Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 24th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the Minister. It must be one of his shorter speeches in a Second Reading debate, but it beats the length of the speech of his Secretary of State in the other place, which was even shorter.

The Bill is inevitable, but putting the election back by two weeks is clearly designed to put pressure on unionists. It should include powers to get the money paid out to the public sector workers which the Government have announced they have but are withholding, for political reasons, from workers who are entitled to it.

The Minister said that he hopes this is the last time he has to do this. But as he knows, we are in this position because the current talks and process have to resolve the issue of the Irish Sea border, which is the consequence of the constitutional outrage, as it was described by one commentator this week, of the sovereignty- denying Northern Ireland protocol—or Windsor Framework, as it has been renamed—and the denial of equal citizenship to the people of Northern Ireland.

One way of looking at this is that the legislation is inevitable, since the deadline for formation of the Executive has passed. However, the interesting aspect is that the election deadline is being put back by only two weeks, so we are going through the whole process of rushing emergency primary legislation through the other place and this House in one day, to get Royal Assent, in order to push a deadline back by two weeks. One has to question what is really going on.

We want devolution in Northern Ireland. The DUP has been in a difficult position on previous occasions and took the courageous decision, when there was much opposition in the unionist community, to move ahead and restore Stormont back in 2008. We took decisions then that many people did not agree with, because we are committed to devolution and are prepared to try to move Northern Ireland forward, even though the people in power along with ourselves and other parties continue to eulogise, promote and defend terrorism. That is very difficult for many of us who were personally on the receiving end of assassination attempts; but many of the people we represented for many years had their lives destroyed through the activities of the IRA, and other terrorists from the loyalist side.

The fact is that we now have only Sinn Féin going about eulogising these people, so this is a difficult position that people find themselves in as democrats, never mind as unionists. Nevertheless, we have been committed to devolution. Some of the strongest and most sustained periods of devolution were when the DUP had the First Minister’s position. Nobody need come to us and say that we do not want devolution, but it has to be on a sustainable basis—one to which unionists as well as nationalists can give assent. It has to be on the basis of fulfilment of the Belfast agreement, as amended by the St Andrews agreement, and it has to restore equal citizenship for the people of Northern Ireland. Those are not major or surprising demands; those are basic demands—rights that we are entitled to.

On the issue of what the Government should be doing, it is really an abdication. I know that the Minister said he is a committed unionist. It really is the responsibility of His Majesty’s Government to move ahead on those areas for which they have responsibility. They are the sovereign power and under the Belfast agreement, as amended, they ultimately have responsibility for Northern Ireland’s internal government. To see a political manoeuvre being perpetrated on those public sector workers, whereby money that has been announced is being withheld for political reasons, is really unconscionable.

There is a whole list of other areas of which one could say the same. Fifty pay awards, I think—it is certainly many dozens—have been made in Northern Ireland in the period of the Assembly’s suspension. Yet when it comes to this major issue, which was the subject of strikes across Northern Ireland last week, the Government are deliberately withholding the money. They need to step up and move that issue forward.

The Minister thinks that two weeks will be enough to get out of the present position. I hope that is the case and trust that, in the next few weeks, we will get proposals that, as the leader of our party in the other place, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, made clear, meet the seven tests and deliver on what we have been discussing with the Government for some considerable period.

There are constitutional, democratic problems, and we saw a number of examples just last week. On the Rwanda Bill, the supremacy of the protocol means that the EU’s charter of fundamental rights continues, including article 18 on the right of asylum. The issue of addressing immigration will not apply in the same way to Northern Ireland, and we already have major issues as far as that is concerned. There was animal welfare legislation last week that could not apply to Northern Ireland because of the protocol. Whatever your views, yea or nay, on the live export of animals, it could not apply there because of the protocol. On the Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill, we had the bizarre situation whereby the legislation extended to Northern Ireland but according to the Explanatory Notes, the substantive parts of it did not apply because of the protocol.

Our Select Committee looking at the Windsor Framework protocol is taking evidence on veterinary medicines. We heard evidence last week from farmers and the agri-food industry of serious concerns about the fact that we are approaching a deadline whereby essential veterinary medicines will not be able to be supplied to Northern Ireland from Great Britain, with possible knock-on effects for public health. The Government say they are working on it, but we have not seen anything come forward. There were other examples in the newspapers back home—and that was in only one week. I say to the Government: that is why it is important that these issues are dealt with in a fundamental and complete way, because when any unionist decides to accept or settle for any deal on these issues, they will take ownership of them.

That is why it is important for the people who are negotiating, for all of us within our party and for other unionists to be absolutely certain that these issues are properly addressed, now and in the future, so that we are comfortable with how Northern Ireland will be treated with regard to these constitutional, democratic and economic issues. We will not be subject any more to this unacceptable, anti-democratic and unconstitutional difference. Of course, within the Northern Ireland Assembly, when devolution is open, it is up to the Assembly to decide for itself, under its devolved powers, what it wishes to do compared with England, Scotland and Wales.

But in Northern Ireland we are the recipient, across 300 areas of law governing our economy, of laws made by a foreign polity in its interests, to which we have no input. We have no power to develop or amend and, under the Stormont brake proposal, only the power to reject—and even then, not necessarily effectively and subject to retaliation from the EU.

That is no way to govern part of the United Kingdom; it is not the basis on which the Assembly was set up. It is not equal citizenship. Therefore, I urge the Minister to take the message back to the Secretary of State and the Cabinet Office that these are the issues that are causing the problem. I share his desire that this is the last time that he has to bring such legislation, but it is really dependent on him and his Government as to whether that is the case.