Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Stephen Farry Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 24th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)]

This will probably not do the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) many favours, but I congratulate him on the tone of his speech. I found it to be encouraging in that respect. Obviously, Northern Ireland is currently in an incredibly difficult place. In terms of the overall situation we find ourselves in, it is fair to say that there is disappointment, anger, frustration and indeed bewilderment that we do not have functioning institutions. That view is shared by the vast majority people in Northern Ireland and, indeed, by businesses and civic society organisations.

When the January 2024 date was set in the previous Bill, it was so far off into the future that it seemed inconceivable that the institutions would not have been restored by that point, but here we are. It is in a sense bizarre to see a piece of primary legislation going through this Parliament essentially to extend and facilitate a negotiation by two weeks. Decisions could have been taken at any stage in the previous year—indeed, in the previous weeks and days—to avoid this situation.

On the surface, this is a simple Bill, but beneath it lies a much bigger story. This may well be a pragmatic extension in the hope and expectation of a breakthrough, and I sincerely hope that that happens, but the people of Northern Ireland have been patient—overly patient in many respects—about bringing matters to a conclusion. There will always be a degree of scepticism until we see a positive outcome. For others, however, the Bill amounts to kicking the can down the road for another couple of weeks and potentially deferring the much bigger decisions that will have to be taken in the event that we do not see the speedy resumption of devolution.

One aspect of the situation we find ourselves in is the story of Brexit, which was alluded to by both the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) and the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson). It is about how the DUP backed a hard Brexit and did not reconcile that with the implications for Northern Ireland in terms of the special arrangements that had to be put in place. There is no perfect solution to the challenges that Brexit poses to Northern Ireland. The Windsor framework offers perhaps the best approach to putting a square peg into a round hole, short of a wider reassessment of the UK’s overall relationship with the European Union, but I must stress that whatever residual issues exist with the Windsor framework—I fully accept that businesses have frustrations with certain aspects of what they see; the same applies for consumers in some respects—they all pale into insignificance compared with the absence of functioning institutions and the ability to take decisions on health, education, our economy and protecting our environment.

As the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland), said, we are also seeing real consequences in the wider trust and confidence in politics itself in Northern Ireland. Politics is not working, and that is a dangerous place to find ourselves in. It is not simply that issues are being parked for the eventual resumption of the Assembly to pick up where we left off. Every day the impasse goes on, more and more damage is being done to Northern Ireland’s public services and we are losing economic opportunities.

I do not want to get into too much politics today—there has been a lot of that—but nevertheless I have a responsibility to say that there are other options we can consider. The DUP has been allowed to essentially hold the process to ransom with impunity over the past 12 months, in terms of blocking the Executive. I understand the point about cross-community confidence in any Executive, but blocking the functioning of the Executive goes against 75% of the people of Northern Ireland. There is a world of difference between checks and balances on individual decision making with the institutions, and a party pulling them down and stopping them from functioning and having no Government at all. The fact that we have to legislate for direct rule—if that is where we end up; I stress again that I hope we do not find ourselves in that situation—shows that previous legislators did not envisage a situation where the Assembly would not be functioning.

The space for negotiations around the Windsor framework is narrow. We have to be realistic. The Windsor framework is an agreement between the UK and the European Union, and there will be consequences from unpicking it unilaterally. Equally, we cannot unpick the Good Friday agreement, so the space is narrow and centres around implementation. I want to again stress from the Alliance party’s point of view that we would be open-minded on any solution that comes forward. For us, the key element is that Northern Ireland maintains dual market access to both the UK internal market and the wider European market. Outside that red line, we are open-minded. If checks across the Irish sea can be reduced or limited in some cases, we are all for that. None of us wants to see them, but at the same time we recognise that due to the fact that Northern Ireland has special arrangements, and there is a good reason for them, some degree of checks across the Irish sea might be needed. Northern Ireland has always had special arrangements throughout its entire history, right back to the foundation of the state in the early 1920s, and they were accepted with pragmatism for very good reasons. I urge that that is the case today.

On the financial package the Secretary of State referred to, I again put on record my and my party’s thanks to him and his wider team in the Northern Ireland Office and the Treasury for putting it together. It is a bigger financial package than we have seen in previous breakdowns of devolution. At the same time, however, I have to say that the glass is somewhat half full. It will buy some time for a restored Executive, perhaps a couple of years of stabilisation, but there is still a much bigger conversation that we have to have in conjunction, potentially, with the next spending review on a proper fiscal floor for Northern Ireland. I appreciate that there are reasons why the current Government cannot go down that particular avenue, in terms of their wider spending commitments and the Prime Minister’s five pledges, but it is important to stress the point that that wider discussion still needs to take place.

I join colleagues from Northern Ireland in stressing that we would like to see the Secretary of State moving ahead with the public sector pay issue, which has no leverage whatever in the negotiations. The money is there and it should be released. Equally, while we all might wish to dump on the Secretary of State and put pressure on him—he is a player in this regard—frankly, that release would be quicker and smoother if DUP colleagues returned to the Executive tomorrow, next week or whenever. There are two ways we can address the rightful claims of public sector workers: through the action of the Secretary of State or a speedy resumption of devolution.

In the event that we do not see an outcome in the next couple of weeks, we must look at alternatives. Perhaps that is a debate for another day, but there are two directions of travel. For me and my party, reform is the key way forward. The Good Friday agreement was never meant to be set in stone. It was always envisaged that it would evolve with circumstances and changing demographics. Indeed, many of the architects of the agreement—people no less than Senator George Mitchell himself—recognised that review and evolution would be important. Reform is important to facilitate restoration, or, if we get restoration, to learn the lessons of the instability, lack of cohesion and unfairness of the past 25 years and prevent a further collapse from happening. But the principles of the agreement, the structures, and the set of relationships across these islands remain sound.

To conclude, I think it was the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who made the point that all the parties in Northern Ireland are committed to devolution. Reform of the agreement keeps devolution alive. If we end up with the presumed default of going for direct rule, we move outside the Good Friday agreement. It might be the pragmatic solution in the circumstances, because Northern Ireland must be governed and public services have to be funded, but none the less we must recognise that that is a big step away from devolution. Reform is consistent with the agreement; direct rule is not.

However—this is an important point to stress to those people who are again opposing a deal and the way forward—in the event that we do not get restoration and we end up with direct rule, that direct rule must have an Irish dimension to it. That Irish dimension will be consultative and build on existing structures within the agreement. We have to recognise that direct rule, in a divided and diverse Northern Ireland, will be controversial. We have to recognise that in our governance and put in place mechanisms that balance it out. That is the reality. [Interruption.] I say to the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), who is muttering from a sedentary position—I am happy to take an intervention from him on this point—that the principle of consent remains in place. However, the principle of an Irish dimension has been established for quite some time, going back to the Anglo-Irish agreement. Of course, the Good Friday agreement acted to take much of that away, but that is the direction of travel. Those people who are arguing against progress in Northern Ireland and saying that we have a cover blanket of direct rule to fall back on, need to think very carefully about what they are calling for. What I am setting out is not what I want to see, and it is definitely not what they want to see, but that is the trajectory they will find themselves on if we do not see the speedy restoration of the Northern Ireland Executive.