Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Davies-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

On another important commitment, on abortion, we are clear that the cycle of inaction must end and we welcome the Secretary of State’s determination on this, but it is a serious matter that the legal obligations are still being ignored. Will the Minister confirm the report today in The Guardian that he intends to instruct trusts to commission services? Will that require primary legislation? When will he act?

[Conor Burns]

As the hon. Lady will know, the Secretary of State is leading on this, and I am sure he would be delighted to talk to her.

Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill

Alex Davies-Jones Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always a pleasure to speak on any issue in this House, but particularly on issues to do with Northern Ireland. I welcome the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), to his new role and wish him well. He rightly came to see the No. 1 constituency in Northern Ireland, Strangford, before he had seen anywhere else. We are very pleased to have had the opportunity to have him there, and we wish him well in his role.

As always, the debate has been clear, and my party’s reasoning has been clearer. I am not enamoured with the form of government in Northern Ireland, and I do not believe that it can or does work, as has been demonstrated very clearly over the last couple of years. I absolutely believe in the right of this place to govern and legislate. However, as my colleagues have said, this is a matter that should be debated in the appropriate forum and not tagged on to this Bill. The Assembly and Executive Review Committee at Stormont is the mechanism to do that.

It grieves me that decisions were made in this place when they should have been made through the Northern Ireland Assembly, and I want to put that on the record. That leads me to an issue that I feel must be highlighted again: this Bill aims to secure a working Assembly with the best mechanism possible, yet it seems that this House interferes at will when public opinion calls for it. That must come to an end. It is time that this place gave the Northern Ireland Assembly the authority to make decisions.

During covid, despite discussion of an abortion Bill, this Government determined that they would bring in abortion in Northern Ireland in the most open way not just in the UK but in all of Europe. Along with colleagues, I strongly resented that, and I still resent it. We now face this Government acting on the NDNA deal, but only when it comes to the Irish language. With great respect to the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood), for me this issue is as clear as a bell. The rest of the important provisions, such as health and education, on which there were goals and aims, have been left to trickle through, yet the Irish language is to be given priority by this place.

As my party’s health spokesperson, it concerns me greatly that across Northern Ireland, in a post-covid world, the waiting time for an urgent hip replacement is upwards of five years, for cataract surgery it is upwards of four years, and breast reconstruction for breast cancer survivors is years down the line, with no date whatsoever. I have talked to some of my constituents back home who are fluent and interested Irish language speakers, and they tell me that they want to see priority given to issues such as health and education, to ensure that they are addressed first. I am not sure that the people of the Province believe that the Government should step in and fund these measures.

There are children out of education. There are many schools in my area that are awaiting refurbishment or rebuilding, and that cannot get the support they need in the form of classroom assistants. There is a big issue, too, with assessment for those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism. We get referrals every day of the week for those things. There is a generation of children who have had the option to learn music stripped from them, as budget slashing has meant a choice between culture or a teacher.

Those are real issues that impact every one of my constituents, whether they are Unionist or nationalist, whether they are in favour of the Irish language or against it. Those are the issues that people tell me clearly that they want to see addressed. I resent that priority has been given to one aspect of the NDNA over the life-changing aspects, and I urge the Minister to allow the Assembly to carry out its duties according to priority and not political machinations.

I understand the need to support the measures before us today, but I must put on the record my concerns about the prioritisation of some of the spending that the Government have looked towards. Clearly, we should be spending more on policing, because we need more police officers on the streets across Northern Ireland. We have a dearth of them at the moment. The training college is turning out as many as it can as quickly as it can, but the places of those who retire are still not being filled. Improvements need to be made in health, education and policing, and that is where I would like to see the focus.

At the same time, I urge the Government to do the right thing and allow the Assembly to prioritise need over wish and people over politics, and to make our own determination on Northern Ireland issues. I believe in devolution; I always have. I want the devolution that we have in Northern Ireland to achieve something. History has shown that direct rule is not beneficial for the people of the Province. I will therefore support the Bill, hoping against hope that Lord Frost will achieve what he sets out to achieve and ensure that Northern Ireland stops being a third country to the UK and is accepted as an integral part of it.

The next step will be asking the Government not to treat the Assembly as a local council with minor responsibilities, but to allow it to take tough decisions in a democratic manner. I believe that is the foundation of the Bill, and that is why I will support it, but I say to the Minister—I hope that he will respond—that there are priorities that need to be addressed first. I think we all realise that, and my constituents tell me that. Health, education, the economy and policing are where spending should be prioritised—not the Irish language.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

May I take this opportunity to welcome the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), to his place? I thank his predecessor, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker). He and I enjoyed a very cordial relationship, and I hope that the right hon. Member and I can continue in that fashion for the people of Northern Ireland.

I rise to speak to amendments 6 and 7 in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh). The instability in recent months has been unsettling for all of us who cherish the Good Friday agreement and believe that its institutions and the principles that underpin it represent the best way forward for Northern Ireland.

As ever, however, that instability has been felt most keenly by the people of Northern Ireland. It is clear that they need a stable, functioning Executive to meet the enormous health and economic challenges facing Northern Ireland. Indeed, as we have heard, a third of the entire population are languishing on health waiting lists, nearly 300 children are without a post-primary place for next year, and of course recovery from covid remains ongoing.

For all political leaders in Northern Ireland, a stable, functioning Executive must be the priority in the coming days and weeks. We welcome attempts to safeguard power sharing and improve the sustainability of the Executive and the Assembly. The lessons of the past should offer a clear warning to all of us. Institutions are much easier to collapse than they are to get back up and running. Recent events could scarcely have provided a clearer example of why the provisions contained in the Bill are necessary. It is partly for that reason that the Labour party supports the measures contained in the Bill, although we are deeply concerned that the Secretary of State has stalled on the legislation for so long that it will not now be in a position to be a useful tool in the difficult weeks and months ahead.

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[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I am sure the hon. Lady appreciates, as I do, that Wales now has two language Acts and one language measure, and that they have been great sources of pleasure and a celebration of our culture, bringing people together. I am sure, like me, she would ask the Minister when the Irish language Act will be brought forward, because the end of the month is very fast approaching.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I wholeheartedly agree with the right hon. Lady. She is right that the Welsh Language Act 1993 massively strengthened our culture in Wales and us as a country. I press the Minister on when we can expect that legislation to be forthcoming.

Our amendment would help to push forward progress on two key areas: a Bill of Rights and the re-establishment of a civic forum. On a Bill of Rights, we on the Labour Benches are well aware that it is a reserved responsibility for the Secretary of State. The tightly drafted nature of the Bill meant it was difficult to put responsibility on the Secretary of State himself. Nevertheless, a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland was first promised in the 1998 Good Friday agreement, but progress towards its development has repeatedly stalled. The establishment of the Ad Hoc Committee on a Bill of Rights at Stormont earlier this year represents a fresh attempt to move things forward. A Bill was an essential and fundamental safeguard of the Good Friday agreement, and it is simply wrong that it has not been developed. Action is needed now.

We believe the Secretary of State should take action by responding to the forthcoming report of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the House of Commons Committee on a Bill of Rights. The Secretary of State should request that the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission provides advice on a Bill of Rights, further to its functions as set out in section 69(7) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. The Secretary of State would subsequently lay before Parliament legislation giving effect to that advice. It is time to act.

On a civic forum, we believe that that was an important feature of decision making envisaged under the Good Friday agreement. Done well, it would give communities a strong say in decision making. It would give a voice in a deliberative forum to groups not often considered, and could vastly improve decision making in the process. The Good Friday agreement was about a new participative politics. The argument the Women’s Coalition put forward for a civic forum was as an advisory second chamber designed to give the trade union movement and businesses, as well as the community and the women’s movement, a place in political policy making. The prize of that expertise and knowledge is a durable solution that keeps communities on board, one that I hope will be considered going forward.

