Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointment Functions) (No. 2) Regulations 2019

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs]

I am not sure how many red lines there were. Sinn Féin must be asked somewhere else to speak for itself, I suppose. It is not for me to try to quote what I thought was wrong with its policy. All I am saying is that my sincere understanding was that it was not keen on abortion over a period of years. I used to say to the Sinn Féin people who came over, “What about your party being as progressive as it claims to be and taking a stand on abortion?”, and they did not. It has been only a fairly recent thing, since the Irish referendum got momentum. I am not sure how relevant that is to the debate here now.

We of course accept the need for these appointments to take place and regret the necessity of it being done in this way. I ask a question of the Minister which has been referred to recently. My memory of when I was a junior Minister there many years ago—it was a long time ago—was that the Government in Dublin could put forward their suggested people to be considered for public appointments in Northern Ireland. It did not mean that we took notice of it or appointed the people, but it was simply one other contribution to the mix of possible candidates we looked at for particular jobs. I wonder whether that is still the case.

Are we simply rubber-stamping reappointments of people already in posts, or are there some new appointments listed in these regulations? If so, is there an appraisal process—in other words, an equal opportunities system for interviewing and appointing people—if we are not reappointing people who would normally expect to have a second term in office?

Some of these bodies are quite important. I had involvement with several of them in my time as a Minister. I was particularly interested in the Historic Buildings Council. If I may digress slightly from the main point here, when I got to Northern Ireland, there was a mentality of, “Get rid of these old buildings. Let’s just bulldoze them away and put up new ones”. This was a long time ago and I hope that I am totally out of date. I think that that the people who argued like that—some of them did—did a total disservice to Northern Ireland. It was a job to resist the pressure to get rid of listed buildings because people said, “We’ve got to do that. They’re standing in the way of progress”. For people who support historic buildings, the skill is to say, “We’d better be clever and find a proper use for historic buildings so that they can be maintained in their historic beauty and yet are economically viable in their new situation”.

I regard some of these appointments as pretty important. I am very concerned that the people in these positions—or who will fill them, if they are new appointments—will have a real commitment to historic buildings and the other areas we are debating.

Who gets these key jobs is very important. It is so regrettable that this is where we are. It is such a massive regret that we have not been able to move forward. If I have a chance in the next debate, I would like to repeat some of the things we have said in the past about how we might move forward. In this House, saying something twice is tenable over six months but probably not in one evening. I will leave it at that.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this statutory instrument. As we have seen, with the lack of any operational Executive in Northern Ireland for the last two years, it is now necessary for Ministers here to make those key appointments to offices in Stormont and to make strategic legislative interventions to ensure good governance once again in Northern Ireland; this should have been exercised by the Executive themselves and we hope it will be again as soon as possible.

At this point, I make note of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, about the health service in Northern Ireland. It is indeed quite shocking that so many vacancies exist; we really must do something to help the situation. We have been here before. Back in February we approved the appointment functions of several key offices: the Attorney-General for Northern Ireland; the Commissioner for Children and Young People for Northern Ireland; member of the Commission for Victims and Survivors for Northern Ireland; member, chair or vice-chair of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, et cetera. This statutory instrument adds nine other offices to those in which the appointment functions of the Northern Ireland Minister can now be exercised by the relevant UK Minister.

My noble friend Lord Bruce of Bennachie, who is unable to be present in your Lordships’ House this evening, and who spoke on these matters at the time, said that,

“effectively we are going on and on in this limbo of democratic nihilism … having to institute ad hoc measures as and when necessary to fill the gap in the absence of real political initiatives”.

He asked what practical steps the Government would take to ensure that we would not get to the end of August without having reached a position where functioning decision-making by the elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland could return. He added that,

“a Secretary of State in a UK Government who are propped up by a hard-line unionist party in Northern Ireland is likely to find the perception of her office somewhat compromised … is it not time to find some independent authority that might bring parties together and start to identify what it would take to break the deadlock and get things back to normal?”

He asked,

“what were the criteria that made these urgent, and what other appointments are coming down the track that may require us to be back here in the very near future?”

Now we know. He continued by asking,

“what assurances can we have that there is any reasonable momentum to try to ensure that we get the political process back?”

The Minister, in response, told the House that,

“the appointments have been identified by the Northern Ireland Civil Service. The principal criterion for that identification was obviously timing”.

He said that on Friday 15 February, all the parties had gathered together in Northern Ireland for the first time in more than a year, in,

“an attempt to move things forward in a fashion which would ultimately lead to the creation of a sustainable Executive”.—[Official Report, 18/2/19; cols. 2041-45.]

Yet here we are again. The Government’s Brexit chaos is constantly distracting from the real issues affecting citizens across the UK, and the formation of a Northern Ireland Executive is crucial to stability in the region. We are deeply concerned about the progress being made towards restoration and urge the Minister to do all he can to stress the urgency of this to the Prime Minister, who obviously has other things on his mind at the moment.

We will discuss these issues in more detail in the debate to come later today, but can the Minister give any update on the Government’s efforts to make progress on the restoration of an Executive in Northern Ireland? The last time an instrument under the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Act 2018 was deployed, my noble friend Lord Bruce asked the Government to think outside the box for solutions to the issues at hand. I echo this plea. Have there been any efforts to find an independent authority to try and bring the relevant parties together?

Finally, does the Minister foresee any further appointments being made in the near future? Is he confident that Parliament can prorogue without any outstanding matters to be addressed? We very reluctantly agree to this statutory instrument going forward.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I want to speak only briefly as I hope to contribute to the later, main debate. I just want to take up the last point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond. Even had we had the so-called Conference Recess, we would have been sitting throughout this week, up to and including Thursday, which would have given us time for a whole day on Northern Ireland. Would that be too much when we have the ultimate responsibility in this Parliament during the continued and deeply regrettable absence of an Executive and Assembly in Northern Ireland?