Northern Ireland (Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan) Bill

Debate between Lord Trimble and Lord Rogan

Thursday 21st April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rogan]

My Lords, Clause 7, which deals with the pledge of office, has seven objectives. The first six are so self-evident that no government Minister in any democracy would not adhere to them whether or not they had taken an oath or a pledge. However, the seventh pledge in new paragraph (ck)—

“to accept no authority, direction or control on my political activities other than my democratic mandate alongside my own personal and party judgment”—

is somewhat different and indeed significant, given that the IRA Army Council still exists and that we were led to understand that it directs political Sinn Fein.

The Secretary of State has clarified in another place that an individual who refuses to give the undertaking will not be able to participate in Assembly proceedings or receive any of the privileges of office or salary. That is very welcome but somewhat different from what applies to Sinn Fein Members of the other place, who refuse to take an oath of loyalty to Her Majesty yet suffer no loss of salary or expense. We have a situation whereby a sanction and penalty for refusing to give an undertaking is in place, but the glaring omission in the Bill is that there is no process for investigating or, more importantly, providing sanctions for those who breach their undertaking.

Not all politicians may be as honourable as noble Lords. A process for investigating an alleged breach of the pledge would be helpful. Surely some penalty must be administered to those who wilfully break it, perhaps after being given orders from a six-man Army Council. I support the amendment.

[Lord Trimble]

My Lords, I indicate my support for this amendment, which, as my noble friend Lord Empey says, was tabled in the other place and debated there. I think it was tabled by Sylvia Hermon, the Member for North Down, and it is a very sensible provision. What is the value of these pledges and undertakings if they can be disregarded? There has to be some form of penalty or sanction available in the event of the undertakings not being honoured.

At Second Reading, the Minister gave two reasons why the amendment was not accepted. The second of the two reasons was to refer to established mechanisms by which the Assembly holds its Members to account, including adherence to the Assembly code of conduct and so on. This is like asking IPSA to take on such a highly political job as deciding what sanctions to apply to Members who take directions from paramilitary and terrorist organisations and so on. That is not a terribly good reason to give for not accepting this. The other reason the Minister gave was that:

“The Government are firmly of the opinion that it would not be appropriate for us at Westminster to pre-empt the Assembly’s own consideration of this issue”.—[Official Report, 12/4/16; col. 225.]

I can understand that—it sounds reasonable enough—but you then have to bear in mind that the likelihood of the Assembly agreeing to significant sanctions as things stand at the moment is round about zero, and maybe even less than zero. Therefore that, too, is not a good reason.

I also add a rider to say that one of the things that disturbs me about our Government’s attitude to the devolved Administrations—it is not just in Northern Ireland but comes across in their attitude to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly—is that an exaggerated view of their position runs through all of this. This is the sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom. We have devolved matters, but power devolved is power retained. At the end of the day responsibility in all these matters rests with Her Majesty’s Government. For the Government to say, “Oh, we’ll leave it up to the devolved Administration” might sound appropriate and diplomatic but it gives far too exaggerated a view of it. To see how at the end of the day that puts you in difficulty, just look at the history of Stormont. The same exaggerated view of Stormont’s position from 1922 onwards was taken by this House, and the result of that was not good in that it led the central Administration not to pay proper regard to what was going on and not to involve themselves in what was going on. If Government here had paid closer attention to it, we might have avoided the Troubles. That is a small point, but I hope the Minister will bear it in mind.

Finally, I understand the Minister’s desire to be diplomatic, on the basis that he is only being diplomatic, and I realise that it will not be possible to accept the amendment without losing the Government’s timetable to get this out before the end of the Session—and that is fine. Can the Minister then change his language slightly when he says that he will leave it to the Assembly to see what it does with regard to it? However, if the Assembly fails to take action on this matter, the Government will have to consider what they do.