Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019: Section 3(5)

Lord Eames Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Eames (CB)]

My Lords, there is an age-old phrase which runs like this: if you are not careful, perception can become reality. As I listened to what has already been said in this debate and in the previous debate—where again we were talking about the results of victimhood, although in a specialised form—I was reminded of that statement because the world in which I live and in which I have tried to serve in a particular capacity for most of my life is learning yet again that perception can become the reality. I know that we have had repeated assurances that all the efforts you can think of are being made to restore local government to Northern Ireland in an Assembly and an Executive, but I have to say to the Minister that on the ground, in everyday life and among everyday people, the perception is that we are taking second place as a community, in the eyes of the mother of Parliaments and the Government, to other considerations.

People think that Brexit was a golden opportunity to give us a reason for not pushing us too far and getting the result we needed. People believe in their hearts and, as they look at the constancy of the statements and reassurances that all is being done by Her Majesty’s Government to restore our Executive and our Assembly, people are saying “We hear that so glibly now that we no longer believe it”. I reiterate what has been said constantly in this House and pay tribute to the Minister’s efforts as a Minister to further our interests, but I have to say to him that that perception has gained tremendous ground of late. There has been criticism of the performance of successive Secretaries of State in Northern Ireland. Some of that criticism has been politically based rather than based on reality, but I ask the Minister whether there is any way in which the urgency of the situation in Northern Ireland demands the involvement, contribution and leadership by Her Majesty’s Prime Minister. We believe that there has been a levelling off in the activity which could be brought to try to create a situation whereby a new Assembly and a new Executive appear.

I have often addressed the House on the legacy of the Troubles, and I want to touch on that again briefly. The consultation that is about to take place on the way in which legacy issues are dealt with has thrown to the surface an issue that I believe will gain momentum and cause tremendous heart searching. I refer to the question of when we define the beginning and end of the Troubles—the beginning being in the 1960s and the so-called end of the Troubles coming with the Good Friday agreement. Immediately my mind goes back to a situation such as the Omagh bombing and the many, many families affected by that bomb, either directly or indirectly by its consequences. If the suggested period by which we judge the Troubles comes to pass, Omagh will be excluded.

Of course we can argue that the Belfast/Good Friday agreement—to which many Members of this House contributed—marked a watershed, and no one knows that better than the former Secretary of State the noble Lord, Lord Murphy. It was a watershed. We had such hopes for the future—some of them realised, some of them shattered—but if we go so far as to select a historical point as the end-point when we no longer consider the needs of people, we will court trouble. My mind is not wise enough to give noble Lords a solution, but I warn the Minister that there is trouble ahead over the question of how we define the extent of victimhood. I urge him to consider that with his colleagues, for I believe that, no matter the urgency of the matter that we stress in this House, there will be a long-term grievance for many people.

The other point that I want to make is that I believe the day will come when we look back at the period in which we are living and say that one thing that we omitted to recognise was that the situation in Northern Ireland, with the lack of government at Stormont, was saying to the House and to the United Kingdom things of immense importance about the theory and practice of devolution. Devolution works when there is agreement—when the centre recognises and trusts what the limbs of devolution are doing and understands why they are doing it. However, if the limbs do not work, there are questions that the centre has to answer. One, I believe, is the question of how we deal with the theories of devolution when, for some reason, one of the limbs does not work.

I say to the Minister that I believe that the day will come when people—perhaps not those who are with us at the moment but another generation—will say, “Why were they not awake to the lessons of the theories of devolution that were staring them in the face?” One, of course, is the matter of dealing with our legacy. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, has given us frequent reminders about the situation in our health service and hospitals, and to that I would add the situation in our schools. Teachers have to buy toilet rolls so that their school can stay open and they have to make sure that meals are provided—in some cases that I know of, out of their own pockets. Why is that? It is because no one is taking responsibility at a government level on the hill at Stormont.

That leads me to one conclusion. Apart from technical detail and political consideration, there is a moral issue at the centre of the devolution structure that says that we, centrally, have a duty to do something when a limb of devolution fails and does not exist. Therefore, I ask the Minister, with his genuine concern for us, to take seriously what has been said this afternoon not just about the political need but about the needs of the ordinary people—the men, women and children—who live with the legacy of our Troubles.