Windsor Framework

Lord Caine Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn]

To ask His Majesty’s Government which EU laws will be disapplied as a result of the Windsor Framework.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)]

My Lords, the Windsor Framework disapplies swathes of EU law in Northern Ireland—too much to list here in full. We have published a full range of legal texts that underpin this new agreement. It completely carves out whole areas of EU law on issues such as VAT, medicines and food, in a way that the EU has never done before. It means that it is UK laws and standards that apply, and the UK Parliament that decides what those rules should be.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for that reply, I think, although he has not answered the Question. I would be grateful if he could commit to writing to me with, or putting in the Library, a list of the actual laws and regulations that have been disapplied, and not generalities. If they know that it is 1,700 pages, and swathes, they must have the list of laws and regulations. In not publishing them, I fear that they are running into the danger of allowing people to think that the reason that they are not publishing the list is that the vast bulk of the laws in annexe 2 of the protocol, which apply the single market and customs union rules of the EU to Northern Ireland without consent, will remain, and that the Stormont brake—such as it is, with all of its defects—does not apply to them.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am very grateful to my noble friend for his supplementary. I do apologise that I cannot give him a definitive number at this stage. He will appreciate that I am not an expert in EU law, and I have no intention of becoming one, but my understanding is that the situation is somewhat more complex than just adding together a list. There will of course be some directives that are in part still applied, in respect, for example, of the red channel, and disapplied in respect of the green channel. But I can assure him that, for example, with annexe 1 of the EU regulations covering SPS rules to accommodate Northern Ireland—I have it here—67 EU rules are now disapplied. I will take back what he said about trying to publish a definitive list, but, as I say, the situation is slightly more complicated than just adding together one list.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, how much of the legislation attached to the Windsor Framework has been written? What is the process for its drafting. Will the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland parties be consulted? Have any of them already been consulted regarding the drafting?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. She will be aware that the legislation is still being drafted. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State spoke to Northern Ireland parties over the weekend, officials engaged with Northern Ireland parties yesterday and there will be more such engagement from my right honourable friend and officials later this week. That process is ongoing and we do wish to bring forward the required legislation as soon as necessary. The noble Baroness mentioned the role of the Irish Government; of course, we keep in close contact with the Irish Government, but I think it is very important that we observe the constitutional proprieties on this matter, given that these are strand 1 issues and internal to the United Kingdom Parliament.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, in welcoming the framework agreement, may I say to my noble friend that this shows what can be achieved when the principal negotiators are masters of detail, are willing to compromise and have a reputation for honesty and straight dealing—and that is a lesson that should be learned by previous negotiators?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend; I cannot imagine what possible point he is trying to make with his question, but I can assure him that the attributes he set out are all ones that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has in spades.

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that what businesses in Northern Ireland need now is stability and the ability to plan? Does he further agree that, while it is reasonable to allow all parties, including the DUP, time to examine the Windsor deal in detail, it is not reasonable to allow one party to continue to block progress indefinitely?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness. She is absolutely right that Northern Ireland needs stability and certainty. As I said in response to a Question last week, for those of us who passionately believe in the union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Northern Ireland’s position within the United Kingdom, restoring the institutions and having political stability in Northern Ireland, and building a Northern Ireland that works for all parts of the community, is the surest foundation for strengthening the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the fact that the DUP has set up a panel to look at the issues around the framework. I hope it will be looking at what it can deliver for Northern Ireland. I hope the Minister can confirm that the Government will fully co-operate with that process, working with the panel. I also say to your Lordships—this is a point that the Minister himself just made—that there is not really a perfect solution to the position we are in. What we want to do is get the best outcomes for Northern Ireland and for the UK. I have to say that I hope that the DUP will conclude that it can go back into the Assembly and Executive, because the only way to truly address the democratic deficit in Northern Ireland is to have a fully functioning Executive and Assembly. So I look forward to the outcome of the panel’s responses and I hope it will recognise the effort that has gone into achieving this agreement.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

Well, I appreciate very much the comments of the noble Baroness and the tone with which she expressed them. Of course, we all hugely desire the restoration of the political institutions at the earliest opportunity, not least as we approach the 25th anniversary of the Belfast agreement, which the party opposite negotiated in government. On the panel, that is of course a matter for the Democratic Unionist Party. The Government are committed to working with all parties to take this process forward. Where there is a need for official technical briefings, we are quite prepared to provide those and, as I say, we will work with all parties to take this forward.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, last week Maroš Šefčovič told his MEPs that the European Court still reigns supreme over Northern Ireland, despite what the British Prime Minister said. He also said that the framework was designed in a way to avoid hostile headlines in the British press, and that the Stormont brake is very much limited in scope and under very strict conditions. Does the Minister accept that the truth about the framework agreement is now out, and it shows that the Prime Minister has hugely oversold it as a triumph, when in fact it is a small tinkering with the methods of delivering the very same protocol that has done so much damage to Northern Ireland?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness. I am afraid that I have to disagree rather fundamentally with her characterisation of the agreement negotiated by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and others, which I regard as a very considerable improvement in all respects on the existing protocol. In respect of a number of issues that she raised, the Windsor Framework will allow for the free flow of trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, it will underpin Northern Ireland’s position within our United Kingdom, and the Stormont brake will give the United Kingdom Government a sovereign veto over new legislation within the scope of the protocol.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, it is quite clear that this brilliant achievement by the Prime Minister deserves widespread support. Would my noble friend not agree that those who wish to serve the people of Northern Ireland would do far better to recognise that this is the best that they will ever get and to make it work?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I could hardly agree more with my noble friend.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the Windsor Framework is not merely about Northern Ireland? It has potentially profound implications for the rest of the United Kingdom as well. Paragraph 52 of the Command Paper reads that

“the Office of the Internal Market (OIM) will specifically monitor any impacts for Northern Ireland arising from relevant future regulatory changes”.

Could my noble friend say what the purpose of that is, and what weight the Government are going to give to the results of such monitoring?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

The purpose, as I understand it, is to ensure that any proposals for divergence can be managed in a way that is consistent with the integrity of the United Kingdom internal market, which is incredibly important for Northern Ireland and for the rest of the United Kingdom. My noble friend refers to Great Britain, and of course the deal is not just good for Northern Ireland; it is good for businesses in Great Britain that have had trouble supplying the Northern Ireland market, including friends of mine and Members of this House, such as my noble friend Lord Taylor, who I think is not in his place. There have been a number of problems with trade from GB to NI, which this agreement, a brilliant achievement by the Prime Minister, will help to remedy.

Stormont Brake

Lord Caine Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)]

My Lords, the Stormont brake gives the Northern Ireland Assembly a powerful new safeguard. If the brake is pulled, the United Kingdom can veto new EU goods laws that would have significant lasting effects on the everyday lives of the people of Northern Ireland. The brake has been introduced by fundamentally rewriting the dynamic alignment provisions of the treaty; that is a permanent change and ends the automatic ratchet of EU law.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer but, for absolute clarity, would the brake be exercised when 30 MLAs sign a petition of concern, or would it be subject to a further vote in the Assembly on a cross-community basis? When will we see the legal text showing how the brake will operate in practice—or has it already been prepared and shown to others?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. Of course, she and I both served on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, and she continues to serve on the European Affairs Committee’s Sub-Committee on the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland. As far back as our first report, we highlighted the problems created by the democratic deficit in Northern Ireland, which the Government’s proposals now seek to address.

