Northern Ireland

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

I appreciate the noble Lord’s comments and I agree with him that the outstanding tragedy of recent weeks has been the incredibly young ages at which some of these people are becoming involved. One feels that they cannot fully understand what they are participating in. I agree entirely with the noble Lord that we must all redouble our efforts to deal with youth unemployment, which remains too high in Northern Ireland; to deal with low levels of educational achievement in many of the areas affected among the loyalist community; and to deal with attempts to improve the prosperity of Northern Ireland in general. That is why it is so very sad, when 2013 is a year of opportunity for investment, that this has occurred.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

My Lords, I understand that the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, at the opening press conference of the year on Monday morning, were not asked even one question on this topic by the assembled media. That tells us perhaps two things about the situation. First, there is an acceptance of violence in Belfast that simply would not exist in Aberdeen, Newcastle, Cardiff or anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Secondly, following devolution—we experienced this in Scotland and it has been experienced in Wales sometimes as well—there is almost a disinclination at the centre of UK government here in London to become involved in the issues that have become devolved.

My question is therefore whether the Government will assure us here today that they will retain a close interest in this. While the Police Service of Northern Ireland may well be devolved to the Assembly, and the issue of flags above Belfast City Hall may well be devolved to the City Council in Belfast, rioting on the streets of any UK city is a matter in which the UK Government must have an interest. The UK media must be interested too.

[Baroness Randerson]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. I agree wholeheartedly that it is absolutely essential that the UK Government maintain an interest in what is happening in Northern Ireland and that there are very close links between the Northern Ireland Office and the Northern Ireland Executive. I know that those links exist and that they are very active. The Secretary of State has been in daily contact with the Northern Ireland Executive and Ministers in the last few weeks. We must not accept violence on the streets of any of our cities. What is perhaps most poignant about the recent weeks is that we had almost come to believe that Belfast was entirely stable and secure from the outside. I think it has come as rather a shock to many people how difficult it has been to control this violence.