Northern Ireland (Extension of Period for Executive Formation) Regulations 2019

Lord Duncan of Springbank Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

That the Regulations laid before the House on 21 March be approved.

Relevant document: 23rd Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (Sub-Committee B)

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office and Scotland Office (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, as I have said many times, restoring the Northern Ireland Executive remains the Government’s key priority in Northern Ireland. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has spoken to the Northern Ireland parties and the Irish Government on a number of occasions over recent weeks.

In those discussions, all five parties have been consistent in their commitment to restore power-sharing as set out in the Belfast agreement. The five main parties will undertake a further series of talks with the aim of restoring devolution at the earliest opportunity. The Irish Government also support this approach. These talks will involve the UK Government, the five main parties and the Irish Government, in accordance with the established three-stranded approach.

The Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Act 2018 extended the period for Executive formation to 26 March. The Act gave the Secretary of State the option to extend that period once for a period of up to five months. On 21 March she laid before Parliament the statutory instrument that extended that period to 25 August, subject to the approval of both Houses of Parliament.

That step was taken reluctantly. However, as 26 March approached without agreement to form an Executive, only three options were available to the Government: calling an Assembly election, undertaking direct rule, or extending the period for Executive formation. The Government believe that an extension is the best route toward restoring an Executive.

During this period, the Secretary of State will continue to work with the five parties and the Irish Government to create the right conditions and the best possible framework for successful talks. As a first step, the Secretary of State intends to invite the MLAs of all parties to two sets of briefings, one on issues related to the programme for government and the other on the petition of concern.

Before I conclude, I want to explain why the Government chose to use the made affirmative procedure in this instance. Our preference would have been to bring forward this instrument in the usual way, using the draft affirmative procedure, but that procedure carries with it a longer lead time. We would have had to lay the instrument weeks earlier than we did. The Government took the view that laying the instrument at that earlier stage would have been prejudicial and disruptive to the private work the Secretary of State was undertaking with the parties during February and March. Of course, the instrument cannot remain in force without this House’s approval, which is why we are discussing this today. That is the reason I beg to move.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, extensions are clearly the flavour of the day. We at least know the exact date for this one. However, I regret this infinitely. I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for what he has said on the Floor of your Lordships’ House and in private conversation. I do not for a minute doubt his total commitment. However, it really is not good enough that we have to keep revisiting this matter.

The history of our country over the last year would probably have been different had we had a Northern Ireland Assembly functioning where people would have been able to express the view of the largeish majority recorded in June 2016. We touched on this before. As it is, we have heard only one view and one voice in parliamentary assembly. The only parliamentary Assemblies we have been able to hear are your Lordships’ House and the other place.

Several times, a number of us, including my noble friend Lord Trimble and the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice —neither of whom is here at the moment—have strongly endorsed the plea that I have made many times to my noble friend. Can we at least make some real progress by having the Assembly meet? Of course, it is a second best to having the Executive as well. We all recognise and acknowledge that. The sooner we can have an Executive, the better. Until we do, why can we not have an Assembly—the Members of which are paid; I am not complaining about that—meeting in Stormont and able to discuss the issues of the day, even if they will not have the legal authority they would have if we had fully restored devolved government? We touched on one issue only a week ago when we were talking about flags. The noble Lord, Lord Bruce, moved an amendment to the Motion, which I was happy to support. I yet again ask my noble friend to please do his utmost to persuade the Secretary of State that this really would give out a signal that would be warmly welcomed throughout the United Kingdom and, I believe, Northern Ireland. It is not impossible; it should be done.

I very much hope that my noble friend will also be able to say something about progress towards appointing some highly respected neutral individual—I hate the word “facilitator”—who would be able to try to move things on towards the restoration of the Executive. I make no criticism of anybody’s integrity, but the perception, because of the official link-up between the Government and the DUP, is that the Government are somehow involved in partiality. I do not believe it—I certainly would not believe it of my noble friend in a thousand years—but it is a perception, and perceptions are important. Therefore, to have someone who would command the respect of all potential participants could be only helpful. When he comes to reply to this brief debate, I ask my noble friend to be kind enough to touch on both those points.

