Local Elections (Northern Ireland) (Election Expenses) Order 2019

Debate between Lord Murphy of Torfaen and Lord Kilclooney

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kilclooney (CB)]

During this debate, reference has been made to the 11 super-councils that were created five years ago in Northern Ireland. The idea was that reducing the number of councils from 26 to 11 would reduce costs in local government administration. That may or may not have happened.

The order is welcome, of course, because it provides greater opportunity to those who represent wider, larger rural areas and a greater facility for those who are handicapped. It widens the opportunity for more candidates to stand for local government elections in Northern Ireland, and that is welcome. However, reducing the number of councils from 26 to 11 means that many people no longer know who their local councillors are. For the last few decades, everyone knew who their local councillors were. But the larger the councils become, the smaller the number of councillors in Northern Ireland, and local people no longer know who their councillors are. That is damaging democracy.

Worse still, at their monthly meetings some of these 11 super-councils are no longer discussing in public all the main issues but are making those issues subject to committee meetings at which some of the media are not even invited. There is no real democracy in some of our 11 new super-councils. I am sorry to say that some people will no longer know who their councillors are and will not know what is happening because of the items that are being discussed almost privately. That will result in a lower turnout in the local government elections in May.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, and others have referred to the transparency of election donations. I hope that the Minister can give an answer—whether he sings it or says it.

One issue before us, in respect of local government in Northern Ireland, is on giving disabled people the opportunity to stand for election to local authorities— obviously, these Benches completely support the Government on that. The other issue concerns the exclusion of personal expenses from election expenses. Again, we very much support that. It brings the law into line with that in Great Britain.

The issue, though, begs a wider question—two questions, in fact. The first, regarding local government, concerns the fact, as I mentioned last week in the House, that we are in a strange position in Northern Ireland. Some years ago, Northern Ireland had the most sophisticated democratic system in Europe, as a result of the Good Friday agreement, with the Assembly, the Executive, the north-south bodies and all the other aspects of the agreement. Now, its local government is the least democratically run part of the United Kingdom or, indeed, of the European Union. Here in this Parliament there is no nationalist voice in this House or, of course, in the House of Commons. There is no Assembly and no Executive, so the only democratic institutions in Northern Ireland are the 11 local authorities. They will have elections fairly soon. Those elections, of course, will be keenly fought by all the parties in Northern Ireland, and my guess is that they will not be fought entirely on local issues either; they will be fought possibly on Brexit but certainly on politics of a wider nature in Northern Ireland. So the 11 local authorities, although they do not have the same powers as local authorities in Great Britain, have a hugely important role as a forum for political and democratic discussion in Northern Ireland.

It should not be like that, of course. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and others about the restoration of the institutions of the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland is critical, and he is absolutely right to raise it every time Northern Irish business is debated in this Chamber. There will, of course, be an opportunity next week, when legislation comes before us regarding the budget and other issues in Northern Ireland, and I hope that that becomes a debate about where we are in the political situation at this moment. Frankly, it is a disgrace that we are in this position: to go well over two years without any Assembly or Executive in Northern Ireland is totally unacceptable. It is linked heavily with Brexit, and I am sure we will have an opportunity to debate that as soon as we can, but noble Lords ought to understand that at the end of May there are two deadlines: one deadline for Brexit and another for extending the role of the Assembly in order to have further negotiations. On 25 March, that deadline closes. In neither case, it seems to me, is anything happening at the moment.

So today is a mini-debate, perhaps, on this issue and I hope that next week will be a major one, but we welcome the order. It is important, but the fact that it has to be brought in this Parliament rather than in the Assembly in Belfast is a tragedy for us all.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Murphy of Torfaen and Lord Kilclooney

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kilclooney (CB)]

My Lords, I want to comment briefly on one or two points. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, in his historical analysis of Ireland forgot the Battle of the Boyne. I am amazed. Secondly, he forgot the fact that there used to be no Irish living in Ireland. They invaded the island. The Scotti lived on the island originally. The Irish invaded our island and drove the Scotti out, and they went 20 miles away to a country now called Scotland. That is where it gets its name from—the Scotti who were driven out of the island of Scotia. When the Irish invaded, they changed it to Hibernia. Read Magnus Magnusson’s book on the history of Ireland.

I am the one Member here who lives near the border and I do not want to see a hard border. I want to see the common travel area preserved. I speak as one who was a very active European. I was chairman of the European Youth Campaign in Northern Ireland. I campaigned strongly in the EEC referendum. I then became an MEP for 10 years and, after that, I spent seven years in the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly. Likewise, living near the border, I was very keen on north-south relations at a time when the Dublin Government refused to even recognise that Northern Ireland existed.

When I became chairman of the Young Unionist Council—in the middle of the last century—I said we would meet people in Dublin to see if we could start improving relations. We arranged to have a meeting in Dublin with the central branch of Fine Gael. The Ulster Unionist Party went crackers. They said I would get expelled. We should not do it. How can you talk to somebody who does not even recognise that you exist? We went to Dublin and had our meeting. I looked at the Irish Times three weeks later and what did I see? “Party branch expelled”. I thought, “My goodness”, but it was the central branch of Fine Gael that had been expelled for meeting the unionists. That is life in Ireland.

