Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Bill [HL]

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 6th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak to Amendments 2A, 4, 16, 35A and 37, and I point out at the commencement that the noble Lord, Lord Empey, is a signatory to them but regrettably is unable to be with us today due to domestic circumstances. We wish him well and I thank him for attaching his name to them. My noble friend Lord Browne, to my left, will speak on some of these amendments in place of the noble Lord, Lord Empey.

I want to be very clear from the outset that the view of the DUP is that the two commissioners are different and their functions do not need to be made identical; indeed, we do not believe that making them identical would be appropriate. However, it is vital, not least in order to respect the principle of parity of esteem, that both commissioners be respected by all parts of government and society as equally important. One key way in which this respect needs to be manifest is in ensuring that the amounts of public money devoted to both are comparable. In making this point, I observe that the Explanatory Notes suggest that the funding for both commissioners will be similar, but it is my contention that this assertion is made on a problematic basis. The costing is assessed narrowly, in terms of the direct costs of running the offices of two commissioners, but that is surely just a fraction of the impact—certainly of the Irish language commissioner—on the public purse.

One can only have any hope of assessing the impact of the provision of the commissioners if, in addition to assessing the relevantly limited cost of running their offices, one has regard also for the budgetary impact they will have in placing additional demands on public authorities. It is in relation to their impact on public authorities that the real cost of the commissioners will be felt, and it is important, especially in the context of the current cost of living crisis, that we are open and honest about this fact.

The relevant public authorities are defined by the Public Services Ombudsman Act (Northern Ireland) 2016, which lists well over 70 public authorities in Northern Ireland. If we consider the principal aim of the Irish language commissioner, described in new Section 78K(1) as,

“enhance … the use of the Irish language”,

it is possible that every single public authority in that long list will be in receipt of significant new obligations and costs, relating to the provision of the services of the public authority in question in Irish. They will, however, also benefit from a duty to have regard to obligation being placed on public authorities in relation to them and the complaints procedure with respect to the entirety of their obligations as defined by the Irish language commissioner.

By contrast, the role of the Ulster Scots commissioner is also defined in terms of the same list of public authorities, the principal aim of the commissioner, to

“enhance … the language, arts and literature”,

of Ulster Scots, rather than enhancing the use of the language, as described in new Section 78Q(1), is such that while it is clear that some public authorities concerned with culture and the arts will be engaged, it is also likely that the demands placed on the long list of others, including, for example, the Northern Ireland Fishery Harbour Authority, the Health and Safety Executive, the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, et cetera, will be very limited indeed.

Put another way, while every public authority is equally and extensively open to engagement by the Irish language commissioner, because all public authority services must be provided in the context of the use of language, it seems to me that every public authority is not as equally and as extensively engaged by the Ulster Scots/Ulster-British commissioner.

At this point, I should perhaps anticipate the response that the Bill makes reference to the role of the Ulster Scots/Ulster-British commissioner in terms of,

“facilitating the use of Ulster Scots in the provision of services to the public or a section of the public in Northern Ireland”.

However, while the principal role of the Irish language commissioner, as described in new Section 78K(1), is focused on enhancing the use of the language in public service provision, the parallel principal role of the Ulster Scots commissioner is defined in terms of enhancing the language, literature and arts of Ulster Scots. Although facilitating the use of Ulster Scots by public authorities in service provision is by no means off limits, the fact that it is not front and centre, as in the case of the Irish language commissioner, is underlined by the fact that reference to it does not occur in the principal role definition when it is mentioned lower down, as in new Section 78R(2)(b) where it is only in brackets.

In response to the debate on costs in Committee, the Minister referred simply to the Explanatory Note, which focuses narrowly on the costs of running the three organisations, not on the cost to the public purse with respect to public authorities. In responding to that debate, the Minister stated also that it was not the business of Westminster to get involved in monitoring the costs of the new bodies. I accept that point, after the bodies are established.

My Amendment 37, however, pertains to the period before the Bill comes into force and so is directed at Westminster and Whitehall. While it is not our job to run offices, it is our job to make this legislation very clear about the costs for which Northern Ireland must prepare. Amendment 37 requires that, before this Act can come into force, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report assessing both the operational costs of setting up and running the three offices, and the costs to public authorities of engaging with the new commissioners and their requirements. Critically, it requires also that this assessment demonstrates how the resulting spending allocation, including that from the public authorities, will give effect to the principle of the parity of esteem between the unionist and nationalist communities.

Amendments 4, 16 and 35A would place a similar obligation on the First and Deputy First Ministers for once the two commissioners are up and running in order to ensure that the spending allocations to each community are broadly comparable. Amendment 2A applies the same obligation in relation to their assessment of the spending of the office of identity and cultural expression.

I hope that the Minister is in a position to give the following assurances that I am looking for in speaking to these amendments today: first, that the role of both commissioners should be accorded equal importance; and, secondly, as a function of this, that the budgetary footprint left by each commissioner in terms of their impact on public authorities should be broadly the same. In responding to the debate today, I ask that the Minister directly addresses these two points. I beg to move.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I will very briefly add a word or two. By way of general introduction, I agree with noble Lords who have already said that this is a matter that should be decided and debated in the Northern Ireland Assembly rather than in this place. Of course, had the Government wished that to be the case, they could have left it to the Northern Ireland Assembly. However, it was a decision taken by Her Majesty’s Government to bring it here, and we are therefore debating it today. Nevertheless, we are now examining these matters in detail, and the other place will deal with this in due course.

Since I had spoken on this issue of accountability and financial responsibility in Committee, I wanted to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, in the amendments that he has set out, and to stress the point that the Minister in Committee said that these were matters for the Northern Ireland Assembly and therefore that it would be inappropriate to have Whitehall, the Northern Ireland Office or this Parliament have reports presented to them on expenditure in relation to these commissioners, bodies and so on. But the amendment to which the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, has referred on the costs to public authorities, which would require that a report be laid before the commencement of the Bill, is right and proper for this Parliament to consider. It is entirely right that the Comptroller and Auditor-General will examine the accounts of the commissioners’ offices, and I urge that that should also look at the parity issue in relation to the fairness of expenditure across the board between the two offices and the office of identity and cultural expression.

However, the impact on public authorities has not been adequately investigated or probed thus far. While the Minister referred to cost, which the noble Lord has alluded to, in the Explanatory Notes, as I understand it, the estimated cost to public authorities of fulfilling the requirements in terms of guidance and so on has never been set out. I would be grateful if the Minister could deal with that point in his response and indicate whether any study or work has been done with those public authorities which will be engaged and affected by this legislation and by the guidance that emerges from the commissioners’ offices. Has any work been done with them about the impact on them in terms of costs, where any budgetary pressures may emerge and how those will be met? This matter deserves a little more scrutiny. We have had representations on it, and I hope that the Minister can address it when he sums up.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Morrow and Lord Dodds of Duncairn, and to my noble friend Lord Empey. I too regret that he cannot be here this afternoon; I understand that family commitments in Belfast detain him, and we all wish him well.

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[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, like other speakers, I have very considerable sympathy for the views that the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, expressed. I urge my noble friend the Minister to keep the key words “parity of esteem” constantly in mind. That is the heart of the matter. I hope he will indeed reflect further, as he has been encouraged to do. It really would be a tragedy not to do all that is possible to allay the considerable misgivings with which this legislation is currently viewed by many unionists in Northern Ireland.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, following on from the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, I hope the Minister will remain in his place, because he brings a large degree of experience and knowledge to the situation. I certainly hope he can continue in his post for as long as possible.

I welcome what the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, said about these amendments. There are two issues. The first is parity of esteem, as the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, said. This legislation has been very controversial and it no doubt will be. It must be implemented with people feeling that they are being treated equally. I was involved in some of the negotiations and if anyone had suggested at the time that the New Decade, New Approach agreement meant that there would be this difference in duty, it would never have been agreed on that basis. It is clear that the two should be treated equally, with the same duties on public authorities regarding each of them. I echo the calls for this to be considered further before it gets to the other place.

Secondly, if we are talking about reflecting accurately the NDNA agreement—we will come on to this with more significant clauses later in the Bill—it is important that there is not a piecemeal approach. If NDNA is to be faithfully replicated and the duty is placed on public authorities with regard to the Irish language commissioner, then we either have Amendment 4A, which would take it away from the Irish language commissioner, which I do not wish to see happen, or we have Amendment 17, which would make it an equal approach. That is something the Government should think about very seriously, in the interests of boosting confidence and giving reassurance.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

Again, I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, for elevating me to the position once occupied by the first Duke of Wellington in the 1830s, when, in his caretaker Administration, I think he occupied every position in the Government bar Lord Chancellor and Chancellor of the Exchequer—my noble friend Lord Lexden will correct me if I am wrong. Let us hope that it does not come to that.

This was another a matter of great interest and extensive and lengthy debate in Grand Committee and I will try to respond without necessarily repeating all the same arguments that we examined in detail there. The Government’s view is that it is very clearly set out in Annexe E of New Decade, New Approach, a document that I gently remind some noble Lords was hailed at the time by the Democratic Unionist Party as “fair and balanced”. The roles and functions of the two commissioners are different, reflecting the respective needs of Irish as a language, Ulster Scots as a national minority, and the Ulster-British tradition. That is why the provision for those respective groups is set out differently in New Decade, New Approach, including in respect of the legal duties set out in this Bill. The Government believe that that was for good reason.

I hope this goes some way to answering concerns from a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie: to answer her question directly, I had a very constructive meeting with Ian Crozier from the Ulster-Scots Agency and am very happy to continue to engage with the Ulster-Scots Agency and with Irish language groups that I have already met. I have absolutely no issue with doing that at all.

To go back to the point, the role of the Irish language commissioner pertains to matters of language alone. Its work focuses on best practice standards on the Irish language for public authorities to follow in providing their services. Accordingly, there is a specific legal duty in this regard. In comparison, the commissioner associated with the Ulster Scots and the Ulster-British traditions will cover arts and literature in addition to language. The legal duty proposed here by Amendment 17 from the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, would therefore have the effect of being far broader than that on the Irish language, covering public authorities’ work on arts and literature.

I will just come back on one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, when I think he stated that the Irish commissioner would cover 70-plus authorities but the Ulster Scots commissioner would not. The Government’s position is very clear that the Ulster Scots and Ulster-British commissioner will cover exactly the same public authorities as the Irish language counterpart and will still be able to receive complaints where its advice and guidance are not followed. I want to be clear on that.

Therefore, the amendments proposed by noble Lords this afternoon, in the Government’s view, seem to go far beyond the fair and balanced package reached in New Decade, New Approach, and as such the Government cannot accept them.

I understand that we will return to this matter later, but I highlight also that there is a specific new legal duty for Ulster Scots in relation to the education system provided by the Bill. This will address the current lack of statutory provision for Ulster Scots in the education system. I also highlight that the commissioners will be able to administer complaints in relation to the compliance with public authorities on their guidance and standards issued and lay reports before the Assembly.