The noble Baroness asked some specific questions about the process. Of course, the Command Paper and supporting documentation set out the framework. There are some details that are yet to be filled in and will be dealt with in legislation; they will follow consultations with the Northern Ireland parties, which my right honourable friend the Northern Ireland Secretary intends to begin almost immediately.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, the Minister said that the Stormont brake will apply to future laws. Can he tell us whether it will apply to the existing superstructure of EU laws that applies to the EU single market and customs codes for goods in Northern Ireland? Does the Stormont brake apply to the existing superstructure of EU laws in Northern Ireland?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

As my noble friend—he is my noble friend—will be aware, one of the effects of the Windsor Framework is to reduce very significantly the amount of EU law that will be applicable in Northern Ireland. I think the figure is something like 1,700 pages of text have been removed. Northern Ireland will now be subject to less than 3% of EU law. On my noble friend’s specific question, the brake will apply to new laws that fall within the existing protocol or amendments to laws that fall within the existing protocol.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Ritchie highlighted the complexity of the Stormont brake. The Minister rightly indicated that he will hold consultations with the political parties in Northern Ireland. Can he tell the House about the nature of those consultations? As he knows, the purpose of this mechanism is, as he has told us, to address the so-called democratic deficit in Northern Ireland because of the working of the single market. However, does he not agree that the greatest democratic deficit is the continued suspension of the Executive and the Assembly in Northern Ireland? He may rest assured that those of us on this side of the House will support the Government in all their attempts to restore those institutions for the benefit of all the people of Northern Ireland.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful to the distinguished former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland for his tone and his comments. On the nature of the engagement, I can assure the noble Lord that my right honourable friend intends to speak to the Northern Ireland parties directly in the coming days. That will be followed by technical engagement at official level and further political engagement—but we intend to move rapidly on this because we recognise its importance.

I agree entirely with the noble Lord about the absolute necessity and priority of restoring the institutions. It is the Government’s hope that the Windsor Framework will now allow us to move forward in a way that allows the institutions to be fully restored and works to build a better Northern Ireland for everybody. Speaking as somebody who believes passionately in the union of the Great Britain and Northern Ireland, let me say that the surest foundation for strengthening the union is a Northern Ireland that works.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, in agreeing very much with what my noble friend the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, have just said, do not all those in Northern Ireland who have been elected to the Assembly now have a duty to meet and discuss together the historic achievement of the Prime Minister, which will not be bettered, so that we can move forward as a United Kingdom?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I very much agree with the sentiments behind my noble friend’s question. As I have indicated, the Secretary of State will speak to all the Northern Ireland parties in the very near future. I agree with my noble friend about the achievements of the 1998 Belfast agreement; as we approach its 25th anniversary, it is important that we seek to move that forward. He is absolutely right.

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, for her Question. I fully accept that both the SDLP and the Alliance Party have difficulties with the Stormont brake. On the other side of the argument, the Centre For The Union published overnight its eagerly awaited text, which argues that, in principle, it is sympathetic to the Stormont brake. That is an important moment in this struggle to see the return of Stormont.

There is a lot of concern about how the brake might work in practice. I want to put a question to the Minister. Over the past two years, Northern Ireland has been much dominated by the efforts initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Frost, who is in his place, to introduce derogations from the operation of the original protocol. As far as I can see, most of those derogations are now embodied in the new deal, but this was done to effect stability and was done unilaterally. Now that there is an international agreement that underpins the actions of the British Government with respect to the Stormont brake, surely it is logical that, when a decision is not unilateral but is based on the international agreement, the British Government can be relied on to pursue again the objective of stability in Northern Ireland as firmly as they have done over the past two years—and in rather more favourable international circumstances.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord. I must call him my noble friend, because we go back so many years. He makes very important points. I thank him for his contributions on these subjects, not only today but over a number of months and years. Of course, he is right to highlight the importance of stability, to which I referred in an earlier answer. That is the surest foundation for the union and for strengthening Northern Ireland’s position within the United Kingdom.

On the broader point, he referred to derogations. So much of what we have had to do through grace periods and easements has now been made permanent because of the Windsor Framework. That allows us to move on. In a similar vein to my noble friend Lord Cormack, I hope that one of the consequences of this is that we can now move forward, not just in Northern Ireland but in our broader relationships with friends, partners and colleagues in the European Union.

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the agreement and hope that it will lead very soon to a return to a functioning Assembly and Executive—for if there is no Stormont, there is no Stormont brake. Given the very real concerns of the Alliance Party and the SDLP, can the Minister say whether the Government intend to introduce a review mechanism to assess how the Stormont brake is working in practice once it is up and running?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

Of course, and I recognise that different parties will have different views and concerns. One purpose of the engagement that my right honourable friend will undertake in the coming days will be to establish what they are and where we can find agreement. As I said in my Answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, the framework—the clue is in the name—sets out the framework for the Stormont brake, but there are some details to be filled in as to how things are codified. There will need to be legislation in this area setting out things in more detail, and I am sure that will be part of it.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the framework sounds like an improvement. However, as we here well know, the legal text is what counts. Some of us who have read the EU legal text have some concerns. Not publishing that legal text as quickly as possible allows rumour and distrust to grow, so I would urge it.

When the Minister says that 1,700 pages will be removed, how many laws and regulations does that include? Although 1,700 pages sounds a lot, you need only look at our legislation table to know that that could be one law and half a regulation, depending on how long it is. We want specifics, or we do not know what we are being asked to consider as positive or not.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

The noble Baroness will not be surprised to hear that I cannot tell her off the top of my head the precise number of EU laws that remain within Northern Ireland. As I said earlier, it is below 3%. That 3% is those laws which are essential for Northern Ireland’s privileged access to the single market, on which so many sectors, especially agrifood and dairy, continue to rely. At the outset, the noble Baroness referred to the agreement as a whole. I am in no doubt that this is a substantial improvement on the existing protocol and something that everybody should get behind.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Organ and Tissue Donation) Bill

Lord Caine Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 27th February 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Caine]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Relevant document: 26th Report from the Delegated Powers Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)]

My Lords, before I turn to the main business, it is only right that I invite the House to join me in condemning unreservedly the despicable and cowardly attack on DCI John Caldwell on Wednesday evening. The terrorists who commit such evil acts are not wanted by society and they will never succeed in their objectives; democracy and consent will always prevail in Northern Ireland. The people of Omagh and Beragh spoke for us all over the weekend when they rallied together to say there can be no going back. Our thoughts and prayers are with DCI Caldwell, his family and his colleagues—some of whom I met at Omagh police station on Thursday morning—at this terrible time.

Over a year has passed since the then First Minister of Northern Ireland resigned his post. Twelve months and one Assembly election later, people in Northern Ireland still do not have a properly functioning Government, as set out in the Belfast agreement and subsequent agreements. In the absence of those institutions, this Government have stepped in to protect the interests of the people of Northern Ireland. We have set a Budget, delivered vital energy support funding of £600 per household and legislated to provide clarity on the decision-making powers of Northern Ireland civil servants to enable them to maintain public service provision.

On each of those occasions, I have stood at this Dispatch Box and expressed my deep disappointment that we still await the return of a functioning Assembly and Executive. I wish to restate that profound disappointment once again today. The restoration of the Executive, in line with the 1998 agreement and its successors, remains the Government’s top priority. It was on that basis that we legislated last autumn to extend the Executive formation period through the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2022. Since that period ended in January 2023, the Secretary of State has once again been under a statutory duty to call an Assembly election, which would have to be held within 12 weeks—on or before 13 April this year.

We have spent some time since then engaging with Northern Ireland’s political and community leaders, assessing the options available to His Majesty’s Government, and it is the Government’s conclusion that a further Assembly election at this time would be unwelcome and expensive and, crucially, would bring us no closer to our objective of delivering fully functioning devolved institutions. On that note, I will briefly summarise the overall intention of the Bill. Before I do so, I again express my gratitude to the Benches opposite, including to the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, and the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, for the cross-party approach that they continue to take in relation to the delivery of key legislation for Northern Ireland.

The Bill itself will provide for a retrospective extension of the Executive formation period of one year from 19 January 2023, meaning that, if the parties are unable to form an Executive on or before 18 January 2024, the Secretary of State will again fall under a duty to call an Assembly election to take place within 12 weeks. We believe, however, that flexibility is necessary if we are to play our part in encouraging and facilitating the return of the institutions. On that basis, the Bill will also provide the Secretary of State with the power to call an earlier election, providing that offices have not been filled.

Taken together, these provisions represent a delicate balance. Eventually, if the political impasse in Northern Ireland continues, people will rightly expect to return to the polls and have their say. The prospect, however, of forcing an election when that would be unwelcome or unhelpful would, in our view, run contrary to our broader goal of forming an Executive.

