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

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 7th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Conor Burns)]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

With this it will be convenient to consider Lords amendment 2.

[Conor Burns]

Before I come to the Lords amendments, I say to the House that this is the first occasion that a Northern Ireland Office Minister has been before the House since the withdrawal of the First Minister of Northern Ireland from the Northern Ireland Executive in recent days. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is in close contact with the party leaders in Northern Ireland, the Government of the Irish Republic and others. Our strong message to the party of the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) is that we would rather he returned his party to the Executive. A stable Executive and stable governance are in the interest of the people who matter the most in all this—the people of Northern Ireland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Kyle]

I will make progress, and then I will take more interventions.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I must remind the House, lest he be tempted to take too many interventions, that we have only one hour for this—until 8.40 pm. He certainly has not taken too long so far, but I just want to protect him from the temptation.

[Peter Kyle]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; your protection is always welcome. I try my best to defend myself and to embrace as many interventions as possible, while bearing in mind that other Members from Northern Ireland also need to speak in the debate.

Power sharing is a fundamental outcome of the peace process. The Belfast/Good Friday agreement is not an abstract. Strand 1 details the envisioned day-to-day functioning of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive.

The support for power sharing among the public in Northern Ireland is resolute. As Professor Tonge said in an evidence session on this Bill:

“Devolved power sharing is overwhelmingly a preferred option that comes back from each of those surveys—never larger, it should be said, than in 2019, which might be seen as remarkable given the hiatus in devolution from January 2017 until just after the election in December 2019. So the public have never lost faith with devolved power sharing. They have continued to support it.”––[Official Report, Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Public Bill Committee, 29 June 2021; c. 7-8.]

People in Northern Ireland are now emerging from a profound health crisis. Constituents in all parts of the United Kingdom are facing a cost of living crisis and huge public service challenges—multiple crises. For all political leaders in Northern Ireland, these are priorities that people want to be addressed in the coming weeks, in addition to valid constitutional issues, which must be resolved, as a result of the protocol that this Government negotiated and signed.

Lords amendments 1 and 2 allow the Bill to have an immediate commencement and for its provisions to apply if it receives Royal Assent during the seven-day Executive formation period following a First Minister or Deputy First Minister resignation. The Labour party fully supports the Lords amendments, but it is disappointing that the optimism of the New Decade, New Approach deal has not been realised.