Amendment 4A would remove the legal duty in relation to the Irish Language best practice standards. Those standards were a key function of the Irish language commissioner, as set out in paragraph 27(d) of New Decade, New Approach. The standards provided for in the Bill are, therefore, consistent with New Decade, New Approach and the legal duty set out in the proposed draft legislation accompanying it, in new Section 78I(1) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

Annexe E of New Decade, New Approach, in paragraph 5.9, accordingly speaks of public authorities fulfilling their “requirement” under the standards and it would seem clear from a reading of both that document and the draft legislation together that the legal duty provided for in this Bill is consistent with the position reached by the parties in the talks. Reflecting the fact that the standards are associated with a legal duty, these will require the approval of the First and Deputy First Ministers, acting jointly, to be given effect. This is intended to provide a level of assurance and oversight over the requirements set by the commissioner.

I highlight that no such approval from the First Minister and Deputy First Minister is required for the guidance and advice of the commissioner for the Ulster Scots and the Ulster-British tradition; nor is approval required for guidance so that complaints can be made in relation to the failure of public authorities to comply with it. With this context in mind, I hope noble Lords will appreciate that the provision for the commissioners and the associated legal duties reflects the delicate and fair balance and the particular needs of the groups that they will serve. The Government cannot accept propositions that would deviate from New Decade, New Approach or the legal duties set out in the original draft legislation that accompanied that document. I would therefore be grateful if the noble Lords did not press their amendments.

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[Baroness Goudie (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Ritchie’s amendments. Furthermore, I ask the Minister to consider that committees and other organisations around the strategy should have equal numbers of men and women, and of various religions and others, so that this truly bears out the Good Friday agreement and the Bill. This would be a great move, and I know the Minister could see to this. Perhaps it could also be debated fully in the other House. I raised this on Second Reading.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendments 28, 29 and 36 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Morrow and Lord Empey, but I will first deal with Amendment 25 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie.

I understand where the noble Baroness is coming from with this amendment, which we also discussed in Committee. Part of the reason for it is to allow decisions to be made if there is no Northern Ireland Executive in place, but from my reading of it—I stand to be corrected—if it were to be agreed, these powers to act after 30 days would apply whether there were a Northern Ireland Executive or not. In other words, even if the Assembly and the Executive are in place but a period of 30 days elapses between the trigger point and a decision being made, it is open to the Secretary of State to intervene. That seems a quite draconian suggestion. I have been in the Northern Ireland Executive, like the noble Baroness and others, and many decisions take longer than 30 days, for all sorts of good reasons and considerations of all sorts of circumstances. It seems an amazing proposition that the Secretary of State would be compelled to act if the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister could not agree something within 30 days. I can think of nothing more designed to undermine the principle of devolution than that. From my reading of the amendment, it clearly would apply not just to the circumstances where there was no Executive but even if the Executive were in place.

The other thing I point out is that the amendment would apply only to the appointment of the Irish language commissioner, so there is no compulsion for the Secretary of State to act if there is a failure to appoint the Ulster Scots/Ulster-British commissioner. It seems one-sided in that approach. Nor indeed would it apply to appointments relating to the office of identity and cultural expression. It seems to be very much overstepping the mark. It would not fulfil the purposes it purports to and would create a one-sided approach in relation to appointments. For those reasons, I trust that the Government will maintain their position from Committee and not support the amendment.

Amendments 28, 29 and 36 in the names of my noble friend Lord Morrow and the noble Lord, Lord Empey, would remove the override powers from the Bill. In his opening remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, made the very important point that the Bill is designed to stick as closely as possible to the NDNA agreement. That is what we are about. On a number of occasions, the Minister cited in support of his arguments in knocking down some amendments that we must reflect the NDNA agreement and that those provisions were not in it. It is certainly not in the NDNA agreement that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland would be given override powers, as the Minister admitted in Committee.

If it had been suggested that this would be part of the agreement, I do not think there would have been an agreement. If we had set up a series of checks and balances, and requirements for the First Minister and Deputy First Minister to agree, and then said, “If they can’t agree, don’t agree, or it appears to the Secretary of State to be appropriate then he can intervene and take on all the powers of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in this respect”, which is a devolved matter, there would not have been an agreement. It so undermines the NDNA agreement and devolution itself that I find it hard to see how the Minister can justify it. He cannot do so on the basis that it is a faithful replication of the agreement, or on the grounds that it faithfully adheres to the devolution arrangements throughout the United Kingdom. It is clearly in breach of the Sewel convention and it acts as a clear disincentive to find agreement.

This is one of the many areas where the First and Deputy First Minister—and, indeed, the Executive—are required to reach agreement without the fallback that if they do not then the Secretary of State will intervene. That forces agreement to be made in the vast bulk of cases. If it is clear to some people that the Secretary of State will intervene if they simply dig in their heels and do not agree, then that is likely what will happen. I think this is a very misconceived part of the Bill. I understand that the argument may well be that it is a difficult area and we need contingency powers, as the Minister set out in Committee, but, again, contingency powers to avoid this problem arising were not part of the NDNA.

I come back to the basic principle. This Bill is about implementing that agreement. We are all agreed on that. These clauses were not part of the agreement. They are unilateral actions on the part of the Government to reserve unto themselves powers to override the Executive. We have seen this in a number of areas recently and I have raised with the Secretary of State and with others within government that we are going down a very dangerous path with this selective overriding of the devolved settlement. We have seen it in relation to the abortion issue, in relation to this issue and in relation to the protocol issue, where the voting mechanism of the Assembly, which is meant to be cross-community and cross-party agreement—there has to be a majority of unionists, nationalists and an overall majority—has been set aside arbitrarily.

Where does this end? What criteria do the Government apply for where they respect devolution and where they set it aside? Can the Minister tell us what are the overall considerations as to when powers are taken by the Secretary of State to override devolution, the Belfast agreement or the NDNA agreement? Is it on a case-by-case basis? What is it? I think it raises very serious questions.

I hope that when this matter is dealt with in the other place, the Government will reconsider this approach because, as I say, it is not a faithful replication of the NDNA agreement.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, I must say that the final debate of this evening has been fascinating. There are times where I am glad I am not the Minister, and this is one of them. There are quite convincing and interesting arguments on both sides. I remember that the late Lord Cledwyn Hughes, when he chaired the Parliamentary Labour Party, would start his deliberation as chairman by saying: “There are pros and cons for and there are pros and cons against.” That is the case here.

It is about protection. My noble friends Lady Ritchie and Lady Goudie were talking about protecting this legislation, protecting the agreement that has produced the legislation so that something which in the past, as we all know, brought down the Assembly for three years ought not to happen again. Of course, we have to ensure that the legislation is balanced for both nationalists and unionists and, indeed, other members of the community in Northern Ireland. I quite understand the need for reassurance but then there is the other protection: the protection for devolution. It would be much easier, by the way, if the Assembly and the Executive were functioning because the argument would be much more effective but, of course, they are not and that is one of the problems. Because there is no real, effective Assembly or Government in Northern Ireland, it is very difficult to ensure that there is certainty about this legislation when they are not there. I can understand that too.

As I said in Committee, when I was the Secretary of State I felt deeply uncomfortable about making decisions for people in Northern Ireland when I was a Member for a Welsh valley constituency. It was for the people of Northern Ireland to decide what they had to do. On schools, education, language, culture or whatever it might be, it is for those people in Northern Ireland who were elected by the people of Northern Ireland to make the decisions. They have elected them and, frankly, it is about time they got into government. I understand all the issues that underlie why that is not happening.

Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Bill [HL]

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Caine (Con)]

My Lords, I think we should probably move on. In summary, the provisions of the Bill—

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

Before we move on, because these matters are important, there is a report, I think in today’s newspapers, about the reduction in the number of days on which the union flag will be flown officially in Northern Ireland—albeit it appears to be related to a general reduction across the United Kingdom, so Northern Ireland would be in line with the rest of the UK. Can the Minister comment on whether this report is correct—that there will be a number of official days removed from the calendar for the whole of the United Kingdom?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I can: there has been a review of the number of days on which the union flag is flown officially throughout Great Britain. There has been a reduction in the number of such days, and that will be reflected in Northern Ireland legislation which I will bring before your Lordships’ House fairly soon. All that is doing is ensuring that Northern Ireland is in step with the rest of the United Kingdom.

In conclusion, the provisions of the Bill do not have the effect that has been suggested in the noble Baroness’s speech, and for that reason I cannot accept the amendment.

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[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I support the four amendments that have just been spoken to. However, my worry about all of this is that people cannot be corralled into particular identities. Among those who do not identify with, say, an Irish or a Scottish background, there are lots of people whose identity is much more fluid and relaxed. People see themselves as Irish and British; some people see themselves as Irish and Irish. We are in a quagmire. We could have 50 commissioners with no difficulty if we really drilled down to it, and that is the risk with all this.

Sinn Féin has religiously pursued the whole question of the Irish language, not for the love of language—the vast majority of them could not speak a word of it—but because it provides a difference. The quotation given by the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, from Gerry Adams’ speech, or comments, in 1998 illustrates that and what the name of the game is: it has to be different. Indeed, I came across the minutes of a Sinn Féin meeting not long ago, I think it was last year, which had an agenda about the greening of Northern Ireland—the street names and so on. It was not to give respect to the Irish language; it was to show difference and prevent the community coming together and being cohesive. That is the one thing that it cannot cope with, because it implies the status quo.

I remind the Committee that things were divided during the strand 1 negotiations; my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, keeps referring to this, and he is right. As the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, will know, strand 1 was Northern Ireland only, but that seems to have moved along since the NDNA. It was announced jointly by the UK Secretary of State and the Irish Foreign Minister and, while some of the rest of the parties were still reading the draft in the building, they were down at Carson’s statue releasing it to the press. That was how seriously they took it. But that is another matter.

The fundamental point is that the reason Sinn Féin did not propose an Irish language Act and did not deal with this in the talks was that it did not want to have what it called an internal settlement, because that is anathema to its whole rationale. I fear that the danger with all this is that it goes along with its divisive approach that everybody has to be in a particular box to be recognised. That is not where most people are today, particularly our younger generation, who do not see themselves in these boxes.

Nevertheless, we are where we are, as they say. These amendments cover some of the inevitable consequences, and I support them. I hope that the Minister will take them away with him and reflect on them before Report, because I suspect that if we come to Report and things remain as they are, some of us may have to test the opinion of the House on these matters. This is a relatively modest set of amendments that will at least make people feel that, as far as this particular identity is concerned, it is respected and treated equally.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 43A in the name of my noble friend Lord Morrow, but, before I do, I too send my best wishes to the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, since she cannot be here. I hope that she is enjoying the proceedings by video; I am sure she is. We hope to see her back in her rightful place very soon.

