Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 7th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Everybody can see how many people want to contribute and the winding-up speech will start at 8.34 pm, so will Members please be mindful of the length of their contributions so that we can get as many people in as possible?

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this brief debate.

The Lords amendments are indeed a matter for the Government, but let me be absolutely clear in response to the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith): there is absolutely no question of some form of collusion—a popular word in Northern Ireland—between my party and the Government on the timing of the amendments. As far back as last September, I indicated the course of action that I would take if the Government failed to act and to honour their commitments in New Decade, New Approach. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the timing of our decision was not influenced by any amendment to the Bill.

The amendments will ensure that the Bill’s provisions are retrospective in nature, to a degree that is, as I say, a matter for the Government, but if we do not get a resolution to the issues that have given rise to the current impasse in Northern Ireland and to the decision to withdraw the First Minister, frankly the amendments and the Bill will be irrelevant. If we do not get a resolution within the next six weeks, it matters little whether or not this legislation is retrospective. Personally, I would love to see a resolution in the next six weeks. I can assure the House that if that happens, we will not be found wanting in reinstating the institutions and restoring Ministers to office.

In the short time available, I want to remind the House, as the right hon. Gentleman did, that New Decade, New Approach is a detailed, delicately balanced agreement. I commend him for his work during his time as Secretary of State to help to bring it about, but it is an agreement that has not been fully honoured. I commend the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) for recognising the frustration felt among DUP Members about the Government’s failure to honour their commitments.

Annex A is titled “UK Government Commitments to Northern Ireland”. Those commitments were made on behalf of the Government by the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon, who I accept is not in office and therefore cannot directly be held responsible for the failure to deliver them. However, the idea that it is merely for the parties in Northern Ireland to deliver their commitments, and that the Government can sit on their hands and not deliver their side of the agreement, just does not add up.

I am a Unionist. I believe passionately in Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom. At the heart of the Belfast agreement is the principle of consensus. The former leader of the Social Democratic and Labour party, John Hume, told us time after time that the way forward in Northern Ireland was not the politics of one side being in charge of the other and of majority rule; it was about consensus. On a matter as fundamental as Northern Ireland’s relationship with the rest of the United Kingdom and the harm that the protocol is doing to that relationship, there is not a consensus in Northern Ireland. There is not a single Unionist party and not a single Unionist elected representative who supports the protocol.

--- Later in debate ---

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

It seems there is an election in the air. It is wonderful to hear all the new converts to the Good Friday agreement and civil rights. I wonder where they were when the Good Friday agreement was being signed, or when people were marching for their civil rights on the streets of my constituency and others. [Interruption.] Well, you weren’t there anyway.

I remember that, in the negotiations that led to the New Decade, New Approach agreement, the people arguing for this piece of legislation were the Democratic Unionist party. Rightly, they made the argument that Sinn Féin might bring the Assembly down. Of course, we had good evidence to say they might because they brought it down and it was down for three years. At that point I thought, “Good, everybody’s learned their lesson. Bringing the Assembly down gets us nowhere. All it does is have longer waiting lists. Our school estates are crumbling, our economy is not being dealt with. Maybe finally we are at the point now where people have learned their lesson that when you get elected to be in a position you have to go there. You have to take the power in your hands and try to change people’s lives.” But then this very week, coincidentally, four days ago, just within the seven-day gap that the new amendment will allow people to avail themselves of, the DUP walked out of the Executive and now we do not have an Executive at all.

I hear a lot in this House about the precious Union and how this is all about the Union. Where is the Prime Minister or even his Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when a key part of that supposedly precious Union, the Executive of the devolved Administration of Northern Ireland, has collapsed? Nowhere to be seen is the Prime Minister of this precious United Kingdom. If I was a Unionist in Northern Ireland today—I can assure the House I am not—I would be looking very closely at how this Government treat them.

