Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Debate between Lord Empey and Lord Bew

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 15th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I support with as much strength as I can the amendment and the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and his colleagues in speaking to it. He has argued the case with unparalleled eloquence and persistence. I add my thanks to the Minister for the care that he has constantly given to this matter.

I want to pick up on a point mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Hain and Lord Cormack: the absence of nationalist representation in our Parliament. I completely accept that that has been given sharper relief by the absence of the SDLP from the other place. I am chair of the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and I am well aware of the problem. He is aware of how complicated and difficult it is and of the pressures involved in sorting it out, but I wanted to reassure him that I am well aware of this complex and difficult problem. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that I understand that it is thrown into sharper relief by the absence of the SDLP from the other place.

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hain, on his persistence in this matter. I am also encouraged that the Minister said last week at Second Reading that there would be no risk of a person receiving a pension if an act was carried out by his or her own hand. The criminal injuries legislation, if applied to this, would ensure that that did not happen. However, there is perhaps a risk with people’s relatives. Whatever we do, let us be absolutely clear that the language of the legislation clearly reflects Parliament’s intention; otherwise, somebody will JR the thing and the whole process will become discredited. That is my major worry. With that qualification, I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hain.

Northern Ireland (Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan) Act 2016 (Independent Reporting Commission) Regulations 2016

Debate between Lord Empey and Lord Bew

Monday 7th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, in welcoming the establishment of this body, I further emphasise that I am disappointed that it will have no sanctioning powers. In other words, it can deliberate and report but, unlike its predecessor, it cannot impose any sanctions on persons it deems to have participated in paramilitary activity.

It is 22 years since the ceasefires and 18 years since the Belfast agreement. One would have thought that, with the passage of that length of time, one could have foreseen a gradual diminution in paramilitary activity. However, while the terrorism is not on the scale it once was, it has reached a sort of plateau. As the Minister said in his opening remarks, there have been four deaths already this year. But that is not the only expression of paramilitary activity. If we take figures from the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, in the past 10 years 6,261 people have claimed they were intimidated out of their homes by paramilitaries and the housing executive accepted 3,720 of those claims. In the year up to April, 588 such claims were made and 414 were accepted. By any standards, paramilitaries continue on their path. We also had the tragic death of a teenager—last week, I believe—who was driven to his death by paramilitaries for non-payment of a fine they had imposed upon him. The idea that we are moving at pace towards the end of paramilitary activity is very misleading.

We welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, to the Front Bench. If she does not have a full working knowledge of Northern Ireland affairs at the moment, she does not know what wonder awaits her as we move forward. However, she made reference to the Government’s promise—as the Minister reiterated—of £25 million over five years to help with the strategy to tackle paramilitary activity. Unfortunately, the Executive in Stormont have not yet been able to finalise these proposals. Consequently, and understandably, the Government have had no alternative but to withhold the funds because there is no strategy there, as there should be. Yet there is a continuing flow of funds from government to organisations populated by persons who have had paramilitary connections. That particular flow of funds is able to continue whereas the strategy to deal with this is paralysed by inaction. That is a very negative development.

We know this is deep-seated and there are a lot of social and economic reasons for it, as the noble Baroness referred to. We know that young people in areas with significant deprivation and a lack of education and job opportunities are easy prey to the elements around. It is still in some areas a badge of honour to be associated with some of these organisations. However, remember that it is only just over a year since the activities of some of these organisations almost brought down the Executive. That precipitated urgent talks but just over a year ago it almost brought down Stormont. The idea that this is resolved is misleading.

We seem to be still in the foothills. If after 18 years we cannot even agree a strategy for dealing with paramilitaries, what are we doing? What is the delay? Why is this not happening when there is a funding stream clearly available and promised? I would have thought anybody would have taken the opportunity to get on with that and it is regrettable that it has not happened. The longer we leave it, the more of these young people will be sucked into these organisations. They have their lives ruined and miss opportunities. With that level of funding available, it is outrageous that we are not able to get out there and spend it to avoid young people in particular getting sucked into this.

Of course, hardcore paramilitaries continue to try to kill members of the Prison Service and of the police—the PSNI—in particular. That is continuing. Thank God they have been intercepted in many cases. I must pay tribute not only to the PSNI but also to the Garda for the work and co-operation that exists there. They have prosecuted a number of cases successfully. But there is still a large number of people involved, bearing in mind that they are a generation past the agreement and when there was open paramilitary fighting with the Army. Still these organisations exist. Still weapons are being found. Still weapons are being acquired. It is very disappointing that it has not been possible to get behind a strategy to deal with this and spend the money already allocated. I do not understand why we have this continual paralysis.