I also agree with noble Lords who have mentioned that it is a matter of regret that we are debating this matter at all here in this place and that it should be a matter for the Assembly. Of course, it is not by accident or some kind of inevitability that it is being debated here; it is a deliberate decision of the Government to bring it here. That is something that we debated yesterday on another matter to do with abortion regulations. These are devolved matters, and the devolution settlement should be respected, whatever the issue and whatever our view of that issue may be. If it is a matter that is devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, it should remain there. That is the clear position as far as I am concerned; otherwise, we pick and choose the issues that we decide to legislate on in this place, which cannot be right.

On the NDNA agreement, I just say to the Government that we look forward to all aspects of it being delivered. There is an outstanding matter in relation to the restoration of the internal market of the United Kingdom, and I look forward to rapid progress on that, in line with taking forward these other matters under NDNA—there are others matters under that agreement that are outstanding.

Talking of agreements, there has been reference to 1998, going back to the Belfast agreement and the subsequent agreement at St Andrews that amended it. It is true that none of this demand by Sinn Féin for Irish language provision was a part of the main negotiation on the Belfast agreement. Of course, much more recently we had the Assembly elections in 2016 and then the unfortunate collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2017, when Sinn Féin walked out of the Executive and Martin McGuinness resigned as Deputy First Minister. We then had three years in which the Assembly did not operate. We need to remember that, just prior to that, Sinn Féin has agreed a draft programme for government with the DUP—those two parties were in government together. Sinn Féin did not put forward Irish language provision in that, yet it became Sinn Féin’s cause célèbre in the subsequent years.

There is a lot of revisionism in terms of the importance of all this and the priorities, but when you work through the timelines and so on, a lot of this is not borne out by the actuality and reality of the situation. This was not a matter that Sinn Féin made a priority at the time, but it subsequently made it a priority in order to keep the institutions down for three years. That is worth bearing in mind in the context of where we are at the moment with the institutions and the need to implement the whole NDNA agreement.

I turn to Amendment 43A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Morrow. When the Minister made the case for the Bill at Second Reading, he referred to the fact that the Government had made available some funds—I think it was in the region of £4 million—to the Irish Language Investment Fund

“to support capital projects associated with the Irish language.”—[Official Report, 7/6/22; col. 1097.]

This commitment, it was said, was based in the section of the NDNA agreement that dealt with Northern Ireland’s “unique circumstances”.

However, when you read that section of the document, it contains merely a passing reference:

“This could include areas such as … Support for languages and broadcasting”.


There was no explicit commitment to £4 million or any other sum for capital projects, yet this passing reference has crystallised into a hard figure for investment. This £4 million of investment follows £8 million that has already been spent by the UK Government on building Irish language centres in Northern Ireland. My understanding is that this £4 million is likely to be matched by the Irish Government, so the total for building Irish language centres is likely to be nearer £16 million. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether he has had any discussions with or heard from the Irish Government on that point. Has there been any similar investment for the Ulster Scots community? I am sad to say that the answer is, no, there has not been—not a single penny.

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[Lord Empey (UUP)]

Does the noble Lord agree that the expenditure undertaken in these areas by local authorities also needs to be taken into account, as they have roads? The behaviour of some local authorities appears to me very partial and one-sided.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

The noble Lord makes a very good point, which is often overlooked when we talk about these issues—certainly, in this place because there is a lot of concentration, necessarily and inevitably, on the functions of Northern Ireland departments, the Assembly and the Executive. There has undoubtedly been a very aggressive campaign on this, lavishly funded by certain councils, particularly those west of the Bann. Taking that into account, as the noble Lord has pointed out, makes my point about the necessity of catching up all the more relevant, pertinent and urgent.

The Ulster Scots community is representative of the lion’s share of the unionist community in Northern Ireland, disadvantaged by years of underinvestment in its identity. We must ensure that it is not short-changed. Broadcasting is one example where we could see a very immediate change, I hope, if funding is made available. We need to see financial equality between the two broadcast funds and the footprint of the Ulster-Scots Broadcast Fund extended to include greater coproduction with Scotland and a presence on the UK-wide network in recognition of Ulster Scots as a national minority of the United Kingdom.

We also need to see dedicated and sustained resources to support Ulster-Scots projects on the east-west axis, in line with Amendment 30 in this group, between communities and schools—cultural and educational institutions—to engage the Ulster Scots community and diaspora throughout the United Kingdom. Recognition of the Ulster Scots nature of the commissioner’s brief, in line with Amendment 30 and more specifically through Amendment 43A, will facilitate this. I look forward to hearing what the Minister will say. I hope he will take these amendments on board, take them away and reflect on how, if implemented, they would go some way to restoring equality and parity of esteem in this area.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

My Lords, again, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who spoke to this group of amendments. I start by saying that the Government are committed to supporting the culture and heritage of the Ulster Scots and the Ulster British tradition in Northern Ireland. This includes £1 million in funding for Northern Ireland Screen’s Ulster-Scots Broadcast Fund, which was delivered last year, and the formal recognition this year of Ulster Scots as a national minority under the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. The Bill does not in any way take away from the recognised status of Ulster Scots in a number of international instruments. Indeed, its provisions protect that status and actually broaden it.

As I have said on a number of occasions, the Bill seeks faithfully to deliver on the legislative commitments in what the then leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Dame Arlene Foster, described in January 2020 as a “fair and balanced” package. It was very clear in that package that the remit of the commissioner in respect of the Ulster Scots and Ulster British tradition would be matters of “language, arts and literature” and not culture and heritage. In the Bill we are sticking faithfully to what was in New Decade, New Approach.

Perhaps I might give some reassurance. In the new cultural framework provided for by the Bill, the office of identity and cultural expression will have an important grant-making power and will be able to commission research, support educational programmes and provide guidance reflecting Northern Ireland’s diversity of national and cultural identities. That would seem naturally to include the Ulster Scots/Ulster British tradition, given its prominence, and I hope that provides some small degree of reassurance on that point.

I also highlight that the Irish language commissioner’s role is limited to language, reflecting the particular needs of Irish speakers. If we were to widen the provision for one commissioner to include cultural matters, it is perfectly possible, given the nature of Northern Ireland, that demands could then follow from those expecting the same of both. So we need to be slightly careful on these matters.

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Moved by

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn]

8: Clause 1, page 3, line 33, at end insert—
“(5) The Secretary of State must annually assess and report on the costs arising from the operation of the Office in line with the duties prescribed in section 9(2A) and 9(2B) of the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022.”

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I will talk to Amendments 8, 12, 31 and 45 in my name and that of the noble Lords, Lord Morrow, Lord Hay and Lord McCrea.

These amendments go to the issue of good housekeeping, as it were, in terms of Parliament having access to a report in relation to the office of identity and cultural expression and, in Amendment 12, to an annual assessment and report on the costs arising from the Irish language commissioner. By virtue of Amendment 31, the same provision would also apply in relation to the Ulster Scots commissioner—if I may use that shorthand. Amendment 45 would put an obligation on the Secretary of State to

“lay before Parliament a report assessing the costs to the public purse of the establishment and operation of each of the three bodies”.

These are sensible and not particularly controversial provisions. I do not think that they should evoke alarm anywhere. Obviously, each body will publish its own financial reports and details in its own right, but it is right that these requirements are placed on the Secretary of State so that parliamentarians have a full, open and transparent picture of what is being expended and how it is being expended in terms of each of these novel, new bodies.

As has come up today and was discussed at Second Reading, the costs of all these new arrangements in NDNA, as reflected in this legislation, are somewhat subject to guesstimates. So far, nobody has been able to put a figure on what all this will actually cost. As has been raised by many people, there is a genuine concern that, when we come to prioritising expenditure in Northern Ireland—opinion polls have reflected this concern time and again—the issue at the heart of this legislation is not a high priority for people in either community, or of no community, in Northern Ireland. The health service, education, public services generally, the police service, the operation of the courts, the environment—as we know, all these issues are seen as extremely more deserving of high prioritisation when it comes to public expenditure in Northern Ireland, as you would expect.

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[Lord Caine (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Dodds of Duncairn for the way in which moved his amendment. The effect of this group of amendments would be to place the Secretary of State under a duty to assess ahead of commencement, and annually thereafter, the costs arising from the three bodies.

I genuinely appreciate the intent behind these amendments but it is, as my noble friend Lord Deben made clear in his comments, not a matter for UK Government Ministers to conduct annual assessments for public bodies for which they are not directly responsible. The three public authorities established by this Bill will be administered, supported and funded by the Executive Office and fall squarely under the devolved competence of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

My noble friend referred to the estimated costs of the bodies. That will be a matter for the Northern Ireland Executive and the Assembly, although my officials—I think this is in the Explanatory Notes—have estimated through comparison with similar bodies a figure in the range of around £9 million per annum for all three bodies to run. As my noble friend Lord Deben highlighted, expenditure from the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund is for the Northern Ireland Assembly to scrutinise. That is why, in the case of all three authorities, specific provision is made for the Executive Office to lay a copy of the statement of accounts and the statement of the Comptroller and Auditor-General for Northern Ireland before the Assembly.

Although Parts 6 and 7, which we will come on to later, make provision for the Secretary of State to ensure the implementation of the provisions in this Bill if that is absolutely necessary, I again highlight that it is not the intention of either the Government or that part of the Bill to result in a situation in which the Secretary of State routinely involves himself in transferred matters.

These amendments would make the Secretary of State’s involvement in transferred matters of identity, language and culture a permanent feature. We would prefer those to remain considerations for Northern Ireland’s devolved institutions. For that reason, I urge my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his response and for the manner in which he has dealt with the issue. I understand where he is coming from. The tone and tenor in all these debates relating to Northern Ireland are important. Seeking to raise a matter to do with financial accountability does not, and should not, evoke the level of vitriol that we heard from the noble Lord behind me in relation to these matters. Whatever his underlying attitude to a particular party or to the unionist community in Northern Ireland, these are important matters, which have been the subject of detailed scrutiny, not just by the DUP but, being subject to three years’ negotiation, by all the other parties as well: the Alliance Party; the Ulster Unionists, who were involved in the negotiation, so I totally respect what the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said about the final bit of it; the SDLP; and Sinn Féin.

It is not in any spirit of a lack of generosity that we want proper, detailed scrutiny in Committee of aspects of legislation. After all, we would not have an NDNA agreement if it was not for the fact that the DUP, along with Sinn Féin and other parties, subscribed to it. We would not have had the restoration of the Assembly had it not been for the fact that Arlene Foster, Sinn Féin and other parties said, “On this basis, we can move forward.” It was not everything that we wanted—far from it. I am sure that it was not everything that other parties wanted—far from it. But, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, can testify, neither were the Belfast agreement, the St Andrews agreement or anything else.

