Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Bill

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 5th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, first, I join others in welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Weir, his maiden speech and his participation in the House. I am absolutely certain that we will hear a great deal more from him, with his detailed knowledge of Northern Ireland, and I think that the House will appreciate the contributions he can make. So I bid him welcome.

All of us are saying that we do not like the Bill or where we are, but we have to support it. However, we are all also saying that not only are elections not a solution but they will not be a resolution. So, in a sense, it is a very odd situation, where elections are not the issue of democracy; it is delivery that people are looking for. Most people would argue that all the indications suggest that an election would not bring about a very significantly different result, so we would not be any better off.

Nobody can be in any doubt whatsoever that the DUP, and indeed other unionists, are highly exercised by and oppose the protocol; they believe that it has to be either removed or dramatically altered. That is clearly understood; it would be very difficult to listen to this debate and not appreciate that. Frankly, I find it unacceptable that this is an argument that Northern Ireland politicians—Northern Ireland Assembly Members—cannot resolve because they have no power over it whatsoever. Not being there does not get us anywhere near a resolution of their perfectly legitimate concerns, but it leaves the people of Northern Ireland without effective governance. The DUP should be prepared to accept that their argument about the protocol, legitimate as it is, should not really justify not making the democratic process in Northern Ireland function.

The other thing I wanted to say—

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

I thank the noble Lord for allowing me to speak very briefly. He says that the protocol and going back into the Assembly are completely separate, but does he not understand that a DUP Minister, or another Minister, has to implement the protocol in lots of ways? Would he want to do that: implement something if he really did not agree with it?

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

Frankly, Ministers have to do that all the time; we see them having to explain themselves in the House. The point that the noble Baroness is making is perfectly valid in the sense that Governments have to implement the laws under which they operate. However, the challenge I put back to her is that the people of Northern Ireland need to have their day-to-day problems addressed, and that is not happening. The question is: how legitimate is it to put those everyday issues which matter to the people of Northern Ireland above or below the needs of the protocol? I am not arguing that the protocol is not an issue; I am suggesting that it is not a justification for being where we are.

The Minister, in his introduction, explained that this is not a situation he relishes or wished to be in. We all understand that, but I am slightly concerned about the deadlines. The first deadline is this Thursday, and the second is 19 January. It has been said by numerous speakers in this debate that there is very little evidence of an active negotiation to try to get some kind of resolution. So my concern is that, by the time we get to 19 January, the Minister will come back and say that he will have to introduce another Bill to extend it even further. We need to know where the active process of trying to address these issues is. There does not seem to be enough urgency or engagement to try to secure an outcome.

In that context, I say in passing that the talk about penalties and salaries, again, does not change anything; it has been done before. It has been argued, of course, that the overwhelming majority of Members of the Assembly wish to be there, yet they are going to have their salaries cut, in spite of the fact that they are not the cause of the Assembly not meeting. The Government say that any kind of discrimination would be legally very difficult.

Before continuing, I make it clear—I have it on record; I just checked it myself—that I have consistently criticised Sinn Féin for their refusal to deliver the Assembly. So I certainly do not take sides on this: no party should stop democracy functioning, as I said at the time.

We have a situation where there are a growing number of people in Northern Ireland who regard some of these debates, important as they are, as much less important than the cost of living crisis, the energy crisis and the fundamentals of day-to-day life which are not being adequately addressed by their representatives. The fact that the cash to help for fuel bills is being delayed has already been mentioned. I do not know whether it is because of intransigence, but I believe that had we had an Assembly, this probably would have been addressed on the same terms and timescale as everywhere else in the UK. This is really fundamental: of the people who are desperately worried about whether they can afford to heat their house—coming from Scotland, I know how cold it can be in the north—and are worried about their energy bills and the cost of living, I wonder how many of them say, “Please resolve this political issue”, rather than, “Please sort out my energy bill and help me with the cost of living; why aren’t our local politicians doing that?”

We have debated the outcome of the protocol in the protocol Bill; therefore, I do not wish to take more than a minute on this subject. The DUP keeps talking about the conditions that have to be met, but, as far as I can see, they are asking for irreconcilable conditions—that there should be no border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and no border on the island. We had that when we were in the EU, but now that we are out of the EU, I do not see how it is possible to have no border, given where we are at. I accept that Boris Johnson signed this in a hurry for political reasons in an election, called it “getting Brexit done” and an “oven-ready” deal—it was none of those things—and knew perfectly well that it did not do what he claimed it did. He has absolutely dumped us in this; he has left us with this mess. Nevertheless, resolving it will require some degree of checks of balances. The questions are: how limited can they be, how acceptable can they be, and can they be done in a way that makes life practically constructive for the Northern Ireland economy and the people of Northern Ireland?

There is a more fundamental difficulty: Northern Ireland, being in the single market, is inevitably subject to EU rules which, because we are not a member of the EU, we no longer have a part in shaping. I am not sure how we can resolve that, because that is the deal that we have signed. If we simply suspended the protocol, which is what the legislation wants to give the Government the power to do, we would not just be suspending the protocol; we would be tearing up our treaty on exit from the EU. The whole of the UK economy would then be in a very parlous state, being not only outside the EU but in economic conflict with it.

What concerns me is the way people can say, “We have to have this, this and this”, without recognising the inherent contradictions in those supposed conditions. For example, when the DUP says that it had a mandate at the last election and will have a mandate if there is another election, it is not a mandate that is within the DUP’s power to deliver. That is really the point that it needs to address.

