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

Simon Hoare Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con) [V]]

I welcome the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I particularly echo his welcome and congratulations to the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) on his assuming the office of leader of the Democratic Unionist party at what we know is a very difficult time for the politics of Northern Ireland. I know that the House will wish him well as he begins that task.

I also welcome the fact—probably overlooked, but long called for by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee—that this is not emergency legislation. It is nice to have a Northern Irish Bill being dealt with in normal parliamentary time. That is important, and I think that it says quite a lot about how we are dealing with these issues. It also provides an opportunity to remind ourselves that the Good Friday agreement is a process, not a monolithic event or structure that is beyond change or tampering. It was supposed to be an iterative, organic process; it is important that we remind ourselves of that.

It is sad, I suppose, but we need to remind this and future generations of the importance of peace and of the horror before the Good Friday agreement was brought into being. I hope that the Secretary of State, the Government and those who are serving in Stormont refocus as they move forward on ensuring that, within the prosperity agenda of the Good Friday agreement, peace is the bedrock and the widest possible delivery of the benefits of prosperity are felt throughout the communities of Northern Ireland.

I also welcome what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in response to an intervention about legacy. I welcome his affirmation that he will take a victim-centric approach, and I was encouraged to hear him talk about the need to ensure that the Republic and those in the north are taken along in the process rather than having an impost made on them. I know that the timetable is tight and that there is a lot in his in-tray, but I encourage him to follow and adhere to the commitment that he made to me some months ago on the Floor of the House that we will see what he is proposing before the House rises for the summer recess and possibly have the opportunity to debate it.

Devolution, in its operation, is not a political equivalent of a Woolworths pick and mix. It will not and cannot work if those who are charged with its care and delivery duck difficult decisions and abdicate responsibilities. In part, this Bill is there to address that, as quite a lot of the New Decade, New Approach process is supposed to as well.

I echo those who have said—I think my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said this pretty clearly—that if there ever is a time to collapse the Executive, although I am never convinced that there is, now is most certainly not it. I say that not least because it would let down the people of Northern Ireland who were so badly harmed by a three-year interregnum and a pressing of the pause button on the delivery of public service reform and better services for those who rely on them. Now is not the time to embark on political blackmail—“Do this or we will”, or “Don’t do that and we won’t.” In reference to the pretty gruesome statement made by the Loyalist Communities Council at the tail end of last week, I also say that now is not the time for those who are unelected and who have never faced the tests and trials of the ballot box to start issuing ultimatums to those who do take up the baton of public service and try to deliver a better life for the communities of Northern Ireland.

I welcome the Bill, I think. I say “I think” because we have here four six-week periods, and then another four six-week periods. These elongated timeframes are understandable, but I occasionally worry that we will just feed the beast of instability by putting in place longer and longer periods and opportunities for people to “play around”, which we would not see with regard to the operation of devolution in Cardiff or Edinburgh, and at some point we will have to wrestle with that. If we are to make devolution a normal thing in Northern Ireland that can deliver, we need to try to weed out and cut away all the props that allow people to pause and think and so on. None the less, we are where we are. We understand the tensions and we understand the history, which is why I shall support the Bill.

The changes to the petition of concern process are to be hugely welcomed, and that has been recognised across the House in speeches made by those on the two Front Benches. Again, that process was a good intention initially, but it got played. When a system gets played, and it does not look right and it does not smell right, then it needs to be changed, and I congratulate the Secretary of State on wrestling with that.

I share the Secretary of State’s hope that it will be a fully functioning and vibrant Stormont that can deliver the cultural package that everybody signed up to in New Decade, New Approach. If it does not or cannot, or if that becomes another insurmountable obstacle to the delivery of other issues, then the Government are absolutely right to take up the mantle and to legislate for it here in the House of Commons. I hope and pray that we do not have to and that it is dealt with by those charged to do so in a devolved environment, but if not, the Government are right to do it. If one of the by-products of that is taking off the table a nut that nobody was prepared to crack in Northern Ireland because one or another thought it was too difficult, that would be a good thing because it would remove another reason for somebody to take their ball home and not play.

This is an important Bill, but we should not just view it in isolation. There is a lot from which it flows, and there is a lot that flows from New Decade, New Approach, which is not addressed in this Bill. None the less, we know that the Secretary of State is up for the task. There are huge issues ahead. We have to deal in a proactive and sensible way with this protocol.

Let me close by making an observation to those on my party’s Front Bench. We are asking the parties that have signed up to New Decade, New Approach to adhere to it in full—not to cherry-pick or to do the things that are more pleasant or easier first, but to take it as an entire package and to deliver and implement it. Why can we make that legitimate demand of them? Because they signed up to it and they agreed to it. When the Government perhaps do not play as fixedly to that rule vis-à-vis the protocol, with some of the things that some Ministers have been saying, it should be of no surprise if those who want to try to wriggle off the commitment hook pray in aid some of those observations of Ministers as their defence and their cover.

I wish the Bill well. All of us are very conscious of the environment in which we are holding this debate and of what is going on across Northern Ireland, with so many big issues. Let us all, coming from different traditions, different strands of thought, different histories and different communities, recommit to the golden thread of motivation in political life, which is public service. We are here to serve the people who send us to this place, just as those who are elected to Stormont are there to serve the community of Northern Ireland. At this crucial moment, let nobody dodge that. Let us hope that we can all rise to the occasion and meet the needs and aspirations of the people we serve.