the petition of concern, we recognise that there is room for improvement, but there have been reforms and we need to bear in mind its original purpose.

This Bill is not all that controversial in itself and will, no doubt, be subject to changes, criticism and debate in Committee. However, it comes at a time when there are massive stresses and strains on the institutions in Northern Ireland as a result of the protocol; as I said earlier, they will have to be resolved before we go much further. No amount of legislation, whether it is this Bill or any other, will piece together things if they unravel. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, rightly said, things are much harder to put together again after they unravel than they are to keep together as we try to work our way through all these problems. Time is short, and I hope that the Government will soon be able to bring forward proposals to deal with the issues with the protocol that underlie all our problems at the moment.