Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointment Functions) Regulations 2019

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Monday 18th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, this debate has been short but important. This statutory instrument is not about Brexit. It is not a dry, uninteresting, bureaucratic instrument that needs to be passed on the nod—although of course we on this side will support it. But it is symbolic of what is wrong in Northern Ireland. Of course, the instrument is important; these ministerial appointments must be made, otherwise things in Northern Ireland will go wrong—so I repeat that we will support it.

Government and democracy in Northern Ireland have collapsed because of the absence of the institutions of the Assembly and the Executive. There is no representation of nationalism in either Chamber in Parliament. The Assembly does not meet and has not done so for more than two years. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, said some months ago, that means that the only people operating in Northern Ireland are members of local authorities, which have very limited powers. So Northern Ireland is the least democratic part of our United Kingdom—which is ironic given that 21 years ago we spent a great deal of time building up the Good Friday agreement to make Northern Ireland the most sophisticated democratic part of not only the United Kingdom but probably the world. That has also meant that decisions on important issues such as health and education are being made by civil servants. In effect, institutionalised bureaucracy is running Northern Ireland at the moment. It is a terrible state of affairs.

Worse, the absence of these institutions threatens the Good Friday agreement considerably. Over the past few months, we have argued that Brexit is a major threat to the agreement—which I believe it is—but this is a major threat, too, because central to that agreement was the establishment of the Assembly, the Executive and the north-south ministerial bodies. They were all agreed on in a very sophisticated peace process, but they have been gone for two years now.

One of the Brexit issues affecting this—a point which I think the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, was hinting at—is that, had there been an Assembly or an Executive, it is likely that those bodies would have resolved the issue of the backstop, because nationalists and unionists would have come together to try to work things out. That is the purpose of the arrangements in Northern Ireland. What has occurred there is a tragedy. Every Member who has spoken in the debate echoes those sentiments and the need for the Government to change tack and become much more urgent in trying to restore those institutions.

Of course this is happening against the backdrop of the current Brexit negotiations. I cannot imagine the Prime Minister or the Taoiseach going to Belfast in the next few weeks when all these other things are happening. Incidentally, they could have gone there more frequently in the past; both Governments are to blame for the fact that they have not done so. Once again, Members of your Lordships’ House have referred to the need for an independent chair or facilitator, such as George Mitchell, and to the fact that proper all-party talks should take place, with every party represented there and a proper structure. Based on what we are seeing at the moment, there is even a case for taking the parties away somewhere like they did in the past, when they took parties to various parts of the United Kingdom and locked them up in rooms for weeks on end until they came to an agreement. These things can happen—it has been done before—but there seems to be no urgency in all this, even though there is a deadline, as there is for Brexit. Nothing is happening.

It is worth reminding the parties in Northern Ireland, including Sinn Féin—which is not represented in Parliament even though its members were elected to it—that by not having these institutions, they are breaking the provisions of the Good Friday agreement which people in the north and south of Ireland voted on. I hope that in a few moments’ time, the Minister will tell your Lordships’ House that we will make those ministerial appointments and also give us an indication of a change of direction, a greater sense of urgency and more structured talks to ensure that we make progress in Northern Ireland. If it does not happen, this drift will end in direct rule—and when you are in direct rule, it is the devil’s job to get out of it.

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

My Lords, as with other debates on Northern Ireland, this is one of two halves. I will focus on the first half, which concerns the instrument itself and some elements of it, and then move on to the wider issues which have been raised.

My noble friend Lord Lexden asked a number of questions to which I will attempt to provide answers. The first thing to emphasise is that the appointments have been identified by the Northern Ireland Civil Service. The principal criterion for that identification was obviously timing. My noble friend is absolutely right to say that this should have been brought before the House earlier, but we have to bring all the measures together. I accept my noble friend’s first point and apologise to him: they should have come forward earlier.

