Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointment Functions) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Government Operations
Malcolm Bruce (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I think that the noble Lord, Lord Empey, was concerned with sins of omission rather than commission in terms of the content of the statutory instrument. He raises the point that effectively we are going on and on in this limbo of democratic nihilism, if I can call it that, having to institute ad hoc measures as and when necessary to fill the gap in the absence of real political initiatives. I presume that the Minister will be back here in less than five weeks, when the first term of the 2018 Act expires, because it is difficult at the moment to see that we are going to be in a position to restore the Assembly by the end of March—I do not believe that anybody would think that at all likely. So the question that arises is: what practical steps are the Government going to take to ensure that we do not get to the end of March, let alone the end of August, without having got to a position where functioning decision-making by the elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland can return? I am sure that the Minister does not find it comfortable to come to the House and say, "Please allow me the right to nominate these particular posts". However, perhaps he could say something about Friday’s meeting, which I gather lasted 90 minutes. I am not aware that any specific proposals were on the table, which has not been well received I hope, from the Minister’s point of view, that the Government have started to think about what they can do to break the deadlock. The Minister will not be surprised to hear me say that a Secretary of State in a UK Government who are propped up by a hard-line unionist party in Northern Ireland is likely to find the perception of her office somewhat compromised in Northern Ireland. I repeat what my colleagues have said on numerous occasions: is it not time to find some independent authority that might bring parties together and start to identify what it would take to break the deadlock and get things back to normal Therefore, my specific questions on this statutory instrument—somewhat along the lines of what the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, said—are, first, what were the criteria that made these urgent, and what other appointments are coming down the track that may require us to be back here in the very near future? Secondly, much more to the point, what assurances can we have that there is any reasonable momentum to try to ensure that we get the political process back, or will we have either to impose direct rule—which I think many of us would regard as a disastrous failure—or institute new elections? Nobody is particularly happy about that either, but it may be the only way to unlock the democratic logjam The Minister is always entirely and highly constructive, conciliatory and thoughtful—if I may say so, I would rather he was in charge of the talks; if that was the style we might make more progress. It is important to try to find out what the real obstacles are, not the synthetic ones that have been put up, and how we can build, through trust, a means of getting these decisions away from this Parliament and back to the Assembly, where they belong.