Stormont House Agreement

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Shutt of Greetland

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

Perhaps I may first make clear to noble Lords that the additional funding is not £2 billion a year. It is £2 billion over a number of years in excess of five years. It is not £2 billion of additional money; it is £650 million of additional money over that period. The money beyond that is spending power associated with additional flexibilities granted for the Executive’s budget. The noble Lord asked about the efficiency of the public sector. The reforms that have taken place within the Civil Service and in the public sector generally in the rest of England, Scotland and Wales have not taken place to the same extent in Northern Ireland. Therefore, it is suffering from severe financial pressures. Those reforms need to take place. It is a condition of the additional funding that the Northern Ireland Executive embark on those reforms and we expect them to do that imminently.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland (LD)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

I welcome the Statement. I trust we are moving forward and that deadline diplomacy has worked. As ever, it is sad that we have to consider so much about the past. In the 75 paragraphs in the Stormont House agreement, 40 refer to flags, parades and the past. I note that the agreement establishes six new bodies; namely, a commission on flags et cetera, an oral history archive, a mental trauma service, a historical investigations unit, an independent commission on information retrieval, and an implementation and reconciliation group. It would be splendid if these bodies took matters forward, but of course they do not come for free. The document suggests that £150 million will be available over five years to help with these new bodies. What will the total cost of the new bodies be?

In particular, I welcome paragraph 69 under the heading “Outstanding Commitments”, which makes it seem just an afterthought. It talks about,

“initiatives to facilitate and encourage shared and integrated education and housing”,

and matters such as social inclusion. If we are really to see integrated services in Northern Ireland, what cost savings does the Minister believe there will be? It will be interesting to note, on looking further into the past, the contrast between the costs that we may well have to expend and what can be achieved in the future if we are to see some real integration.

[Baroness Randerson]

The noble Lord refers to the issues related to the past. As was made clear in the Statement, issues associated with the past in Northern Ireland are really the biggest factor that has eluded previous agreements. If this set of bodies proposed here are established and are able to work effectively, clearly considerable progress will have been made. Noble Lords will have noted that there are measures built into this to monitor progress; significant effort is being made to make sure that progress is monitored on a regular basis.

The overall cost of establishing those bodies is not of course precisely known. The £150 million in the agreement is the UK Government’s contribution to that cost but, since those bodies touch upon devolved issues, it is entirely reasonable and totally expected that the Northern Ireland Executive will contribute to their cost. Present arrangements are not necessarily working very well and cost money—so this is not entirely new money.

The noble Lord referred to the costs of division. He knows from his considerable experience that various estimates of the costs of the divided society in Northern Ireland have been made. They are variable, but they all show significant cost to that society every year.

Northern Ireland: On-the-runs

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Shutt of Greetland

Tuesday 8th April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shutt of Greetland (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has given two sets of Answers to Written Questions recently and made clear that the inquiry to be conducted by Lady Justice Hallett has no power of compulsion. Why is that? Why is Lady Justice Hallett constrained and not holding an inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005?

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, it is an administrative review and will not be conducted according to the 2005 Act. This Government have always been clear that we have reservations about the use of public inquiries to deal with the past. There is an issue about the length of time that many of them take and there is in this case a clear public interest in early publication of the report.

Northern Ireland

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Shutt of Greetland

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend for repeating this Statement. I am happy to endorse her condemnation of shameful violence and to express sympathy. But can we also do some encouraging? There is still one gap from the Belfast agreement which was toyed with for a period and then put aside. That is the engagement of a civic forum, so that there can be genuine discussion with so many people about the shared future that Northern Ireland needs.

I have one further point and a question. It is one thing having these anniversaries and annual events—we worry about what is going to happen on the 12th—but we are moving to a period when we are going to be celebrating centenaries. These centenaries will be coming up very shortly. They are opportunities to celebrate, but some might see them as opportunities to be violent. Will my noble friend confirm that there are real plans and thought-through initiatives with this Government and the Government of Ireland and the devolved Assembly, to see that when the centenaries are celebrated, they really are celebrated and do not provide a further opportunity for violence?

[Baroness Randerson]

I thank the noble Lord for his questions. In relation to his comments about a civic forum, the situation in Northern Ireland is such that this process is worth reconsidering. In view of the recent A Shared Future document, issued by the Executive, and the recent Cardiff conference, which addressed issues of concern from the past and dealt with facing the decade of anniversaries and centenaries to which the noble Lord referred, this is an interesting concept which I am sure will be raised again and again. It would obviously help to engage a wider spectrum of the community in dealing with these problems. I have used his name already, but Richard Haass has, of course, the issue of the anniversaries that are coming up within his remit of reviewing of the past and how it should be dealt with. It will undoubtedly be something which is of interest to him in his work.