Noble Lords with a keen eye for detail will have noticed that, unless an earlier election is called, the extension provided by this Bill would run past the date on which the decision-making powers contained in the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2022 will lapse: namely 5 June 2023. We are therefore keeping those arrangements under review, in the continued absence of devolved government, but we sincerely hope that an Executive will be in place before these arrangements expire.

In the meantime, the provisions of the 2022 Act and its accompanying guidance provide civil servants with the clarity that they need on how and when they should be taking decisions. The decisions that have been taken by civil servants using the 2022 Act are being published to ensure transparency. We are grateful for the work that Northern Ireland civil servants are doing in making use of those provisions. The current arrangements are not, however, and never can be, a substitute for a fully functioning devolved Government.

I will speak briefly to the amendments the Government brought forward in the other place that now form part of the Bill. I know that all of us in your Lordships’ House have been deeply moved by the courage shown by Dáithí Mac Gabhann and his whole family in fighting for the implementation of organ donation changes. The Secretary of State, my right honourable friend Chris Heaton-Harris MP, has met Dáithí and his family. He was incredibly moved by his story and by the family’s dedication to seeing important changes to the law implemented as quickly as possible.

As a Government we have recognised that this issue is exceptional, both in the sheer importance it holds and the cross-party support it commands both in Northern Ireland and in this House. Clause 2 will therefore change the procedure for making regulations defining permitted material for transplantation in Northern Ireland under Section 3 of the Human Tissue Act 2004, as amended by the Organ and Tissue Donation (Deemed Consent) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022. This would allow regulations to be made in the absence of devolved institutions regarding rules for organ donation.

Before I conclude, I will make a very short statement on legislative consent, which is required in relation to the section on organ and tissue donation. Clearly, we have been unable to secure an LCM, a legislative consent Motion, from the Northern Ireland Assembly, given that it is currently not sitting—indeed, if it was sitting, we would not have needed this Bill, but its continued absence, and that of the Executive, mean we have to take action here.

I have spoken this afternoon about dates and timelines in the light of the nature of this Bill. As I conclude, I also want to note one anniversary of which noble Lords across this House will be keenly aware: the upcoming 25th anniversary of the Belfast agreement. I see the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, opposite, who played such a key role in negotiating particularly strand 1 of that agreement. Noble Lords will no doubt join me in noting the progress that Northern Ireland has made since that historic agreement. This Government will always work to implement, maintain and protect the agreement. As I said in opening, the restoration of the Executive remains our top priority. The Bill will help assist those objectives by avoiding an unwelcome election and providing time for us to work together to end the current impasse. But of course the Bill alone will not be enough to achieve that. All of us now, including His Majesty’s Government, need to make the most of the opportunity presented by the Bill. In that spirit, I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Caine (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful, as always, for the contributions on the short Bill before your Lordships’ House this afternoon. I thank noble Lords at the outset for their unanimity in condemning what happened in Omagh last Wednesday evening. The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, referred to violence never being justified and of course she is absolutely correct: paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland was never justified in the past and is certainly not justified today. I completely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, when he refers to the threat that has been made by some on the loyalist side in recent days. Loyalist violence, or the threat of loyalist violence, should always be condemned with equal vigour as republican violence, and it is very important that we do not differentiate.

A number of noble Lords from Northern Ireland referred to the glorification of terrorism by certain parties. They will not be surprised to hear that I have considerable sympathy with that point. I was involved, a number of years ago, with framing a response to a parade organised by republicans in Castlederg which commemorated two IRA men who had blown themselves up bringing a bomb into the town in the early 1970s, so I understand the strength of feeling. I say to noble Lords that we now have a third day scheduled for Committee on the legacy Bill, and my recollection is that the amendments on glorification will be the first group that we take, so we can have a much longer discussion and debate on that issue very shortly. I sympathise with a number of the points that noble Lords behind me have made.

I turn to the Bill. Of course, there has been no opposition to it at all in the House. Almost uniquely, I think I have been asked only one direct question during the couple of hours we have been debating it. That was from the former Secretary of State, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, on taking powers. I said in my opening remarks that should the situation regarding the Assembly not be resolved, the existing powers for civil servants run out in June and we would have to make an assessment as to how we deal with that situation. It is clearly untenable, for a number of reasons that were pointed out by his noble friend Lord Murphy of Torfaen in his very powerful and typically insightful and sensible winding-up speech for the Opposition. Of course, in this piece of legislation we have tried to avoid coming back any time soon with further legislation on election timing. It is the hope of many of us that we will get back to a position where the powers in the previous Executive formation Act 2022 and the timetable in this legislation become irrelevant, because we have the institutions back up and running.

Aside from that, there was strong support for the legislation: both the provisions relating to the date of the election and, of course, Dáithí’s law. I join noble Lords in paying tribute again to Dáithí and his family. I also pay tribute to those who have been very prominent in the campaign, including my old friend Fearghal McKinney, the former party colleague of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, who has played a key role in all this. I bumped into him last week in Westminster and was able to talk through a number of the issues.

My noble friend Lord Lexden made a typically powerful intervention in the debate. He and I go back many years; we are a part of the Tory tradition that owes a huge amount to the late, great TE Utley in the way we have always approached Northern Ireland affairs. As ever, my noble friend’s speech was in what I might call the great Utley tradition of moderate Tory unionism. My noble friend talked about Northern Ireland enjoying the benefits of the union and questioned the widespread view that has been held over many years that a united Ireland is inevitable. I agree with him entirely that a united Ireland is not inevitable. However, the priority has to be to make Northern Ireland work; the more it works, the better that is for the union and for Northern Ireland’s position within it. He also talked about the inadequacies of the current legislation and the powers; I dealt with that point a few moments ago.

Unsurprisingly, the debate was dominated not necessarily by the provisions of the Bill but by events that have taken place elsewhere this afternoon in Windsor. We have debated the protocol many times; I have been here late at night during Committee of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill before Christmas and I answered a PNQ from the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, two or three weeks ago. I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I do not rehearse all the arguments around the protocol this afternoon. The Prime Minister is due to make a Statement in the other place very shortly, and I would be astonished if there was not an opportunity for that Statement to be repeated in your Lordships’ House at some point fairly shortly, which will enable noble Lords to ask questions based upon actually having been able to read some of the documentation which has been published. The Windsor Framework: A New Way Forward has now been published and is available on GOV.UK.

I heard the comments of many noble Lords, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, reiterated the DUP’s seven tests, as did a number of members of the Democratic Unionist Party this afternoon. It will be for them to judge whether the agreement that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has come to with the European Commission satisfies those tests; no doubt they will want to go through with a fine-toothed comb, as is customary. For our part, the Government are confident that the agreement reached will ensure free-flowing trade by removing the border in the Irish Sea; it will safeguard Northern Ireland’s position within the United Kingdom; and it will restore sovereignty for the people of Northern Ireland through what the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, referred to accurately as the so-called Stormont brake. However, it would be better for noble Lords to listen to what the Prime Minister has to say, go through the documentation and then, of course, they will have an opportunity to return to these matters when the Statement is repeated in your Lordships’ House.

I think we all hope that the agreement that has been reached this afternoon in Windsor will provide a basis for the restoration of the devolved institutions so that we do not have to come back again to this House and debate the kind of legislation we have seen over the past number of months, and so that responsibility for the running the domestic affairs of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom will once again be in the hands of locally elected politicians at Stormont, who are responsible and accountable to the electorate there. We fervently hope that that will happen so that we can work together. My noble friend Lord Lexden gave me a very powerful point about the United Kingdom Government and the Northern Ireland Executive at Stormont working closely together on issues of great importance, such as public services in particular—which, as the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, reminded us, need a great deal of attention over the coming months. If this agreement does provide the basis for restoration—I do hope it will—I think the Government will be working extremely hard with a newly-formed Executive to address those issues so that we can get on with building a Northern Ireland that works for everyone across the entire community. On that note, I beg to move.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Postponement of Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 2023

Lord Caine Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Caine]

That the draft Order laid before the House on 25 January be approved.