I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, who was quite right to say that the southern Irish are petrified about the impact of Brexit. I see it every day where I live. Thousands of people now come every day from the Republic to Northern Ireland for the obvious reason. The depreciation of the pound sterling means that the ladies all come up to our border towns to do their weekly shop. Our border towns are now—“exploding” is the wrong word to use—absolutely thriving, and people along the border who think about the economics say what a great thing Brexit is. However, it is worse for the Republic of Ireland. The largest number of its tourists come from England and, because of the 15% depreciation, tourism is now going into decline.

A second point is that meat cannot be exported from the Republic to Britain because, again, meat prices are down by 15%. Farmers are now demonstrating outside supermarkets in the Republic because of the collapse in the prices. Furthermore, mushroom plants are closing down. Hundreds of people have already lost their jobs for the same reason: they cannot export mushrooms.

Of course, a special status is required for someone but not for Northern Ireland. It is offensive to suggest that it should have a special status. It is the Republic that needs it. We must keep the common travel area there, and we must get Brussels to recognise, as the Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland has stated, that the Republic will be more seriously damaged than any other nation in the European Union. It will suffer badly. It is suffering already, but what will it be like in two and a half years’ time when the United Kingdom leaves the European Union? The Republic of Ireland needs special status and we should support it in its attempts to get that in Brussels. As one who lives on the border, I say: keep the common travel area.

I was involved in the negotiations on the Belfast agreement and I have an original copy of it here. There is not one mention of the European Union in any of the four articles at the end of the agreement. Of course, human rights are mentioned but that is in relation to the Council of Europe; it has nothing to do with the European Union. I will oppose the amendment.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate lasting almost two hours. I am making a guest appearance at this Dispatch Box as the Minister for Political Development who partly chaired the peace process 20 years ago. When I look around this Chamber—I cannot look behind me but they are there—I see a large number of noble Lords who took part in the talks on that agreement.

I do not accept that the amendments in my name are intended to frustrate in any way the passage of the Bill. Because I am sure that the Minister will give us proper undertakings, it is unlikely that I will move them. However, I think that noble Lords would agree that the quality of the debate and the number of people who have spoken indicate the importance of the subject. I do not think that there has been anything more important in my political lifetime than the Northern Ireland peace process, and the second most significant process is what we are debating today: Brexit—and I say that as a remainer. The interrelationship between the two is extremely important. I see today’s debate as a starter—a reminder to the Government that they have to address huge issues with regard to Northern Ireland and Ireland, and in the few minutes available to me I would like to touch on them.

In the debate in the other place some weeks ago, there was a speech by Owen Paterson, whom I regarded as a very committed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, but I disagreed with him on the following. He said that he wanted to correct the narrative that the European Union played a key role in the Northern Ireland peace process. When I was appointed as the talks Minister, I was also appointed Minister for Europe. That is no coincidence, because Europe played a huge and significant role in the peace process. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, that strands 1, 2 and 3 of the Northern Ireland talks referred to aspects of our membership of the European Union.

I will now comment on the remarks of my noble friend Lord Empey. He said, quite rightly, that it is not the legalities of this issue that matter but what produced the agreement, and it was the politics and the international treaty between the two countries that did that. There was a will on the part of the two countries and, above all, a commitment by all the political parties in Northern Ireland to come to the Good Friday agreement. It was our joint membership of the European Union, as opposed to any legalities or technicalities, that meant that Ministers from both countries were able to meet: the Taoiseach and the Prime Minister, Ministers at Council of Europe meetings, and Members of Parliament through the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly or its equivalent in those days. I remember taking the entire Northern Ireland Assembly to Brussels at the invitation of the European Union so that Members could see how important Europe was to the future of Northern Ireland. The excellent report produced by the House’s European Union Committee on British-Irish relations post Brexit says that joint membership has been a “vital ingredient” in those relations. Of course it has.

Money was important, too. Northern Ireland had Objective 1 status, and that was significant to the people of Northern Ireland. As noble Lords have said, there was also the peace money, which was unique in the whole of Europe. Money was designated by the European Union to help the process of making peace in Northern Ireland. However, it was not simply the money itself; it was how the money was distributed. I remember, as Secretary of State, going around Northern Ireland and talking to the groups which received the money from Europe and had to spend it between them. Unionists, nationalists, Catholics and Protestants met to distribute the money—and that in itself broke down barriers in Northern Ireland.

My noble friend Lord Hain made a very powerful speech. There is no question that over the last 20 years the border has diminished visibly and psychologically. I believe that the lack of a hard border allowed nationalists in Northern Ireland to develop a sense of common identity with their fellow European Union citizens across the border. In the same way, I vividly remember the meetings at Stormont House when there was a reluctance on the part of the unionist parties to accept devolution in Northern Ireland—that is, strand 1. However, as soon as we had in Great Britain as a whole a Parliament in Scotland, an Assembly in Wales and an Assembly in Northern Ireland, it meant that it was easier for the unionist community in Northern Ireland to accept it. We had to make these compromises.

I am reminded, too, by my noble friend Lord Rooker of the milk travelling from Northern Ireland to the Baileys plant. I remember it vividly because I opened the plant many years ago—although I never appreciated the international nature of the milk. Of course, if you think about it, that applies not just to the milk but to the sheep, the cows and the whole of the agricultural industry, which straddles the border and has no match anywhere in the rest of the European Union.

So the issue of the border is hugely significant, and I know that the Government take it seriously. It is an issue that cannot be allowed to drift—it has to be top of the agenda. The brightest minds in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Dublin and in the Northern Ireland Office in Whitehall, not to mention the officials in Brussels, should be engaged in dealing with this very tricky issue.