Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc.) Bill

Debate between Lord Empey and Lord Elton

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 22nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elton (Con)]

While my noble friend Lord Cormack’s words are fresh in your Lordships’ ears, I remind the House of what happened in 2005, when the then Labour Government sent a Bill providing for the incarceration of suspected terrorists for 90 days without access to the law. This House sat from 2.30 pm on a Thursday until 7.31 pm on Friday night without ceasing to vote down amendments put by the House of Commons.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, it is hard to believe we are discussing the Bill on our agenda, which is the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill. It seems to have been omitted from people’s minds. I am sure noble Lords have read the debate in the House of Commons last Thursday in Hansard. The House of Commons devoted one hour to all the amendments passed in this House and the other clauses in the Bill. Apart from passing references and signals of annoyance from Northern Ireland Members, the amendments and substantive issues dealt with in the Bill and added to it were not even referred to.

I hope I am wrong, but the indications I have are that the unintended consequences from the initial Commons amendments to the Bill will make the formation of an Executive more difficult. That greatly saddens me. I hope I am wrong and that the parties surprise us and produce something that we all welcome. However, on paper, and from looking at social media and other comments, it seems we have created the most ridiculous position we could possibly have imagined. One of the red lines of Sinn Féin, which has been holding back an Executive, is to ensure abortion and same-sex marriage are applied in Northern Ireland. Leaving aside the nitty-gritty of that argument, we have contrived to ensure with the Bill that, should an Executive be formed, those two propositions will not take effect. That is what we have done: we have put an obstacle in the way of agreement. I do not believe for one minute that the proposers of the original amendments in the House of Commons had that as their intention. They were trying to regularise the legislation which, incidentally, they have signally failed to do, because the proposals in the Bill now are not the same as those that apply to the rest of the United Kingdom.

Leaving that to one side, this is the first time I have seen what should have been straightforward legislation completely distorted, in a way that not only makes the objective of the legislation more difficult, but has added matters that will cause us trouble in the future. I do not want to see us leaving the European Union with no deal. I am long enough in the tooth to know the implications of that but, if we as a country are serious about negotiating an agreement with our EU partners, we have no idea how to go about it.

Asset Freezing (Compensation) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Empey and Lord Elton

2nd reading (Hansard) : House of Lords
Friday 27th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, I too thank those who participated in today’s debate. I want to go over a few points. My noble friend Lord Rogan referred to Semtex and the escalation of the campaign, and the fact that citizens from other countries have achieved compensation. I acknowledge that that was salt in the wound to many victims.

I appreciated the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Reid of Cardowan. I understand the technical points he made about the letters, but of all the things that have happened over the years, the production of pieces of paper in a court, the existence of which was not known to anybody outwith the Government of the day and the terrorists who held them, was a big shock, to put it mildly. The truth is that someone charged with four counts of murder and contributing to an explosion in this country—the first person to be brought before the courts between 1982 and 2014 on this matter—was able to leave the court a free man. You can look at all the technicalities that surround it, but that is what happened. It was a shock to the core for many people.

We know that mistakes were made, perhaps at police level—I accept that. But the fact is that pieces of paper existed that were not known about. Through my involvement in the negotiations I am well aware that the on-the-runs was a very sensitive issue. It was a matter that could not be left hanging in the wind. Nevertheless, people were shocked by the way this was done and by the fact that some of the people in possession of these letters were the same people hounding members of the security forces who were acting on our behalf. They were having their cake and eating it. The noble Lord, Lord Reid, also mentioned the imbalance, which is at the core of why people are so upset.

I am well aware of the personal experiences of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carswell—my late aunt and uncle lived across the road from where he lives. Very few people would get under their vehicle like a mechanic in a garage to search for a device, but he was so conscientious. I thank God that he and his family escaped.

[Lord Elton (Con)]

In that context, it might be worth reminding the Minister that an exactly similar device killed one of Margaret Thatcher’s Ministers, Ian Gow.

[Lord Empey]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. If noble Lords look inside the Chamber of the House of Commons they will see above the door the names of those Members of the House of Commons who were killed—Airey Neave, Ian Gow, the Reverend Robert Bradford and Anthony Berry in the Brighton bomb. That was a very poignant intervention.