Relevant document: 27th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 22 February

Motion agreed.

Postponement of Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 2023

Lord Caine Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Caine]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Postponement of Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 2023.

Relevant documents: 27th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)]

My Lords, before I begin, for the more historically minded among your Lordships, I was reminded this morning by my noble friend Lord Lexden that today is the 137th anniversary of a famous speech made by the former Member for Paddington South, Lord Randolph Churchill, at the Ulster Hall in 1886, in which he never actually said:

“Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right”,


but that did appear in a subsequent letter.

[Lord Hay of Ballyore (DUP)]

You can do better than that, Minister.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful.

The draft order before us, which was laid before the House on 25 January 2023, will allow for a short postponement of the local elections in Northern Ireland to allow their smooth running, ensuring that they do not clash with the upcoming Coronation of His Majesty the King. As it stands, the local council elections for Northern Ireland are scheduled to take place on Thursday 4 May 2023, with counting and the declaration of results spanning Friday 5 and Saturday 6 May. As noble Lords will know well, the Coronation of His Majesty will take place on 6 May.

Statute requires that local elections in Northern Ireland must be held on the first Thursday in May every four years. All 462 seats across all 11 local authorities are contested. As noble Lords will be well aware, elections are run using the single transferable vote system, which allows electors to state as many preferences as there are candidates on the ballot paper. Each of the 11 councils is broken down into at least five district electoral areas—DEAs—all of which require a separate count, making local elections in Northern Ireland by far the largest electoral event undertaken, with a commensurately complex and time-consuming manual count.

Based on all previous local election counts, the time required for the count and verification means that this would continue well into Coronation Day on 6 May. The Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland has advised that, even if as many as possible of the counts were held concurrently and counting hours were extended into the early hours of the morning, it would still not be possible to conclude the count process in advance of Coronation Day.

It is important that all those who wish to celebrate the Coronation—I imagine most noble Lords from Northern Ireland will be in that category—can do so, as indeed I will, and it is not feasible for local councils in Northern Ireland to run celebratory events concurrently with an STV count over the same weekend. The chief electoral officer and the Electoral Commission have raised concerns that it would not be possible to secure sufficient staff over the Coronation weekend to safely deliver the count if the election took place on 4 May. Concerns have also been raised over the possible cost of casual staff over the bank holiday weekend of the Coronation.

The order therefore allows for a short, two-week delay to avoid these potential issues. It will allow everyone in Northern Ireland who wishes to celebrate the Coronation —I hope that will be the vast majority—the opportunity to do so. It is important that both these events can take place successfully, and this order will safeguard that. As a Government, we informed councils, political parties, the Electoral Commission and the chief electoral officer of our plans, and all were supportive of this short postponement.

Noble Lords may wonder why this postponement is needed in Northern Ireland but not in England, where there are also local elections to be held on 4 May, so I will briefly explain. This is entirely down to the nature of the voting systems in both places. As noble Lords know, local elections in England are conducted under first past the post and there is therefore a much shorter count process. The manual count for the single transferable vote system used in Northern Ireland will, as I have explained, take much longer. This is why a short postponement is essential for these elections but is not required for England. There are no elections planned in Scotland and Wales on 4 May, so there will be no changes required there either.

Finally, I thank the outgoing Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland, Virginia McVea, for her dedication and service to the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland and to the people of Northern Ireland, for ensuring that elections there are undertaken smoothly and providing confidence in the democratic process. I wish her well in her next career and look forward to working with her successor in due course.

I hope your Lordships agree that ensuring the smooth and effective running of local elections is a priority for the democratic process. This order will allow that while allowing, as I have said before, all of those who wish to celebrate the Coronation to do so. Therefore, I hope noble Lords will support this order. I commend it to the Committee and beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Caine at the outset referred to Lord Randolph Churchill. He was not the kind of person to have around at the time of the Coronation. The Royal Family did not much care for him, and many in his own party did not much care for him. He was a trouble-maker; we have a certain number of those in the Conservative Party today. The heritage of Lord Randolph Churchill is not something to be carefully safeguarded.

Of course, it is imperative that nothing impedes the celebration of the Coronation in Northern Ireland. It must be enjoyed exactly the same, to the full extent, as in the rest of the United Kingdom. I agree so much with what the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, said about our monarch’s long-standing interests in so many different aspects of life in Northern Ireland, including buildings, architecture and community arrangements. He has a wide range of interests that will be reflected in his continuing interest there. I hope we can look forward to a Coronation visit to Northern Ireland, and to other parts of the United Kingdom, in conformity with past precedent. God save the King.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all those who have participated. I put on record that we have spent three times as long as the House of Commons scrutinising this order—which is testimony, again, to the rigour and diligence with which your Lordships undertake your scrutiny duties.

I am grateful to everybody for their support for this statutory instrument. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, referred to the complexity of the single transferable vote. We all know why it is used in Northern Ireland. I would not like to see it inflicted on any other part of the United Kingdom at all—I am sorry if that upsets the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, and the Liberal Democrats. It is a very complicated system, and that is obviously one of the reasons, as I set out in my opening comments, why this order is necessary.

The noble Lord also referred to His Majesty’s interests in Northern Ireland, as my noble friend Lord Lexden echoed. I concur very much with what was said in that regard. Throughout the time I have been involved in Northern Ireland affairs, both when he was Prince of Wales and now as our King, he has had a huge affection for and deep interest in Northern Ireland and its affairs.

I can also assure noble Lords that the Northern Ireland Office is currently in discussions with DCMS and other government departments to ensure that the Coronation will be as accessible to as many people as possible in Northern Ireland who wish to celebrate it—and, of course, I echo the words that I hope that the overwhelming majority of people will enjoy the Coronation in welcoming what will be a hugely important and historic occasion in our history.

I join others in expressing some disbelief that the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Belmont, is old enough to remember the Coronation of Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, but I will take his word for it. On the noble Lord’s point about digital registration, this is a security-related measure but I can assure him that the Northern Ireland Office does keep the matter constantly under review.

The noble Lord also looked for an assurance that the position of Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland will be filled. He is right to say that the post has been advertised, and the process is now well under way, with a number of applications. We are confident that the post will be filled in good time before the election so that there will be continuity within that office.

The noble Lord, Lord Hay of Ballyore, asked about overnight voting. The current position is that the legislation actually prevents the count starting until the following day. As the process is very complex and lengthy, as we have discussed, it has long been felt that it is not ideal to start the count overnight, although verification of unused ballots does take place overnight to ensure that the count can start in good order on the Friday morning. I am not entirely sure that he is right —I will have to check—that all local government election counts in England take place overnight; I think that in my own area, in Leeds, they start on the following morning, but I will check. In the past, security considerations have been paramount when it came to overnight counts in general elections, but in recent general elections in Northern Ireland we have had overnight counting just as in the rest of the United Kingdom. I will check on the point, but as things stand the legislation prevents the counts beginning in Northern Ireland until the following day.

With that, I think I have responded to all the points made; no, I see that my noble friend Lord Lexden is going to contradict me.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Does my noble friend have any information on an official Coronation visit to Northern Ireland of the kind that Her late Majesty paid in 1953?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I do not have anything that I can confirm at the moment, although I think that Coronation visits are very well-established in history. When I was in Fermanagh a couple of weeks ago, I passed Castle Coole, which my noble friend will be aware is famous for having a bed that was supposed to be occupied by King George IV on his Coronation tour of Ireland—unfortunately, he never turned up and the bed remained unslept in. The point is that Coronation tours of all parts of the United Kingdom are a very well-established tradition, but there is nothing that I can confirm to my noble friend at this time.

On which note, I will concur with my noble friend in his concluding remarks, “God save the King”, and I commend the order to the Committee.

Motion agreed.

Omagh Bombing

Lord Caine Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)]

I am sure the noble Baroness will have her opportunity shortly. I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith of Basildon and Lady Suttie, for their broad support and welcome for my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland’s announcement.

