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

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

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

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Like other Members on both sides of the House, I desire a stable Stormont and a Stormont that offers good government to the people of Northern Ireland. Indeed, I am sure everyone who is present today shares that desire.

When the institutions were torn down by Sinn Féin in early 2017, 1 was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly. The new Assembly had embarked on a fresh mandate with many promises to tackle the huge waiting lists, but unfortunately Sinn Féin, for the sake of its own selfish, narrow political agenda, shattered the hopes of that Assembly, and they were extinguished. Three years followed that have seen our public services degenerate. The legacy of Martin McGuiness’s resignation is seen to this day: longer waiting lists, a health service that is stretched beyond its limits, a social housing crisis, a roads infrastructure that is crumbling, missed investment opportunities for job creation, and other public services held back.

Of course, for those three years the Government did nothing to face down the petulant, self-serving actions of Sinn Féin, which is deeply regrettable. A kid-glove approach was adopted when it came to confronting Sinn Féin and its reckless actions, and sadly we remain under this threat, for we know that the Government have stated that if the cultural package contained in “New Decade, New Approach” is not delivered to Sinn Féin’s timetable, it will be brought through in this place.

Let me urge the Government to exercise extreme caution in this regard. If they are serious about letting elected representatives govern Northern Ireland, it simply cannot continue to be the case that when agreement cannot be reached or takes longer than one party may wish—and the established trend is that the party jumped to is Sinn Féin—the Government take the powers back to this place. That is the recipe for instability, and it is also the fuel that fires the growing disenchantment and disillusionment in the Unionist community with the whole Stormont edifice.

The Secretary of State knows of the deep hurt many people felt in Northern Ireland when the Government chose to intervene in the provision of abortion. A matter that was so profound to so many people, and on which agreement could well have been reached given time and space, was brought back to this place to placate the pro-abortion lobby and the pro-abortion parties for whom these services could not be delivered quickly enough.

This pick-and-choose devolution settlement only leads to discontent and disillusionment. It makes people ask what is the point of devolution if the Government intervene when the agenda of some must be satisfied. We can strengthen the legislative framework to make the institutions more stable through this Bill, but the greatest threat of instability to the institutions comes from a people that sees no point in them.

In this context, the necessity is for the Government to act to resolve the widespread community concern about the Northern Ireland protocol. Time is moving on, and the patience of this party and the people is not without limit; indeed, it is stretched to breaking point right now. Promises of progress, of conclusions in weeks, are just talk. Let us see the action that is needed to ensure that political stability is restored to Northern Ireland and the damaging impact of this disastrous protocol for all the people of Northern Ireland is consigned to the past.

[Colum Eastwood]

I entirely agree with what the hon. Lady said about the fact that Sinn Féin should never have pulled the Assembly down, and about the implications of that for our health service and our public sector in general. Now she has moved on to the threat from the Democratic Unionist party over the protocol. If she does not believe that any political party should threaten the institutions of the Good Friday agreement and the outworking of that, which is good government and good public services, will she speak to her party leader and ask him to withdraw his threat to those institutions?

[Carla Lockhart]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the protocol is damaging everyone within Northern Ireland, both economically and constitutionally, and I would ask him to go and speak to the businesses that are being impacted on a daily basis by the protocol. It certainly undermines the delicate balances of the agreement.

I have listened to the remarks from the hon. Members for North Down (Stephen Farry) and for Foyle (Colum Eastwood), and I am sure that I am not alone in finding it somewhat ironic that those parties that hold the Belfast agreement as some form of religious text have sought so hard to change some of its underpinning elements. We see this in the attempts to change the appointment of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister and to change community designation, and in the quest to reform the petition of concern mechanisms, all of which were created and championed by those who now wish to do away with the old and bring in the new for their own political advantage. We in Northern Ireland are well used to the hypocrisy and double standards of the Alliance party and the SDLP, which are there for all to see in their amendments today.

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Lady makes a valid point about the views of business being heard during this further stage of negotiation and consultation with regard to the protocol. She is right on that, but I am failing to understand why tearing down Stormont and removing the voices of elected local representatives to make their case would help those businesses.

[Carla Lockhart]

The hon. Member will know that we have not done that. We want this Government to act on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland. Lord Frost and his colleagues have heard clearly about the need to act and the damage that this is doing economically and constitutionally, and the hon. Member would do well to listen to the people of Northern Ireland and not just take it for granted that he is aware of their views.

I reiterate that if this Government continue to placate Sinn Féin’s ransom demands by legislating in this place to satisfy them, devolution will fail. Furthermore, if the provisions of the Belfast agreement around cross-community consent and our constitutional position continue to be set aside in the context of the future relationship between the UK and the EU pertaining to Northern Ireland, devolution will fail. Regardless of this Bill, the next few weeks will test the Government on their commitment to stable devolution in Northern Ireland.