Finally, I will turn to the amendments in the name of the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) and my hon. Friends the Members for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) and for Belfast South (Claire Hanna). On new clause 1, on the appointment of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, it is clear that that was not envisaged by the Belfast-Good Friday agreement, but it is becoming an issue that must be dealt with through collective agreement. Polling shows, particularly among younger people, that identity is no longer binary. People identify as Irish, British and neither. It is far from inconceivable that the first and second-placed parties could come from neither Unionism nor nationalism. That raises important questions for the post-Belfast-Good Friday agreement and post-St Andrews power sharing mechanisms. I urge the Secretary of State not to put off serious consideration on this topic any longer. New clause 1, in the name of the hon. Member for North Down, raises questions that cannot be ignored and it is time for collective discussion.

On new clauses 2 and 4, we recognise the value and logic of a more consensual approach to electing the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, as envisaged by the Belfast-Good Friday agreement.

On new clause 3, in the name of the hon. Member for North Down and my hon. Friends the Members for Foyle and for Belfast South, the logic is again clear. The First Minister and Deputy First Minister have exactly the same powers: each have an equal say in the affairs of Northern Ireland and each have a fundamental right for their position to be respected. Equality was the essence and the spirit of the Good Friday agreement, and that is reflected in the joint powers held by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. New clause 3 reflects that, and it is one the Secretary of State should take away and look at seriously. Whichever tradition is elected to the position of First Minister and Deputy First Minister should be respected. Failure to do so simply undermines the principles of the Good Friday agreement. We hope the Minister will seriously consider the proposals.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Conor Burns)]

It is a pleasure to be back at the Dispatch Box. I hope, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I might briefly beg the indulgence of the House. I was in my office on Sunday afternoon, having had a very busy period in my first weeks in the Northern Ireland Office. There were some letters on my desk that were addressed as personal. I opened one to find it was a letter congratulating me on returning to Government from our late colleague Sir David Amess. I would just like to place on record my tribute to David. I knew him well. We served together on the all-party parliamentary group on the Holy See and had very many enjoyable trips to Rome. He had an irrepressible and irreverent sense of humour, and one was always cheered up by being in David’s company.

This has been a fascinating debate. It has been a debate, if I may say so, of two parts: the debate that makes reference to what is actually on the Order Paper and the amendments that have been tabled; and then there was the majority of the debate, which bore very little relationship to what is on the Order Paper or the amendments before the House. I will, in endeavouring to respond to various points, try to stick to the amendments and the Order Paper.

The Bill is deliberately limited in its scope. It is designed to implement the agreements reached under New Decade, New Approach. I make this point to all hon. Members who sit for Northern Ireland constituencies. Critically, those agreements were entered into by the parties in Northern Ireland. That is why we deliberately limited what we seek to do here. We are seeking to implement those commitments. We do not think it is the role of Her Majesty’s Government to innovate in this space when future changes, were they to be made, should be driven by the parties in Northern Ireland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Labour helped to secure the precious Belfast/Good Friday agreement, and it remains one of our proudest political legacies. We therefore welcome attempts to safeguard power sharing and improve the sustainability of the Executive, the Assembly and the institutions, which collapsed following a political crisis and took three years to restart.

In Committee and on Report, we outlined at length our concerns about some of the flaws that we saw in the Bill and sought to correct. It is disappointing that those concerns have not been taken on board, particularly as they are likely to be tested sooner or later.

The instability in recent months has been unsettling for all of us who cherish the Good Friday agreement and who believe that its institutions and the principles that underpin it represent the best way forward for Northern Ireland. As ever, that instability has been most keenly felt by the people of Northern Ireland.

Power sharing is the scaffolding of peace. Without it, the Good Friday agreement is fundamentally undermined. It is integral to the trust that communities have in the post-Good Friday agreement landscape, and it underpins the devolution of the powers contained in it. We should not forget the evidence given by Jon Tonge, who reminded us that devolution of power remains overwhelmingly popular: he said that when voters have been asked “What is your preferred mode of governance?”,

“direct rule has never come above 15% as a preferred option. Devolved power sharing is overwhelmingly a preferred option that comes back from…surveys”.––[Official Report, Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Public Bill Committee, 29 June 2021; c. 7, Q5.]

People in Northern Ireland are emerging from one of the most profound health crises that it has ever faced. A third of the entire population are languishing on health waiting lists, nearly 300 children are without a post-primary place for next year’s term and people are recovering from the deepest recession on record. In that scenario, it is unthinkable not to have a functioning Executive. For all political leaders in Northern Ireland, that must be the priority in the coming days and weeks.

It is partly for that reason that the Labour party supports the Bill, but our broader concern relates to the time it has taken to bring the Bill to this stage. We strongly urge the Government to look at how they can fast-track the remainder of its passage. It has now been 22 months since they agreed to implement this legislation to preserve power sharing, and we fear that they are sleepwalking towards a political crisis.

It is also disgraceful that the Secretary of State previously said that we would expect a cultural package and an Irish language Act by the end of October 2021—

[Brandon Lewis]

Just to be very clear—the hon. Lady should look back at the record—we have always said that we will deliver a cultural package. There has never been discussion of an Irish language Act; that is not what is in NDNA. It is a cultural package. It is important that the Opposition get their facts right.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

The House was promised the commissioning of an Irish language Act by the end of October 2021. That is where we are now, and it is nowhere to be seen. The Secretary of State’s refusal to give a date is a disgrace, and a betrayal of the people of Northern Ireland.

This legislation has simply come too late to address the current political instability in Northern Ireland. Given the political crisis there, and the ongoing warnings about the collapse of the Executive, Labour pushed for amendments to ensure that it was implemented without delay. As it stands, even if it were passed before Christmas there would still be a months-long commencement clause, leaving it highly unlikely to be in force to prevent instability in the coming months. We would like to hear a firm commitment from the Secretary of State to fast-tracking it through the House of Lords, and a clear timetable for it being enacted. We cannot wait months when we may have weeks. Will the Secretary of State address that? If so, we will work with him to ensure that the Bill is on the statute book within weeks.

The instability that the Bill in part attempts to address has not emerged out of thin air, and I fear that the delay in bringing it forward is symptomatic of the Government’s approach to Northern Ireland. Too often over the past decade, Northern Ireland has been an afterthought here. As the consequences of decisions taken by Ministers have played out in Northern Ireland, the Government have frequently behaved as though they had found themselves at the scene of an accident entirely beyond their control. Too often, Northern Ireland has been overlooked and the work to deliver on the promise of peace has been allowed to stall.

It would be foolish to assume that the provisions of the Bill alone can guarantee stability; they cannot. To do that, Ministers must address the effects of their own actions, which have shaken faith in Northern Ireland. Progress has stalled and instability has grown. The Belfast/Good Friday agreement has been treated as a crisis management tool, rather than as the vehicle through which lives and communities can be transformed.

Although Labour supports the Bill, we believe that there are several missed opportunities for the Government to refocus on delivering on the promise of peace, which they have allowed to stall. A Bill of Rights, integrated education and housing, women’s rights and giving communities a real say in decision making were the essence of the Good Friday agreement and the shared future that it imagined, but progress on them has been virtually non-existent over the past decade. We do not believe that the instability we see can be separated from the failure to deliver on such commitments. Above all, the way to guarantee stability is to demonstrate that commitments made will be honoured, and that Westminster is still prepared to step up and honour our side of the bargain.