We now have legislation—clearly, we cannot carry on past the deadlines without legislation—but this cannot go on indefinitely. People are suffering, which is why the extra powers in the Bill are necessary to ensure that the basic day-to-day decisions that are urgently needed will happen, but not in circumstances that are democratically accountable or even properly transparent.

If power-sharing means anything, it absolutely requires a degree of consent, but it also requires co-operation and compromise. If that is not forthcoming, it does not function and it is not democratic. If the DUP is absolutely uncompromising in its unconditional refusal to accept some degree of compromise—I agree that it is entitled to ask about the negotiations so it can see what is going on—and is not prepared to accept that, what would it accept? If it is nothing that can be delivered by the UK Government or the EU, it will have to recognise that reforms that are compatible with the way Northern Ireland is governed and with the Good Friday agreement would become irresistible. That is something it needs to consider.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Bill

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 5th December 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie]

1: Clause 2, page 1, line 15, leave out “19 January 2023” and insert “a date set out in regulations by the Secretary of State”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment gives the Secretary of State discretion to set a later deadline for the filling of Ministerial offices.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to move the amendment in my name. My noble friend Lady Suttie would have been here, but she is recovering from Covid, so the Committee is stuck with me for the duration. I am glad to say that she is well on the way to recovery.

This amendment was tabled by our Alliance Party colleague in the other place. The feeling, which has been expressed by the noble Lords, Lord Murphy and Lord Godson, is that the timescale is tight to the point of being unrealistic. If the Minister honestly believes that we could get a scenario where, let us be clear, the DUP would be willing to engage and come back because there was sufficient progress by 19 January, nobody would be more pleased than me, these Benches and probably the whole House, but if not, it will mean that the Government have to come back and introduce another Bill. I genuinely think that it would be helpful for the Government if they gave themselves the space not to have to do that.

The only other thing we want to say is that while all this is going on, whether now or subsequent to 19 January, what information will the Government make available in the public domain on decisions that have been taken in Northern Ireland by civil servants for people to be aware of them? What information are the Government prepared to share in broad terms about negotiations that may be taking place and whether all-party talks could be initiated?

The purpose of this amendment is to create the space for the Government to get where we all want them to go on the basis that the deadline seems unrealistically tight. I beg to move.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand the reasoning behind this amendment. We touched on it in the debate a couple of hours ago with regard to the deadline. It is very tight. I cannot honestly think we will actually achieve much between now and then because of the Christmas period.

I hope we will, but one of the problems that these negotiations face is that there is more than one government department dealing with them. If the Foreign Secretary and his team are dealing with it, then the Northern Ireland Secretary and his team are dealing with it from only a secondary point of view, whereas in reality they are equally important. Could the Minister enlighten us not only in response to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, about the deadline, but about the nature—not the detail—of the negotiations? If we have a Foreign Office team looking at the protocol here and the Northern Ireland Office team looking at the situation in Northern Ireland there, do they meet? Do they talk to each other? Are they in direct communication with each other about the implications in those negotiations?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Bennachie. I echo what he said about his colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie. She texted me this morning; she is apparently on the mend and we hope to see her back in her place very soon.

The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, which was also discussed in the other place, would, of course, remove the end of the second six-week extension to the Executive formation period. As the noble Lord set out, this would essentially amount to an indefinite extension. As my honourable friend the Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office said in the other place, and as I said at Second Reading in the wind-up, it is not and never has been the intention of this legislation to create an indefinite or undefined extension period for Executive formation. In our view, that would be neither democratic nor fair.

The House will recall that, earlier this year, Parliament passed the Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Act 2022, which I took through this House. That legislation amended the period for forming an Executive after an Assembly election as applied by the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Given the Government’s desire to allow space for progress in talks with the European Union on the protocol, this Bill creates a short, straightforward and defined extension to that Executive formation period, which builds on the defined six-week period set out in the Act to which I have just referred. In our view, we cannot simply dispense with that legislation at the earliest possible opportunity; it is legislation that, I remind the House, was contained in commitments made in the New Decade, New Approach document of January 2020.

I am deeply aware that the previous political impasse in Northern Ireland dragged on for three years. I have previously in your Lordships’ House described that period as a particularly frustrating time in my life—something that is shared by a number of colleagues who are sitting behind me on the Democratic Unionist Party Benches and, indeed, by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick. We are determined that that period, which dragged on for three years, cannot happen again. Indeed, it is what the provisions of the Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Act and New Decade, New Approach sought to prevent. We are clear that, given the present challenges, Northern Ireland needs locally elected and accountable Ministers as soon as possible. As we have heard throughout proceedings today, the measures in this Bill are a temporary stopgap, and we cannot allow a situation where that remains indefinitely the case.

Regarding the noble Lord’s other points, I will reflect on what he said. Some of the issues to which he and the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, referred are not directly matters for me. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, that, of course, the Northern Ireland Office liaises with the Foreign Office. As we promised to do in Committee on the protocol Bill, I will take away the comments of both noble Lords to see if there is a way that we can give more information to your Lordships’ House as the discussions proceed. On that basis, I would urge the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that response. I understand it, and I genuinely wish him well: that is a very tight timescale and I hope he can be successful. I repeat that I will be surprised if we are not back here before the end of January, but I appreciate his response, particularly about trying to keep us informed. I know he said that in good faith, and we look forward to hearing how he might be able to do that. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.