I regret that there are no powers of sanction for this body. Nevertheless, perhaps it can shine a light on what is going on in its reports. If I remember correctly—noble Lords will correct me if I am wrong—it can produce a special report if requested. However, with the figures released on people who are still being intimidated out of their homes, it is time that this paralysis was ended. I hope the Minister will use all his influence with the Northern Ireland Executive to ensure that he is in a position to make those funds available, release them and get something happening on the ground that will keep young people away from these organisations.

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I support the implementation of this statutory instrument, and I note with pleasure the bipartisan support it received from the opposition Benches. I absolutely accept the problem that the noble Lord, Lord Empey, noted, that the Independent Reporting Commission will not have the power to deliver its own sanctions. None the less, it sends out a powerful signal that government, and even the Northern Ireland Executive, are not prepared any longer to sweep paramilitary crime under the carpet. That is of value in its own respect. For the rest, we must hope that the decision to devolve policing and justice will pay dividends in the next couple of years or so.

I will make a point about the £3 million that has been made available. This is not a criticism of what has been done; we have no choice but to go down this road. This body is part of the means by which Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland politicians extracted themselves from a near-fatal crisis of the Executive. A promise has been made, and it is quite right that Her Majesty’s Government try to deliver on their side of the promise. However, is it not unusual that Her Majesty’s Government are paying for all of it but have only one nominee, whereas the Assembly has two and the Irish Government have one, although the £3 million that is keeping the thing going is from Her Majesty’s Government? In this case, it is right; it is an inevitable if difficult decision, although a defensible one. However, in the future we need to be careful about arrangements in which Her Majesty’s Government pay the piper but do not call the tune, particularly with respect to arrangements that might be made about legacy issues in the future. It is slightly worrying from the point of view of the future, although it is the right thing to do at this time.

I will make another point about a positive part of the statutory instrument, which is the decision to have more transparency about the way the Executive display their finances and in particular the role played by the United Kingdom Exchequer. This is a positive development. One of the things those of us who live in Northern Ireland understand, in a way that perhaps those who do not live there do not, is that the discussion of the local finances goes on in an extremely airy-fairy world, without respect to the importance of the subvention from the UK Exchequer, which is vital to the survival of the Northern Irish economy. I totally support that—that is what the United Kingdom means, and the fact that Northern Ireland has been in distress and in difficult circumstances and has been helped by the United Kingdom is a tribute to the concept of the union and the United Kingdom. I totally support it, but the people of Northern Ireland have a responsibility to be realistic about these matters and to take their own role in this seriously. The decision that now the Executive must make clear what the financial relationships are is a positive one. The hero of the Troubles has always been the unknown British taxpayer, and it is right that he be respected at this moment. It is now 18 years since the Good Friday agreement, and the time has come and it is right for us to have this transparency about public funding.

Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

Debate between Lord Empey and Lord Bew

Tuesday 25th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, this is a very simple amendment. In Committee we discussed at considerable length the fact that we were seeking to ensure that the principles of merit and of equality of opportunity were always at the forefront of Civil Service recruitment. I take the point that in this case we have the anomaly that civil servants effectively are answerable to the devolved Parliament, whereas the Civil Service Commission is not. I believe, too, that if we cannot agree on the principles of merit and equality in terms of the Civil Service Commission, we are in severe difficulties.

I refer to the letter that the noble Baroness sent to us and to the fact that in Committee many people praised the Civil Service for its work in very difficult times over a prolonged period. Many civil servants conducted almost political negotiations on behalf of Ministers, in some cases at great risk to their personal safety. We owe them a debt of gratitude in that regard. The point was made that the situation in the 2010 Act gave the Whitehall Civil Service Commission one status, whereas the Civil Service Commission in Northern Ireland has a different one. The amendment was drafted to deal with that anomaly. I am interested to know how the Minister has reflected on these matters since Committee and whether she feels able either to support the amendment or to bring forward her own. I beg to move.