I reiterate our support for the limited measures in the Bill and ask the Secretary of State to speed up the timetable as a matter of urgency, but I wish to make it clear that this is only a start: there is much, much more work to be done.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson, Richard Thomson.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brandon Lewis]

With the leave of the House, I shall briefly sum up. I again thank all colleagues in the House. We have seen throughout today’s discussions, both on Report and on Third Reading, a good, wide range of subjects covered. To build on the point made by the Minister of State, some of those points were about the Bill, which relates to the New Decade, New Approach deal, and I want to touch on them.

As was welcomed when we started deliberations on the Bill, it is the first Bill relating to Northern Ireland that the House has had a chance to consider without operating under emergency processes for some time. As we have seen, we have had a chance to have a good, wide discussion about the issues in the Bill. That is a good thing and has allowed people the opportunity to air and talk about issues that go beyond what was agreed in New Decade, New Approach. As I said earlier, I look forward to continuing those discussions and seeing whether we can find some agreement across all the parties in the Executive to move things forward together.

I say gently to those colleagues who have raised issues as things to be amended today—I make this point to the Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones)—that when we talk about making sure that we work through consensus and move things forward together in Northern Ireland, that means having all the parties come to an agreement, not just rushing into doing things today. It is right that we have these discussions.

On the package and questions raised by the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), and others, it is disappointing to see the Opposition, in a well-informed debate that has been good and well-mannered in large part, looking to play politics around these issues. Let us be clear that the cultural package will include a new office for identity and cultural expression, to promote cultural pluralism and inclusion across all identities and cultures, alongside commissioners to protect and enhance the Irish language and develop the language, arts and literature with the Ulster Scots and Ulster British tradition in Northern Ireland. We have already been making progress on those things. When the hon. Member for Pontypridd speaks at the Dispatch Box, she may want to make sure that she has done some research. To help her out, I suggest that she looks back to the written ministerial statement from 21 June, because our position is still as per that statement and we will still be seeking to deliver that, as we promised we would, if the Executive themselves cannot take it forward.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Brandon Lewis]

No—the hon. Lady spoke earlier.

We have already delivered £2 million-worth of a funding package announced earlier this year, including for Northern Ireland Screen’s Irish language broadcast fund and the Ulster-Scots broadcast fund. We will continue to deliver on that, stand by our word and make sure that the cultural package is delivered within the mandate, but this Bill relates to the New Decade, New Approach deal and I look forward to seeing its progress continue in the weeks and months ahead.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill (First sitting)

Alex Davies-Jones Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th June 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Thank you, Minister. Before I move on to the official Opposition, I remind members of the Committee of the point I made before we started—that tea and coffee cannot be consumed during Committee hearings.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Q It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. Mr Holder, I will come to you first, as the representative of the Committee on the Administration of Justice. The CAJ has done work in the past on the importance of the undelivered Good Friday agreement commitments and the role that, had they been implemented, they would have played in the stability of the Executive over two decades. Would you outline your thinking and your research on that?

Daniel Holder: Thank you very much. We have engaged both as CAJ and as part of the Equality Coalition, which represents a broad section of groups from across the sector. In 2013 we published a report called “Mapping the Rollback?” about the unimplemented commitments of the peace agreement, 15 years on from the Belfast agreement. It examined and produced a matrix of what had not been implemented and the problems that had caused in terms of a return to some of the patterns and practices—for example gerrymandering within housing—that had beset the previous, pre-troubles Stormont institutions.

We also produced in 2018, as a part of a coalition, what we call the “Manifesto for a Rights Based Return to Power Sharing,” which looked at the restoration of power sharing but in a manner that power sharing would not simply be restored only to collapse for exactly the same reasons that led to its implosion in 2017. That was largely beyond the renewable heat incentive issue; it was issues around rights deficits, sectarianism in decision making and a lack of safeguards to qualify Executive power in the way that the agreement originally intended.

This year, 23 years on from the agreement, we did a significant stocktake on the back of the “New Decade, New Approach” report. We again mapped the level of non-implementation of commitments in a matrix and pushed on a call to end this endless cycle where we have renegotiation and fresh agreements, then bodies reneging on the commitments and the agreements, and we end up going back into an almost endless cycle of renegotiation. We looked specifically at some of the decisions that had been instrumental in bringing down power sharing and how they could have been prevented, for example if the Bill of Rights had been in place.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q You mentioned the Bill of Rights, which is a reserved measure for Westminster. Why is it so important for the stability of the Assembly and the integrity of the Good Friday agreement?

Daniel Holder: I think the best way of answering that is to give a couple of examples. In 2017, when the Assembly collapsed, one of the straws that broke the camel’s back was what was called the líofa decision, from the Irish word for fluency. This was a decision made by the then Minister for Communities, who is currently the First Minister, to cut quite a small Irish language bursary scheme—I think it was around £50,000 —that enabled children from lower-income families to attend the summer gaeltacht schemes. That caused a huge outcry; the decision was widely seen as sectarian and it was one of the issues referenced in the Deputy First Minister’s resignation letter.

All we have to do is look back. In the same way that Ministers are very unlikely to breach the European convention on human rights because they know that would be unlawful, had the Bill of Rights been in place that decision would have been easily challengeable as unlawful. I am thinking about a Bill of Rights as in the advice of the Equality and Human Rights Commission that was delivered in 2008. A Bill of Rights that reflected that advice would have had a provision that outlawed discrimination, for example, on the basis of language. Given the background, such a Bill of Rights would have prevented such a decision from happening.

That was not the only Irish language decision that destabilised power sharing. There was a decision, again primarily by a number of Democratic Unionist party departments—the biggest impact was certainly from the Department of Education—to tear up a long-standing trilingualism policy that was in keeping with the United Kingdom’s human rights commitments under the European charter for regional or minority languages. That is the Council of Europe treaty that was signed as a result of the Belfast agreement, with specific provisions for the Irish language and the Ulster variant of Scots. The Bill of Rights would have made that enforceable in Northern Ireland, so decisions by DUP Ministers in, say, the Department of Education or the Department of Agriculture, to scrap those policies and introduce English-only policies would not have been compatible with the UK’s international human rights commitments and would have been directly enforceable through a Bill of Rights, so that would not have happened.

Equally, many discussions have sapped energy out of the Executive discussion, because we have an endless cycle of very basic things that are present elsewhere in the UK being blocked. An example would be single equality legislation. There are big gaps in the equality law framework in legislation to prevent age discrimination against children, for instance, or provisions around harassment in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation. These types of things have been endlessly argued about and endlessly vetoed, yet they would have had to already be in place by virtue of the Bill of Rights. It would have taken contentious issues off the table and enshrined them in what would essentially be equivalent in other countries to a constitutional framework, or the equivalent to what the Human Rights Act provides for convention rights. We think that would have provided a much more solid basis for power sharing, where a lot of these misuses of power could not have taken place.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q Thank you. This is my final question to you. NDNA is just the latest agreement that is easier to achieve than it is to implement. Should Ministers be accountable for implementing the agreements that act as the scaffolding for the peace process?

Daniel Holder: Yes, we need mechanisms that ensure implementation, whether they are legal mechanisms, dispute-resolution mechanisms and so on. As the two exercises that we conducted show, both in 2013 and more recently, we end up in the endless cycle where agreements are made, significant provisions are reneged on and not implemented, and we have to return to another negotiation, usually to water down what was originally agreed in a previous negotiation. It is incredibly frustrating and makes the institutions unworkable and dysfunctional.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q Thank you, Mr Holder. Professor Tonge, I will come to you next. The briefing accompanying the Bill says that Ministers in the caretaker Executive would be operating within well-defined limits, but those limits are not outlined. Is that a concern? Are there examples of how those limits could be better identified?