My noble friend Lord McCrea makes a very fair point. Those of us who have been subject to murder attacks by Sinn Féin have been prepared to sit alongside Sinn Féin Ministers—I have been an Executive Minister, sitting and working alongside them—who have never apologised or expressed an ounce of regret for any of the actions that they carried out. Indeed, they still eulogise those murderers today, which is a source of great contention and problems in Northern Ireland. If we are talking about generosity, let us remember that. The explosion in this debate is perhaps illustrative of a wider problem which exists with some people who perhaps do not have the degree of understanding that their long experience should give them, nor, certainly, a respect for the way in which Northern Ireland matters should be properly debated and discussed. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 8 withdrawn.

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The danger is that one will eviscerate the Good Friday mechanisms for governing Northern Ireland to the point where they simply become a sort of level of local government acting on a voluntary basis, with many important or controversial decisions passed back up to the Secretary of State as the institutions of the Good Friday agreement gradually drain away. I very much believe that that would be bad for Northern Ireland. I hope that the Government would agree and will give some countenance to Amendment 43.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has eloquently set out the dangers of the approach that the Government are taking through the insertion of Clauses 6 and 7. I support Amendment 43 in his name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey. Our position that Clause 7 should not stand part of the Bill would go further in deleting the Secretary of State’s override powers completely. However, I understand entirely that, when we have a functioning Assembly, there certainly should be no question of the Secretary of State having the power to intervene.

The issue is very clear, as was illustrated yesterday in the debate on the abortion regulations. These clauses are another example of what one noble Lord described as the Government’s pick-and-mix approach to devolution and the Belfast agreement as amended by the St Andrews agreement. Some issues are picked out to be legislated for here in Westminster and other issues are not touched at all; we saw this between 2017 and 2020, when the Government’s attitude was that they could do nothing at all to move issues forward, legislate or step in.

However, now, they are doing so on other issues. We had it with yesterday’s regulations on abortion, which is a devolved matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly and was lifted out of it to be legislated for here. We had it on the protocol, where the Belfast agreement and the Northern Ireland Act were disgracefully amended by secondary legislation to ensure that, for the vote on the protocol—it was given to the Assembly and therefore, by definition, was devolved to it—the voting mechanism was changed. The very architecture of the Belfast agreement was changed at the Government’s whim without agreement among the parties.

Here is another example. As the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Empey, have said, this goes to the heart of the operation of the institutions in Northern Ireland. There is no doubt that people will inevitably feel that, going forward, if there are intractable or difficult issues, they will go with their competing demands to whoever is in power at Westminster and demand that it should act in their favour—although I suspect that unionists will be less keen to do that than nationalists, given the track record of success at getting Westminster to legislate over the wishes of the Assembly. I fear that it seems to be a rather one-sided approach. There is no justification on this issue in terms of the principle of devolution, which applies throughout the United Kingdom; the Sewel convention has been mentioned. It undermines the principle of devolution and the Belfast agreement as amended.

I throw this point in also; obviously the Minister can deal with it when he comes to reply. He said that the New Decade, New Approach document should be faithfully followed, that part of this legislation is about putting into practice and law the provisions of that agreement, and that it should be departed from very rarely—if at all—but can he point to anywhere in the NDNA agreement that says that the Secretary of State would have override powers or intervention powers? Where is that provision to be found?

Of course, the Secretary of State and the Government always implicitly have such powers but it seems to me that, when parties make an agreement in the context of an operational assembly and an agreement on how things should be agreed between them, that assembly is where the matter should lie. Yes, there will be difficulties in reaching agreements—the noble Lord, Lord Empey, pointed to one particularly good example about notepaper—but the point is that there have been serious issues on which there was disagreement initially but agreement was eventually reached between the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, or between the parties in the Executive, because it had to be.

I hear Ministers continually referring to their support for the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and how committed they are to it, yet their actions in recent months have been very concerning in terms of their approach to the institutions and powers of the Executive and the Assembly as set out in that agreement. They are effectively undermining it.

I believe that Clause 7 should not stand part of the Bill and I lend my support to Amendment 43. I also happen to agree with Amendment 40, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, in the sense that, if there is a situation where this clause does go through and the Secretary of State does have that power, he or she should be required to come and make a Statement to Parliament, as opposed to not having that obligation. Again, that would be an opportunity to hold people to account.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

Not having been intimately involved in the New Decade, New Approach negotiations, is the noble Lord saying that there were no provisions in that agreement for Secretary of State override powers? Am I right in taking that as his position? If that is the case, could it be that a deal has been done with Sinn Féin to guarantee that, irrespective of what happens in the Assembly, its particular version of events will be implemented by the Secretary of State? Is that possible?

The genesis of the Irish language Act is in the final communiqué of the St Andrews agreement, where the British Government commit to introducing such an Act. I just wonder whether a private understanding has occurred; I am sure that the Minister can clarify that if that is the case. However, if the noble Lord is saying that we are putting into this piece of supposedly devolved legislation a clause that means that the Assembly in and of itself is not the final arbiter of its decisions, the sooner we have that clarified, the better.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. A lot of those questions are for the Minister; I look forward to hearing what he has to say in relation to these matters.

I want to clarify the point about the St Andrews agreement and the Irish language provisions, which were also referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy. He is quite correct that Sinn Féin went to the Government at the very last minute and wanted provision to be made but, of course, it was not a matter for the negotiations between the parties; it was a last-minute effort by the Sinn Féin negotiators to get the Government to commit to doing it. Of course, the Government made some commitments but they were not binding on the local parties and, because it was a devolved matter, that is where it stayed.

As far as we are concerned, just like abortion, the issues of identity and language are matters for the Northern Ireland Assembly. That is the basis on which agreements were made. Going forward, I believe that it is dangerous for the stability of the Assembly and all the other institutions if the Government take this pick-and-mix approach and decide that they will act unilaterally on certain issues. That is not sustainable and will ultimately cause major problems. It has done so already but it will cause more problems down the line.

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, said about Amendment 40, which I co-signed. It is primarily a probing amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, made the point that if the Bill goes through unamended, it is extremely important that this House and the House of Commons are able to probe exactly why the Secretary of State has deemed something to be appropriate. “Appropriate” is a very subjective term, and it is not sufficient just to lay orders before Parliament. It is important that it is fleshed out, discussed, debated and aired. I agree with the earlier comment about some of the statements in this House and in the House of Commons not always being sufficient. If the Bill goes through unamended, it is important that there is some form of parliamentary scrutiny of why the Secretary of State has taken these measures because he or she has deemed them to be appropriate.

Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2022

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a very wide-ranging debate, and I think it is important that we focus on the decisions that we are being asked to make today. I begin by commending the Minister for the clear, factual exposition of how we came to be in the position that we are in today. We are here debating these regulations because of a catalogue of failure of elected politicians in Northern Ireland and of officials to do something very basic: to ensure that any woman who needs or wishes to have an abortion can access it in Northern Ireland—for the avoidance of doubt, to coerce anybody to have an abortion in any part of the United Kingdom is against the law—and there has been a failure to do that.

I recommend that people read in Hansard the clear and factual way in which the Minister put forward the history of where we are and contrast that with some of the allegations made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan. In her wide-ranging speech she made some very serious allegations. She said that in Northern Ireland there is abortion to term. She did not give any evidence that that has happened. She said that there is abortion on the grounds of sex. She knows that any healthcare worker who did so would be in contravention of their professional ethics. Again, she did not give us any examples. Noble Lords can contrast the evidence behind the two cases that have been made.

On what the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said about picking and choosing, we do not, as a united kingdom, pick and choose the parts of international agreements that we uphold. It is important that having signed up to an international agreement to protect women and girls we throughout the United Kingdom stick to that.

The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, characterised providers of abortion services as people seeking to profit from other people’s misery. That is a world away from the work being done by organisations on a charitable basis to make sure that the current, wholly inadequate provision is, so far as they can possibly make it, accessible to all women in Northern Ireland. They know, because they meet them on a daily basis, that women who do not have money cannot get themselves to Great Britain, as 161 did last year, to get the care that they need; and 40 of those women were of under ten weeks’ gestation. It is quite clear that the provision of service is utterly inadequate. That is why it is important that the commissioning of services happens—the commissioning that we have been told the Northern Ireland Health Minister wishes to wash his hands of.

I say to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn—who I do not think has been involved in our discussions before—that I would take greater notice of the great constitutional outrage were it not for the fact that people such as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, have opposed every attempt to ensure that women anywhere have access to safe abortion. The views of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, are extremely well known. I can now almost write his speeches for him. I know that they will always include a reference to some poll that somebody has paid somebody to do to come up with the answer that he hopes they will find.

The important thing that nobody has said in all this is that the political failure in Northern Ireland has been particularly hard on women and girls, perhaps because of the non-sectarian consensus that the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, alluded to. It is right that today we take this measure, which the Government have drafted in as narrow a way as they can, to make sure that the women and young people who have always been weighed down by the politics of the past in Northern Ireland have some hope for the future.

I hope that we will reject the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and that we will put this measure on the statute book as it deserves to be.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, a lot has been said in this debate already and I do not intend to prolong proceedings unnecessarily, but I want to add a few comments about this set of regulations, because the most important aspect of it is the constitutional implications. This is a highly sensitive and emotive issue, and we have seen that on display in your Lordships’ House this afternoon. People have very strong feelings on both sides—I certainly know which side I am on. I believe that both lives matter.

That being said, I think that the issues that have come to the fore in relation to the breach of the devolution settlement of Northern Ireland—the precedent that that sets, the breach of the Belfast agreement—raise very serious issues. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, was absolutely right. On whatever side you come down on any particular issue, if it is a matter that has been devolved, then the devolution settlement should be respected.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Clarke, referenced that it was perhaps not foreseen that this type of situation could arise, but I have to say that these matters were foreseen at the time of the Belfast agreement in 1998 and indeed at the time of the restoration of devolution in 2007, because on those occasions the issue of abortion was deliberately referenced and discussed and made a devolved matter. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred to leading a delegation to a previous Prime Minister in which there was a cross-party, cross-community consensus that it should be a matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly. Therefore, it was entirely foreseen and foreseeable that Northern Ireland could legitimately have a different position from the rest of the United Kingdom. The argument that this needs to be a position which is the same across all four countries of the United Kingdom does not stand up to scrutiny or to the history of this matter and the very delicate balance of the Belfast agreement.

There is an alarming tendency—without discussing the merits of particular issues—to be very selective about the Belfast agreement as amended by the St Andrews agreement in 2007 whereby it now appears to be the view that majoritarianism is a good idea in Northern Ireland, but somehow for 99 years majority rule in Northern Ireland was unacceptable. We have not had majority rule in Northern Ireland since 1972 with the collapse of the old Stormont Parliament. For half of Northern Ireland’s existence, it has not been there.