I appreciate the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, about parliamentary procedure. As a hand in these things, I am sure that over the years he has been quite happy to use the odd bit of procedure himself, as I am sure we all have in the different fora in which we have operated. Nevertheless, he makes the point—he knows and everyone knows—that a private Member does not have the resources to draft all of the technicalities that are needed in a Private Member’s Bill. Although I thank the Public Bill Office for its assistance, I am well aware that without the backing of the Government, it is difficult for a Private Member’s Bill to make progress. However, it creates a platform for Members to bring issues into the public domain. I make no excuse whatever for that because that is what we are trying to do here. I thank the noble Lord very much for his contribution and support just as I thank the noble Lord, Lord Reid. When we discussed the Bill last time, the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, also contributed on behalf of the Labour Party. We appreciate all those matters.

The noble Lord, Lord Browne, mentioned fairness and transparency. Those things have been sorely lacking over the years. My noble friend Lord Lexden used the dreaded phrase “devolve and forget” with regard to devolution. With the circumstances in which we find ourselves in Belfast at the moment, I sincerely hope that we see that devolving and forgetting does not work. We know that it is not a good policy. My noble friend Lord Lexden also mentioned Airey Neave and what happened in March 1979 and standing up for victims. He has been one of the most consistent and persistent supporters of Northern Ireland over his lifetime and we greatly appreciate that.

On the Minister’s response, in my speech I quoted what Prime Minister Cameron said in 2011 and what the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, said in 2014 and said that they were totally inconsistent—one excluded the other. The Minister used a phrase that I welcome when he said that Her Majesty’s Government would now be prepared to pursue more openly and communicate more effectively with victims. He used the phrase “seek redress”. That is an improvement in their position because in 2014 they were saying that they would have no involvement whatever. The Foreign Secretary hosted a meeting with Alistair Burt. Our ambassador to Libya was present as were a number of officials, so he was taking the matter seriously. I believe that his approach is beginning to focus the Government on doing something about this.

Look: we all know that the people of Libya were the principal sufferers over the regime of Gaddafi. The country was a personal fiefdom. It was brutalised. People were disappeared and murdered and treated appallingly. We are not seeking to ignore them or to set those people aside. But the people of Libya have to understand that they are not alone. People in this country have to be taken into account. It is the first duty of Her Majesty’s Government to protect their citizens. That is the first and important duty of government. I attended hearings of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee when a number of other persons were present including the former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, and when the question of compensation was raised he said that people had already received compensation. Many of them may have from the British taxpayer, but it is not the British taxpayer who should be paying. It is the people who perpetrated and provided the material so that the terrorists could operate in this country. There is a state-to-state issue here. I think we can claim today that the Government have moved from their position of saying that it is purely a private matter to saying that there has to be state-to-state involvement. The two are not mutually exclusive, but that represents a step forward, and I welcome it.

Reference was made to Jim Fitzpatrick in the other place. He has been a stalwart campaigner. I attended a debate that he had in Westminster Hall last year. He was present when we met the Foreign Secretary a few weeks ago, along with the group chair, Andrew Rosindell, the Member for Romford. We have quite a substantial amount of support and we meet from time to time, so this is not a party issue. This is a parliamentary issue. It is a national issue. We do not know the politics of the people involved and it is none of our business. The fact is that a group of our citizens have suffered directly as a result of the actions of the state of Libya under the Gaddafi regime. While people will be free to take private cases against individuals who they know or believe were involved, this is not a matter that the Government can sit on their hands over. I hope that the contribution that the Minister has made today when he said that the Government would seek redress implies that they will actually do something.