Professor Tonge: Yes, I think that is a serious concern. New Decade, New Approach refers to “caretaker Ministers” but that term does not appear in the explanatory notes to the Bill. During the debate on Second Reading, the only definition of powers afforded to caretaker Ministers were those

“set out in the ministerial code and in accordance with the requirement for an Executive Committee to consider any decisions that are significant, controversial and cross-cutting.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2021; Vol. 697, c. 821.]

That is an Executive Committee, please note. That definition begs far more questions than it answers. First, what ministerial decision is insignificant? That is an obvious question to ask. Secondly, the formation of the Executive Committee is a moot point. It is far from clear in the Bill whether there would simply be a collection of individual Ministers, remnants from the previous Assembly and Executive, left in place for up to 24 weeks after the election, but d’Hondt is not run to re-establish those Ministers post-election. Obviously, the composition of the Executive Committee may change substantially if there is a change in party fortunes at that election.

Let us assume that the pre-election Ministers are left in place for up to 24 weeks. First, there is a democratic element: is that correct, given that the electorate might have spoken in a different way? More substantively, in terms of powers, is the question you asked: which ministerial decisions will they be able to take that are significant, controversial or cross-cutting? Will they be able to take decisions with financial implications in a caretaker capacity? I would seek clarification of those points from the Minister, because I am far from clear. The right hon. Member for East Antrim used the phrase “lame duck Ministers” during that 24-week period. It would be interesting to see what specific powers they will be able to use during that period of up to 24 weeks.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q The purdah restrictions for local government operate under the Local Government Act 1986. They prevent the local authority from publishing

“any material which, in whole or in part, appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party.”

The rules governing purdah in the UK Government are outlined in the Cabinet manual, and civil servants inform their permanent secretaries if any requests by Ministers raise issues. Do you think that the Bill will provide civil servants with enough legal scope to push back on Ministers making inappropriate requests during a caretaker Administration?

Professor Tonge: Yes, I am comfortable about the Bill’s provisions in that respect. Actually, I think the most comprehensive part of the Bill is the updating of the ministerial code. It makes clear the need for the separation of party political from ministerial matters. In that respect, I am quite sanguine about the Bill doing exactly what you suggest.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q Do you think that the Bill should set out how the code of conduct should be enforced?

Professor Tonge: Therein lies a much bigger area: how the code of conduct will actually be enforced, what will happen and whether we will simply see the traditional divide on party lines over its implementation.

There is one phrase in the code of conduct that slightly alarms me:

“Ministers must…operate in a way conducive to promoting good community relations”.

No further definition is offered. What would constitute promoting bad or offensive community relations, as distinct from good community relations? To give one example, would a Minister who criticised Irish language provision while still implementing it be in breach of the code of conduct? Similarly, if a nationalist Minister praised aspects of a paramilitary campaign of the past, would that be seen as non-conducive to good community relations, and would sanctions against that Minister be available? It is far from clear, partly because it is ultimately a matter for the Assembly and the Executive to decide how to impose sanctions.

I think that what is contained in the Bill is very laudable in updating the ministerial code, but the devil will be in the detail of implementation. Whether implementation is actually possible in terms of sanction against a Minister who is seen to be in breach of the ministerial code—I think that that is where the difficulty will lie. I am not convinced that Westminster can necessarily resolve that difficulty.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q Under the current wording,

“the Secretary of State may”—

only “may”, rather than “must”—

“issue a certificate”

outlining the date for a poll, even if the conditions for cross-community representation are not met. Do you think that that is a mistake? Is there a risk of undermining the principles of the Good Friday agreement if an Executive drawn from one community is able to limp on at the behest of the Secretary of State?

Professor Tonge: I think that there has been a lot of limping on in the Assembly and Executive over the years, and there has been an arbitrariness about when a poll should be called. We have had, in effect, two pieces of emergency legislation by previous Secretaries of State to prevent an election from being called and to update the rules because an election was due.

In a broader sense, I welcome the fact that the current time periods of either seven days or 14 days are being extended to either 24 weeks or 48 weeks, to keep the show on the road. You simply cannot afford another collapse. I understand the principles behind the Bill, so I do not think that we need to be too formulaic about giving the Secretary of State some discretion in that respect. The main purpose of the Bill is clear here: to allow greater cooling-off periods before another election is called. If that means giving the Secretary of State greater flexibility, so be it.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q A final question, Professor Tonge. At the moment, the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister must be drawn from the two traditions: Unionist and nationalist. Do you believe that this integral feature of the Good Friday agreement is at risk of becoming outdated if a party representing neither achieves sufficient support? What do you think could be done to remedy that?

Professor Tonge: I think it is outdated. It may soon look very outdated, depending on the performance of Alliance in the Assembly election that has to take place by 5 May next year.

The communal designations more broadly are period pieces; they were of their time, and they were necessary in their time. Is the Assembly ready for the complete abolition of communal designations? It would be a bold step, but it would probably be laudable. You could still build in protections. The obvious way forward, if you get rid of communal designations, is to have qualified majority voting, where, for example, any controversial measure would have to be passed by 70% of the Assembly as an entirety. There is something horribly reductionist in requiring parties in the “centre ground” to designate as “Other”; I know that Alliance refuses to use the term “Other”, as reductionist, and use that term as a “community first” label.

Have the communal designations served their purpose? Yes, over time, but I think there is now a clear case for a fundamental review of Assembly rules to see whether it is still necessary to have those Unionist and nationalist designations. Particularly if you got to the position after the next Assembly election in which you had a First Minister from the largest party and the largest designation who may be nationalist, but for example, Alliance was to be the second largest party, but because it was not from the next largest designation it was not able to provide a Deputy First Minister, the case—which is already mounting—for a reappraisal of the rules would become quite overwhelming.

You can make the case against that by saying, “If you look at the recent Assembly elections, you’ve got 85% of voters still voting for Unionist or nationalist parties”, or certainly in excess of 80%. However, if you look at the electorate as a whole, when we have done the last four Northern Ireland election surveys, the largest single category of elector now—as distinct from voter—is a person saying they are neither Unionist nor nationalist. The life and times survey from two different universities shows exactly the same. That is the largest single category: bigger than the Unionist category, bigger than the nationalist category. The Assembly rules as they are are in denial of that.

You might say, “Well, the percentage of actual voters who are still Unionist or nationalist is still high”, but in terms of the electorate as a whole, there is a case for reform of the rules, and the fact that you have those communal designations is a deterrent to people voting in Northern Ireland who say they are neither Unionist nor nationalist. When we ask non-voters the question, “Why didn’t you vote in the last election?”, those communal rules come across loud and clear as one of the most significant deterrents to people participating in the electoral system, so in terms of the health of the body politic, I think there is a growing case for getting rid of the communal designations. Whether Unionist or nationalist politicians would concur with that is a very moot point.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Thank you, witnesses; thank you, Chair. No more questions from me.

[The Chair]

Thank you. James Sunderland, and could you state which of the witnesses your question is to, or whether it is to both of them?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Walker]

Q Finally, as I want to give Members the opportunity to ask questions, you previously worked in the Chief Whip’s Office before coming to the Northern Ireland Office. What do you think are the benefits to introducing this legislation on non-emergency timings? Can you recall when we last had non-emergency legislation for Northern Ireland?

Lilah Howson-Smith: It is exactly the point that you make in your question. We have had to rush bits of Northern Ireland-related legislation through, in part because of the absence of power sharing. You have the Executive formation legislation, which was always done on an incredibly tight timescale. I think rightly, some of the Northern Ireland parties objected to that, on the basis that perhaps there was not adequate scrutiny. More recent bits of legislation around victims’ payments and abortion, which we were involved in implementing, were also incredible difficult to implement because there was not broad consensus or buy-in from the other parties through a longer-term legislative process.