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[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much support this Motion. It is necessary and it means that we can move ahead over the next few months to try to get a resolution. It is not about a no-deal Brexit situation, but it is about Europe in many ways, because we could have resolved the issue of the backstop if there had been an Assembly and an Executive in place. I believe that the nationalist and unionist parties in Northern Ireland would, over a period of two years, have come to an agreement. The border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is central to the negotiations over the European Union and Brexit. Brexit has polarised opinion in Northern Ireland in the same way that it has done in Great Britain, except that there is a Northern Ireland tinge to it.

Sinn Féin and republicans believe that Brexit will enable a united Ireland. Only this week, the president of Sinn Féin said that she believed that we would see that united Ireland very quickly because of Brexit. The unionist community in Northern Ireland purports to speak on behalf of the whole of Northern Ireland, whereas 56% of the electorate of Northern Ireland voted to remain in the European Union. The failed negotiations in Brussels, therefore, are intimately linked with the failed negotiations in Belfast.

The problems have been mentioned many times in this Chamber, and I will repeat them, because I hope that the Minister will engage the Secretary of State on the issues that are important by way of process over the next few months.

Neither the Prime Minister nor the Taoiseach has been sufficiently engaged in trying to solve the situation in Northern Ireland. There is a mechanism: the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, which was part of strand 3 of the talks leading up to the Good Friday agreement. As the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, said, the guarantors of the Belfast agreement are the two Governments. I suppose it is a matter of debate as to whether the Prime Minister’s involvement would be beneficial or not; the point is that she is the Prime Minister. We would not have seen progress in Northern Ireland over the last 20 years had not successive Prime Ministers, from John Major onwards, been intimately involved in negotiations. There is no evidence that that has occurred in the last couple of years. Insufficient time has been given to the negotiations, if we can call them that, over the last two years.

The other day I heard the Secretary of State giving evidence to the Northern Ireland Select Committee. I do not for one second deny her sincerity or purpose in wanting to resolve the issues of Northern Ireland. However, in answer to a question from Lady Hermon she said that she spent one day a week in Northern Ireland. You cannot make peace in a part-time way. We would never have got the agreements—Good Friday, St Andrews, or any of them—unless there had been much fuller engagement by the British Government. You cannot make peace by making telephone calls—you have to meet face to face and engage in round-table, all-party talks. There is no evidence that over the last two years the parties have faced each other to discuss the issues that confront them.

There has been no attempt to get an independent chair or facilitator, in my view; the Minister can tell us whether there has been. We need them because people, rightly or wrongly, believe that the DUP cannot be an independent arbitrator, because it has an agreement with the Government. I do not think that the Government deliberately set out to be partisan for one second, but it is a perception, so an independent chair or facilitator is essential. It seems that there has been no plan, structure, timetable or shape to the talks to set up the institutions in Belfast, which should have been concluded long ago.

It is not all the Government’s fault—obviously, the parties have to take their share of the blame. Sinn Féin, which was a signatory to the Good Friday agreement, is breaking it by not taking part in strand 1—by not taking their seats in the Assembly or having Ministers in the Executive. Obviously there was an issue with the DUP on the RHI scheme, which caused a collapse in confidence as well, but it is prepared to have no preconditions to go into talks, as the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, said. However, important issues were dealt with and need to be dealt with. No—we are drifting towards direct rule as every week and month goes by, and if that occurred it would be a disaster.

As I have said many times—the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, touched on it today—Northern Ireland is the least democratic part of our country and of the European Union. No nationalist Members of Parliament, or, for that matter, Members of this House, take their seats; there is no Assembly or Executive to deal with the important issues of education, health and all the rest of it; and people have to rely on councillors, who are members of local authorities that have less power than their counterparts in Great Britain, as the only existing democratic institution in Northern Ireland, which is a disgrace. There has to be more intensity about the talks, more energy and commitment, and more evidence that the Government have an actual plan. I therefore hope that the Minister, who I know is very attached to his job and committed to bringing about devolution in Northern Ireland, can perhaps tell us what that plan is.