I hope that the Minister will be able to anticipate that, if we do not see that redress is being sought—and sought in a proactive way—I am quite certain from what all noble Lords have said in their remarks that we will be back to ensure that this matter does not fall down through the cracks. We have brought Bills forward two years running and we will bring them forward every year if we have to. It is not something that we will give up on. If it takes letters and delegations—whatever it takes—we will persist. The Government must realise that this is not something that can be put on the back burner any more. That will not happen. I think that there is unanimity in the House on this matter and I hope that a message can be brought back to the Foreign Secretary to say that we appreciate that he is taking the matter seriously but, to coin a phrase, we are not going away. With that, I ask the House to give this Bill a Second Reading.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Empey and Lord Elton

Friday 16th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, the point has been made, as though this closes the need for a definition, that a definition in the form DS 1500, which the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and many others have referred to, has already been passed by Parliament. I merely want to say that the need for precision when it is a question of providing social services benefits in cash or in kind is much less demanding than the need for precision when the question is pulling the plug on somebody’s life. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to return to this issue.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, one is reluctant to become involved in a debate when so many noble Lords with senior medical and legal experience have been putting forward their interpretations. However, I want to deal with a couple of matters. With this amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is clearly adding that a medical practitioner will have to have significant knowledge of the patient.

I want to speak on this issue because I feel that the Achilles heel of the whole Bill is that it is built on sand. It works only on the assumption that the medical profession will deliver it, whereas it is obvious to most of us that the vast majority of the medical profession do not want to deliver it. That leads us to what may be the essential contradiction or conflict in the amendment. A number of noble Lords have said that specifying six months would be an overburdensome requirement. Therefore, we have the dilemma that either you have a medical practitioner who knows the patient, knows the condition and knows how that patient is likely to react to certain drugs, or you have a complete stranger who comes in and makes a judgment on the spot, having read a medical file. I fear that a rent-a-doctor procedure will develop and will distil down to those who are prepared to do it, and that, in my view, will create a whole series of new problems.

I want to raise another point regarding these amendments. We talk about having conversations, discussions and processes. I represented an inner-city constituency for more than 25 years and my question is: with whom and at what time are people going to have these discussions, conversations and processes? At the moment, nurses hardly have time to feed patients on their ward, let alone to involve themselves in very complicated and difficult conversations, discussions and processes.

Therefore, looking at the modern-day NHS and all the pressures that it is under, to some extent we are adding a further pressure without the active support and consent of the medical profession. Also—this is the one thing that I worry about more than anything else—we are changing for ever the potential relationship between a doctor and a patient. In an inner-city area, the ordinary person will say, “Oh, here comes Dr Death. How can that person help me on the one hand and put my lights out on another?”. I fear that that is how this will be distilled down to street level.

In the amendment, the noble Lord is clearly trying to put in place the safeguard that the patient will at least be dealt with by somebody who knows him or her. I understand that and accept the rationale for it. However, there are practicalities, which have been raised by others. With inner-city practices, it is hard enough to get the patient to go to a doctor in the first place, but if they think that that doctor could at some point in their lives, as they would say, sign them off, will the amendment achieve the worthy objective for which it is meant?

The word “control” has been used a number of times. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and others used it. One can see that people would want to have control over their lives. It could happen to any of us. But in the real world out there, many people who are seriously ill may not have the means. They do not have access to the courts, money or knowledge. Control may be all right for those of us in this House, but it is not always available to the ordinary person in the street. That is where I believe there is a fundamental weakness in this. Without the act of involvement of the medical profession who really want to do something, we are forcing them into a corner. It will inevitably boil down to a handful of doctors who will go around the country signing off people they do not know.

Procedure of the House

Debate between Lord Empey and Lord Elton

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, perhaps I may briefly detain the House to pick up one point, as it is the most suitable moment to do so. We have heard these encouragements to brevity in Questions ever since I can remember, but the only way of actually doing anything about it is as it happens. There is then a responsibility for both Front Benches, not just the government Front Bench, to bring their own side into compliance with the Standing Orders. That applies to many other procedures as well. If something goes wrong in a debate and there are only relatively inexperienced members on the Front Benches, then it falls to people who have been here for many years to take that responsibility on themselves, so that the House continues in good order. I hope that that is acceptable.

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, perhaps I may briefly raise one very minor point. It has occurred to me that when we deal with supplementary Oral Questions, there might be a difficulty for some Members with mobility issues in getting up quickly enough to actually put a Question. I do not know what the solution is, but perhaps the Chairman of Committees and his colleagues would bear it in mind. It frequently happens that in the area around here it tends to be easier for Members to get up and get called, whereas some Members who have difficulty rising in time may find it more difficult.