King’s Speech

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I too welcome the new Attorney-General to his place in this House and congratulate him on his maiden speech. I wish him and all members of the new Government well as they face the great challenges nationally and internationally. I hope that our contributions in this House will help the Government in their consideration of these important matters.

I welcome the fact that, at the outset of his tenure, the new Prime Minister visited each of the countries of the United Kingdom—that was an important signal—and met the leaders of the devolved Administrations. I hope the Government will carry through on their commitment to a different and better working relationship with the devolved Governments. I look forward to hearing the details of the proposed new council of nations and regions that has been suggested—it is similar to the new east-west council proposed in the Safeguarding the Union document by the previous Government. It will be interesting to know how those two bodies will interact and relate to each other.

On donations to political parties, the Government are right to consider strengthening the rules on foreign donations. I urge them to look particularly at the anomaly in Northern Ireland where one political party—namely, Sinn Féin—is able to benefit by a considerable amount of donations from abroad, which has an impact on the electoral politics of Northern Ireland. That anomaly and loophole must be closed.

The Government talked about strengthening the Sewel convention. In the last Parliament, your Lordships highlighted a discrepancy in many debates: lip service is paid to the necessity of devolved government and cross-party agreement in Northern Ireland, yet, even when that existed, the Government ran roughshod over the views of elected representatives and people. I think particularly of abortion laws in Northern Ireland, where, again, the views of the elected representatives of the people and the people themselves were set aside, with this Parliament deciding to legislate in place of the devolved Government.

We have also seen that in relation to the issue of legacy. Despite there being considerable disagreement across the board in Northern Ireland, across all parties and communities, the previous Government decided to continue to legislate for a conditional immunity scheme for those guilty of the most heinous terrorist crimes. It was, in effect, a conditional amnesty—a shameful stain on the record of the previous Government and something we all opposed. I look forward to hearing what this new Government will do on that matter. There should be no question of Northern Ireland uniquely being expected to tolerate an amnesty for terrorist crimes when other parts of the United Kingdom are not in that position. Indeed, it is unacceptable wherever it is proposed.

We need to put the victims first and listen to them. I am not interested in those who are hypocritical in these matters. They are the victim creators: they made victims in Northern Ireland and yet bleat about human rights, respect and equality. I am interested in the voices of the real victims. In talks with the Irish Republic’s Government, as a neighbour of the United Kingdom, I would like the Government to raise the Irish Government’s approach to legacy issues as well, because there has been a shameful failure on their part to co-operate and bring justice to victims in the Irish Republic.

In February 2024, the courts in Northern Ireland ruled that major parts of the legacy legislation were not only incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights but had to be disapplied because they conflicted with EU law under the Windsor Framework/ protocol—a UK Act of Parliament struck down by EU law, still in the United Kingdom after Brexit.

In the 21st century, part of this United Kingdom, in 300 areas of law, has its laws imposed on it by a foreign political entity in which no representative of Northern Ireland here at Westminster or in the Assembly has any say. It cannot propose, develop, pass or amend such legislation. This covers vast swathes of our economy and, as we have seen with the legacy issue and on immigration law, areas much wider than just the economy. That colonial status in those areas for Northern Ireland is a travesty of democracy; it is a constitutional obscenity. I urge the Government to grapple with this issue. Some people may wish to sweep it under the carpet, but it is our job as democrats in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom to highlight this disfranchisement, and we must rectify it as soon as possible.