Northern Ireland: Executive and Assembly

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

Yes, that is quite extraordinary. It is the beginning, not the end, of a journey. I shall be joining Arlene Foster in meeting them in Belfast on Thursday evening.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister is always an emollient voice on these issues, but we are in a serious situation. The courts have already made a judgment that civil servants exceeded their authority in decisions made. We have had the hyponatraemia case, which was a public inquiry that I set up in 2004. It did not report until 2018, and we do not know how many, if any, of the inquiry’s 96 recommendations—following the deaths of five children—will ever be implemented, because it has not been considered by elected representatives. We have the issue of abortion for victims of sex crimes and in cases of fatal foetal abnormality, and we have Brexit talks where there is no one from the Northern Ireland Executive representing Northern Ireland, although we have someone from the Scottish Executive and someone from Wales. How much longer can this be allowed to go on? More importantly, how many other cases and examples are there where Northern Ireland is suffering and not functioning because of a lack of elected representatives taking the positions they were elected to perform?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I can be very frank and say that Northern Ireland will be suffering in the absence of an Executive; of that there can be no doubt. It is not for me to try to work out what is happening in the Province of Northern Ireland; it is for the elected representatives, who listen to the voices of Northern Ireland, to move forward. The issues raised by the noble Baroness are absolutely correct: there needs to be a voice for the political communities of Northern Ireland inside Brexit. The Government do all we can to reach out to all those elected parties, but there is no functioning Executive. Until we have that, we cannot make the progress required for the people of Northern Ireland. The noble Baroness asks how long we can go on. The reality is: not much longer.