Queen’s Speech

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Murphy. As he says, he and I spent a great deal of time together on the Northern Ireland question.

I remember listening as a 13 year-old boy to Captain Terence O’Neill, the Ulster Unionist Prime Minister, trying to set out to the people of Northern Ireland how there needed to be changes that would ensure a peaceful, reconciled future within the United Kingdom. More than 50 years later, another O’Neill, Michelle O’Neill of Sinn Féin, is in line to become the First Minister of Northern Ireland. She too wants to see changes, but they are changes to take Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom.

Ulster is again at a crossroads, but not because of an outbreak of violence—rather, because of enormous changes in attitude of the people in Northern Ireland. It is not just that Sinn Féin is now the largest party; indeed, it does not have any more Members in the Assembly after the election than before. Perhaps the most striking change is the fact that the Alliance Party now has as many Members in the Assembly as the Ulster Unionist Party and the SDLP put together. That is because there has been a change of attitudes—yes, because of Brexit, but also because since the time of the Good Friday agreement a generation has grown up that has not experienced the same degree of violence and is committed not to staying in the United Kingdom whatever happens or to becoming part of a united Ireland whatever happens but rather to seeking the best socio- economic and stable future they can for themselves and their children.

There are not just two communities in Northern Ireland. I have said often in the last few years, including in your Lordships’ House, that there are now three cohorts, and the evidence of this election is that there are three such substantial cohorts: yes, unionists and nationalists, but also others who do not conform to that and who see a different future.

Things can change. This debate is about home affairs, justice, culture, media and the constitution. When Terence O’Neill was Prime Minister, and shortly after that when Stormont was prorogued, there was one young part-time official in the Home Office responsible for monitoring Northern Ireland. His name was John Chilcot. Many years later he became the Permanent Secretary of a new government department, the ministry set up to address Northern Ireland: the Northern Ireland Office. He then went on to do many other things as well. That showed how much things can change constitutionally and structurally.

So many of the things that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, mentioned as part of this debate—policing, the courts, administration of justice, the security services—were affected enormously by what went on in Northern Ireland over the years. Now, potentially the biggest constitutional change of all for the United Kingdom could be the beginning of its break-up because the people of Northern Ireland feel that there is no longer the same emotional attachment to them and that perhaps there might be a better future for them in another set of relationships in these islands. Even the question of culture in Northern Ireland is mentioned in the Queen’s Speech, with the proposal for an Irish language Bill, which would be fundamentally about culture and also about media expression.

The thing is that the Good Friday agreement was agreed by referendum as well as talks, of course. Does that mean it cannot be changed? As the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, made perfectly clear, it can be changed. It was already changed, first because the Civic Forum that was part of it was allowed to lapse. It was changed because of the St Andrews agreement, which changed the appointments for the Executive. As the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, pointed out, the process of review is actually part of the agreement. Will Her Majesty’s Government commit to a review, now that it is clear that the structures currently in place are no longer satisfactory? They are no longer satisfactory in their outworking or even in their representational function, in terms of the different parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Of course, it would have to be on the same principles as the Good Friday agreement and to be by agreement, but it would also require serious negotiation.

The negotiations then worked because of the quality and calibre of people appointed by the British Government, the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland parties to engage in the negotiations. One of the things I have to say is that, over the last few decades, the quality of people seconded from this part of the world to deal with things in Northern Ireland has changed dramatically, and not necessarily for the better. In the early days it was people of the calibre of William Whitelaw and Jim Prior—serious, big, heavy beasts in government. That has not been the case more lately. It is almost as though you get shoved off to that.

I appeal to the Government to see the need to address the protocol. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, has made a suggestion that should be taken seriously: that someone from Ireland should represent the European Union, not someone who does not understand the nuances and significance. But it also requires an enormous commitment at the very top of Her Majesty’s Government to ensure not that we do not return to violence—we are not in that business any more—but that we find a way forward for all our people, by agreement, that creates the stability as well as the end to violence we have already had.