Before I respond in detail, I would like to place on the record my own heartfelt sympathy for the victims of the terrible bombing that took place on 15 August 1998. As the noble Baroness reminded us, it was only a few short months after all the hope and optimism that was generated by the signing of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. Like many noble Lords across the House, I can vividly remember where I was and what I was doing on that terrible Saturday when I heard the news.

I add my own tribute to the Omagh families’ Omagh Support and Self Help Group, and to other groups, such as Families Moving On, for the work that they have done over the years. In particular, I join those who have paid tribute to Michael Gallagher for his campaigning over the years, not just for a public inquiry, but in respect of the civil case which took place over a number of years and identified four culprits behind this dreadful atrocity.

I concur very much with what the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, said about never forgetting who actually carried out this atrocity. I can do no better in this respect than to quote the judge, Mr Justice Horner, in his ruling on this in the Gallagher court case. He said:

“It is important not to forget that the responsibility for this terrible atrocity, the worst in the last 60 years of Northern Ireland’s history, lies with those malevolent and evil dissident republicans who, with complete disregard for human life, planned, planted and detonated a huge bomb among shoppers in Omagh’s town centre on a Saturday afternoon in August.”


I concur with every one of those words.

I am grateful again to the noble Baroness for her kind words about the Secretary of State. He met the families last week in person, before the Statement, in order to tell them of his decision. As we noted, the families obviously very much welcomed what the Government have announced.

Both noble Baronesses talked about the legacy Bill and the difference in approach. The House will be aware that the legacy Bill itself will deal with Troubles-related cases between 1 January 1966 and 10 April 1998, when the Belfast agreement was reached, so this case is by definition outside the scope of the legislation. Were it to be put in scope, it would have a consequence, which I do not think would be particularly welcomed across the House, of enabling people who were involved in this and subsequent dissident republican activities—people who rejected the Belfast agreement and the peace process—to apply for conditional immunity in certain cases. As I say, I do not think the House would welcome that.

However, I do not entirely accept that there is some kind of total contrast between what we are doing here and what we are doing on legacy. Of course, not every case can have a public inquiry, but the legacy Bill seeks to establish structures, which will enable families to access greater information about what happened to their loved ones in the Troubles, in much the same way that a public inquiry will try to establish the facts of what happened in this particular case. So I do not necessarily accept the premise of the noble Baronesses’ comments.

On their other questions about the chair and terms of reference, we will of course work as quickly as we can to identify the person to chair the inquiry and finalise the terms of reference. I should point out to noble Lords who are not necessarily familiar with the process that the inquiry will be targeted in scope and will investigate the four grounds which the court held could give rise to plausible arguments that there was a real prospect of preventing the Omagh bomb. These relate to the handling and sharing of intelligence; the use of cell phone analysis; whether there was advance knowledge or reasonable means of knowledge of the bomb; and whether disruption operations could or should have been mounted, which may have helped to prevent the tragedy. Those will be the areas on which the inquiry will focus. As I say, we will set this up as quickly as possible. I cannot give a definitive timetable, but I will undertake to keep Parliament informed in the usual ways.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

My Lords, for 14 and a half years in the other House, I represented the people of Omagh, and I visited the scene of carnage on the day that the bomb took place. Coming from a family with loved ones brutally murdered, I know the deep anguish and pain that these families have suffered over the years. Sadly, that pain will not go away. Can the Minister assure me that while the inquiry learns the lessons of any failures that may have taken place by security personnel, no focus will be taken from those who planted this bomb and carried out this despicable, murderous act, and therefore that every effort will continue to be made to bring those responsible to justice?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I fully acknowledge the comments of the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, and I am well aware that he has, sadly, during his political and ministerial career—ministerial in a religious sense—had to officiate at funerals and bury many loved ones over the years. On his specific question, as I indicated earlier, the people who are responsible for this vile atrocity are of course the terrorists who carried it out and nothing should detract whatever from that. I concur entirely with his comments in that regard.

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest: I carried out an investigation into matters relating to the Omagh bomb and published a report in December 2001. I very much welcome the announcement of this inquiry and pay tribute to Michael Gallagher and all those who have fought for knowledge of what happened on that terrible day. When I published my report—I remind the House that I had only the powers to investigate the police—I said:

“The persons responsible for the Omagh bombing are the terrorists who planned and executed the atrocity. Nothing contained in this report should detract from that clear and unequivocal fact.”


I repeat that today. I express my sympathy to all those affected by the bomb, because, as noble Lords have said, this is going to be a very traumatic and difficult experience for them, because it will raise again the things that they have suffered for so long.

I shall just ask the Minister a couple of questions. Can he assure the House, because of the questions that have been asked in the media, that this will be an inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005? Can he assure the House that the terms of reference will be sufficiently wide and, in particular, that they will encompass all intelligence and information received prior to the Omagh bomb which related to Omagh, and that it will not refer only to—I quote from the Statement—“knowledge of the bomb”? I ask this in light of the fact that detailed information was received on 4 August 1998 by the police that there would be an attack on police in Omagh on 15 August, the day on which the bomb exploded. It is vital that all intelligence is capable of being considered by this inquiry.

Finally, I join noble colleagues in asking the Minister whether—in light of this recognition of the Government’s legal obligations and the fact that those legal obligations did not terminate as a consequence of the Good Friday agreement, nor was it ever the intention of those who entered into the Good Friday agreement that it would effectively act as a statute of limitations in any way—he can confirm that His Majesty’s Government will now withdraw the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. It is not compliant with those legal obligations.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

It is with some trepidation that I rise to answer the questions of the noble Baroness, given her previous role as a distinguished Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland: she probably knows as much about this case as any other living person. In answer to her questions, of course I can confirm that the inquiry will take place under the Inquiries Act 2005. The inquiry will have full powers of compulsion and access to all the relevant material. Naturally, we expect as much of the inquiry as possible to be conducted in public, but as she will understand, some of the material will be of such a national security-sensitive status that it will not be possible in all circumstances.

On the terms of reference, I refer to the targeted nature of the inquiry in respect of those areas where the judge has held that we have not fully discharged our obligations. The final terms of reference are, of course, a matter to be decided between His Majesty’s Government and the individual who chairs the inquiry, but I very much take on board the noble Baroness’s comments about the Northern Ireland legacy Bill, which has been debated extensively in your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in the other place produced a report on Omagh under my chairmanship, and I take this opportunity of saluting the courageous persistence of Mr Gallagher and others, which has led to today. I also take up the point just made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan. If one had to categorise the Statement, I would say that its hallmark was sensitivity. The problem with the Bill is that its hallmark is insensitivity, and frankly I believe that it is incompatible with beginning this inquiry to continue with the Bill. My noble friend has handled this with extreme care, but will he have a special conversation with the Secretary of State, who made this Statement last week, and say to him, “Really, as far as the legacy Bill is concerned, enough is enough. Let’s start again”?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful, as always, to my noble friend for his kind words. He makes his case with customary force and eloquence. Of course, we have yet to complete Committee on the legacy Bill in your Lordships’ House, there is still a further amending stage to come after that, and I remain committed to fulfilling the pledge that I have made on a number of occasions, from this Dispatch Box and elsewhere, to do whatever I can to improve the legislation and to send it back to the House of Commons in a much better state than when the House of Commons sent it to us. I will, of course, continue to have discussions with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State towards that end.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, first, I send my best wishes and support to all the families impacted by the Omagh bomb, many of whom I know very well. They will never forget who it was that planned, prepared and executed the bomb in Omagh on that fateful day. Indeed, the Real IRA planned and prepared for the bomb in the Republic of Ireland and then executed its dastardly actions in Omagh.

