Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 24th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, we have been here before—quite a few times. Even though that is the case, I and the Opposition support the Government in bringing the legislation forward. It will avoid an election, which I do not think anybody wants, and, because of the shortness of the period that the extension is covering—just two weeks—perhaps we are allowed some hint of optimism that something might be happening, and that there may indeed be a breakthrough or a deal before two weeks are up. We will not oppose the Government on this.

It has been an interesting debate. I certainly endorse the views of Members of the House about threats to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and others. It is entirely improper. I know from my time in Northern Ireland that those threats sometimes became real and ended in tragedy. I am sure that that will not be the case for Sir Jeffrey, but we nevertheless sympathise with him. He does not deserve that.

I also agree with the Minister that we welcome the noble Lord, Lord Empey, back after some months away. I very much welcomed his contribution. As always, it was wise, useful, important and came right to the heart of the matter. I also regret that my noble friend Lady Ritchie cannot be here as she has Covid, because she would have put a different point of view in this Chamber. We have heard, rightly, from the DUP, the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and the noble Lord, Lord Empey, a unionist point of view. I sympathise with the dilemma that unionism in Northern Ireland is in—of course I do. What I do not sympathise with is, however important that is—I will come to that in a second—it meaning that Northern Ireland should be without proper government and a proper democratic Assembly for two years now.

As a consequence of that, the civil servants are taking, or trying to take, major decisions that they cannot take; we have seen a strike of 100,000 people with 16 trade unions, which is, in effect, a general strike in Northern Ireland; we have seen a real collapse in public confidence in politics in Northern Ireland; and we have seen an apathy elsewhere in the United Kingdom about what is happening in Northern Ireland. If it were happening in Wales or Scotland—or, for that matter, Yorkshire—and a part of this United Kingdom was without government for two years and a proper decision could not be made, there would be an uproar. Instead, we hear, “Northern Ireland—it always happens there”. But it does not. The Good Friday agreement and subsequent agreements were all about avoiding this happening.

I was the direct rule Minister for five years in Northern Ireland. I did not like doing it, because it was not up to me as a Welsh Member of Parliament to take decisions about the future of men, women and children in Northern Ireland. The way it is going, we will drift back into that unless there is an agreement. We will drift to the general election, because that will put people off making decisions. That cannot be right.

I come back to the points that noble Members of the House from the DUP made about the protocol. I understand the dilemma that it puts unionism in, but that constitutional difficulty arose from the simple fact that Brexit occurred. Had there been no Brexit, there would not have been a protocol. Had there been no protocol, we would not be in the position that we are in at the moment, without democratic institutions in Northern Ireland.

We should always remember that there is another side to this argument: 56% of the people of Northern Ireland, a sizeable majority, voted to remain in the European Union. I know that that is not constitutionally proper because the United Kingdom is the member state. Nevertheless, if we are to talk about what the people of Northern Ireland thought about Brexit, it was a result of a constitutional and democratic referendum. It is not as simple as that, of course: if you break that down into how nationalists and unionists and those who belong to neither voted, it becomes more complicated. But my argument has always been that you can resolve, or hope to resolve, that issue simultaneously with the continuation of democratic institutions in Northern Ireland. Now, we are where we are and that has not happened, so we have to hope that there will be progress in the next two weeks.

I endorse the views of every Member of the House who has spoken on the pay settlement for public sector workers in Northern Ireland. They should be paid because it is the right thing to do, and they deserve that increase. Their cost of living should not be made worse because of this disagreement. Of course, they should be paid, and I hope that the Minister can give us a positive answer on that. It does not answer the dilemma of how Northern Ireland receives its money. There is a case, made convincingly in this Chamber over the past two years, that the Barnett formula as it operates is unfair to Northern Ireland. That must be remedied too, but let us remember that all these things can be more properly done if there is a working Executive and Assembly.

I do not know what is going to happen in the next two weeks. Let us hope that there is an agreement. If there is, or if there is not, when that Assembly returns, and when there is a working Executive, they should turn their minds to how to avoid this situation in the future. The Good Friday agreement has to be implemented in all its forms, but that includes a consensus among all Members of the Executive and Assembly, and all politicians in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee of the other place has suggested an independent review of the workings of the Good Friday agreement. As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, will know, the agreement itself said that there could be reviews of the agreement after a quarter of a century. Instability has ensued over the last number of years—not just because of what the DUP has done, because Sinn Féin did exactly the same thing—so there has to be a prospect of stability and durability about democracy in Northern Ireland. I hope that is resolved by people in Northern Ireland themselves. Whatever the problems, differences or dilemmas, all of us in this Chamber hope that this will be resolved in the next fortnight.