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[Lord Caine (Con)]

My Lords, I thank everybody who has participated in the debate on these regulations, and I am grateful to the number of noble Lords who expressed support for what the Government are bringing forward. We have heard a wide range of strongly held personal views, and varied contributions on all aspects of the regulations. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, referred to a sense of déjà vu; I think it was the late Viscount Whitelaw, when he was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who referred after one meeting to “déjà vu all over again”. I take on board the comments of the noble Baroness regarding the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, and I can assure her that my officials have returned to the committee with a number of additional pieces of information, which I am assured have been included in the Third Report, so I do take that very seriously indeed.

I shall take the opportunity to address a number of the points raised by noble Lords in quite a lengthy debate, although I fear that if I respond to every single point raised, the Chief Whip might come to the House tomorrow to cancel the Summer Recess, but I will do my best.

A number of noble Lords, not least the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, whom I know has very deeply held views on these subjects, have made heartfelt contributions on the provision of abortion services and the framework established in 2020, and the framework regulations introduced then. I appreciate and understand the views that have been expressed but, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, pointed out, Parliament has already decided on a number of occasions that abortion services must be provided in Northern Ireland, and by large majorities. Noble Lords referred to the 2020 framework regulations. I would just remind noble Lords that those regulations were passed in your Lordships’ House by 332 votes to 29, which is some indication of the will of the House on those issues. The focus of the Government, and of these regulations, is to ensure that Parliament’s decision, expressed on a number of occasions, to give women and girls access to abortion services in Northern Ireland, is properly and fully implemented. Although abortion is an extremely emotive subject, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Deech, Lady Suttie, Lady Smith and Lady Barker, made very clear, we must not lose sight of the fact that it is women and girls in Northern Ireland who are at the heart of these issues, and it is unacceptable that there are women and girls in any part of our United Kingdom who cannot access basic healthcare and whose access to services has been delayed for far too long. I agree with my noble and learned friend Lord Clarke of Nottingham, whose very wise speech I strongly commend.

Parliament has decided that women and girls in Northern Ireland should be able to make individual, informed decisions, with proper patient care and the provision of information and support from medical professionals, based on their own health and wider circumstances, similar to women and girls living everywhere else in the United Kingdom. I think that is very much the right decision.

I should like to reiterate that, as was made clear by a number of noble Lords, so many women in Northern Ireland are placed in a difficult situation by the lack of regulated commissioned abortion services. I referred in my opening speech to the very large numbers who still have to travel to Great Britain to access care, or have to access unregulated services in Northern Ireland. With the greatest respect to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, the position cannot simply be dismissed as work in progress; it cannot continue in this way, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Barker and Lady Smith of Basildon, made absolutely clear.

A major theme of a number of noble Lords this afternoon has been the constitutional position and the importance of respecting the devolution settlement in Northern Ireland. I agree entirely with that, although I cannot avoid sharing the suspicion of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, that some—not all, I hasten to add—seek to use the constitutional argument as a screen for the fact that they oppose abortion in all circumstances. It is interesting listening to people invoking the Belfast agreement, some of whom have never supported it at all and others who have recently pronounced it dead. I assure noble Lords that I, for one, am a strong supporter of the Belfast agreement and have been since 10 April 1998 when that historic agreement was made. I have repeatedly said in this House and elsewhere that I regard it as the bedrock of all the progress that has been made in Northern Ireland over the past 24 years. I do not wish to see anything that puts the agreement and its success in jeopardy.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn suggested, I think, that we are only making these regulations now because the Assembly is not sitting, and we can. I think I explained in my opening remarks the circumstances in which these regulations originated. The Assembly was not sitting, we had an amendment to the Executive formation Bill and since then, we have been working alongside the Executive, the Department of Health and the Minister of Health for a number of years, but we have simply made no progress. Therefore, it is not a question of doing this because we think we can do it at this stage; we have really run out of road on this issue.

A number of noble Lords referred to the pick-and-mix nature of devolution. I certainly do not wish to pick and mix when it comes to the devolution settlement— I think my noble friend Lord Cormack used that phrase. The fact is that Government and the Secretary of State remain under a statutory duty to provide access to abortion services. It is wrong to suggest that he is not under a statutory duty—indeed, he is found to be in breach of his statutory duties in court. He is in no way absolved from the duties imposed upon him by the executive formation Act 2019 by the restoration of devolved government in 2020, as I said in my opening remarks. Lord Justice Colton, in his decision in the judicial review brought by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said the following:

“The clear will of Parliament was that if there was no Executive Committee established by 21 October 2019 then the relevant duties and powers come into existence without extinguishment consequent on events thereafter.”


It is clear that the Secretary of State remains under the obligation and duties that Parliament imposed upon him nearly three years ago.

Notwithstanding this, we have been repeatedly clear about our desire—as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, reminded us—to continue to work with the Executive, the Department of Health and the Assembly to ensure that these regulations are implemented effectively and in a way that works for Northern Ireland, consistent with the obligations on the Secretary of State that I have outlined.

The noble Lord, Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown, asked about the accountability of the Secretary of State. Of course, as a Minister of the Crown, the Secretary of State will continue to be accountable to this sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom, as will I in your Lordships’ House.

The noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn—I normally refer to him as my noble friend, because he is—asked about the team of experts that has been set up in the Northern Ireland Office. They are civil servants from the Department of Health and Social Care who are experts in these matters and have been seconded to the Northern Ireland Office for these purposes.

Returning to the Northern Ireland Executive, more than two years after the framework regulations were put in place, it became abundantly clear that the Department of Health was not progressing this issue and that even if it did, it would be blocked once it reached the Executive Committee. Our clear preference is that the Executive should drive forward these services. To that end, the Secretary of State has formally requested confirmation from the Northern Ireland Minister of Health that they will do so. Therefore, even at this late stage and with these regulations, there is still an opportunity for the Minister and the Department of Health to take forward the commissioning of services without the intervention of the Secretary of State. We are not, however, prepared to allow the provision of services to be delayed indefinitely.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, asked about a timeframe, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie. I cannot give an exact timeframe, as I am sure they will appreciate, but we are not prepared to let this run for much longer. The Secretary of State would not be taking on these powers if he was not prepared to intervene fairly quickly, but at this late stage there is still an opportunity for the Department of Health to take this forward. We hope that will be the case but if not, the Government are prepared to act very quickly.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, and the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, asked about funding. The regulations enable the Secretary of State to make provisions about funding, but I reiterate what has been said and in doing so disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Morrow. The funding settlement in last autumn’s spending review was the most generous in the history of devolution in Northern Ireland—indeed, across the whole United Kingdom. It would be a devolved matter, and it would be for the Northern Ireland Executive and the Department of Health to provide funding.

Parliament made a clear decision in 2019, passed by large majorities, to place a duty on the Government to provide access to CEDAW-compliant abortion services in Northern Ireland. In 2020, the Government delivered a set of regulations to enable that to happen. I reiterate that the regulations were passed by a very large majority in your Lordships’ House. That was over two years ago. At every stage we have sought to ensure that services were delivered through the proper devolved channels, but we have been unsuccessful in so doing. The powers these regulations grant provide a mechanism to unblock the political obstacles which have been placed in the way of their delivery, in order that the Government can satisfy obligations placed upon them in 2019 and uphold the will of this sovereign United Kingdom Parliament. I therefore urge noble Lords to reject the amendment in the name of the noble—

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. On a point of factual accuracy, he and others have referred to 2,793 abortions in Northern Ireland, but the latest figure given by the Minister of Health in Northern Ireland is, as of 13 June, 3,459. Can the Minister undertake that, once he has set up this team of experts, it will give up-to-date advice to the NIO on the factual position? There is quite a big difference between the figure cited today on the record and the actual figure as given by the Minister of Health in Northern Ireland, who is the Minister responsible.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

Of course—I am very happy to give my noble friend that assurance.

In conclusion, I urge noble Lords to reject the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, should she seek to test the opinion of the House, and I urge your Lordships to support these regulations.

Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. In recent days, I have reflected on the number of people who, for decades, told us that we could never proceed in Northern Ireland on the basis of majority rule and majoritarianism, who are now the greatest champions of proceeding on that basis. It is clearly unsustainable to have a protocol in operation in Northern Ireland in its current form, which does not command the support of the largest designation of the Northern Ireland Assembly. That position is unsustainable and is what we are trying to fix.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

Would my noble friend the Minister confirm that the Assembly operates entirely with the consent of the majority of unionists, which is still the biggest designation, and the majority of nationalists? Any changes to the institutional framework of the 1998 agreement, as amended, and the St Andrews agreement require the consent of the majority of unionism and the majority of nationalism. That has been the consistent approach since the 1990s.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

As my noble friend rightly points out, the sufficient consensus rule has guided most political negotiations since the publication of the ground rules for political talks, published by the British and Irish Governments in June 1996. Clearly, the protocol in its current form does not command sufficient consensus. That is why the Government will be working extremely hard to build widespread community consensus that includes both unionists and nationalists, as we take things forward.

Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I too join in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Jay, on securing this important and timely debate, and in commending him for the way he chairs our sub-committee, of which I have the honour of being a member. I also endorse what he said about the sub-committee looking forward to hearing from James Cleverly or a government Minister, because it is important to our scrutiny work that we have access to Ministers. We will be publishing a report soon on the scrutiny side of our work, which is extremely important, given that no other body in the United Kingdom is giving attention to laws made for Northern Ireland by Europe.

This has been an interesting debate. Predictable views have been expressed, but one thing that has changed since the last time we debated these matters is that the political situation in Northern Ireland has deteriorated. I fear it will deteriorate further unless we finally grapple with the protocol and get a solution to it. The dragging out of time to get that solution is not helpful. Indeed, the Command Paper of July last year said that the conditions for triggering Article 16 had already been met. We were told in early September that there might be a short three-week negotiation. The decision would then be made as to whether the EU was serious and the UK Government would take unilateral action. Unfortunately, not taking any action has resulted in the deterioration I spoke about on the ground in Northern Ireland.

The fact is that the protocol is incompatible with the Belfast agreement because it does not respect strand 3 or strand 1 of it. It has resulted in the resignation of the First Minister. I do not want to engage in intra-unionist petty politicking—there will be another time and place for that—but I remind my good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, that the Ulster Unionists walked out of the Executive in 2015, refused to come into it in 2016 and only recently joined it. Everybody has engaged in a little bit of politicking, but we need to be serious about these matters. There are more fundamental issues at stake.

The protocol is incompatible with Northern Ireland’s constitutional position, for the reasons elucidated in the court case that is ongoing and has yet to reach a conclusion. It is incompatible with democracy. It is unconscionable that in the modern world, in the 21st century, laws are being made over far vast swathes of the economy of Northern Ireland by a foreign body in its interest, without any say or vote by any elected representative of Northern Ireland or the United Kingdom anywhere, either at Stormont or here. We can go into the trade and economic issues, which are all extremely pertinent. Remember that the protocol is being implemented in only a light-touch way at the moment. If it were not for the grace periods, which some in this House ridiculed and condemned at the time, we would face a far worse situation. This is fundamentally an issue of democracy, respect for Northern Ireland’s constitutional position and identity, and respect for the Belfast agreement, as amended by the St Andrews agreement. We need to get back to those fundamental principles.

