Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Morrow and Baroness Suttie

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, I add my best wishes to the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and wish her well. This morning, she sent me an email saying that she is feeling a little better, but we are certainly missing her contributions to this afternoon’s debate.

I have added my name to Amendments 2, 20 and 37, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, said, are probing amendments to understand a little better from the Minister why this particular definition of “public authority” was chosen in the Bill. I want to add to the questions already asked by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy. Can the Minister expand on paragraph 23 of the Explanatory Notes and say what kind of circumstances he can imagine where public authorities would be added or removed as a result of this legislation? I should note that the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has suggested that Section 6 of the Human Rights Act would provide a better, wider definition of “public bodies”. Does the Minister agree, and can he explain why that definition was not used in this Bill?

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, with permission, I will speak to Amendments 2, 20, 37 and 39. This set of probing amendments relates to the definition of public authorities that are subject to the Bill’s provisions. We are against it for the following reasons. We are convinced by the case for an expansionist approach to the range of public authorities captured by the Bill. Given the Minister’s insistence that the statement of funding accompanying the Bill does not give rise to any responsibility for the Government, it seems unconscionable that the Executive should have to bear the cost of UK-wide bodies adhering to requirements or requests issued by the offices created under the legislation. More than that, at a time of a crippling cost of living crisis and with mounting challenges facing our health service and criminal justice system, we believe that a precautionary approach is preferred.

Implementation should be targeted. We have consistently expressed concern about whether this legislation is proportionate or reflective of the priorities of the majority of people in Northern Ireland. There is a fear that expanding the extent even further would impact on public confidence. There is already concern about the framing of certain provisions, namely the identity and culture principles and their potential impact on competing fundamental freedoms. It may be prudent, therefore, to display caution and monitor the impact of the Bill before making further wholesale changes. There is already provision in the Bill allowing Ministers to amend the definition of “public authority” moving forward.

The proposed new clause in Amendment 39 would oblige public authorities to comply with obligations accepted by the United Kingdom under the Council of Europe’s European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. It is worth noting that the Ulster-Scots/Ulster-British commissioner would already be under an obligation to advise on the effect and implementation of the charter under proposed new Section 78R(3)(a).

I am pleased to speak to Amendment 32 in my name and those of my noble friends Lord Dodds of Duncairn, Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown and Lord Hay of Ballyore. As I will reflect in more detail in the debate on subsequent groupings, the integrity of the provision of the Irish language commissioner and the Ulster-Scots/Ulster-British commissioner depends not only on the commissioner having identical functions but on their being accorded equal importance, and on this equal importance being made manifest—certainly through each having a similar cost footprint, in terms of both the running of their offices and their impact on the action and spending of public authorities. In this context, it is absolutely imperative that the existing functions of the Ulster-Scots/Ulster-British commissioner are given access to as robust an enforcement mechanism as those pertaining to the Irish language commissioner.

In this context, it is really concerning to note that, as currently defined, the Irish language commissioner is favoured with powers of enforcement on two bases that are denied the Ulster-Scots/Ulster-British commissioner, one of which we will address in this grouping and another in the eighth grouping. In my Amendment 32 in this grouping, a public authority is required by proposed new Section 78N to

“have due regard to any published best practice standards”

produced by the Irish language commissioner and to

“prepare and publish a plan setting out the steps it proposes to take to comply with”

this duty. Inexplicably, while the Ulster-Scots/Ulster-British commissioner is similarly given the responsibility of issuing guidance to public authorities, the Bill before us today contains no parallel obligation on public authorities to have due regard to their guidance. Neither does it contain any parallel obligations on public authorities to prepare and publish a plan setting out the steps they propose to take to comply with this duty.

I very gently express the hope to the Minister that the Government can understand why some within the unionist community regard this extraordinary difference of treatment as discrimination. It is vulnerable to be characterised as a crude attempt to set up two commissioners with the apparent intention of generating the sense that the two communities are being treated equally, hoping that one will not have the sense to check and see that the standards of protection afforded it are dramatically weaker than those afforded the other. This discriminatory difference of treatment can be resolved by Amendment 32, which affords the Ulster-Scots/Ulster-British commissioner the same respect as the Irish language commissioner in the form of placing equal statutory obligations on public authorities to have regard for his or her advice and to publish a plan setting out how they intend to comply with his or her advice.

I am genuinely at a loss to understand how anyone sensitive to the challenges we face in Northern Ireland, let alone a body supposedly committed to the notion of equality of esteem, can have regarded the enforcement provisions afforded unionists in the Bill as anything other than discriminatory when compared with the enforcement provisions afforded nationalism. I urge the Minister to recognise that this inequality of treatment is utterly indefensible and flies in the face of the principle of equality of esteem. I plead with him to accept this modest amendment.