Stormont House Agreement: Implementation

Deidre Brock Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mr Pritchard. It is undoubtedly safe to say that the political landscape across the Irish sea today is not as it was when the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) secured the debate. The stalemate around the implementation of the agreement remains, but there is now more to consider.

Some would suggest that politics in Northern Ireland has just entered election mode, and that there is little to be said by politicians such as myself on this side of the water. There may be some encouragement for the parties to get back around the table, but the chances of that happening currently seem sadly distant, to say the least. The renewable heat incentive seems to have become all-consuming, and the fallout from it will clearly continue to be an issue for some time; there may yet be an inquiry, and we will wait to see what that brings. The implementation of the Stormont House agreement will be waiting for whoever assumes responsibility for the Northern Ireland Executive in the months to come.

I do not think it is for me to tell Northern Ireland, its people, elected representatives or institutions what they should do, but it seems that the process of implementation is more than stuck and needs a hard push to get it moving. It will need some hard-headed negotiation and a great deal of good faith on all sides. The supply of good faith may be experiencing some issues at the moment, but I have no doubt that the fine men and women who sustain politics in Northern Ireland will not be shy in providing the hard-headed negotiation; we have seen that reflected in the passionate contributions from every single Member who has contributed today.

There has been plenty of movement in Stormont since the re-establishment of the devolved Government, and the individuals and parties who have served in the Assembly deserve great credit for the advances there and for the establishment of peace as an expected part of life. The attitudes shown at Stormont over the past decade will be needed now as much as they ever were, and I urge all parties in Northern Ireland to take a bit of time to focus on a strategy for the future that establishes what needs to be done to advance the interests of the people they represent, rather than allowing those interests to remain stuck.

It will be almost entirely the responsibility of Assembly members to sort out the problems that have resulted in the stalemate, and they will have to be the pivot on which the future turns and the implementation of the agreement depends. That said, it will need the support of the UK Government—especially in providing the resources needed for addressing the legacy issues and moving on from them. It would be good to have some assurances from the Minister that that will be forthcoming.

The next wee while will not be a walk in the park. The Scottish National party recognises that responsibility for forward movement rests in Belfast, but we offer whatever small help we can.