Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Lord Kilclooney Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 7th November 2022 Lords Chamber

I have to say to the Minister and His Majesty’s Government about recent events that there does not appear to be any coherent strategy to deal with things, and that is what worries me more than anything else.

[Lord Kilclooney (CB)]

Does the noble Lord accept that in Northern Ireland, when we have a democratic vacuum, the men of violence fill the gap? Is he aware that only last week, because there was a call from Dublin for joint authority in Northern Ireland—government by both Dublin and London—a bomb was planned to be planted in a government building in the Republic of Ireland, which was called off, hours before it was due to explode, only when the Government here announced that there would be no joint authority?

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

The noble Lord is correct. I agree that history tells us that a vacuum will be filled, and it will not be filled by people who are committed to the democratic process. That is well established. There is no legitimacy for joint authority. The manifesto of the Government was clear in 2019 that it was explicitly excluded, although it was interesting that at this weekend’s Sinn Féin conference, its plan B was specifically aimed at some form of jointery. That is why I say we can see where the road is leading us.

I come back to the Minister and ask him to prevail on his colleagues to open the door to the people of Northern Ireland and the elected Members, so that they can participate in the process of negotiations; they will not be sitting in the front row, but they can be in the room, they can be advising Ministers, they can be contributing and they can feed that back to their supporters. It will have a calming effect if they can see that, and if the people who have to implement the thing on the ground are part of the solution. Surely that makes common sense. What is the point of having devolution if the people who have responsibility for delivering parts of this are not even at the table?