Northern Ireland: Devolved Government

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lexden]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made towards the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office and Scotland Office (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, restoring the Executive remains the Secretary of State’s top priority. As she has set out, there is a need to rebuild political dialogue between parties and she is continuing to encourage the parties to come together to work towards restoring devolved government. The Secretary of State continues to speak regularly with Northern Ireland political leaders to achieve that aim.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

The DUP has repeatedly made clear that it wants to get back into the Northern Ireland Executive. What is the Government’s assessment of Sinn Féin’s current position? How seriously have public services, particularly health services, deteriorated during two years without democratic oversight due to the fact that Stormont is both the upper tier of local government in Northern Ireland as well as a devolved legislature? On 30 October, the House was told from the Front Bench that,

“there needs to be a new momentum”.—[Official Report, 30/10/18; col. 1276.]

Where is that new momentum?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

There were three questions inside that. The first is an assessment of where Sinn Féin rests at the moment. There needs to be greater action from all the parties to bring about the resolution of an Executive. We have not achieved that, and I cannot give the comfort that I would like to my noble friend, nor to the people of Northern Ireland. In terms of the question that I know the noble Lord, Lord Empey, has raised on a number of occasions regarding the health service, we continue to invest in the health service but recognise the shortcomings of the current system. It cannot go on, as I have said before, and it will not go on. The reality remains that we must do more to try to bring that about. I hope that that momentum will achieve something within the window that we opened for negotiations to settle this. That is what we must deliver. That window will last until March.