There is definitely an advantage to taking this bit of legislation through in slightly slower time, so that we can have discussions like this where we are able to discuss where things are missing or not clear, or can be clarified through implementation.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q Lilah, from your experience of the negotiations, was it envisaged that there would be ambiguity on what constituted sufficient cross-community representation in a caretaker Executive?

Lilah Howson-Smith: I understand that perhaps there is not total clarity about what that means. I think the point was that it was supposed to be agreed by the Executive once the legislation was taken forward by Westminster. The fact that the legislation is being taken forward by Westminster reflects the fact that amendments have to be made to the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and that this part falls within a reserved area, rather than the fact that there will not be an active process, I assume, with the Executive to discuss what this means in reality. I think there was tacit or implicit agreement between all the parties that there would clearly need to be clarity around that, and that there would be checks and balances on the fact that Ministers obviously would not be able to take decisions in a caretaker capacity that went beyond the normal remit of perhaps the types of decision that might be taken during a purdah period.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q Are you concerned that the scope of powers is not clearly defined, allowing for an Executive, for example, to limp on without broad cross-community support but still be able to make significant decisions?

Howson-Smith: The intention was never that they would be able to make—yes, it depends how you define significant decisions, but the intention was always that there would be sufficient checks either within the Executive or by the Secretary of State that would mean that there was not the kind of significant decisions that would have broader implications for the cross-community nature of those decisions. I am concerned that you have characterised it as limping on. I take your point, but the reality is that it was supposed to just provide that bit of additional flexibility to the Ministers and in forming the Executive, where those decisions have been difficult to make or have not happened because the time periods are so short and perhaps it was not in everyone’s political interest to form an Executive within that short period of time. So yes, obviously, there is a flip side to that, but clearly there is also opportunity to avoid the type of situation that we fell into in 2017, where an Executive just is not formed for a long period of time because there is an election and then there has to be a series of talks processes to get the Executive and the Assembly back up and running.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q Is there anything, from your experience, that did not make the cut in NDNA that you think would have been valuable in terms of the sustainability of the Executive?

Howson-Smith: In terms of the petition of concern, I do have some worries that perhaps we did not necessarily go far enough in ensuring that, for example, petitions of concern are not tabled on Bills that are allowing the Northern Ireland Executive to take border legislation that is compliant with human rights. For example, petitions of concern were previously used—or were likely to be used—on issues around abortion and that was a concern for me, that perhaps those measures did not give adequate protection. On that specific issue, Westminster is taking forward legislation and we are now in a process of implementation. However, there were some suggestions about potentially having more oversight from human rights bodies in that petition of concern process. I do not think that that necessarily would have been a bad thing. I think that would be quite valuable, given the previous types of things the petition of concern has been used for. However, I hopefully think that the changes that are in there will make parties and MLAs think twice about using petitions of concern in that way again.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q Finally, as I also want to give other Members the opportunity to ask questions, what statutory provisions currently exist to prevent the misuse of powers available to caretaker Ministers?

Howson-Smith: As far as I understand it, there are no statutory limitations.

[The Chair]

If there are no further questions from Members, I thank the witness for that interesting and valuable contribution.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Scott Mann.)

Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill (Second sitting)

Alex Davies-Jones Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th June 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

Q Good afternoon, Jonathan. I will reflect on the question from the hon. Member for North Down. Of course, the Assembly and Executive Review Committee is the sort of place where you would ordinarily think these discussions at the moment should occur. Going to the NIO and expecting the Government to sort these issues out should be the last resort; it should be something that is foreseen and considered among parties.

I do not know whether you had the opportunity to hear the evidence session this morning. Some questions were raised about the lack of detail in the Bill as to what safeguards are in place if Ministers are in position and there is a difficulty in forming an Executive. You will know that the discussions during the negotiations focused on safeguards for issues that are significant, cross-cutting and controversial, which would ordinarily therefore go to the Executive, but with no Executive sitting, those decisions could not be made. It appears in one sense that there needs to be further detail in the Bill on what the pitfalls might be. One aspect that did not come out in the evidence this morning was the fact that Ministers normally operate after having gone through a process of reaching consensus on a programme for government. Any Minister without an Executive could therefore continue to bring forward decisions on that basis, and perhaps juxtapose that with an inability for Ministers to act and the difficulty that the Northern Ireland civil service found itself in during that three-year hiatus.

Sir Jonathan Stephens: The fundamental position is that the Bill essentially provides for a form of caretaker Administration in the absence of the formation of a full Executive. Without an Executive Committee or an Executive meeting—there cannot be an Executive without a First and Deputy First Minister—as you say, Mr Robinson, decisions cannot be taken on issues that are cross-cutting, significant or controversial. That in itself will be a significant constraint. During the absence of Ministers, cases were brought before the courts arguing that decisions had been reached without the required authority, and the courts policed that quite robustly. No doubt they will police these provisions equally robustly.

Although there might not be an Executive Committee meeting in place, there is likely to be agreement on a programme for government, even if it was of the previous Administration. That will provide an overview, as it were, of the direction of the Government under which a caretaker Administration would be able to continue to operate. I think there are protections in place, but I continue to come back to the point that no system is perfect, and there should be no doubt that the absence of a properly functioning Executive for the periods of time that could be possible under the Bill would itself have serious consequences, but at least we would not be in a situation where there was no direction and no decision making at all.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Q It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. Sir Jonathan, thank you for joining us this afternoon. Given your experience from the negotiations, are you concerned that the scope of powers is not clearly defined in the Bill and an Executive could essentially limp on without any broad cross-community support, but still would be able to make significant decisions?

Sir Jonathan Stephens: I think that is where the provisions in the Bill for the Secretary of State to call an election in the event that he judges that there is no longer broad cross-community support are critical. That underpins the whole basis of government in the Good Friday agreement, which is that Government should have broad cross-community support. If one ended up in a situation in which there were Ministers of only one party, that would be very unlikely indeed to command broad cross-community support, and you would expect the Secretary of State to step in. I think there are protections against that.

I have also identified the fact that if there is no Executive Committee meeting, because there is no First or Deputy First Minister, the ability of Ministers to take significant, controversial or cross-cutting decisions is heavily constrained. They cannot take such decisions, and the courts have already demonstrated their readiness to step in if they think that that boundary has been crossed. So this sets up a mechanism in which this is a caretaker Administration keeping the business of government and public services going, but unable to take it in new, strategic directions. So I think there are protections in place.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q On that point, Sir Jonathan, the Bill provides for up to 24 weeks for the appointment of new Ministers before the obligation to call an Assembly election is triggered. What assessment do you make of the potential effectiveness of those time provisions?

Sir Jonathan Stephens: I think they are likely to be more effective than the existing provisions, which are seven days or 14 days respectively. As I indicated, where a fundamental disagreement arose, that was almost inadequate time even to get discussions going. Once that deadline was busted, there was nothing to fall back on. Of course, you may encounter a disagreement that is so fundamental that whatever amount of time you provide for it is inadequate, but the negotiations on the Stormont House agreement and the fresh start agreement both lasted roughly 12 to 16 weeks. I think that sort of period of time provides a reasonable window in which to seek to resolve fundamental disagreements, but at the end of the day it depends upon a willingness among the parties to get together to discuss, seek to understand and resolve those differences. More time helps, but it is not the complete answer

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q Finally, what statutory provisions exist that you are aware of to prevent the misuse of the powers available to caretaker Ministers?

