Northern Ireland: Bill of Rights

Lord Trimble Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, I cannot give guarantees but I do not believe that there ought to be vetoes. The Belfast agreement is clear. Of course, one highly significant party in Northern Ireland was not party to the Belfast agreement. Nevertheless, it is important that this matter, which is almost the final piece of the agreement, has not really been tackled. It is a tricky issue. The noble Lord will recall that his own Government had a bit of bother with it; 12 years on, we have not got too far with it. However, because we have now had another election in Northern Ireland, there is an opportunity to make a fresh start, which the Government are very hopeful of doing.

[Lord Trimble]

My Lords, perhaps I may suggest to my noble friend that we would all benefit from a close reading of the terms of the Belfast agreement on this point? Those terms make it clear that the core of any possible Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland is to be the European Convention on Human Rights, possibly together with some supplemental matters to reflect the special circumstances in Northern Ireland. That is open to a lot of interpretation, and is there not a very clear and quite principled disagreement between the major parties in Northern Ireland on its interpretation?