Northern Ireland Executive Formation

Debate between Lord Duncan of Springbank and Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top

Thursday 16th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The noble Lord is right that this agreement can move Northern Ireland forward. The important thing to recognise is that, because of the absence of an Executive, it has slipped back. In moving it forward we are just trying to bring it into parity with the other nations in the United Kingdom. That is important to emphasise. A journey now has to be taken, and it will not be achieved quickly or in a single step. I am pleased to be able to welcome the £45 million for the city of Derry/Londonderry, given the number of times I have not been able to talk about it because I was never able to make that clear. Now I can make it very clear indeed. I also personally pay tribute to the officials in the Northern Ireland Office. I know how much they care, how hard they worked on this and how much they have helped me as I have tried to deliver on these issues as well. I hope now that this deal does what it says on the tin and makes us move into the new decade in the right way.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, I too welcome this very much, but I hope that the Government have learned lessons. You do not just sign a peace agreement and then forget about it. The Good Friday agreement continues to need daily work from all the people involved. Also, we should have learned from the last three years that if a Government look as though they are favouring and making a particular relationship with one party, as against working with and treating all parties equally, which the Good Friday agreement said that both Dublin and London should do, those parties then have no incentive to get back together and really make sure that they run affairs and are accountable for how things are run in Northern Ireland. I hope that the Government have learned those lessons and that we can all work to make sure that we do whatever we can to support and enable that Executive to work.

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right. There are lessons to be learned for this Government and for the parties in Northern Ireland; indeed, some of them are quite hard lessons. It is the people of Northern Ireland who often make the judgment, as they have done in elections gone by.

I am aware that this process is at a very delicate stage. It is almost like the stage when you see the first green shoots of your seeds coming through and you think that you have a harvest, but that is actually when you need to tend to them most carefully. We must all do that now to ensure that we reap the harvest of what we have achieved over the past few days. I am aware that each party will now be judged on how it tends the crop before we reach the harvest.