Northern Ireland: Talks Process

Baroness Jolly Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maginnis of Drumglass (Ind UU)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for bringing the Statement to the House. She hit the nail on the head when she talked about returning to the Belfast agreement. That was in 1998, and since then we have had little more than tokenism as far as Westminster is concerned. Let me reiterate what the noble Lord said earlier. We have no hands-on direct involvement between Northern Ireland and the Palace of Westminster despite the fact that we are part of the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister arriving without any consultation that I am aware of with anyone who went through the entire talks process from 1994 to 1998—in fact, it was even longer than that—and a Secretary of State who has been negligent in her liaison with those who have experience not only of the political problems but of the terrorist problems that we suffered in Northern Ireland for 28 years, is quite ridiculous. We cannot assume that a 24-hour or 48-hour visit will have the slightest impact on the problems we face or on building confidence between two sections of the community which are still sadly—

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, we have only 10 minutes. The Minister will not have time to respond.

[Lord Maginnis of Drumglass]

I thought that the noble Baroness might say that. Thank you.