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

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th December 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister to what is probably his first Committee on a Bill in his new position. I am sure he will enjoy the experience in the Moses Room.

This is a probing amendment in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Coaker about an issue that I raised at Second Reading. Clause 2 advises that Ministers will no longer cease to hold office after the election of a new Assembly, and provides for a maximum of 24 weeks after an election, or 48 weeks since there has been an Executive in place, whichever is the shorter, in which Ministers may continue to hold office. We support the clause, but it would be helpful to have some guidance and clarity from the Minister on this issue.

I appreciate that some of this was first mentioned by Karen Bradley when she was Secretary of State back in 2018, when the Northern Ireland Civil Service was taken to court because it was felt that civil servants had exceeded their powers in taking decisions without ministerial direction. There has to be a way through that. When I lost my seat in 2010, I remained a Minister, but only for five days. You could say that under direct rule the situation was self-limiting for those of us who were Ministers, as we were not elected by anyone in Northern Ireland in terms of what we were able to do. The key question raised at Second Reading was what powers these caretaker Ministers will have and if there is any limit on those powers. In a number of areas there is a lack of clarity.

I was surprised by the comment made in the House of Commons by the Minister, who said that the courts will be able to deal with this. He said:

“given that legal safeguards are already in place”,

there is no need for additional statutory clarity, and:

“We also know that the courts are ready to step in, should Ministers act unlawfully.”—[Official Report, Commons, Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill Committee, 6/7/21; col. 70.]


I am not clear what a Minister “acting unlawfully” would be or where the limits would be. If the decisions taken are going to be controversial, some decisions can be delayed, but depending on where they are in the cycle of that decision-making process or when the Executive are likely to be up and running again, there may be quite a time lag.

It is better to know at this stage where the balance is and what the Government’s thinking is. Clearly, to have ministerial accountability is significantly better than leaving civil servants in the position where they are trying to make decisions without any ministerial direction, but I am really not sure where the Government think the clarity is. What is the point at which Ministers could not take a decision? It could be that a Minister had lost their seat or decided not to stand again, but remained a Minister. Where are the limitations on ministerial power if they are a caretaker Minister? I beg to move.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, following on from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, on this issue, it is an important area that deserves greater clarification.

We all remember the period when Northern Ireland was deliberately left ungoverned and civil servants had the most difficult task of all: having to keep their departments ticking over with no real precedent for any guidance as to the extent of their decision-making powers. Some Permanent Secretaries went a little further than others. I remember speaking to one particular Permanent Secretary who indicated that there was a live debate continued among the Permanent Secretaries as to the extent of their powers, and at one stage whether they should be doing some of the things that they were doing in the absence of political guidance. There was certainly a difference in emphasis.

We need to understand, and perhaps the Minister could clarify, what in essence the difference will be between the sorts of decisions that civil servants were taking during the period that we all know about, the three-year interregnum where there were no Ministers, and the decisions that Ministers in these circumstances will be able to take. Could he, for instance, give me a concrete example of a decision that a Minister could take as a caretaker under this that a civil servant could not have taken? I would imagine that they are pretty limited.

There has been reference to carrying on with the decisions that have been made by the Executive in the run-up to caretaker Ministers being in place and that such Ministers should follow the trajectory of the Executive in decision-making going forward. Thinking of the current circumstances regarding the Budget, which appears not to have found agreement in Northern Ireland—there is apparently some limited agreement on the priorities within it, but not all departmental allocations—yet it is out for consultation. What would an interim Finance Minister be able to do in such circumstances? A certain amount of guidance would have been given to him in this situation, but not any kind of final decisions on allocations. So, again, it is not an entirely academic hypothesis that a Finance Minister could find himself in such a position as a caretaker with the Budget in this kind of condition.

I know these are difficult circumstances, and we are trying to find a balance between having no governance and leaving the Province in some kind of sensible situation when it comes to governance in the absence of a full Executive, but I would be grateful if the Minister could try to address those particular issues.

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, has said, this is a probing amendment. I think we would all agree that the recent experience of over 1,000 days of political uncertainty when there was no Executive in Northern Ireland is not something that anyone would want repeated. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, have said, it put the civil servants in an incredibly difficult position. We very much hope that we will never again be in a situation where the Assembly is on the brink of collapse, but if such circumstances were to arise, it is important that there is as much stability and clarity on this as possible.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, I would be grateful if the Minister could say a little more about how he sees this working in practice and, in particular, if he could say a little more about the requirements, as set out in New Decade, New Approach, for Ministers

“to act within well-defined limits”.

Can he explain what that would mean in practice?

--- Later in debate ---

We are all here to try to improve the legislation, and I think some of these proposals would improve it. I hear what the Minister says—I have no doubt that it is in his brief, and that it will be in the brief that he gets for the next Bill that comes out of some kind of political agreement—but he and his colleagues in government need to beware that they are not going down a road that is going to lead to increasing frustration and the diminishing democratisation of the work that we do in Parliament. With those comments, I beg to move.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, this is an important issue, and the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, has set out very clearly the reasoning that lies behind the amendment.

I will come on to the remuneration point in a moment but, as someone who benefited politically from being able to sit in the House of Commons and in the Assembly, as did most Members of Parliament from Northern Ireland at that time—I think all but one MP was also a Member of the Assembly and some held ministerial office, as indeed I did—I know that it provided a bridge between what was happening here in Westminster and Whitehall and the Northern Ireland Assembly. That meant the Assembly was not deprived—I would not necessarily say of “talent”—of experience and knowledge of the political process, certainly of the negotiations that had led up to the settlement. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, as Speaker, was also a Member of this place, which, again, provided heft and authority to the office of Speaker.

On the remuneration point, it needs to be borne in mind that Members of Parliament who were also Members of the Assembly received only one-third of their Assembly pay and, indeed, in the end received no salary whatever for being in the Assembly, so it was not particularly beneficial from a remuneration point of view to sit in both places. It also has to be borne in mind—not to rehearse the arguments about the issue because that has now been settled—that at every election the electorate had an opportunity to make their decision, in the full knowledge of the mandates that people held, about whether they thought a person was suitable to be a Member of Parliament or a Member of the Assembly. In most cases, the electorate made their decision very firmly.

We are at the point where we accept that the principle you should be either a Member of Parliament or a Member of a devolved assembly is now well established and I am not seeking to reverse that, but what the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, is seeking to do is to address this hard edge so that we have a transition to enable that flow of membership to happen, but not in a way that creates unintended consequences, to bring us in Northern Ireland into line certainly with Scotland and to a large extent with Wales.

I think this is a sensible amendment. On the point that it is not part of the NDNA agreement, it is not, but this provision about how so-called double-jobbing should end was part of the Conservative manifesto in 2010 and was implemented in 2014. The speedy implementation of manifesto commitments was once again on display. That was beyond the NDNA. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, has set out very clearly that this is something that needs to be addressed and this Bill is a good vehicle in which to do it.

If the Minister is minded to deploy the argument that this Bill is about the NDNA only and nothing else, I say gently to him that this is not how the Government have approached other issues. They have on occasion moved, and are currently considering moving, on issues and legislating on issues that do not have agreement among the parties in Northern Ireland. One thinks first of the timing of the bringing forward of the cultural package under NDNA, which is entirely a matter for the devolved Assembly. It is nothing to do with Westminster. It is a matter for the Assembly, yet the Government have indicated that they are minded to legislate on it here without any agreement on the timing; I shall not going to go into the substance of it, as it is a different matter. Secondly, on abortion, whatever one’s views may be on the issue, it is clearly an entirely devolved matter. There is no agreement on that issue among the parties in Northern Ireland or in the Assembly, yet the Government are going to legislate on it. Indeed, they have legislated on it. If the Government are going to use the argument that these things have to be done by agreement, that they are going to change things only by agreement and that they will not do anything that is against the agreement of the parties in Northern Ireland, that needs to be consistent.

No doubt when the Minister comes to speak, he will claim credit for the provisions against double-jobbing because he was instrumental in that matter at that time. The reasons why it was done are fully understood in the context of the time, but this amendment would remedy a gap in how it is implemented—that is the important thing—and provide for a proper transition period.

[Lord Trimble (Con)]

My Lords, having heard what has been said by the noble Lords, Lord Alderdice and Lord Dodds, I think this is a very sensible amendment and I hope it will be accepted by the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and to speak in support of this amendment, which is also in my name, because this issue goes to the heart of the political crisis that currently afflicts Northern Ireland.

We are debating a Bill which in a way—I suppose, ironically—arises out of the previous crisis in Northern Ireland. We have had a series of such Bills over the years. Noble Lords on the Labour Front Bench will recall that when their party was in office it too brought forward from time to time various Bills concerning Northern Ireland, which not only dealt with the operation of the Assembly and the institutions but sought to legislate on things such as legacy and other issues which we are still grappling with today. That shows that many of the issues are still to be resolved and this is a work in progress. Many people who felt that, once we had the Belfast agreement of 1998 or subsequent agreements, everything was fine have been disillusioned of that by events. One of the problems has been that, instead of adhering to agreements that have been entered into, there have been efforts to undermine the principle of consent which is at the heart of the Belfast agreement as amended by the St Andrews agreement. This is what we are dealing with in this amendment.

I totally accept, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, said, that the Minister has had very little time to consider this matter—that goes for other noble Lords as well—so we clearly understand that this is a matter that we will have to consider over the coming days and, no doubt, at a later stage of the Bill. However, I emphasise that it is a matter of urgency. As things stand, the protocol poses a danger to the union. The noble Baroness alluded to the court action currently under way—not just to findings in the High Court but to some of the Government’s own lawyers’ submissions, which are troubling and worrying for unionists in Northern Ireland, where they have argued that sections of the Act of Union, particularly Section 6, are suspended, in effect, by the withdrawal Act. That is an incredible position for a Conservative and Unionist Government to find themselves arguing for in the courts; it really is quite staggering. Whether it is today or another day, this issue of the protocol needs to be addressed soon. At the heart of it is the issue of democratic consent.

Earlier in the debate on other clauses we discussed the importance of the principle of consent and the assertion of its primacy, as well as issues concerning returning things to the way they were in the 1998 agreement. What was at the heart of the 1998 agreement but the principle of consent and the idea that there should be cross-community support in the Assembly for every key decision? As the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, alluded to, that is explicitly referred to in paragraph 5(d) of strand 1 of the Belfast agreement. We therefore have a situation, for all the reasons we know, that every key, major decision made in the Northern Ireland Assembly is either a cross-community vote or susceptible of being turned into one. That was agreed not by us but by those parties who put their hands to the Belfast agreement. In the amendments that were made in St Andrews we made some improvements to the overall structure, but that was the fundamental agreement that was made.