The second point concerns when the broad functioning elements of the boards become, if you like, out of kilter with the membership. There needs to be a recognition of the balance of the members on the individual boards themselves. A number of the appointed chairs and vice-chairs have reached the end of their terms, which in itself creates the need to move forward. Some have indicated their intention to accept an extension, and that is the likely outcome. However, again, the key aspect has been identified by the Northern Ireland Civil Service, not by Ministers in the Northern Ireland Office. It is our intention to do so only as far as the legislation allows, in order to move the situation forward in that regard, following the detailed advice we have received. There may be other information I can provide and if so I will make sure that it is conveyed to my noble friend directly and shared more widely. I have no desire to keep secrets on this issue.

My noble friend is also correct to say that there will be others unless we resolve this matter. In answer to the question, “Which others?”, it will be all the others, frankly, unless we can get this moving. Every appointment will be done in this way until we actually have a functioning Executive. I am not trying to exaggerate the case or make it seem worse than it is, but that is the reality of where we are. Until there is an Executive, this legislation will allow us to move forward with each appointment that is required. While it is true to say that we may think that some are more important than others, all of them are important to the good functioning of governance in Northern Ireland, be it those I have iterated today or those that will be need to be iterated in the future, should we not make progress on an Executive. Perhaps that is a rather dispiriting answer, but it is the correct one.

Before I turn to the broader elements, I should say that I welcome the support of the House for the instrument, which is a necessary one and will help in the functioning of these bodies. I was anticipating a broad discussion, so perhaps I may say this. On Friday of last week all the parties gathered together in Northern Ireland. It was the first time that that had happened in more than a year and it was an attempt to move things forward in a fashion which would ultimately lead to the creation of a sustainable Executive. Noble Lords may have read about the outcome of that meeting. It was not wholly supported by the Sinn Féin party, which has made its points very clear in the newspapers, which your Lordships are more than at liberty to read. I was saddened to read those reports but they are a matter of public awareness. That is not good and there is no point in pretending otherwise.

The Northern Ireland Office had hoped that, using this, we would be able to see the steps which could be taken to bring about the very things that the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, has put to us. He mentioned the notion of an independent facilitator. Like my noble friend Lord Cormack, I do not like the term either, but I accept that it is one we are using at the moment. I also recognise the need to think outside the traditional, such as, “Let us always meet in the same office space”; rather, we should be thinking of new places. I had hoped that out of these gatherings a clear timetable would emerge to bring about those very things, and to be able to stand before noble Lords today repeating a Statement from the other place on what we all hoped would happen. We did not make the progress we had hoped for, and for that I am sad and sorry. That does not mean that we stop or that this is the end of the journey, but it has not led to the breakthrough I hoped to see. That is a simple statement of fact.

None the less, we cannot in good conscience fail to address the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Empey. He is correct to say that noble Lords will be seeing a bit more of me over the next few weeks, I am afraid, because I will be bringing forward further legislation. Not the least will be the Northern Ireland Budget, and I do not doubt that the noble Lord will make the points that need to be made on the health service, the wider education service and so on.

You might recall that this time last year, when I spoke of that Budget, I said it was getting ever more difficult to plot the trajectory from the point of the outgoing Executive and their spending ambitions to where we are now. It is getting considerably harder. Last year I said that that would be the last time I would make that point, and events have made a liar of me: it was not the last time. I hope the one coming will be the last time, but the noble Lord rightly raises his eyebrows, and I take that on board. There is also the issue of the five-month extension window, anticipated in the Act of last year, within which we can look at delivering the Executive. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, is quite correct that that will necessarily have to be brought forward in the next few weeks as well. He is right to flag these things up.

I struggle to find new ways to tell noble Lords the same thing. I do not wish to sound complacent as I do so, but finding new ways to say this is proving difficult. Ultimately, the only way we will be able to move this forward is for the parties themselves to recognise the need for progress. Until that happens, the Government themselves will be unable to create the “eureka” moment. It is not wholly in their gift.