Northern Ireland

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, on occasions such as this. She, like others, made reference to Lord Patrick Cormack. I want to put on record my thanks for his friendship over the years. I knew him for approximately 34 years, and the last major occasion I was with him was when he showed me around Lincoln Cathedral. As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, said, I could say nothing at all. It was a wonderful visit. We will miss him as a great man—a good Christian man—and may he rest in peace.

We should also thank the Secretary of State, and particularly in this place the noble Lord, Lord Caine, for the work that he has done over the last months in bringing about the restoration of the institutions. I also want to give my best wishes and congratulations to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson on the work that he has done. I fundamentally disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, on what she said with regard to him, and as a consequence, if these matters are put to a vote later, the Opposition will oppose the amendment but support the Motion.

Much reference has been made to the Good Friday agreement. As your Lordships know, I played some part in that, both in chairing the talks on Strands One and Three and in partly writing those parts of the agreement. It is good that the humble Address refers to the Good Friday agreement in all its parts. That is the point: when the Assembly and the Executive were not functioning, the other strands ceased to exist. Therefore there is no north/south ministerial body and no British-Irish Council. It all goes—it all collapses. If there ever was a breach of the Good Friday agreement, it was the collapse of the institutions, because they are central to it now.

I understand the reasons why that happened over the last couple of years, and a number of Peers today have indicated, in great detail and with great passion, why they still feel that things are not right. However, the noble Lord, Lord Bew, talked about compromise, and ultimately that is what this is. The Good Friday agreement was a compromise, but we had to do it for it to get through. No one can get everything they want.

Let us look at those three strands. On Strand One, no one has really mentioned the issue of money but it ought to be mentioned and a question asked to the Minister about it. It is absolutely wonderful that the Assembly is up and running and that the Executive are functioning again, but they have huge challenges, particularly in the health service and other public services. I therefore hope that the financial arrangements in the agreement will hold, and that the difficulties currently described by the Executive can be dealt with.

It was great too to see the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister together on the very day that the Assembly was restored—two women, incidentally, leading the people of Northern Ireland. It was a great picture. I agree with the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, that it was a turning point, and we have to take advantage of that. The noble Lord, Lord Hay, quite rightly gave a very optimistic speech—and why should we not be optimistic? The institutions are back and the politicians are hard at work. Yes, there are difficulties and problems, but we have to look not just to the present but to the future in all this.

On Strand Two, there is no question in my mind that it really was not talked about at all during the negotiations over the last number of months. In fact, in the Command Paper, which was nearly 80 pages, I do not think you will see a reference to a nationalist issue. I know that the reason for the negotiations was to ensure that the unionist community was reassured—of course I understand that. However, we have to remember that progress is impossible in Northern Ireland—this is the whole basis of the Good Friday agreement—unless you are able to embrace everybody, all the 2 million people who live in Northern Ireland, whether they be nationalists, unionists or, as the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, said, others. My noble friend Lady Ritchie made it absolutely clear that this is a vital aspect which the Government must address.

The noble Lord, Lord Godson, rightly referred to Strand Three and the work of the late David Trimble. In some ways, it was the least controversial of the areas we discussed in respect of the Good Friday agreement, but in another it was one of the most important, because it referred to the east-west relationship. I would like the Minister to reflect on that and to come back to us as soon as he can on the interrelationship between the institutions set up by Strand Three—the British-Irish Council in particular, and, of course, the new east-west body and the intertrade body. Where do they link in?

The point the noble Lord, Lord Godson, rightly made was that Strand Three was not just about Northern Ireland; it was about Scotland, Wales, England, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. That is reflected also in the work of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, the only body in these islands which continues to bring all those parliamentarians together and has done over the last three years, because it is not an institution of the Good Friday agreement. It meets soon in County Wicklow, and I am convinced that when the members meet, they will rejoice that the institutions are now up and running.

I again quote the noble Lord, Lord Hay, as a former Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, because he has made a very important point. We can debate until the cows come home the Act of Union and the significance of all the different agreements that have been made, but only one thing matters: the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland. It is nothing to do with Acts of Parliament or anything else; it is about what the people of Northern Ireland desire. There is no immediate appetite for Irish unification. There may be in the future—I do not know—but it is up to the people of Northern Ireland to decide that: the principle of consent.

There is much talk of the 1998 Act, which I took through the other place a long time ago. That rested solely on the will of the people. That is why the Irish constitution was changed. Parts 2 and 3 went because they laid claim to Northern Ireland. That has gone. It is up to the people. Equally, parity of esteem is so very important. Sometimes that has been forgotten over the last couple of years. We must ensure that political stability is addressed by all political parties and by the Government in Northern Ireland, and that at some point a system is devised making that stability permanent. We have to do that.

I finish with one statistic. When I went to Northern Ireland in 1997, 3,500 people had perished in the most terrible way over the previous 20 or 30 years. In his speech yesterday in the other place, Jeffrey Donaldson referred to the fact that last year, not one person was murdered in a sectarian attack. That is the measure of the change in what has happened to the people of Northern Ireland in terms of peace. We must now ensure stability as well.