There is only one key vote, one important decision—probably the most important one of all—which cannot now be a cross-community vote. That is the vote in 2024 on whether the Northern Ireland protocol should continue to apply; in other words, whether all the EU laws on manufactured goods, agri-foods, VAT, state aid, and so on—those matters covered by Articles 5 to 10 of the Northern Ireland protocol—should continue to apply in Northern Ireland and to its people. Those laws were made without any final decision being susceptible of being made by anyone in the Northern Ireland Assembly or at Westminster. They were made in Brussels, not necessarily—or, rather, certainly not—in the interests of Northern Ireland. They will have been made necessarily in the interests of those who made them. I do not object to that; that is perfectly understandable. However, the fact that we are then subjected to them even if they disadvantage us is an outrageous proposition in a 21st-century, modern democracy, and it would certainly not be tolerated in Scotland, Wales or any part of England for a second. It is certainly not taking back control.

The decision in 2024 is offensive in its own right because it should already have been made—it should have been made prior to this coming into force. In 2024 that decision is then to be made by a majority vote, so it is not a cross-community vote and it cannot be turned into one. That was done in the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland (Democratic Consent Process) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020. One of the most significant changes to the structure of the Assembly and the principle of consent was made in subordinate legislation, in the regulations that I have just described, not by primary legislation, in an Act of Parliament, but unilaterally by the Government here in Parliament, making a fundamental change to the way in which the Northern Ireland Assembly takes decisions. Again, there was no vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly on such a matter, only one which was made here unilaterally.

The significance of that should not be underestimated. The Government’s argument was that this is not a devolved matter. Of course, the reality is that if it is not a devolved matter, there should not be a vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly at all. If it is not a devolved matter, it is a vote for Parliament. By giving the vote to the Assembly, they then decided to change the voting mechanism to ensure that one outcome would be agreed. That, on top of everything else regarding the protocol, has rightly exercised unionists of all parties, backgrounds and descriptions in Northern Ireland.

These amendments seek to restore—as we heard earlier in some of the arguments put forward regarding other amendments—what the original agreement and the 1998 Act said, and to restore the principle of consent on a cross-community basis for all key decisions. If done in a timely way, they would go some way towards alleviating the current crisis and perhaps avoiding what is coming down the road. As I said at Second Reading, it is simply unsustainable for people to expect that the institutions will just operate as normal while the east-west relationship has been trashed, which is strand 3 of the agreement, as well as strand 1 through the changes that were made to the consent principle and the mechanism regarding agreement.

I understand the difficulties today for the Minister regarding the late notice and being able to examine the amendments in detail, but I urge him to take on board the heartfelt views, the real concerns and the matters of principle that are at the heart of them.

[Lord Trimble (Con)]

My Lords, I think most people know that I am one of the parties, together with the noble Baroness opposite, who are pursuing these issues through the courts. Despite what has been said at first instance, I am quite confident that when we reach the end of this litigation we will be vindicated. However, that will take time.

At the same time, we hope that the Government, who have been in negotiation with the European Union for some time and I think are making some progress, will acknowledge that they have not yet made enough progress for us to be able to go back to normal life. Hopefully, this issue from 1924 or whenever it is will never arise, but if it does then the comments that the noble Lord opposite has made are very important. If, in a number of years’ time, we come to a vote on this issue where we are denied the procedures that we put in place in the Belfast agreement, that will not be acceptable. I say that very firmly and clearly.

What the Government have tried to do on this issue is not going to work. They cannot just try to slip this through and somehow hope that it will work out all right when the time comes. It was a bad mistake for them to eliminate cross-community voting on an issue that is of huge importance. In the agreement we were very conscious about making sure that all important issues would be decided by cross-community vote. To take that away from the people is not going to be acceptable. We have problems going on at the moment and I do not want to say anything to exacerbate them, but I will just say that the Government have got themselves into a hole. They should get out of that hole before it gets too big and overwhelms them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise as a signatory to both amendments and to speak in support of them. To deal with Amendment 8, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has gone through the New Decade, New Approach agreement with a fine-toothed comb and highlighted all the various commitments and undertakings that were made back in January 2020 by two Governments and the parties to a greater or lesser degree.

In many ways, New Decade, New Approach could be characterised as a highly aspirational document. It contains lots of commitments but, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said, where are the funding commitments to match and deliver those undertakings? For delivery, you need the money. While it could be provided out of the block grant, there are some elements that can be provided only directly from the Exchequer here in London.

However, proposed new subsection (2)(b) in Amendment 8 deals with

“what plans the Government has to bring forward further legislative proposals to implement the remainder of The New Decade, New Approach Deal.”

I look at what has not been addressed or fulfilled yet and, by and large, I would say that some of that is perhaps down to differences within the Executive Office between the First and Deputy First Ministers, as well as to the concentration of work on Covid, and now, obviously, we have the new variant.

There is a need for a bill of rights. We have been talking about it since 1998. Loads of meetings have been held in the Assembly on the bill of rights, we are still no further forward. We are told that the Northern Ireland Assembly Ad Hoc Committee on a Bill of Rights has received 45 briefings from experts since September 2020, and it recently held a public call for evidence which attracted 2,400 responses. The committee is due to report in February 2022. There is a panel of experts who are intended to assist the committee, but who have yet to be appointed. When will that happen? Promises were made about an age, goods, facilities and services Bill to prevent discrimination against people because of their age. Perhaps some of us might fall into that category at some stage, or perhaps we are already do.

Then there are the more fundamental issues: rights, language and identity proposals. Although that is within the remit of the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly, I do not see a lot of movement there. Can the Minister indicate whether the Government here at Westminster intend to legislate for them? I have already referred to the civic advisory panel, upon which there has been no significant movement. It was to be established within six months, which should have been June 2020, and we still have not heard about it. On the programme for government, New Decade, New Approach says:

“There will be a multi-year Programme for Government, underpinned by a multi-year budget and legislative programme.”


The public consultation on the draft programme for government outcomes framework closed on 22 March this year, some 14 months after New Decade, New Approach. A total of 416 responses were provided to the main consultation on the equality impact assessment and, in addition, there were 23 responses to an associated children and young people’s consultation. The feedback received demonstrates that there remains strong support for the outcomes-based approach and for the draft outcomes as consulted upon. The Executive hopes to be in a position to have a final revised version of the outcomes framework as soon as possible. That begs the question of whether the Northern Ireland Executive are currently working according to a programme for government or what are they working towards and how do they get or achieve that collective responsibility?

The amendment in my name and the names of my noble friends Lord Coaker and Lady Smith is timely. It seeks to ensure that the commitments that were to be undertaken by the UK Government and by the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly should be brought forward in an expeditious way for the benefit of all the community of Northern Ireland, properly costed, with a column indicating how much money, where it is coming from and when it will be spent.

On Amendment 9, in my name and the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, and my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon, it is vital that we have commencement with Royal Assent. New Decade, New Approach is now 23 months old, and it is important that some fundamental issues in the Bill to do with the appointment of Ministers, elections and petitions of concern are put in place immediately.

For too long we have seen the misuse of the petition of concern. It was never meant to be a petition of veto but a petition that helped minorities and which understood and appreciated the issues they raised. It was not meant to be a petition of objection but was to be used as a special proofing procedure during which a special Assembly committee would hear specifically from the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. It was meant to be equality and human rights focused, and to be used as a proofing procedure to ensure that rights were upheld. It was never there to prevent rights being legislated for.

In that regard, it is important that the Government look kindly and benignly on both Amendments 8 and 9 —I urge the Minister to do this—and provide indications of acceptance in relation to them. That would allow the timely implementation of this Act to coincide with the end of the current Assembly in March, with Assembly elections on 5 or 6 May.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I am sorry to disappoint the Minister; I hope that will not happen on too many occasions. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. I thank the noble Lord for moving this amendment, raising the issues that he has and exploring with the Government the commitments entered into by the UK Government in Annex A of New Decade, New Approach. He is right to do so and we are grateful to him. The noble Baroness has highlighted a number of areas of interest that are worth exploring today in Grand Committee for the Minister to respond to.

I want to take the opportunity, in this discussion of Amendment 8 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, to add a few words about some of the commitments that the Government have entered into. There were quite a number of commitments. Certainly, during the negotiations our party was very keen that the Government would commit to a range of actions, funding and other objectives. It was not just a matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly parties; the Government have a big role to play in making that Assembly work well and providing it with the necessary resources to make that happen.

I want to highlight briefly a couple of matters. I know the Minister will not be able to give detailed answers on all of them but perhaps he can take them away and if necessary write to us or explore further how he thinks things can proceed. I am interested in the section on financial and economic commitments to Northern Ireland. Under the heading “Turbocharging infrastructure”, the Government commit to helping to turbocharge infrastructure in Northern Ireland and set out a number of capital projects, such as “Essential sewage investment” and “The ‘Better Connecting Dublin and Belfast’ Strategy”. One of those mentioned is the York Street interchange, yet we have had very disturbing news in recent days that that interchange may not now be proceeding. I am not au fait with all the details but that is a key, major improvement that would greatly benefit connectivity in Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland’s economy. It was one of the things that we discussed as part of the confidence and supply agreement, which the Minister was very much part of helping to get settled. It was very much seen as a major driver in terms of infrastructure investment.

For those noble Lords who have not had the pleasure of visiting Northern Ireland and travelling along the west link—I put “pleasure” in inverted commas, particularly at certain times of the day—unfortunately, despite this major project designed to alleviate congestion, it has become one of the most congested roads in the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, according to reports Belfast is now the third most congested city in the entire United Kingdom in terms of traffic. So, we need to get up to speed—literally—on these issues. The problem is that we have a major link designed to link the M1 to the M3 and M2, but when it was being designed some bright spark came up with the idea of putting a set of traffic lights at the end of it. As a result, the whole purpose of the link has been under-mined.

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.

Historical Institutional Abuse (Northern Ireland) Bill [Lords]

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 5th November 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Julian Smith)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

It has been seven years since the Northern Ireland Executive established an independent inquiry into historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland. Today’s legislation is based on an inquiry and report, undertaken by Sir Anthony Hart, that occupied 223 days of hearings. The Hart report investigated 22 institutions, but it identified a further 65 institutions that came within its terms of reference. The draft legislation was subject to a 16-week consultation process in Northern Ireland.

[Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

Right across this House, and right across Northern Ireland, there will be a very warm welcome for the Government bringing forward this legislation to get it on the statute book before Dissolution. I thank everybody involved in this House, the Secretary of State and, most importantly, the campaigners for the day we have now reached.

[Julian Smith]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for all that he and his party have done to help to deliver this Bill.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Julian Smith)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Report pursuant to section 3(5) of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019, which was laid before this House on Wednesday 23 October.

On 23 October, I published a report setting out the latest position on progress on Executive formation, transparency of political donations, higher education and a Derry university, presumption of non-prosecution, troubles prosecution guidance and the abortion law review. This is the third report published on these issues in line with the Government’s obligations under the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019.