To be honest, I find it quite shocking we are in this position today. One of the things that has led us to this position is that the Prime Minister, the former Brexit Secretary and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland have been promising to trigger article 16 for months. Of course, the protocol was part of the withdrawal agreement that this Prime Minister negotiated, signed and told everybody was fantastic. But what is worse about all this is that the DUP actually believed him. I have a four-year-old who would not have believed him. It is astonishing that, after all of this, the DUP, which championed Brexit—it’s all one United Kingdom referendum, we all have to leave together, we were told—[Interruption.] Then there was an opportunity—[Interruption.] Members really want to listen, Mr Deputy Speaker. Then there was an opportunity to stop a border in the Irish sea by voting for the whole of the United Kingdom to stay in the customs union and single market. The DUP rejected it. [Interruption.] I hear, “That wasn’t Brexit.” Well, maybe it is about time that the DUP chose between the purest version of Brexit and the Union they profess to love. Now we have a protocol that had to be put in place because the DUP and others forced the hand of a previous Prime Minister into ensuring there would be a border in the Irish sea. It was not as if this was a surprise. Many of us, people of a nationalist persuasion and people of no persuasion at all, were shouting it loudly on TV and on the radio to tell them: this is what is going to happen if you don’t do something sensible about Brexit. We also have an opportunity. Let us get rid of most of the checks. Let us do it tomorrow. Let us have an SPS agreement with the European Union. The DUP reject that as well. How did they think this was going to end?

Now we have the DUP, who for months have held a gun to their own head, telling the British Government and the European Union, “If you don’t get me what I want, I’ll shoot.” And now they have shot and what have they got? This will never precipitate the result they want because it is impossible to do what the DUP wants. That is the reality. This is not about the protocol; this is about an election that will come in the next few months. All this is about is shoring up the Unionist support. That is what every election in Northern Ireland is about. Let’s get the people worried! Let’s get them scared! Who is going to be First Minister? Who is going to be Deputy First Minister? The Union is at risk! Why not actually work to make the institutions work and persuade the people out there who are interested in this big constitutional debate that they actually should vote for the Union at some point? But everything that the DUP does makes my job easier and easier. I do not have to do anything to persuade people to vote for constitutional change. I just have to let the DUP speak, because everything it has done over the past five or six years has led to more support for the Union.

The real losers in all this are the ordinary people of Northern Ireland who are going through a health crisis—our waiting lists would embarrass a third-world country—and who are seeing rising gas prices. They want to see the climate change legislation, they want to see the welfare mitigations going through and they want to see the domestic violence and stalking legislation, but what the DUP wants to do is walk away from its responsibilities. I hear from Sinn Féin that it wants an election as soon as possible, never mind about getting all the legislation through. Surely we have to learn the lesson that politicians are elected to go to work, to be at their desk to deal with the problems, and to sit down and work together to solve the problems on behalf of the people. All we got from the DUP this week, and from Sinn Féin five years ago, is that they walk away if they do not get what they want. Well, look how it is going to end up. The waiting lists will be longer, the schools will continue to crumble and our young people will continue to emigrate. That is the legacy of those two parties running Northern Ireland over the last 15 years, and it is about time people looked for something different.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We will begin the wind-up speeches at 8.34.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

There is truth in the point made tonight that, almost five days into the crisis, the Prime Minister of this nation has not spoken. That is wrong. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom ought to have spoken on Thursday evening about this issue. He should not shut up about it until the issue is resolved. These are his responsibilities. When we view a constitutional crisis through the prism of a divided community, which is what Northern Ireland is, we create suspicions and we raise concerns unless those matters are properly addressed. There is a fear among some people that the Conservative and Unionist party that governs this nation is actually an English nationalist party that is concerned not about a border in the Irish sea but about a red wall on the mainland island, and that that is what eats it up every single day. If that is this Government’s only concern, they are betraying the Union and the Unionist people.

That is the reality of where we are this evening. It is obvious to all of us who have been warning about this crisis—whatever side of the divide we are on, whether nationalists, Unionists or whatever—that this was bound to come to a head. That is the unfortunate reality of what has happened.

--- Later in debate ---

Either we ensure that the people of Northern Ireland unite and fight against that—I encourage every single Unionist to get out in the coming election, put their divisions and different party loyalties behind them and ensure that Unionism continues to be the first party in Northern Ireland—or this nation is heading towards a referendum on the future of the Union. Whether that referendum is in Scotland or Northern Ireland first, I am afraid it is more than likely that unless Unionists get out in the election and fight and vote for the right party, there will be a campaign towards a united Ireland. [Interruption.] I am glad that the hon. Member for Foyle recently cited, and rightly so, that his mother would not vote for a united Ireland because of the NHS. I hope that people do start to recognise the benefits of this Union; otherwise, we will get into an awful handling that the Government will never be able to unravel.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

To resume his seat at 8.34 pm, I call Stephen Farry.