In the Statement, mention was made of the fact that Mr Justice Horner hoped that the Irish Government would also undertake an Article 2 investigation into what happened in the run-up to the execution of the Omagh bomb. I am afraid to say that the Irish Government’s record on dealing with legacy in Northern Ireland is at best patchy and at worst non-existent. I have had the great honour and privilege to attend, with many victims’ groups, meetings in the Dáil and in Dublin Castle with various Governments of various different hues. We did receive tea and sympathy; I have to say that we received little else. Will His Majesty’s Government now put pressure on the Irish Government to hold a similar inquiry in the Republic of Ireland? The bomb was planned and prepared in a different jurisdiction, and if we are to get totality of answers for the people of Omagh, then that needs to happen as well.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am most grateful to my noble friend for her comments and question. She will be aware that, in the course of meeting many victims’ groups in Northern Ireland, I have had similar points put to me, not least by the South East Fermanagh Foundation in the constituency the noble Baroness used to represent in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Others have made the similar points over the years also. My noble friend is right to point out that Justice Horner did express a desire that a simultaneous Article 2-compliant investigation should occur in Ireland. He recognised it was not within the court’s power to order a cross-border investigation, and nor is it in the power of His Majesty’s Government to compel the Irish Government to do so. However, it is an issue which I take seriously, as do many others, and I will raise this again, including when I next see Irish Ministers to discuss legacy matters in Dublin or elsewhere, which I hope to do very soon.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I support this decision while noting, as other noble Lords have done, including the Minister himself, that we cannot fully scrutinise it until we know who the chair will be and the finalised terms of reference for the inquiry. I wish to associate myself with the words of sympathy, support and admiration for the Omagh families, and Michael Gallagher in particular, who tragically lost his son, Aiden, in this dreadful atrocity. They have shown amazing resilience.

I commend this Statement in particular because I think it very fully sets out the history of investigations and inquiry thus far and shares with us the factors which were taken into consideration by the Secretary of State, the department and, I suspect, the Minister who is answering these questions, in coming to this decision.

Following on from the question the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, asked the Minister, does the Minister appreciate that the process of thought in this Statement, which inexorably leads to the conclusion that a judicial inquiry is necessary to meet the Government’s Article 2 procedural obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, provides a template for any future legal challenge that will undoubtedly follow the passing and implementation of the provisions of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill, if it passes this House in its present form?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, who is another distinguished former Northern Ireland Office Minister. He referred to Article 2 obligations, and of course His Majesty’s Government do take those obligations very seriously and considered them carefully when coming to the decision in this case. I am grateful to him for his support for the decision that has been taken. He will be aware, notwithstanding, that it would simply be impossible to have a public inquiry into every unsolved killing in the Troubles. What we are trying to do in the legacy Bill, as I have explained on a number of occasions, is provide more information about what happened to loved ones, victims and survivors of terrorism. We are confident that the bodies that will be established under that legislation, should it pass your Lordships’ House, would be Article 2-compliant and the noble Lord will be aware that I brought forward amendments in Committee to make it very clear on the face of the Bill that Article 2 obligations would be met. I will continue to look at that issue as it progresses further through your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I too join in tributes to the families of the victims of the Omagh atrocity, and to Michael Gallagher in particular, whom many of us have met, for his courage and bravery. I also plead that, in all of this, we remember that terrorists were responsible for this atrocity.

I add to the calls for the Irish Republic to be put under pressure to do more in relation to this, and to other areas where the IRA carried out terrorist activity in Northern Ireland and found a safe haven in the Irish Republic for many, many years. I refer to the recent case where the sole survivor of the Kingsmill massacre, which again has been found to be a totally sectarian murder of Protestant workmen by the IRA, has been forbidden from revealing secret Garda evidence about the attack, following special legislation passed in the Dáil to prevent that becoming transparent and open to the public. Many of us are really concerned about the lack of input from the Irish Republic in getting justice for victims. I urge the Minister to continue to press the Irish Republic on this matter.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am of course aware of the case to which he refers. I do not think it would be appropriate for me, at the Dispatch Box, to comment directly on a case which is still live and ongoing. However, I do hear the comments of my noble friend very loud and clear and, as I said in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, I will raise these issues when I next meet Ministers from the Irish Government.

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

My Lords, I join with voices from all sides of this House in welcoming this inquiry and pass my sympathy and thoughts to the families of this horrendous and heinous crime.

In response to a number of questions, the Minister has rightly indicated that the focus should remain: we must not be deflected from focusing on the perpetrators of this evil act. Will he agree also that, whatever direction the inquiry takes, it should not be exploited by some others to try to deflect that focus, either by turning the security forces into scapegoats or by trying to besmirch the bravery of their actions down the years in Northern Ireland?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend, who makes a very important point. Of course, the inquiry will be established and set about its work, which it will do thoroughly, and in due course a report will be published. My noble friend makes a hugely important point about the security forces. We all acknowledge that mistakes were made in the course of Operation Banner; I speak as somebody who helped to write David Cameron’s Statement in response to the Saville inquiry in June 2010. However, as I have always maintained, over the course of 30 years, over 250,000 people served in the security forces and the overwhelming majority did so with great bravery, distinction and restraint. I put on record again that, without the service and sacrifice of the Royal Ulster Constabulary George Cross and our Armed Forces, there would have been no peace process in Northern Ireland, and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I remember that terrible day, in particular because I received a telephone call from the office of the then Prince of Wales to check a small historical point with me. It was borne in upon me, as I spoke to one of his Private Secretaries, how deeply the then heir to the Throne was affected by the news of this awful atrocity. I place this before the House today so that Members are aware of how deeply our now monarch felt about that quite dreadful atrocity.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am very grateful to my noble friend for bringing that point to the House, and it certainly concurs with the experiences of myself and the Secretaries of State for whom I have worked, who will all attest to His Majesty the King’s huge personal interest in, and affection for, Northern Ireland.

Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: Supreme Court Judgment

Lord Caine Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow]

To ask His Majesty’s Government (1) what assessment they have made of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the status of the Northern Ireland Protocol and its effects on the Acts of Union 1800 and the Northern Ireland Act 1998, and (2) what urgent proposals they plan to implement to prevent any deterioration in relations between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)]

My Lords, yesterday the Supreme Court considered the appeal brought to it last year and found in the Government’s favour. Regardless of this outcome, significant problems with the protocol remain. These will require political, not legal, remedies. The Government remain determined to find a solution that protects Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom’s internal market and respects all three strands of the Belfast agreement. Intensive talks with the EU continue to that end.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for his reply. The Supreme Court judgment handed down yesterday states that the protection regarding constitutional change in the Northern Ireland Act 1998 pertains only to a situation where it is proposed that Northern Ireland fully leaves the United Kingdom to become fully part of the Irish Republic. This means that the critical prohibition in the Good Friday agreement on

“change in the status of Northern Ireland save with the consent of a majority of its people”

is not upheld in law. Given that, without this protection, the Good Friday agreement cannot stand, will the Government now introduce emergency legislation to give effect to the consent protections in the Good Friday agreement?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his question. I gently point out that in the Supreme Court the Government won on all counts brought by the applicants. On his specific points, the Supreme Court was very clear that Northern Ireland remains an integral part of the United Kingdom. The position set out in the Belfast agreement is very clear: Northern Ireland is either fully part of the United Kingdom or it is fully part of a united Ireland, which will only ever be determined by the consent of the people in Northern Ireland. That remains unchanged.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, the Supreme Court judgment is welcome in that it provides legal certainty where there was uncertainty. The protocol negotiated by this Government—I see that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, who was responsible for it, is in his place—is by no means perfect. There are problems with it, which is why it is being renegotiated. I distinctly recall Ministers in your Lordships’ House saying that the protocol was essential to protect the Good Friday agreement, but now the Government tell us they have to change it to protect the Good Friday agreement. Only one of those statements can be true.

Businesses in Northern Ireland have been forced to adapt to their circumstances. They have put a lot of effort into adjusting to this. To unilaterally remove it would be the worst thing for businesses in Northern Ireland. There are reports that some limited progress is being made in negotiations. How confident is the Minister that the outstanding issues can be resolved quickly and in a manner that can draw broad, if not unanimous, support from across Northern Ireland?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness. As I have said on many occasions, she is a very distinguished former Northern Ireland Office Minister. We debated these issues at some length on Tuesday evening during the passage of the Northern Ireland Budget Bill. I was very clear that evening that for many businesses and sectors there are elements of the protocol that are working well. I referred to a recent meeting I had with the Dairy Council and Lakeland Dairies in Newtownards. For those businesses, EU single market access, as provided for in the protocol, is not just desirable but essential. We are committed to preserving that. I also said that there are many problems with the protocol for other sectors. It has led to diversions of trade and increased burdens on business. It has disadvantaged consumers and led to political instability—witness that there are no institutions at the moment.

