Northern Ireland

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I fully agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bew, that this humble Address to His Majesty deserves our full and enthusiastic support. It provides an excellent summary of the principles that should guide policy towards both Northern Ireland and British-Irish relations.

It is a great pity that these principles have not been followed consistently over recent years. If they had been firmly upheld at all times, we would have been spared much recent misfortune. The interests of the union would not have been compromised during negotiations over the terms of our withdrawal agreement from the European Union. The Government would have resisted the siren voices promoting their own invention: a fully-fledged all-Ireland economy.

Unionists have always championed cross-border co-operation where it would serve the interests of both sovereign states—difficult though it has been for us to forgive the lack of full security co-operation during the Troubles, when our country had an absolute right to expect it from our neighbour. When I worked for Airey Neave in the late 1970s, I think I spent more time on this issue than on any other.

I hope that the principles that this House is endorsing through this humble Address will be noted and remembered in Dublin. Firmly and consistently applied, they will avoid future misunderstanding. The words “joint authority” should be banished from the political vocabulary. The concept is wholly incompatible with the stability and prosperity of Ulster.

The principles, summarised in the words of the humble Address, are fully and faithfully reflected in the Government’s recent Command Paper, Safeguarding the Union, which naturally looms large in this debate. What a remarkable document it is, even though it is not written in the clear, straightforward prose for which British official publications were once renowned. Control of its drafting should have been placed in the hands of my noble friend Lord Caine. He knows how to expound policy in clear English, as his speeches in and outside Parliament demonstrate. Audiences in the United States in particular have benefited from listening to him.

One reason why the Command Paper is remarkable is that it commits Ministers and officials to a huge amount of extra work. They will be rushed off their feet if the document’s many pledges and promises are to be implemented in full. They will also be adding to the labours of businessmen and many others who will be needed to assist the Government’s bold programme of action.

We are promised an outburst of feverish official activity: 24 separate initiatives are summarised in paragraph 43 of the Command Paper which, it states, are to be

“delivered according to an agreed timetable”.

It would be good to have details of this timetable. I cannot find them anywhere in the Command Paper. The list of new initiatives includes new UK Government structures, new UK Government-Northern Ireland Executive structures, an independent monitoring panel, a new internal market assessment in the regulatory impact assessment process, a strengthened independent review of the Windsor Framework underpinned by a statutory duty, the establishment of a new body to be known as “Intertrade UK”, and a UK east-west council which, among other things,

“will drive engagement aimed at developing and sharing existing clusters of excellence”

and

“scope the establishment of a Northern Ireland Hub in London to provide an increased opportunity for Northern Ireland stakeholder engagement”.

The Government’s hectic programme of promised new work does not stop there. There is much more. We can look forward to a “turbocharged Enhanced Investment Zone”, a horticulture working group, better road connections with Great Britain—though there does not seem to be anything about better air services—investment in ports, a twinning programme for schools, a series of papers which

“will evidence the mutual benefits of Northern Ireland’s place in the Union”,

and a review to increase awareness of the Northern Ireland defence sector.

That is by no means a comprehensive list of the measures that are now to unfold. Even on the last page of the Command Paper the cascade continues. We are told that

“a UK Government Sports Minister will visit within the first month of a new Executive to discuss with the Executive how to take forward the prompt and effective delivery of the Sub-Regional Football Stadia Strategy”

My noble friend Lady Hoey once held the post of Sports Minister. I hope the present incumbent is acquitting himself with the same vigour—a vigour which, as all her speeches show, remains undiminished.

While wondering a little sceptically whether all that has been promised in the Command Paper will actually be accomplished, every unionist in Northern Ireland itself and elsewhere must rejoice that so much action is now contemplated to safeguard the Union, and all of it will benefit the people of Northern Ireland as a whole, whatever their political persuasion.

The numerous commitments that have now been given will enable the Government to carry conviction when they set out, as they undertake to do on page 72 of the Command Paper, to make

“unashamedly ... the positive case for Northern Ireland’s integral place in the United Kingdom”.

Yet it should never have become necessary for a Government drawn from the Conservative and Unionist Party to make such a declaration. Robust defence of the union should be their unchanging core characteristic. Sadly, it has not been. That is what happens when someone such as Mr Boris Johnson is given charge of our country’s affairs. The Conservative and Unionist Party has ground to make up.

We unionists will not go far wrong if we stick to the precepts of the great Lord Castlereagh, the principal architect of the Act of Union, who gets a mention in the Command Paper. At the time of his death in 1822, the Duke of Wellington’s brother described Castlereagh as a man whose life had been

“most favourable to all the just views and interests of our Roman Catholic fellow subjects, and most practically beneficial to the general welfare, happiness and prosperity of Ireland”.

The new spirit of zeal which the Command Paper is designed to instil into the Government of Northern Ireland is not yet apparent here in London. I recently had the great good fortune to become a member of the European Affairs Select Committee’s Sub-Committee on the Windsor Framework. Ministers are, at the moment, taking far too long to reply to the urgent matters that the sub-committee brings before them. When replies do come, they tend to be incomplete or evasive. We are fortunate to have a chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Jay, who constantly reminds Ministers of their duties to us.

I end where I began by praising the words of this humble Address. It might perhaps have been even better with the addition of an extra sentence. Would it not have been appropriate for us to express our thanks to His Majesty and members of the Royal Family for their unswerving commitment to all the people of Northern Ireland, and for their contribution to British-Irish relations? A list of the engagements they have carried out in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic would be of formidable length. So many communities of all kinds, and so many individuals within them, will have cause to remember the interest that a royal visitor took in them, often assisting them in circumstances of grave distress. It is a record of service that has undoubtedly meant a great deal to that portion of our country for whose greater stability and prosperity we must all strive.