Northern Ireland (Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan) Bill

Debate between Lord Trimble and Lord Empey

Thursday 21st April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, as usual, the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, has an uncanny habit of putting his finger on something that sparks a series of comments.

I am no lawyer or expert in these matters. All I can say is that, when we came to the Belfast agreement in 1998, no agreement would have been reached had the constitution of the Irish Republic remained as it was. We had the issue of Articles 2 and 3, which claimed the territory of Northern Ireland as part of the nation. If I remember correctly, “the island and its territorial seas” was the terminology at the time. Had that remained in place, there would have been no agreement.

A treaty was eventually written to implement the agreement—although it was brought in here as the Northern Ireland Act 1998, there is of course a treaty. The Irish Republic effectively changed its constitution by referendum in 1998 to remove those offending articles. So in terms of our operational day-to-day relationships with the Republic, when we were going to meet Irish Ministers, deal with them and set up bodies with them—which, as the result of the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, appointing me to positions, I had the opportunity to do—it was clear to us that the perceived threat/claim no longer existed from a practical position.

However, the problem was demonstrated by the 1985 arrangements, when there were two separate documents, as was pointed out. There was the question of the United Kingdom being given its full title—the mirror image of this question. This country was not getting its proper legal title from the Republic. We are the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as anyone who looks at the passport will see. The Irish state was not legally permitted to acknowledge anything other than Great Britain as part of our national territory. That was where the agreement of 1998 made progress, in that it was then accepted that we are an integral part of the United Kingdom. That had been the missing link and something that we had attempted to achieve. Several noble Lords who are here today were part of that negotiation.

So we have made huge progress. I am not qualified to judge what the international implications of this could be, but we know from dealing with this issue that things can creep in over time to dilute the agreements that we have made, because there are always people who will never give up their ultimate objectives. We know that people have been prepared to kill, be killed and do all sorts of other things to achieve an objective which does not meet with the democratic will of all of the people on the island of Ireland, as was expressed by the 1998 referendum.

Your Lordships will recall that John Hume’s argument always was that, if you got the people on the island to vote, you would undermine the arguments of 1918 and the republican movement, because you would actually get people to vote to accept the position. That was, of course, the whole purpose of the agreement. People were forced into accepting that—through gritted teeth, I suspect—and we got the vote.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for raising this matter, because it brings out whether people truly and actually believe what they have signed up to.

[Lord Trimble]

My Lords, everything that has been said by the previous three noble Lords who have spoken is significant, and how people feel about things and the language that is used is also significant, but in assessing the legal situation we must bear in mind that Ireland—the Republic of Ireland, the Irish Free State, whatever you want to call it—operates under a formal, written constitution. Here, I am speaking from memory, not having consulted documents to refresh my memory and ensure that it is accurate, which is a dangerous thing to do, but the 1937 constitution, in giving a name to the state, said that the name of the state was “Éire, which in English means Ireland”. That is a nice one to reflect on. That constitution was still in force in 1949, when the state was declared to be a republic, but that was legislation. No amendment was made to the constitution, so in Irish constitutional law, the name remained unchanged.

Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

Debate between Lord Trimble and Lord Empey

Tuesday 25th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, when this amendment was tabled, I thought it was going to be a fairly simple, straightforward matter—but as very often happens, that has not proved to be the case at all.

The Northern Ireland Assembly has not asked for any powers to be devolved with regard to the Civil Service Commissioners. Indeed, as we look at the next amendment, it has not asked for any of those powers to be devolved either. Contrary to the rumours, the people on the Newtownards Road do not speak of little else. My point is that this proposal has come from the Government of their own volition. It has not been sought. I have never heard anybody raise the issue at all.

The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, referred to the letter that some of us received in January from the chief commissioner. If I may be permitted to quote a little from it, it says:

“We have a similar role to that of the UK Civil Service Commission chaired by Sir David Normington, which regulates appointments to the Home and Diplomatic Civil Service. However, unlike Sir David’s Commission, the Northern Ireland Commissioners do not have the benefit of formal legislative provisions”.

It goes on further:

“Rather, our role continues to be governed by a Prerogative Order in Council”.

The noble Baroness is suggesting new proposals. We know that there is a clash between what is devolved and what is not devolved, but what is not devolved is currently excepted. As the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, said, a number of issues were deliberately left as excepted issues because they were potentially so sensitive. They went to the core of areas where people felt that things had not been well handled in the past, and it would be better for the long term to leave them to the one side.

The other point to bear in mind about the Civil Service in Northern Ireland is that the statutory role, function and power lies with the department, not the Minister. There is a complete difference. If the Minister is not there for whatever reason, the department can continue to apply policy that has already been decided. The law states that the Minister directs and controls the department, but in the absence of the Minister, the department itself has the power to continue implementing policy. That is a very distinct difference.

[Lord Trimble]

I must apologise as my memory is not clear enough on whether the noble Lord was present at a discussion I am going to mention. However, he will recall the time when, for political reasons which are not relevant to this point, I had resigned and I was proposing that my other Ministers would also resign. There was a discussion of senior officials about what we do in this situation. I cherish the comment made by someone who I will not identify, who said, “We must be very careful because we don’t want people to find out that we can take decisions without Ministers”.

[Lord Empey]

The noble Lord is perfectly correct. I recall being at a number of meetings where that issue was discussed. The law states that the Minister directs and controls the department when the Minister is there, but the power is vested in the department. That is why this is such a sensitive issue. We are in the House of Lords but the department Permanent Secretaries were known as the six barons in the direct rule years, because it was to them that people turned for resources and other things. There is a very distinct difference, and that is why this is such a sensitive issue. As I have said, the Civil Service Commissioners themselves clearly have anxieties. The Assembly has not asked for this but the Government, for their own reasons, have decided to bring it forward. If they were prepared to drop it, I am quite sure that Members here would be more than content. However, in view of what the Minister has said and in view of her letter, and the fact that she intends to hold further consultations, I believe it appropriate that I now beg leave to withdraw the amendment.