Northern Ireland Update

Lord Reid of Cardowan Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister is working, through no fault of his own, in some very dangerous circumstances. I think they are even more dangerous than some of the experiences my noble friend Lady Smith outlined. Let me put it this way: will he now take the opportunity to respond to the question contained in my noble friend’s opening remarks and distance himself, unequivocally, from any sympathy or support—even any understanding—for those who have called in the past few days for the unravelling of the Good Friday agreement, or the Belfast agreement? I say this because, without casting any aspersions, if one of the parties causing the deadlock is also now, apparently, calling for direct rule by the British Government and is the same party that is propping up the British Government, and has now gone further with some of its members calling the Belfast agreement “unsustainable”, there cannot but be suspicions that this had an effect on the conduct of these negotiations. Will he therefore make it absolutely plain that the Good Friday agreement, which has now been in place for two decades and resolved problems of tragic conflict in the island of Ireland that lasted for several centuries, will be maintained, in the spirit and the letter, by this Government?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Reid, for his question. He is right to raise it once again. I will be unequivocal and as plain as I can be: this Government do not support any of the remarks made by those who believe that the Belfast agreement is in some way dispensable, erodible or dismissible. It is not. It is the cornerstone of our approach and of bringing about a restored Executive. I am happy that the noble Lord has given me an opportunity to make that point very plain.