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment. The shadow of history lies over it. When the Northern Ireland Civil Service was established in 1921-22, something like 60 appointments were made without any normal procedures of recruitment being applied. Over a period of time a struggle to achieve a professional Civil Service began. The time between 1925 and 1944 when Sir Wilfrid Spender was head of the Civil Service was key. In the memoirs of a Catholic civil servant, Patrick Shea, who reached the top of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, one can see the degree to which great efforts were made to institutionalise procedures that reflected what Sir Wilfrid thought were the best procedures in Whitehall.

That backdrop explains why, when direct rule came, Ministers of all parties—I do not just mean Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat Ministers who had dealings with the Northern Ireland Civil Service, but Ministers who leant to one particular side or the other in Northern Ireland—always found that the Northern Ireland Civil Service delivered excellent and objective advice. If one looks at the non-controversial nature of north-south relations, which is of particular importance at the moment, it is clear that the big political decisions in such a context were made by the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, who is in his place today.

It is also the case that the work done by the Northern Ireland Civil Service in looking at areas of viable co-operation between north and south is a very important reason why the settlement is so stable. As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, has said, we owe a debt of gratitude to the Northern Ireland Civil Service. As I have argued, that integrity and professionalism has been hard won. The pressures of localism do not go away: it is not 1921 anymore. At this symbolic moment, it seems to me that noble Lords who supported this amendment want to say that a stronger message is desirable in terms of defining the principle of merit and of fair and open competition. That essentially is the idea behind this amendment: that that signal should be sent in a firm way.

Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

Debate between Lord Empey and Lord Bew

Monday 3rd February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew]

My Lords, I support the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice. Clause 11 embodies a significant step towards the devolution of function in relation to the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission.

I do not want to leap ahead to the amendment in my name and the names of the noble Lords, Lord Lexden and Lord Black. That will be discussed in its own time. There is, however, a particular irony here. The key issue in that amendment is the continuing reluctance of the Northern Ireland Assembly to accord to the citizens of Northern Ireland the same level of freedom of expression that exists in the rest of the United Kingdom since the recent passing of the Defamation Act 2013. It seems a heavy irony that we should be proposing to devolve functions related to human rights precisely at the same time as we have a denial by the same Assembly of what is a pretty sensitive question in this particular respect. I do not want to anticipate a later discussion but it is relevant to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice. The timing of this seems at least a little odd.

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, I have some sympathy with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice. This kept coming up time and again in the Haass process—and I am sorry that I did not have the opportunity to sell tickets for it at an earlier stage; I know it would have been a sell-out for many noble Lords. It goes to the core of what people feel about their cultural identity and how they express that identity. Everybody talks about human rights in that context. What might seem a relatively modest administrative change does have significant consequences, and it could not have been put better than by the noble Lord, Lord Bew.

Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007 (Extension of duration of non-jury trial provisions) Order 2013

Debate between Lord Empey and Lord Bew

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Bew]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for introducing the order, which I reluctantly support. I have only one question. At one point the noble Baroness said that all stakeholders who were consulted accepted the need for the continuation of these arrangements. The document actually says that the majority of respondents to the consultation accepted the need for the continuation of these arrangements. Is it possible to be told a little more about the arguments of the minority and how strongly they were stated, even, if possible, where they came from and, indeed, if this represents any difference of view among the political parties? However, as I said in my opening remarks, I regretfully agree absolutely with the Government that the situation in Northern Ireland at the moment is such that it is necessary to continue with these arrangements. I hope very much that it will not be too long before the Minister can come to the Dispatch Box and give us better news, but she has had no alternative than to make the announcement that she has today.

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, I reluctantly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bew. We are considering a two-year renewal. Given the length of time that would have to elapse before what any of us would consider normality could resume, it seems to me inevitable that this measure will have to be renewed, at least for the proposed period. The fact is that while the number of trials is not large, it is significant, and it is the nature of the trials that is really the issue. I do not see any grounds for believing that we are at a point where a renewal of this provision could be refused in the foreseeable future. That is most unfortunate but I think the reality on the ground speaks for itself.

The noble Baroness referred to the murder of Mr Black towards the end of last year. Perhaps the Committee is not aware of the number of terrorist attempts that have been made since then, to say nothing of what was done in the year or two years before the death of Mr Black. We should put on record our thanks to the security services for the number of terrorist attempts that have been interdicted. We also should thank the Irish police for the co-operation that we are receiving from them and for the very effective actions that they have taken. Their contribution has saved the lives of many people, not only within their own jurisdiction but within ours.