The Minister touched on one example: the two committees of MLAs which the Secretary of State will meet. That is a start. It does not go as far as the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, about bringing the Assembly together—which is possible: I did it when I was a Minister in Northern Ireland and I am sure it could be done again. The absence of the Executive and the Assembly and the possible destruction of the Good Friday agreement because of it, is a hugely serious matter which, at the moment, is taking second place because of what is happening on Brexit. The collapse of those institutions is important not only to the future of Northern Ireland but to the future of the United Kingdom as well.

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

My Lords, this has been a short debate but, as always, instructive and thought-provoking. I am reminded that 21 years ago to the very day, 19 unforgettable words were stated:

“I am pleased to announce that the two Governments and the political leaders of Northern Ireland have reached agreement”.


I would love to be standing here before you to say that very thing, but I cannot.

I believe there is support for the extension: that it is seen as the least worst option of the three on the table. I think that around this House there is general acceptance that those five months may yet afford an opportunity for the parties to come together and for an Executive to be struck. I think it is accepted that that is the least worst option before us.

A number of other points were raised today, and let me address them as best I can. Noble Lords will recall that, in the past, my noble friend Lord Cormack and others spoke of bringing together the Assembly in some capacity and said that that could well have an influence on events. I also recall that the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, has said more than once that, truthfully, had there been an Executive and a fully functioning Assembly, there would have been a change in the weather over Brexit. I agree: I think that is correct.

I said at our last gathering that we should find a way to discuss the notion of an Assembly in that capacity, and I will make sure that we continue that idea: that we find time to see how we can advance that and bring something comparable to discuss. I think there is merit in that. As is rightly pointed out, we see in Northern Ireland the least democratic part of the United Kingdom.

As to the question of a facilitator, the words I cited at the outset from George Mitchell are a reminder of what someone can do when they are able to bring the parties together. The role of a facilitator is under active consideration, and I believe that we will move forward on it in the coming weeks and months of the five-month extension.

Noble Lords are correct to point out that it is very difficult for the Government to appear entirely neutral when so many noises off suggest otherwise. Perception can in many cases be more challenging than the reality. We need to find a way to explore that to bring to bear an opportunity of trust restoration which can, one would hope, bring about the breakthrough that we all need.

In Northern Ireland, there are plenty of individuals at whom one could point fingers and say, “If only you had done more”. I suspect that everyone could do that, pointing in very different directions. The challenge before us today is: what can we do now to move things forward? Five months is a very short time. Five months would be a challenge at the best of times. Five months today, with all that is going on around us, not just in Northern Ireland but beyond, is a reminder of the challenges we face.

As we look at those challenges, we recognise what five months means. It is only a few weeks until we begin the marching season. We have the local government elections in Northern Ireland, which will place stresses on the body politic. We have Brexit, ever present, looming over us. Each of those challenges us to bring about the very thing that we all so clearly wish for—that all parties seem to wish for, yet cannot find the magic moment to come together to break through the wall that has separated them. That is a frustration.

A number of noble Lords made points about the Assembly. I will do all I can to see how we can move that matter forward. I believe that the time for a facilitator is fast approaching, and that we need to figure out how to make it so.

The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, asked about unaccompanied asylum-seekers. I do not have the information to hand but, if he will allow me, I suggest that we sit down together and discuss that point when I have more information to hand. That would be useful and I would be happy to share the results with noble Lords after our meeting.

In listening to the debate, I am conscious of how many times I have stood here, trying my best to explain what appears to be inexplicable. None the less, we have to recognise that we are where we are.

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[Lord Cormack]

My noble friend always impresses. He has the regard of all Members of your Lordships’ House. However, we must move things forward. Will he undertake to make a statement to the House after we return from the all-too-brief and already-truncated Easter Recess so that we know exactly what is happening?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I am always content to return to this House and explain what is going on at any particular point. I would hope to do so on the basis of news to report. If my noble friend will allow it on that basis, we can keep this House updated on what is unfolding. I do not wish to place pressure on the parties by so doing, of course, but it is right and appropriate that this Chamber understands how events are unfolding—particularly when we have only five months. When these regulations were introduced in the first instance, we had five months in the bank that we could potentially draw upon. Now we do not. This is the five-month period and the sand is trickling through the hourglass. It is appropriate that we keep this House updated so that noble Lords understand what is happening. I will do my utmost to ensure that your Lordships are kept fully abreast of these issues when there is news to report.

Motion agreed.