I was disappointed on Monday to have to extend the period for Executive formation to 13 January 2020. I extended the period because the parties have still not been able to reach an accommodation to get Stormont back up and running. Failure to extend the period would have meant removing from the Northern Ireland civil service what limited decision-making power it currently has. That would not be in Northern Ireland’s interest and it would have precipitated an early Assembly election.

While the political parties continue to be unable to reach an accommodation, public services in Northern Ireland continue to deteriorate, hospital waiting lists get longer and frustration continues to grow. I have been in Belfast and Derry/Londonderry in the past few weeks for discussions with all five main political parties. That contact will continue over the coming weeks, as will my close working relationship with Simon Coveney, the Tanaiste, in line with the three-stranded approach.

The issues that remain between the parties are few in number and soluble in substance. It will take real commitment for the main parties to reach a compromise on those issues, but just this weekend, both the largest parties said that they wanted to restore the institutions as soon as possible. I say to the two major parties, the Democratic Unionist party and Sinn Féin: I stand ready to facilitate further talks if and when they are genuinely willing to move forward, but it is a compromise that they must be ready to reach themselves, and it cannot be imposed from this place.

Continued failure to restore the Executive will bring about extremely difficult choices about how to ensure effective governance in Northern Ireland. The Government will need to consider the appropriate next steps, including considering the duty that will be placed upon me as Secretary of State to set a date for an Assembly election.

A restored Executive and Assembly remain the best way forward for Northern Ireland, not least in the light of the UK’s impending exit from the EU. Northern Ireland needs Stormont up and running, a restored Executive and the political leadership that would bring, and I will continue to do my best to make that a reality.

Turning to abortion, I recognise that this is a sensitive and often divisive issue and that we will continue to hear representations from both sides of the debate as we move towards laying the regulations, but Parliament has spoken and the duty under section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 has now come into effect, the Northern Ireland Executive having not been restored by 21 October. Immediate changes to the law have now resulted: sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 have been repealed and there is now a moratorium, meaning that all prosecutions and investigations that were under way will now be stopped. We have had confirmation that on 23 October the one live prosecution in Northern Ireland was dropped and that the woman is no longer facing criminal charges.

We will consult on the proposals for the new legal framework and the regulations, which are to be made by 31 March 2020. In the meantime, women seeking access to services in England can do so free of charge, with all costs of the procedure, including travel and, where needed, accommodation, being paid for by the Government. Arrangements can be made by contacting a central bookings service, and we have made this number and the services provided known on gov.uk. We continue to engage with health professionals in Northern Ireland and will reach out to the widest possible range of stakeholders to hear their views on the consultation proposals over the coming days and weeks. We are also working with health professionals to ensure that the appropriate services can be established in line with the new legal framework. It is crucial that we get the legal framework right, and we are confident that service provision in Northern Ireland can meet the needs of women and girls.

On the presumption of non-prosecution and troubles prosecution guidance, reforming the legacy system in Northern Ireland remains a major priority for the UK Government.

[Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

On the subject of abortion, it is interesting that the Secretary of State has not yet referred to something that has occurred since he last gave a report: the fact that the Assembly in Northern Ireland did actually meet. There was a petition, and Members did turn up, including all the Members for our party and those from other parties, seeking to do the business of the Assembly and to get a Speaker elected, but others, including Sinn Féin, were not prepared to take part and take responsibility for these decisions. First, why has he not referred to this development? Secondly, what does he think about parties that talk a lot about wanting to get devolution up and running but that, when there is a legally constituted meeting of the Assembly ready to do business, refuses to participate?

[Julian Smith]

My right hon. Friend is right that the Assembly was reconstituted last Monday. I took some hope from the fact that people were speaking in the Assembly, but we needed it to run for longer than a day. I repeat what I said earlier: we need all parties to be present and standing ready to get the Executive up and running.

Last year, the Northern Ireland Office consulted extensively on the Stormont House agreement. This consultation ran from May to October 2018 and revealed wide support for the broad institutional framework of the Stormont House agreement and a consensus among the main parties in Northern Ireland that the UK Government should push ahead with legislation. At the same time, the consultation process revealed a number of areas of public concern about the detail of the proposals, including how the institutions interacted, how their independence could be preserved and the overall timeframe and costs.

I firmly believe that we must now move forward with broad consensus. It will be essential to demonstrate that any approach we take is fully capable of facilitating independent, effective investigations into troubles-related deaths and providing Northern Ireland with the best possible chance of moving forward beyond its troubled past.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julian Smith]

Well, it is true that if there is a general election there is usually a wash-up period, but in all scenarios I will be making the case that we need to get the HIA Bill through. I am concerned that there are many very vulnerable victims who have been waiting a long time—many of them are over 70 and in ill health—so we need to get on with this. I will be working hard, and if other Members are able to assist me in making representations, I will appreciate it.

[Nigel Dodds]

I am sure we will be able to come to the Secretary of State’s assistance in that matter. On this extremely important issue, which is a high priority for everyone in the House, is he making representations to the Prime Minister and others about the need to take powers in Northern Ireland more generally, because we are getting a report on a series of issues which during the passage of this Bill were picked out among a whole lot of other issues that were left untouched—the health service, education, investment, jobs, housing, the environment? All of those issues continue to sit in abeyance in the hands of civil servants. The Secretary of State has not so far mentioned the dreaded B-word: how long is he going to continue to wait before the Government actually take powers to deal with all these issues in the run-up to Brexit?

[Julian Smith]

My right hon. Friend has raised the issue of Westminster’s powers consistently and has strongly represented these views. I believe that the best way to deliver for Northern Ireland is through the Assembly, and I am worried about the consequences that would flow, even though my opposite number has been very generous in offering to help, if needed, on this issue. This is not a good place for us to be; we have to focus on Stormont, and we have to focus on the Executive.

On the issue of legacy more broadly, my ministerial colleague my right hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd) will be beginning meetings with a range of partners, including victims and victims’ groups and members of the armed forces, to make quick and substantive progress on this issue. We are clear that for colleagues across the House, Northern Ireland political parties and, most importantly, the people of Northern Ireland, we must move forward on this issue with broad consensus but also with renewed pace.

Alongside the substantive updates on Executive formation and the abortion law review, reports were published on the transparency of political donations, higher education and a Derry university, presumption of non-prosecution and troubles prosecution guidance. The section of the report on the transparency of political donations states that the regime in place for political donations and loans is specific to Northern Ireland. We recognise that the issue of retrospection is a sensitive one. While the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014 allows for the publication of the historical record of donations and loans from 1 January 2014, we must remain cognisant of the fact that retrospective transparency must be weighed against possible risk to donors.

As we have previously made clear, the only Northern Ireland party that has written to the Government in favour of retrospection is the Alliance party. The Government have said that we will consult the Northern Ireland parties in due course about any future change to the nation’s legislation. For now, however, our focus remains on securing agreement to restore devolved Government for the people of Northern Ireland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Newlands]

Indeed. There are other views crossing communities in Northern Ireland. A new poll, published in The Sunday Times this weekend, found that 72% of people in Northern Ireland would now vote to remain in the European Union, which is significantly up from the 56% who originally voted to remain. I see the same figures on the doorstep in Scotland. As in Scotland, it is clear that as this Brexit debacle has gone on people have reinforced their view that the benefits of the European Union far outweigh the fantasy Brexit offered by the Tory party. I hope that the restoration of the Assembly will once again give a voice to all the disparate shades of opinion that have thus far been without that voice and, even at this late stage, give a platform for the complexity of opinion on Brexit to be given a voice through Stormont.

[Nigel Dodds]

The hon. Gentleman talks about people having a voice, but of course seven elected Members of Parliament do not take their seats. It is not that anyone is stopping them or refusing them, so in his remarks perhaps he could reflect that point. Nobody is preventing anyone from having their say; they choose not to come.

[Gavin Newlands]

I hear what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, but it has to be said that those Members are elected on that basis and it is not for us to second-guess the voters in Northern Ireland on that basis, regardless of our views on abstentionism itself.

Moving on—

[Nigel Dodds]

Quickly—

[Gavin Newlands]

Not at all.

I urge the Secretary of State to think carefully before implementing direct rule, and I welcome what he said earlier on that subject. To reintroduce even an element of direct rule would mean fast-tracking legislation through Parliament, which cannot be a sensible path to take when talking about institutions that took years of hard negotiation and compromise to set up. I hope that the Secretary of State is in constant contact with his counterparts in the Irish Government to ensure that both Governments, as joint signatories to the international treaties that underpin devolution in Northern Ireland, are focused on restoration.

Although Stormont has no voice when it comes to Brexit, Brexit is unfortunately helping to ensure that Stormont continues to have no voice, and it is without question endangering the stability that devolution is meant to underpin and be underpinned by. The Assistant Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland is warning that a no-deal Brexit could open up opportunities for terrorist groups; and the Chief Constable himself states that loyalist paramilitary groups may seek to react to the instability caused by a Brexit deal that is seen to threaten the Union and, moreover, that his officers will not police any of the border crossings after Brexit. That is exactly what people have been warning of since the referendum campaign itself. They were ignored and dismissed at the time, yet here we are. I truly worry that, given the current power vacuum, those who seek to further their so-called cause and wreck lives and progress see Brexit as a jackpot. That cannot be allowed. Rather than playing reckless games in Downing Street, the Prime Minister should wake up to the reality of the damage that his Brexit extremism is causing. It is vital that the fragile peace in Northern Ireland is secured and maintained. It should never have been risked by this Tory Government in the first place.

A glance through today’s Belfast Telegraph shows just some of the issues that are being squeezed out: bedroom tax mitigation to expire next March; the impact of substance abuse on victims and their families; victims of historical abuse; people trafficking—all huge and substantial issues for any society to face, but with no debate, no solutions, no legislative action possible in response to any of them. That cannot be right or fair on the people of Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland: Restoring Devolution

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Looking at the number of colleagues wanting to participate, I think we should be able to move on by 5.40 pm, if people ask questions rather than give great speeches.

[Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

The Secretary of State has outlined a number of areas where action will be taken as a result of the Act, but on health, education, crime, policing, investment and all the rest of it, still the Government sit on their hands and allow no government for Northern Ireland. Is he now realising that, with Brexit coming, we must have powers in the hands of Ministers, whether in the Assembly or here? He cannot go on abdicating that decision. Today in Belfast, Assembly Members met, but Sinn Féin boycotted it. Given that the Prime Minister said on Saturday that “a simple majority” should apply in Northern Ireland as well, fully compatible with the Good Friday agreement, can the Secretary of State apply that principle to the formation of the Executive, because four parties out of five would set it up tomorrow?

[Julian Smith]

Just to be clear on the Assembly, the petition of concern and the arrangements for the Assembly will not change under this scenario. I will say it again: we need Sinn Féin, the DUP and all parties to come together, because powers from here is not the solution to this issue.