On the noble Baroness’s question, I will not comment on what may have been written in newspapers. The Government’s preference is to resolve these matters through a negotiated agreement with the European Union. As I said in my initial Answer, we are working tirelessly towards that end.

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, further to that answer, does the Minister agree that this ruling increases the urgency to make real progress on the negotiations as soon as possible? The sooner there is a return to Stormont and the Executive, the better this will be for the people of Northern Ireland, given the cost of living crisis they currently face.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

The noble Baroness will be aware that I have been a consistent supporter of the Belfast agreement since it was reached on 10 April 1998. We are about to mark its 25th anniversary. I agree with her earlier comments. A protocol that was designed to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland and to protect the 1998 agreement in all its parts is now having the unintended consequence of undermining and placing strain on that agreement. I agree with the noble Baroness entirely that we need to resolve these issues as quickly as possible and get Stormont back to work.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for all that he continues to do in the interests of good sense and Northern Ireland. Is he confident that, given sufficient time—we do not need to rush this or try to accomplish it as soon as we can—negotiation is the only sensible way to resolve this issue? The dairy industry, which has been to see me and others, will then feel that its protection is complete and will be very happy that others should have similar benefits.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend and thank him for his kind words. We are seeking to achieve, as I indicated in my opening Answer, a situation that respects the integrity of the EU single market and the UK’s internal market, and Northern Ireland’s constitutional position as an integral part of our United Kingdom—a position, I hasten to add, that I wish never to see change.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to having won in the court, but the Government have won on the basis of the argument that the Acts of Union have been suspended. Are the Government proud of arguing in the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom that the Acts of Union have been suspended? What action will the Minister take to restore the union?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I will resist the attempt to turn the House of Lords into another branch of the Supreme Court and relitigate the case on which judgment was reached yesterday. All I will say to my noble friend is that we are well aware of the defects in the protocol, which have become apparent. Some might say that they were apparent at the time, but they are very apparent today. We are determined to remedy what does not work, while preserving what does.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, as one of the applicants to the Supreme Court yesterday, I welcome the clarity the Supreme Court has given to the legal position. I also welcome the Minister’s comment that there needs to now be a political solution to this problem for Northern Ireland, which has been ongoing since 2021. Paragraph 67 of the Supreme Court judgment yesterday, as my noble friend Lord Dodds has just referred to, says:

“The Acts of Union and article VI remain on the statute book but are modified to the extent and for the period during which the Protocol applies.”


At the time of the withdrawal agreement, we were told that the Acts of Union had not been changed and that the union was safe. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Acts of Union have been modified as long as the protocol is in existence. What plans do His Majesty’s Government have to reinstate Article VI of the Act of Union?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful to the former First Minister of Northern Ireland for her comments. We will of course continue to study the judgment very carefully, because, as I indicated to my noble friend Lord Dodds, I do not plan to get into a legal rehearsal of all the arguments that we were played out in the Supreme Court. As her former right honourable friend, the current leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, made clear yesterday, this issue was never going to be solved in the courts; it requires a political solution, and that is what the Government are striving to achieve.

There have been modifications to the Acts of Union in the past; if there had not been, 100 Irish representative Peers would still be sitting in your Lordships’ House and the Church of Ireland would not have been disestablished.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

Shame!

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I note that the former First Minister is a proud Anglican. While there have been modifications, I take on board the noble Baroness’s comments. As I said in answer to an earlier question, the Government’s intention is to ensure that Northern Ireland’s position within the UK internal market is fully respected, along with its constitutional position as part of the United Kingdom.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

My Lords, a group of 18 year-olds from Northern Ireland visited Parliament yesterday. They told me that they were jealous of me because, for years, I had the opportunity to stand for election and to debate and make all the laws to which I was subject—an opportunity they will now be denied under the protocol, with laws being forced upon them over which they have no say. They told me that they felt like second-class citizens in the United Kingdom because of that. What does the Minister say to them?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

Clearly, we do not want anybody in any part of the United Kingdom to feel like a second-class citizen. As I set out in my comments on the Northern Ireland Budget Bill on Tuesday, dealing with issues around governance and the democratic deficit, to which the noble Lord referred, are extremely important, and they will have to form part of a final negotiated agreement with the EU.

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

My Lords, we used to have a situation where there was a common citizenship across the United Kingdom and that every citizen of the United Kingdom was able to vote for representatives at either regional or national level who could set their laws. It is clear that the Supreme Court ruling yesterday has confirmed that that is no longer the case. As we rightly, as a nation, seek to propagate the values of democracy internationally, can the Minister tell us what message it sends to the outside world that we are tolerating a major democratic deficit in our own backyard?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

As I just pointed out in response to his noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, this is an issue we are seeking to resolve in the negotiations. I cannot really go into any detail at the Dispatch Box.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, the Acts of Union were our country’s foundational charter. If the United Kingdom had a national day analogous to the independence days of other countries, it would commemorate 1 January 1801, when the Acts of Union took effect. How can any British Government, least of all a Conservative and Unionist British Government, tolerate legislation that is now held in the courts to be at odds with that foundational document?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I can assure my noble friend that, as a staunch unionist, I would have no issue whatever in commemorating or marking 1 January 1801 every year. I have already answered his question: issues around governance and the democratic deficit have to be resolved in our ongoing and intensive dialogue and negotiations with the EU.

[Lord Hay of Ballyore (DUP)]

My Lords, can the Minister comment on the issue whereby people elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly are then subject to laws in some 300 areas made by a legislature of which they are not a part and to which they have no representation?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hay, for his question, which I think I have covered in my previous answers.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, up to half of all goods and produce exported across the border from Northern Ireland to the Republic are produced in Northern Ireland, and therefore cannot be validated as to whether they meet EU conditions at the border between GB and Northern Ireland. Should we not remove the border between GB and Northern Ireland and rely on export controls and the SPIRE system, which I used to exercise as the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, to ensure that goods exported to the European Union meet European standards? That would solve the problem.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

My noble friend, as a former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, makes a valuable point. He will of course be aware that the Government have proposed, and are currently discussing, a system of green channels and red channels at points of entry, whereby goods that will never leave the United Kingdom will not be subject to the controls that will be placed upon those goods that will enter the single market.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, would the Minister care to speculate as to why the guilty men who got us into this mess in the first place remain silent?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I have great admiration for the noble Lord, but I am never one to speculate, especially at the Dispatch Box. As I have said on many occasions, I prefer to dwell less on how we got into this place and more on how we get out of it.

Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Lord Caine Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading
Tuesday 7th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)]

My Lords, before I reply to the debate, I associate myself with all the comments that have been made about my noble friend Lord Empey—and he is very much my noble friend. I have known him since the 1980s, and he was one of my two supporters when I took my seat in your Lordships’ House. I think we all wish him and his family all the very best.

I thank all those who have taken part in this evening’s debate. If I can begin on a note of consensus, I think it is clear across the House that there is agreement that most noble Lords would prefer that these decisions were being taken in Stormont, not here in Westminster. I think there is also a consensus that we want to see the institutions in Northern Ireland restored as quickly as possible, although there might be disagreements about how we get there and what might need to be done. I am pleased that most noble Lords recognise that it is the right and responsible thing for His Majesty’s Government to intervene in these matters and take legislative action on a budget for Northern Ireland in order to maintain the delivery of public services.

I went over at some length the background and context for the setting of the budget and said something about the process for the setting of the budget in my opening comments and, at the risk of not rising to the challenge of my noble friend Lord Weir of Ballyholme to keep us here until half past midnight at the earliest, I will resist going over all those points again.