Sir Jonathan Stephens: The fundamental protection is the absence of an Executive if there is not a First Minister or a Deputy First Minister, meaning that significant, controversial, cross-cutting decisions cannot be taken by Ministers, as well as the readiness, as demonstrated already, of the courts to step in and rule that decisions are ultra vires—not valid—if they break that boundary.

[The Chair]

If there are no other questions from colleagues, let me bring the Minister in again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q Thank you, Sir David, and thank you, Mark, for joining us this afternoon. As you mentioned, so much of the Good Friday agreement, which you helped to negotiate, is still not implemented. How important do you believe that this failure to implement key elements such as a Bill of Rights has been to damaging the sustainability of the peace process?

Mark Durkan: I think it has damaged it hugely. For too long, Governments and others have tried to pretend it is as though the tyre is only flat at the bottom whenever we do not have the rights, provisions and promises of the Good Friday agreement upheld and implemented. It is not just that the Bill of Rights has not been implemented; we have seen regression in recent years because there were absolutely explicit commitments in the Good Friday agreement to the European convention on human rights, of it being accessible in the domestic courts in Northern Ireland and that it could be used specifically to allow the courts to strike down legislation in the Assembly.

Mo Mowlam worked very hard as Secretary of State and the areas of the agreement that she concentrated on most were the areas to do with rights, equal rights, equality and other safeguards. The fact is that she ensured that we had a strong Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and a strong Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, which would be a way of giving voice and reality to those commitments on rights. The fact is that subsequent Governments adopted a position that said: “Well, we’re not really going to move on a Bill of Rights unless there is total agreement among the parties.”

The way the Good Friday agreement was written, it charged Westminster with the responsibility to legislate for a Bill of Rights, on top of its commitment to ensure that the European convention on human rights would apply to all public authorities and bodies. We did not get to follow through on that as far as the additional provisions of a Bill of Rights alongside the European convention is concerned, but in the post-Brexit legislation, we have seen holes being drilled into the commitments that are made there to the European convention on human rights.

Now, Ministers of the Crown have powers—it is almost like a form of direct overrule—to supersede decisions and choices at the devolved level in the name, for instance, of protecting the internal market of the UK. Those decisions can completely ignore any concerns around the European convention on human rights and a public body is actually forbidden to cite concerns about the European convention on human rights as to why it would not comply with what a Minister of the Crown has said. We have gone well off-road in what was envisaged in the Good Friday agreement in respect of rights.

One other thing I would say about rights, because this Bill touches on the whole question of petition of concern, is that it was the thinking at the time we negotiated the agreement that the petition of concern was not a petition of veto, it was not even a petition of objection, but that it would be used to trigger a special proofing procedure during which a special Assembly committee would hear specifically from the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. So the petition of concern was very much rights and equality focused. It was to be there as a proofing procedure to ensure rights were upheld. It was never there to prevent rights being legislated for, which is how it has turned round to be abused.

[The Chair]

Alex, if I could just interrupt you for a moment. Mark, we can all hear you very well indeed, but our technical team here is not hearing you very well and cannot do anything to turn up the volume. Of course, we are trying to record your evidence for Hansard purposes. If you can try and get as close to your microphone, wherever it is, that would be helpful for those trying to record things here.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q The Good Friday agreement established a Civic Forum to give communities a voice and a proper consultative say in the democratic process. How important do you believe that was and has it set back progress on the Good Friday agreement that it is not currently in place?

Mark Durkan: I think again that it is a key bit of the architecture that is missing. The Civic Forum was agreed by the parties in the strand 1 negotiations. We recognised that the Assembly was going to have many challenges and difficulties and agreed that it would be useful to supplement the elected representation in the Assembly with a strong Civic Forum. The thinking that some of us had was that maybe a Civic Forum involving a variety of stakeholders and public policy interests would be an outrider on some of the more difficult structural challenges that we would face in Northern Ireland in trying to rebalance our economy and make sure that a rebalanced economy also went along with a better balanced region, and also in tackling issues of a shared future and some of the big structural problems that we needed to change.

The idea was that work could proceed in the Civic Forum in ways that could frame issues for debate and choice that could then be taken up by the Assembly and Executive themselves. The fact is that the Civic Forum, when it was in operation, did start to do some of that work in forward strategic thinking, but unfortunately, while the Assembly was restored some years after it collapsed in 2002 after Stormont-gate, spy-gate—whatever people want to call it—the Civic Forum never was, and that is a loss.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q Finally, what key measures do you believe need to be implemented that are currently absent from the Bill?

Mark Durkan: I think we need progress in relation to the Bill of Rights. We need to try to clarify exactly what damage may have been done to the standing of the European convention on human rights and the reliance that citizens can place on it. A very direct promise was made to citizens in Northern Ireland about the European convention on human rights, but several of the Acts on the foot of Brexit have diluted that quite significantly, so I think that needs to be improved. While this Bill makes some improvements to the petition of concern—it weeds out some of the abuses in terms of how quickly or easily people table a petition of concern, so it is more qualified—it does not actually fix the problem with the petition of concern, which goes right back to the original 1998 legislation.

This is not a criticism of Mo Mowlam or of Paul Murphy, who brought that Bill through at the time, but that Bill translated the Good Friday agreement into statute in pretty short order, and the fact is that it did not properly translate what was intended in terms of the petition of concern. As I said earlier, the petition of concern was never to be a petition of veto, or even a petition of objection. It was to be there to trigger a special procedure, which the Assembly would then use and which would also call in the Equality Commission and the Human Rights Commission. It was to be joined-up scrutiny for rights and equality.

Of course, that has not happened and instead we have had the petition of concern being abused as essentially a dead-end veto, played almost as wild, as a joker at times, even against censure motions on Ministers. It was never intended to be so used. Some of the provisions in the Bill weed some of those bad habits out, but they do not correct the basic architectural mistake that the 1998 legislation never properly provided for paragraphs 11, 12 and 13 of strand 1 of the Good Friday agreement to be put into statute.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

Q It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. Thanks for your evidence, Mark. You commented briefly on the original intent of the Good Friday agreement versus how it has latterly been used as a way to, I suppose, thwart minority rights rather than protect them. Could you give an assessment of what Daniel Holder this morning called the St Andrews veto, deployed at the Executive, and the extent to which it is being used as a pre-emptive veto that prevents proposals and legislation from even reaching the floor of the Assembly?

Mark Durkan: Thank you for that question, Clare. First of all, there is a problem with what you describe as a pre-emptive veto—in the past, I have used the phrase “predictive veto”. That certainly stems from, first, the petition of concern itself, because once parties start to moot the possibility that a proposal or a part of a Bill might be the subject of a petition of concern, that very much helps to stop a lot of the preparation and a lot of the thinking.

Even at the prelegislative stage, issues end up staying inside Government Departments, or on the Executive table even, and not going to the Assembly because people sense that there will be a petition of concern, so we end up with a bit of a stand-off, or gridlock. Issues that should be the subject of clear, concrete proposals often find themselves remaining in hidden contemplation at Departments because people are afraid of triggering the petition of concern process. In that sense, it has ended up being like a predictive veto. The petition of concern was meant to be there so that issues could be properly considered and perused because of their equality and human rights implications. It was not there to stop proposals being tabled in the first place, but it has had that effect.

