Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointment Functions) (No. 2) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-09-09
Topic: International Affairs
Paul Murphy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this is a short debate and an important one. The Opposition will support the Government on the regulations, for obvious reasons, because appointments in Northern Ireland could not be made unless we did. But the Minister must be aware from the tone of the contributions made in the past hour that this debate is really about the restoration of the institutions in Northern Ireland In a sense this regulation is a precursor to direct rule, and we are drifting drearily and inexorably towards that. That would be calamitous. I was a direct rule Minister in Northern Ireland for five years. I enjoyed being there, and I enjoyed doing the job—but it was quite improper that I was doing it. If we have direct rule it will mean an English, Welsh or Scottish Minister, or a combination of such Ministers, taking decisions in Belfast for people who live in Northern Ireland. That is wrong, in every democratic sense The Minister’s new boss is apparently on resignation watch, according to the newspapers this morning, on the basis that he is—quite rightly—troubled by the fact that if there is a no-deal Brexit there will be, as my noble friend Lord Hain has said, no proper Government in Northern Ireland to deal with the enormous problems that would result from the catastrophe of no deal. We cannot leave the government of Northern Ireland to civil servants in those circumstances When the Minister and his Secretary of State go back to Belfast, can he not make it plain to the political parties in Northern Ireland that we are now in a situation totally different from the situation two months ago, and that urgency and intensity are necessary to bring about the restoration of the institutions, because of Brexit? Brexit dominates everything, and during the past three years the Brexit negotiations in Brussels and London have been skewered because there have not been parallel negotiations regarding Northern Ireland. It is my view that, had there really been a resolution of the problems in Northern Ireland, we could have dealt with the backstop in a very different way. If that had happened—if there had been an agreement in the Assembly and the Executive on what to do about Brexit—that would have helped towards the resolution of the whole Brexit crisis. But it was not to be There are, of course, those on the nationalist republican side in Northern Ireland who think that continuing chaos on Brexit and no deal would make a drift towards a united Ireland more likely. There are also those on the other side of the political community there who feel that, somehow or other, they become more British if we leave the European Union. I am not saying that those ideas are right or wrong; I am simply saying that they make the resolution of the problems there much more difficult As my noble friends Lord Hain and Lord Empey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, have said, the talks have no shape: there is no structure. Every successful talks process in Northern Ireland has had a proper structure. But now there is none. Over the past six months we have begged the Government to find an independent arbiter or chair. We have begged them to ensure that all political parties sit round the same table to talk about the future of Northern Ireland. And of course, we have begged the Prime Ministers both of Ireland and of the United Kingdom to involve themselves much more intensely in the negotiations, as has happened historically over the last 30 years We are in a pretty awful mess—not just the mess of Brexit but the mess of what is how happening in Northern Ireland. I hope that the Minister, for whom I have the highest regard, and the new Secretary of State will be able to go back within days to Belfast and ensure, in their ministerial meetings, that there is a proper structure to the talks, to avoid the calamity that is on its way.