Northern Ireland Assembly Election

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) (Urgent Question)]

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if she will make a statement regarding the extension of her power under the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Act 2018 not to hold an Assembly election.

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Karen Bradley)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to update the House on my progress towards restoring the Northern Ireland Executive and the other institutions established under the Belfast agreement.

In recent weeks, I have met the Northern Ireland parties and the Irish Government on a number of occasions. In those discussions, all five main parties reaffirmed their commitment to restoring a power-sharing Executive and the other political institutions set out in the Belfast agreement.

Although we have not yet been able to start a formal talks process, I believe that the five main parties and the Irish Government would be in favour of taking forward a short, focused set of roundtable talks to restore devolution at the earliest opportunity. Any such talks process will involve the UK Government, the five main parties and the Irish Government taking place in full accordance with the well-established three-stranded approach.

As you know, Mr Speaker, the period for Executive formation was extended by the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Act 2018, which lasts until 26 March this year. I am incredibly reluctant to extend that period. The people of Northern Ireland deserve strong political leadership from a locally elected, accountable devolved Government and I am absolutely focused on achieving that outcome. But as we stand here today, there are only three options before the legislation expires next week. The first is an Assembly election, which is a costly exercise that would be highly unlikely to change the political dynamics. The second is an alternative approach to decision making in Northern Ireland, such as direct rule, which I do not believe is in the interests of the people of Northern Ireland—certainly they tell me that it is not what they want.

The third option is to extend the Act. This gives the political parties more space to come back together in the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland. It also provides the Northern Ireland civil service with the certainty and clarity that they need to continue to deliver public services in the absence of Ministers.

I have today laid before Parliament a statutory instrument to extend the period for the Act from 26 March 2019 to 25 August 2019. This means that from 26 August this year I will fall under the duty to propose a date for an Assembly election. Both Houses will have the opportunity to debate the instrument in the usual way, and the instrument cannot remain in force unless actively approved by both Houses.

[Tony Lloyd]

I thank the Secretary of State for her initial response, but I remind the House that it is now well over two years since the Stormont Assembly last sat. In previous periods, we have sometimes had direct rule, but we have most certainly had Secretaries of State and Prime Ministers actively engaged in bringing the parties together.

Before the passing of the Act last October, the law required that the Secretary of State call an election. There were cynics who said that the reason for the legislation was that the Secretary of State wanted to avoid judicial review and being dragged through the courts to explain why she had failed to call the election. Operating on the bipartisan principle from which all Governments have benefited in the 20-plus years since the Good Friday agreement, we reluctantly accepted last October the need for the legislation. We did that, however, only after consultation and after the Secretary of State had let us know her plans. During the passage of the Act, she promised that she and the Prime Minister would spare no effort to bring the five parties together and get the Stormont Assembly back in operation. In October, it seemed incredible that it would not happen before this March, but five months on I discover through social media—it is unacceptable that consultation takes place through social media—that she plans to extend the period of the legislation.

I am bound to put this first question to the Secretary of State: has she given up on bringing the parties together? Nobody in Northern Ireland—none of the political parties—says to me they believe she has been sincere or energetic in her determination to get the parties together and the Stormont Assembly back up and running. The right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) said in The House magazine that

“her basic policy approach has been flawed in the sense that she has decided that Northern Ireland could just stand still, leave it to the civil servants. For that, that’s a glaring failure on her part.”

Many people agree with that assessment.

Does the Secretary of State now accept that nothing will happen until after August and that we will drift along once again? If not, and given that she has so little credibility among the political parties, how does she now plan to drive the talks process forward in a meaningful and consistent way, and in a way we have not seen before? What will her best endeavours be, according to the needs of the Good Friday agreement, to move the situation on and bring the five parties together, and how does she intend to involve the authority of the Prime Minister in a way that previous Northern Ireland Secretaries have done with previous Prime Ministers?

I do not like ever to personalise politics, but I have to say to the Secretary of State that she has seen a massive haemorrhaging of trust in her role in recent weeks and months, because of inadvertent remarks she has uttered and her lack of energy in bringing the five parties together. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has to be a figure of both trust and authority. If she is not part of the solution, she becomes part of the problem, so my last question is this: does she honestly believe that she can regain the confidence of the five parties and the people of Northern Ireland and drive Northern Ireland forward?

[Karen Bradley]

I have to say I am very disappointed by the hon. Gentleman’s tone—he is someone I respect and have enormous time for.

I was incredibly disappointed when I saw that my conversations with political parties yesterday had been put out in press releases and ended up on social media. That was not the intention. I made this decision having consulted all five main parties—I spoke to them all yesterday, either face to face or over the telephone—and I also spoke to the Irish Government, and when I had consulted all those parties and said that I was minded to extend the legislation, but only if there was any prospect or possibility of the parties coming together, and they confirmed to me that that was the case, I contacted the hon. Gentleman. I, too, am disappointed that information was on social media before I had had the chance to contact him, but I assure him that I contacted him at the very earliest opportunity after I had made my decision based on my conversations with the parties.

I do meet the parties regularly, I do speak to them and I do hear from them. I brought the parties together in five-party talks to see whether we could find a way to get a process in place. Parties tell me that they want to do that, so I intend to spend the next few weeks working with them on actions that can be taken so that, when we are able to start a formal talks process, we are able to do so in a way that gives us the best chance of success.

The hon. Gentleman is right that two years is too long for the people of Northern Ireland to be without Ministers. I know that the parties want to find a way to go back into Stormont, and I want to do everything in my power to ensure that that happens. That is why, extremely reluctantly, I have laid the instrument today—an instrument that he will have 90 minutes to debate on the Floor of the House, and can vote against if he disagrees with it.

The hon. Gentleman says that he wants to see devolution restored in Northern Ireland, yet he consistently undermines that position by demanding that decisions are taken in Westminster—the very opposite of devolution. He also says that he wants to see Northern Ireland protected in Brexit, but he consistently votes against the only position that protects the Belfast agreement—the deal that is supported by his sister party in Northern Ireland, which would ensure that Northern Ireland does not move into chaos and would not wreck the prospects of any devolution in Northern Ireland. If he wants to start taking actions that match his words, he should do the right thing for Northern Ireland and vote for the deal next week.