Northern Ireland: Security Situation

Jeffrey M Donaldson Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Monday 21st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

I do not want to be drawn by my hon. Friend, who as a former Chair of the Select Committee knows politics in Northern Ireland better than most. I do not want to be drawn on the ongoing discussions and debates. All I will say is that I want to see the parties come back together, and we are working to find a mechanism by which we can do that.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)]

I echo the comments of the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) on the need for a return to normal politics—I agree with that—but it is not a normal situation when, in part of a democratic country, we have a situation where five parties form an Executive and only one of those five parties refuses to allow the formation of that Executive. Surely, when we get Stormont up and running again, as I hope will happen soon, we need to look at reforming the system, so that it is precisely what the hon. Gentleman described: normal politics.

[Karen Bradley]

The right hon. Gentleman is right when he says that we want to see normal politics, but there is something extraordinary about the situation in Northern Ireland. We have bi-party Government at times. That is something unusual; I think it is unique in the world. He talked about reforming the system. That must be a matter for the politicians in Northern Ireland. The UK Government stand ready to support the politicians in Northern Ireland to do what they need to do and what they want to do in order to make politics in Northern Ireland work and to have a sustainable Executive for the long term.