Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointment Functions) (No. 2) Regulations 2019

Lord Hain Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Northern Ireland Office (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, this Government are committed to the Belfast agreement. As I have said on many occasions, restoring a power-sharing Executive remains our key priority in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland needs the fully functioning political institutions of the Belfast agreement and its successors. That being said, in the absence of devolved government, the UK Government continue to have a responsibility to ensure good governance in Northern Ireland and that public confidence is maintained.

In November last year, legislation was brought forward, which among other measures addressed the need for urgent appointments to be made to a number of public bodies. At the time, the Secretary of State gave a commitment to make further appointments that may arise in the absence of an Executive. A statutory instrument was subsequently approved by the House in February 2019 which added six further offices to the 2018 Act. This new instrument specifies further critical offices to be added.

In preparing this instrument, my officials have worked closely with the Northern Ireland Civil Service to identify those appointments that will arise between now and the end of the year. This instrument would add to the list in Section 5 of the Act, thereby enabling the Secretary of State—as the relevant UK Minister—to exercise Northern Ireland Ministers’ appointment functions in relation to the following offices: the board of the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, the board of the Consumer Council for Northern Ireland, the board of the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company or Translink, the Drainage Council for Northern Ireland, the Agricultural Wages Board for Northern Ireland, the board of National Museums Northern Ireland, the Historic Buildings Council for Northern Ireland and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. The instrument would also enable the Lord Chancellor to make Queen’s Counsel appointments. These are necessary and time-critical and, on that basis, I beg to move.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, all our debates, such as this one on the Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointment Functions) (No. 2) Regulations, are in the context of the continuing absence, as the Minister acknowledged at the start, of an Assembly and the Executive. Although he has repeated his determination to get it up and running and we support him in that object, the increasing and alarming prospect is, instead, of a calamitous no-deal Brexit. In my view, that will lead inevitably to direct rule, not least to provide the necessary civil contingency and security powers which the civil servants currently administering Northern Ireland simply do not possess. That is shown by this regulation. They do not have the power, without us passing this secondary legislation, to make these appointments; they are certainly not going to have the power to deal with problems around the border of the security and civil contingency kind. Indeed, I heard the former Deputy Prime Minister David Lidington say recently on the BBC Radio 4 “Today” programme that there would have to be direct rule in advance of 31 October in order for Northern Ireland to function properly. In their own small way, these regulations are a dress rehearsal.

I believe that direct rule would be little short of disastrous for Northern Ireland and the progress that has been made since the Good Friday/Belfast agreement. One of the great achievements of that agreement was to dilute, if not completely remove, the toxicity of identity politics in Northern Ireland. It also helped cement relations between the UK and Ireland. Citizens of Northern Ireland could be Irish or British or increasingly Northern Irish as they chose and the invisible nature of the border was central to that, particularly for nationalists and, above all, for republicans. That is changing and a DUP-backed right-wing British Government exercising direct rule may not take us back to the violence of the past—I certainly hope not—but it will immeasurably damage the prospects for long-term stability and reconciliation. The notion that this can be a cosy domestic arrangement between the DUP and the Government is in itself absurd.

Effectively, you have one party out of all the parties in Northern Ireland, that does not command a majority percentage of the votes, wagging the tail of the Government in a direct rule context. If direct rule has to happen—and that is a terrible calamity in itself—then under the Good Friday agreement the Irish Government must be constantly consulted on all major policy decisions and be seen to be consulted. Perhaps the Minister can confirm whether the appointments made under these regulations will be done with full consultation with the Irish Government. The alternative with the DUP in alliance with the Government would be to undermine the Good Friday/Belfast agreement and all the progress that has been made since. After painstakingly moving to a place where both communities felt more equal, this alliance suggests that one community—or perhaps one part of one community—again has the advantage over the other.

The Good Friday agreement is an international treaty and under it the Irish Government must be consulted through the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference or BIIGC. A formal institution of the agreement, just like the others, it must meet regularly and our Government must no longer convey the reticence and nervousness they showed around their few meetings since the summer of 2018. I hope the Minister will take that point back. They must not pander to one party in Northern Ireland which does not like this institution. Instead, they must display the “rigorous impartiality” the agreement requires. I say that not just as a former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland who had to be an “honest broker” to get Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness—bitter old enemies—into power together to govern Northern Ireland jointly. The former Conservative Prime Minister Sir John Major said the British Government had to be an honest broker to take the peace process forward and bring everybody together. They no longer are.

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[Lord Hain]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, with whom I worked very closely in the past as Secretary of State, as he will acknowledge. I understand the specific point he has just made. I was simply making the point that the British Government have to be an honest broker to do this job properly. I would make the same point if it were the UUP or the SDLP—if it had any representation any more—in an alliance with the Government. You cannot be an honest broker if your majority depends on one particular party. That is the point I was making—not an anti-DUP point but one about an honest broker.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown]

I thank the noble Lord for his remarks. However, I cannot see how this House—never mind the Government—was an honest broker when it handed two of Sinn Féin’s major demands to it on a plate to ensure that the doors of Stormont would remain closed until after the deadline in October. These two major social issues were the responsibility of the elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland. This was accepted by all, even the courts.

I certainly want to see the return of devolved government in Northern Ireland. However, I ask the Minister to confirm that the appointments to the various bodies being discussed are internal matters for the people of Northern Ireland and the Government of the United Kingdom and that the internal affairs of Northern Ireland are therefore not the responsibility of the Irish Republic. I have no doubt whatever that there should be the closest co-operation between Her Majesty’s Government and the Government of the Irish Republic—I welcome it—but they should not interfere in the internal matters of the people of Northern Ireland.