Northern Ireland: Devolved Government

Lord Trimble Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The time of active consideration is drawing to a close. We now need to move forward on this matter. A facilitator will be an aspect we need to take forward. We are now talking about a matter of weeks to try to achieve this. I welcome the comments from the noble Lord behind me, because we need to have everyone in that room. This is now the time, but we are talking about weeks.

[Lord Trimble (Con)]

My Lords, is the problem not that you cannot bring in an arbitrator unless the parties agree to it? It is very obvious that one party is not willing to do that. Consequently, it is time for the Government to go to other procedures, not even to wait until then. If the Government take some action to enable the Assembly, or Assembly Members, to meet to discuss local services, that would be a step forward and would put pressure on Sinn Féin to come in.

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

My noble friend will recall that, when we last discussed this, one aspect of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Act was to give stronger guidance to the civil servants, and we have done that. However, the point he raises remains valid. An independent arbiter cannot solve all the problems. The problems will ultimately have to be solved by the politicians in Northern Ireland. As I said in answer to questions earlier, we are now talking about a matter of weeks, not months or years.