In terms of what Daniel seems to have said this morning about the St Andrews veto, that refers to the fact that, as part of the St Andrews agreement, an additional point of veto ended up being created explicitly at the Executive, whereby three Ministers could call in any measure—even one being dealt with by another Minister—to the Executive. They could also then subject that to a cross-community voting requirement at the Executive itself. Again, in this provision, there was no reference to equality, rights or any grounds on which such a veto or call-in power had to be selectively used. It was not there; it was just wide open and free range. At the time of the St Andrews negotiations, I referred to it as a “drive-by veto” that would be used on top of the difficulties that we already had with the petition of concern. Of course, again, this has meant that rather than giving due consideration to legitimate and much-needed proposals—often those that have been directed or requested by the courts—the Executive are not able to do that simply owing to this additional veto, which was created as part of the St Andrews negotiation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Farry]

Q Gareth might be able to elaborate on this. Essentially, Mr Speaker, you are outlining three broad issues. One is the removal of the bar on Deputy Speakers with regard to a petition of concern. The second is the ability to establish Committees if there is a long period after an Assembly election in which Ministers are still in place on a caretaker basis. Perhaps we could ask Gareth to elaborate on the third point, which is around the potential lowering of the 14-day threshold in very limited circumstances. Maybe he could give us an idea of how that could be achieved in primary legislation—there are some enabling issue—and in Standing Orders. There may well be issues around those circumstances are defined.

Dr McGrath: Mr Farry will recall from many discussions of petitions of concern over many years that the devil in these matters is in the detail. It is almost impossible to envisage all the scenarios that could be captured in relation to the 14-day period. As Mr Speaker mentioned, a number of matters would be obvious to us, such as statutory rules, prayers of annulment and legislative consent motions, but there may be a plethora of other statutory motions, as I would call them, in primary legislation throughout the statute book. It is quite difficult to say, “If it isn’t 14 days, is it 10 days or seven days? What is it?” From that perspective, some sort of mechanism that could take into account when a statutory deadline will impact on the 14-day period would be helpful. It would be almost impossible for me to get into defining that in more detail.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q I thank the witnesses for joining us. Mr Speaker, are you concerned that the limits of the power of Ministers during the caretaker period are not set out?

Alex Maskey: What we would be concerned about is that under our rules, once we have an election, we would appoint the Speaker and Deputy Speakers before anyone else. Then we would appoint Ministers and Committees. First, we need agreement on a cross-community basis in order to elect our Speakers. Secondly, if we were not to have new Ministers, and outgoing Ministers were caretakers, you could have a situation where there would be little scrutiny or accountability of the work that they were doing, albeit that they would still be operating on a caretaker basis. That would be a concern for us.

We would also have an issue on the question of sufficient representation, which we would like better clarified. I do not want to have to navigate undefined or ill-defined conditions, such as “sufficient representation”. The NIO is suggesting it would want flexibility in that case, which I can fully understand, but we are drawing attention to the fact that that could give us the issue of trying to navigate something that is not very well defined.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q In the Bill, it is not clear how the ministerial code will be enforceable. Do you think that will make it hard for Members of the Legislative Assembly to hold Ministers to account?

Alex Maskey: I would not necessarily say so, to be truthful with you. That is always a work in progress, I suppose. I would not necessarily say that that would create any further difficulties than we already have.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q Do you think it would be wiser for the definition of “cross-community confidence” to be outlined in clause 213 in relation to a caretaker Executive?

Alex Maskey: For me, as Speaker and as someone who will remain impartial on this, I am trying to draw out, as are our officials, what areas are not as clear as we might like, but we support the legislation, and we will support what the Assembly decides. At the end of the day, it is not for us to make specific proposals. We are certainly very happy for our officials to continue to liaise with the NIO on some of these matters, but for us, in our role, to put specific proposals probably would not help, and would be inadvisable.

[Claire Hanna]

Q A previous speaker addressed some my questions around the code of conduct. By the way, it is very good to see you all, if only virtually. On the provisions on enforcement of the code of conduct, do you think the Bill needs to specify who should be the arbiter of those provisions?

Alex Maskey: Again, Claire, it would not be for me to put a proposal on the table on that, because as you know, people guard very jealously—I certainly do—the professional requirement to be independent and impartial. While I fully accept and appreciate that our Assembly is predicated and reconstituted on the basis of New Decade, New Approach and all its contents, I want to see them all delivered as a matter of integrity and public confidence-building. By the same token, the substance of each of those provisions is really a matter for all the parties and the Governments to work out, and we will service those diligently.

Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill

Alex Davies-Jones Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

I place on record my congratulations to the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) on his appointment as the leader of his party. I also thank the Members who have spoken in this afternoon’s debate, adding their rich and in many cases first-hand experiences of previous political difficulties in Northern Ireland, to enhance and improve the legislation as it stands. That point has already been far more eloquently delivered by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson).

Today we have heard from the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) and the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), about the benefits of using this Bill to strengthen the ministerial code and the promotion of the Nolan principles of public life. If I may echo the words of the hon. Member for North Down, this House and the Government could benefit from such a provision, given the issues we have seen over previous weeks.

We have also heard the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson), the right hon. Members for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), and the hon. Members for Foyle (Colum Eastwood), for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart), for Belfast South (Claire Hanna) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) make passionate cases for the benefits of devolution. This is an area extremely close to my heart, as an MP from a devolved nation. I believe that it was the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), who stated that devolution should not be treated like a Woolworths pick‘n’mix, and I wholeheartedly agree.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) has outlined, as well as delivering devolution, the Belfast/Good Friday agreement remains one of Labour’s proudest achievements in office. We have made it clear that we welcome these attempts to safeguard power sharing and improve the sustainability of the Executive, the Assembly and the institutions and decision making within it. The provisions in the Bill are a sensible and necessary evolution of the post-Belfast/Good Friday agreement landscape and should promote greater stability and good governance. It is for that reason that we will support the Bill as it makes its way through the House.

However, as we have heard this afternoon, it is unfortunate that due to the prolonged delay in introducing this legislation, many months after the agreement was signed, its crucial provisions will now be utterly redundant in the current political crisis. The unfortunate lack of urgency from Ministers means that the provisions of the Bill are highly unlikely to come into force until winter. Will the Minister therefore explain why the commencement provision is for two months after the legislation receives Royal Assent, and not immediately?

While ensuring necessary scrutiny, the Opposition will do what we can to ensure that the important provisions of the Bill are in place as quickly as possible. The current situation clearly demands it. Nevertheless, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley has made clear, we will, working with colleagues from Northern Ireland and across the House, seek to tighten up the provisions of the Bill.

On the caretaker Executive, we will seek to bring much greater clarity to the powers that Ministers are entitled to exercise during a caretaker period; to probe what constitutes a caretaker Executive with sufficient cross-community support; to guarantee the sustainability of decision making; and to ensure the proper consideration of equality duties and good governance. On the petition of concern, while we welcome amendments in and for themselves, we also encourage Ministers to look at the other effective vetoes, which are being used in much the same way as the petition of concern. Without careful scrutiny, there is a danger that much-needed reform of the petition of concern will simply displace veto activity elsewhere without addressing the problem itself.

Speaking more broadly, what is not in the Bill is as significant as what is in it. Twenty-three years on from the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, progress has undoubtedly stalled over the past decade. The unmet promise of the Good Friday agreement, including the Bill of Rights, integrated education and housing, and a civic forum to give citizens a proper say in the functioning of the Government, has been held back for far too long.

Take the Bill of Rights, for instance—a Westminster responsibility. Decades on from the Good Friday agreement, it has still not been implemented. Does the Secretary of State agree that if provisions designed to underpin the rights of all communities are not delivered, confidence in the agreement itself is diminished? Does the failure to bring that forward in this Bill not represent a real missed opportunity to properly bolster the Good Friday agreement?

The same can, of course, be said of the Civic Forum, which was established under the Good Friday agreement and was supposed to give communities a real stake and a say in decisions made about them. Given the real need for communities to see the Assembly working for them, do Ministers back its reintroduction?

