Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointment Functions) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Government Operations
Ian Duncan (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as with other debates on Northern Ireland, this is one of two halves. I will focus on the first half, which concerns the instrument itself and some elements of it, and then move on to the wider issues which have been raised My noble friend Lord Lexden asked a number of questions to which I will attempt to provide answers. The first thing to emphasise is that the appointments have been identified by the Northern Ireland Civil Service. The principal criterion for that identification was obviously timing. My noble friend is absolutely right to say that this should have been brought before the House earlier, but we have to bring all the measures together. I accept my noble friend’s first point and apologise to him: they should have come forward earlier. The second point concerns when the broad functioning elements of the boards become, if you like, out of kilter with the membership. There needs to be a recognition of the balance of the members on the individual boards themselves. A number of the appointed chairs and vice-chairs have reached the end of their terms, which in itself creates the need to move forward. Some have indicated their intention to accept an extension, and that is the likely outcome. However, again, the key aspect has been identified by the Northern Ireland Civil Service, not by Ministers in the Northern Ireland Office. It is our intention to do so only as far as the legislation allows, in order to move the situation forward in that regard, following the detailed advice we have received. There may be other information I can provide and if so I will make sure that it is conveyed to my noble friend directly and shared more widely. I have no desire to keep secrets on this issue My noble friend is also correct to say that there will be others unless we resolve this matter. In answer to the question, "Which others?", it will be all the others, frankly, unless we can get this moving. Every appointment will be done in this way until we actually have a functioning Executive. I am not trying to exaggerate the case or make it seem worse than it is, but that is the reality of where we are. Until there is an Executive, this legislation will allow us to move forward with each appointment that is required. While it is true to say that we may think that some are more important than others, all of them are important to the good functioning of governance in Northern Ireland, be it those I have iterated today or those that will be need to be iterated in the future, should we not make progress on an Executive. Perhaps that is a rather dispiriting answer, but it is the correct one Before I turn to the broader elements, I should say that I welcome the support of the House for the instrument, which is a necessary one and will help in the functioning of these bodies. I was anticipating a broad discussion, so perhaps I may say this. On Friday of last week all the parties gathered together in Northern Ireland. It was the first time that that had happened in more than a year and it was an attempt to move things forward in a fashion which would ultimately lead to the creation of a sustainable Executive. Noble Lords may have read about the outcome of that meeting. It was not wholly supported by the Sinn Féin party, which has made its points very clear in the newspapers, which your Lordships are more than at liberty to read. I was saddened to read those reports but they are a matter of public awareness. That is not good and there is no point in pretending otherwise The Northern Ireland Office had hoped that, using this, we would be able to see the steps which could be taken to bring about the very things that the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, has put to us. He mentioned the notion of an independent facilitator. Like my noble friend Lord Cormack, I do not like the term either, but I accept that it is one we are using at the moment. I also recognise the need to think outside the traditional, such as, "Let us always meet in the same office space"; rather, we should be thinking of new places. I had hoped that out of these gatherings a clear timetable would emerge to bring about those very things, and to be able to stand before noble Lords today repeating a Statement from the other place on what we all hoped would happen. We did not make the progress we had hoped for, and for that I am sad and sorry. That does not mean that we stop or that this is the end of the journey, but it has not led to the breakthrough I hoped to see. That is a simple statement of fact None the less, we cannot in good conscience fail to address the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Empey. He is correct to say that noble Lords will be seeing a bit more of me over the next few weeks, I am afraid, because I will be bringing forward further legislation. Not the least will be the Northern Ireland Budget, and I do not doubt that the noble Lord will make the points that need to be made on the health service, the wider education service and so on You might recall that this time last year, when I spoke of that Budget, I said it was getting ever more difficult to plot the trajectory from the point of the outgoing Executive and their spending ambitions to where we are now. It is getting considerably harder. Last year I said that that would be the last time I would make that point, and events have made a liar of me: it was not the last time. I hope the one coming will be the last time, but the noble Lord rightly raises his eyebrows, and I take that on board. There is also the issue of the five-month extension window, anticipated in the Act of last year, within which we can look at delivering the Executive. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, is quite correct that that will necessarily have to be brought forward in the next few weeks as well. He is right to flag these things up I struggle to find new ways to tell noble Lords the same thing. I do not wish to sound complacent as I do so, but finding new ways to say this is proving difficult. Ultimately, the only way we will be able to move this forward is for the parties themselves to recognise the need for progress. Until that happens, the Government themselves will be unable to create the "eureka" moment. It is not wholly in their gift.