Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Organ and Tissue Donation) Bill

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 27th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, this year is of course the anniversary of the Good Friday agreement, but, tragically, it is also the anniversary of the Omagh bombing. Twenty-five years ago, it fell on me to visit that town three days after the bomb went off, and I had to talk to the parents of children who had been massacred in that appalling event. It was something of unparalleled wickedness. In many ways, what has happened to Detective Chief Inspector Caldwell is a terrible echo of that: it was cowardly and wicked and has left a family in ruins. I am sure that all of us in this Chamber share the views said collectively in today’s debate.

On a much happier note, the organ transplant part of the Bill is to be very warmly welcomed. As my noble friend Lady Ritchie said, 146 people in Northern Ireland are waiting for a transplant, including Dáithí, after whom this law will be named. I congratulate the Government on moving so very quickly on something which has complete and unanimous support, not only in this House but in Northern Ireland.

Of course, we support the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Weir, reminded me, I said a few months ago that the timescale that the Government gave themselves was far too tight, that it was not going to work and that it would have been better if we had had a much longer period, to which the Bill now agrees, at an earlier date, but we support it. It has to be done, and I just hope that it is unnecessary in many ways and that we can have a functioning Assembly, Executive and all the other institutions of the Good Friday agreement up and running well before January next year.

Some weeks ago, the Belfast Telegraph published a list of decisions have been held up in Northern Ireland because they have no Government and no Parliament. Thirty-nine major issues were identified, and I will just mention a few of them: services for oncology; services for breast cancer; an environment strategy; sign-language legislation; independent living funds; funding for victims payments; a strategy for refugees. This is all against the difficult financial background throughout the United Kingdom and the need for ministerial decisions. Civil servants in Northern Ireland, however good they are—and they are good—cannot ultimately make decisions in a democratic way on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland. They cannot set their priorities. They cannot make decisions that properly should be made by elected politicians.

Of course, the DUP is right that there is a democratic issue, so far as the protocol is concerned, but there is a democratic deficit equally as big, if not bigger, in not having an Assembly and an Executive. When we say that the Good Friday agreement is invalidated, violated, because of the protocol, it is the same issue that violates the Good Friday agreement with regard to the institutions. The agreement is violated by the absence of an Assembly and an Executive and by north-south bodies as well as east-west institutions. You cannot pick and choose which bits of the agreement you want; you have to look at it as a whole.

I fully understand the problems that the Democratic Unionist Party highlights and the issue of being part of a single market without any say about what the laws are going to be. Of course, we understand that, but which is the greater? I have just outlined a few of the issues that cannot be discussed or decided in Northern Ireland without a Government. What bigger democratic deficit is there than no Government at all? There is none in Northern Ireland and no Parliament. There is nowhere for views to be expressed. However good Dáithí’s law is—and it is good—it is not the place of this Parliament to deal with the domestic issues that were agreed in the agreement and the referendum 25 years ago to be for the people of Northern Ireland themselves.

The other issue is that the people of Northern Ireland do not simply consist of unionists, though the unionists have a very valid point. I will say it again: I accept it, but 56% of people in Northern Ireland voted to stay in the European Union, and I assume that those people actually agree with parts of the protocol—not all of it, but parts of it. In other words, in order for success to be had, you have to compromise. You have to compromise between nationalists and unionists. That was the genius of the agreement 25 years ago.

I do not know what is in the protocol. I have had a little look on my phone now and again during the course of the debate. There are some very interesting things, and I actually congratulate the Prime Minister on what he is trying to do. The protocol was the creature of a previous Prime Minister. It is Boris Johnson’s fault—no Boris Johnson, no protocol—but now the current Prime Minister is doing his best to try to ensure that we can overcome this issue. I will just take one example that I have looked at on my phone, the Stormont brake. There is likely to be, in this agreement, a measure by which the Assembly in Northern Ireland can reject laws from the EU. If they can reject laws from the EU, I suspect that that is a major development in the situation with regard to the protocol that the Prime Minister and the European Union have agreed.

It looks to me like a genuine attempt to solve the issue. It is not just about President Biden coming across to Northern Ireland in April; it is not just about celebrating the 25 years; it is about ensuring that public services operate in Northern Ireland, full stop. They are not operating at the moment, not properly, so at the end of the day, the people who matter are not us: the people who matter are the men, women and children who live there. Nearly 2 million people rely on the Assembly and the Executive for the quality of their life; therefore, those institutions must be restored and this, I believe, is a genuine attempt to do precisely that. It has to be a compromise, I just hope that in this space, which I understand the Prime Minister is suggesting should be made available for everybody to look at the detail of this agreement, all of us will look at it very seriously and, when we do, think not of ourselves but of the people of Northern Ireland.