Furthermore, the New Decade, New Approach agreement was agreed 18 months ago, yet the Government have held just one meeting on its implementation and many of the commitments remain unmet. Is it not time that the Government delivered on the promises made and demonstrated clearly to communities in Northern Ireland that the deal to restart power sharing is working for them?

Labour look forward to offering the careful scrutiny this Bill demands as it passes through both Houses of Parliament. Although we support the technical provisions within the Bill, we believe that, with ambition and vision, the Bill could and should go much further and do much more to secure the foundation of the Good Friday agreement and build on its promise.

Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2021

Alex Davies-Jones Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 General Committees

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Hosie. I thank the Minister for his engagement and constructive approach on this issue. Like him, I respect the dearly held convictions of all those who make their case here today. I appreciate the strongly held, long-standing views of all those who have spoken and will speak today. But it is important to remember how we have reached this point and why these regulations are so important for women and girls in Northern Ireland. According to the United Nations, as we have heard, the existing laws amounted to a grave and systematic violation of women’s rights in Northern Ireland. This Parliament had, and still has, a duty to act to uphold those rights.

The amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 gave women in Northern Ireland a right to a safe, local abortion service. Parliament and MPs from political parties across the House made their will clear. No longer will we ask women to use unsafe, unregulated services or to make a heartbreaking journey across the Irish sea to seek an abortion in Britain. That is why, in the vote on it, the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend passed overwhelmingly. Nineteen months on from that vote, it is simply unacceptable that women and girls are still being denied safe, local services. This failure means that although the Act came into force more than a year ago, women are still being forced—in the middle of a pandemic—to make the heartbreaking journey across the Irish sea to seek an abortion.

It is worth reflecting on how an already cruel journey has been made even crueller in a pandemic. Many women and girls will have been forced to travel alone to unfamiliar cities that have been all but shut down, and denied a consoling hand or a smile. They have been forced to do so by political failure. Every single day that passes denies women the safe, local service that they are entitled to. At any time, that would be unacceptable; in a pandemic, it is morally unjustifiable.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

The hon. Lady has cited the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and what she said at the beginning of this process. At that time, she described the efforts that she was making as a mission to address “international obligations”. Are these international obligations or are they, as the explanatory notes say, not so?

[Alex Davies-Jones]

We have seen that this is an international obligation, and also a moral obligation, on us all. The CEDAW Act is clear, as is the UN, that we need to do the right thing to protect these women and girls.

I welcome the regulations before us today, which the Labour party wholeheartedly supports. They represent an important step forward in ending the cycle of inaction. However, I would be grateful if the Minister, in summing up, could provide some clarity on when exactly the powers would be used. He mentioned before the summer recess that this matter really cannot wait any longer. These women and girls need action now. Will the Government please give us an exact deadline for when the Secretary of State intends to use the powers in the regulations? He knows there is a court case in May relating to the human rights implications of the failure to commission these services. Will he act before then?

The Minister also mentioned that he has engaged extensively with Minister Swann, so will he provide an update on the discussions he has had with the Minister of Health and the Executive since the Government announced their intention to introduce fresh legislation? Has there been any indication of an intention to finally commission abortion services from the Executive? Will he also provide the Committee with an estimate of the number of women and girls already impacted by this inaction—those denied local services, those forced to use unregulated services and those who have been forced to travel to Britain?

As a Welsh Member of Parliament, I understand well the sensitivities around the devolution settlement, but I believe that the United Kingdom is at its best when we work together to uphold fundamental rights, and the obligation to do that lies with this Parliament and this UK Government. The Labour party has always been clear that where such rights are denied, there is a moral and legal duty for the Government to act. That is happening now in Northern Ireland. Quality healthcare and safe, local abortion services are a basic right. The time to act has long come and gone. For the sake of women and girls in Northern Ireland, it is vital that access to services is commissioned immediately.

Abortion in Northern Ireland

Alex Davies-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have to make sure that people are getting access to the right healthcare. It is a legal obligation on us following the Parliament vote, but he is right that we need to make sure people get the right healthcare at the right time and in the right way, and do not have to go through the challenges they face at the moment.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab) [V]]

I thank the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) for raising this important issue. We respect the dearly held convictions of all those who make their case today, but it is important to remember how we reached this point. The existing laws, according to the United Nations, amounted to a “grave and systematic” violation of women’s rights in Northern Ireland. This Parliament had and still has a duty to act to uphold those rights.

The amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) gave women in Northern Ireland a right to a safe, local abortion. Parliament made its will clear. No longer will we ask women to use unsafe, unregulated services or to make a heartbreaking journey across the Irish sea to seek an abortion in Britain. That was why the vote on that amendment tabled by my hon. Friend passed overwhelmingly. It was the clear will of this House.

Nineteen months on from that vote, it is extraordinary that women and girls are still being denied safe, local services. We know of more than 100 women who have been denied access to services, leaving them in the desperate situation of travelling alone across the Irish sea or accessing unregulated medicine online. The cycle of inaction must end, so I urge Ministers in Northern Ireland to commission these vital services.

The cross-party letter supporting the Secretary of State’s decision to step in demonstrates the continued strength of feeling across the House. The Government will have our full support when the regulations come before the House for a vote, but I would be grateful if the Secretary of State could provide a date for when that is likely to be. Can he also outline the deadline for when he intends to use the powers contained within the regulations if services have not been commissioned in Northern Ireland? Will it be before the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission takes him to court in May?

As a Welsh Member of Parliament, I fully understand the sensitivities around the devolution settlement. The United Kingdom is at its best when we work together to uphold fundamental rights, and those obligations lie with this Parliament and with the UK Government. Labour has always been clear that where those rights are being denied, there is a moral and legal duty for the Government to act. That is happening now in Northern Ireland. Quality healthcare is a basic human right. The time to act has long come and gone. For the sake of women and girls in Northern Ireland, it is vital that access to these services is commissioned immediately.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Davies-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I welcome the new shadow Minister to the Dispatch Box.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

If businesses had had their voices listened to over the last year, disruption could have been avoided. The joint consultative working group offers a real opportunity for businesses, civic society and politicians in Northern Ireland to have their voices heard, but at the moment, all we know about it is that it merely exists. This is a missed opportunity, so will the Minister commit to giving these groups a formal role and an input into how the protocol works? Without them, there can be no decision about Northern Ireland.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Davies-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

We all know that it will take a long time for many industries to recover from the impact of coronavirus. The aviation sector and its supply chain, which support almost a quarter of a million jobs, have been uniquely impacted. Many workers and their families at GE Aviation in Pontypridd have been financially ruined. Sadly, that is a familiar scenario for families up and down the country. The Prime Minister urgently needs to wake up to the situation. Will he therefore commit to a sector-specific support deal to save our aviation industry before it is too late?

[The Prime Minister]

We are doing a huge amount to support our aviation industry, but I appreciate the stress and difficulties that many families are in at the moment because of the threats to that sector, which are global, alas, because people are just not flying in the way that they were before the pandemic. I have every hope that it will bounce back very strongly, particularly in this country, which is a world leader in aviation, once we get the economy moving again, as I hope we can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Davies-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, we will of course do nothing either to endanger our critical national security infra- structure or to prejudice co-operation with Five Eyes partners, as my right hon. Friend has rightly suggested, and we will work to ensure that high-risk vendors cannot dominate our market.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Q10. The Prime Minister will know that under his Government there has been a mass shortage of consultants across the UK, leading to strain on our A&E services. How will he make sure, especially now we have left the EU, that consultants from overseas are encouraged to apply for NHS visas to work in hospitals across the UK?

[The Prime Minister]

We have instituted NHS visas in order to attract talent from around the world, but I remind the hon. Lady, who I think speaks for a Welsh seat, that that is a devolved matter for the Welsh Labour Government.