I shall speak first to the two amendments to the Motion that have been tabled. The first one is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I understand the frustrations with the current situation that have led him to table his amendment. He will not be surprised to hear that His Majesty’s Government cannot accept it. What he is putting forward would involve significant changes to the process of Executive formation in Northern Ireland at a time when the priority of the Government is to get those institutions back up and running, and his amendment could be perceived, as I think it was by a number of noble Lords behind me, as tilting the playing field significantly against one party, which might have the effect of frustrating our objectives.

As the noble Lord will be fully aware, it is essential that any changes to institutional arrangements in Northern Ireland require “sufficient consensus” right across the community—that is the phrase used. This approach has underpinned political negotiations and discussions in Northern Ireland since the spring of 1996 and, of course, these were the rules under which the noble Lord would have operated at St Andrews in 2006.

One of the consequences of the noble Lord’s amendment would be to make it more difficult for any political parties in Northern Ireland that might wish to go into opposition. Arrangements for opposition were included in the Stormont House agreement, the Fresh Start agreement and New Decade, New Approach. I am sure it is not his intention, but the wording of his amendment would make it difficult for any party to take up that option—which I think the SDLP has already signalled that it would do if the Assembly came back.

On MLA pay, I recognise that the noble Lord, when he was Secretary of State in 2006, proposed at one point to withdraw all the salaries from Members of the Assembly. The current Secretary of State has cut MLA pay by 27.5%. The cut came into effect on 1 January and applies to all Members of the Assembly equally. The Government are mindful that MLAs do perform certain functions. However, we keep the situation under review, and in that spirit I trust that the noble Lord will be prepared to withdraw his amendment.

I fully understand the sentiments behind the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Dodds of Duncairn, as well as the arguments put forward in support of it by the majority of noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. I am sure he is fully aware of my views on this subject, both as a Back-Bencher in 2019 and as a member of the European sub-committee on the protocol, on which I served with him before I was appointed to this role.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, said, there are of course sectors for which the protocol is working well. She referred to my recent visit to Lakeland Dairies and my meeting with the Dairy Council; I am very glad she keeps tabs on my meetings and progress across Northern Ireland. In their conversations with me, they were very clear that the EU single market access provided for in the protocol by the current arrangements are not just desirable but essential for their businesses. As I said during the debates on the protocol Bill, we are committed to preserving those elements and advantages.

At the same time, however, the Government are well aware of the damaging impacts that implementation of the protocol has had, both in Northern Ireland and in Great Britain. If I can summarise the effects in this way, it has led to a diversion of trade, it has disadvantaged consumers, it has led to increased burdens on business—as we heard from a number of noble Lords—and of course it has created political instability, as evidenced by the fact that we are having this debate here because we have had no functioning Northern Ireland Executive or Assembly for much of the past year.

In short, as my noble friends Lord Dodds of Duncairn and, if I can refer to her as such, my noble friend Lady Foster—I think this is the first time we have debated together in the Chamber since she joined the House; I am very pleased she is here—made clear, and I agree with them, a protocol designed to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland and protect the 1998 agreement in all its parts is now placing that agreement under severe strain at a time when we are about to mark its 25th anniversary. For those of us in your Lordships’ House who have been consistent in our support for that agreement since 10 April 1998, that is not a very comfortable position to be in.

It is therefore imperative that, while preserving aspects of the protocol that work, we are able to remedy or fix those that do not. Noble Lords are well aware—some of these issues were raised this evening—from our extensive debates on the protocol Bill, that the Government have put forward a number of detailed proposals, including the so-called green and red channels, to which noble Lords referred earlier, so that those goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain and which will never leave the United Kingdom will not be subject to the checks on goods that will enter the European Union single market. Again, in direct response to a number of comments that have been made, we are also clear that any resolution to the protocol must deal with issues around governance and with the democratic deficit that it has created.

As has been said many times, the Government’s clear preference is for a negotiated settlement with the EU on these matters. I am sorry to disappoint the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, but I cannot give more detail or comment on what is currently being discussed with the European Union or indeed any of the speculation that has appeared in recent weeks in certain newspapers—other than to say that we very much hope that agreement can be reached; that is our focus. If that is not the case, we are clear that we will take forward the legislation to ensure that we have the powers to take whatever action is necessary to resolve these matters. Let me be very clear: we need a solution that respects the integrity of the EU single market, the integrity of the UK internal market and, of course, Northern Ireland’s position as an integral part of our United Kingdom. I do not think I can be any clearer than that.

On the debate itself, I have set out the context and background for the budget. In his concluding remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, referred to a lack of money and 10 years of so-called austerity. I generally like to agree with the noble Lord on most things, but on this I remind him, as I said at the outset, that spending per head in Northern Ireland is already the highest in any UK region. In 2021, the spending review settlement gave Northern Ireland record levels of funding. Indeed, the Fiscal Council to which he referred said at the time that the settlement would have enabled the Executive to set three-year budgets giving far greater certainty than we have had in recent years.

I will quickly read out some of the things that we have done in addition in the last number of years. In 2013, just before we brought the G8 to Northern Ireland, we made available £300 million in additional borrowing power through the building a prosperous and united community package. We invested almost £2 billion in additional spending power for Northern Ireland as a result of the Stormont House agreement of 2014. We invested a further £500 million through fresh start, £2.5 million of financial support and flexibility through the confidence and supply agreement in 2017 and, more recently, over £3.5 billion through the new deal, city and growth deals, PEACE PLUS and the New Decade, New Approach financial package, which the noble Lord referred to earlier. The noble Lord mentioned the large number of commitments in that document. Every six months, I publish an update on progress—actually in response to a request from his noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, when we were going through previous legislation. He can track the progress of the implementation of those commitments through that.

In response to my noble friend Lord Rogan, we are investing over £250 million through the Levelling Up Fund, the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and the Community Ownership Fund. On levelling up specifically, ultimately those are decisions for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, but I will make sure that my noble friend Lady Scott is aware of my noble friend’s comments.

I am conscious of time. The debate ranged over a number of issues, particularly health, education, policing and the current governance arrangements for Northern Ireland. I reiterate the top line: health has received an extra £768 million and education an extra £300 million, and the Department of Justice has received an uplift of around 3.1% in this Budget. In addition to the money through the block grant that is spent by the Department of Finance, noble Lords will be aware of the Government’s ongoing commitment to additional security funding, which is around £32 million this year and helps the Police Service of Northern Ireland to combat the ongoing threat of terrorism.

I therefore dispute some of the assertions made about this Budget, but it was of course drawn up through discussion with the Northern Ireland Civil Service, and a number of the priorities to which noble Lords have referred will be matters for the departments to determine, not the Northern Ireland Office. I am conscious that a number of detailed points were put to me during the debate about individual allocations. With the indulgence of the House, rather than detain us until a very late hour, if noble Lords will permit I will write in detail on each of the issues raised today.

On governance and Civil Service decisions, I made it clear during the passage of the executive formation Act before Christmas that this is not a long-term solution or fix. Of course noble Lords would expect me to say this, but the priority is Executive formation and getting institutions back up and running. In direct response to the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, of course we need a plan. My noble friend has had a number of round tables with the Northern Ireland political parties in recent weeks, and I fully expect those to continue shortly. So we are engaging and doing everything possible to try, alongside negotiations with the EU, to talk to political parties in Northern Ireland with a view to ensuring that, should we be successful in our discussions with the EU, we can bring about the restoration of the institutions that most of us in this House want to see. On that note, I draw my remarks to a close.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Caine]

That the Bill be now read a third time.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

My Lords, I thank once again all noble Lords who have participated this evening. I place on record my sincere gratitude and thanks to the Northern Ireland Civil Service for the way in which it has co-operated with His Majesty’s Government, and to my own officials in the Northern Ireland Office for their incredible hard work in putting together a budget for Northern Ireland in these very difficult circumstances. I am sure I speak for the whole House in hoping that we will not have to be in this position ever again.

Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Lord Caine Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading
Tuesday 7th February 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Caine]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)]

My Lords, before I begin my comments on the Bill itself, I once again place on record my gratitude to your Lordships for considering this important Bill on a heavily truncated timetable. I recognise that we should be doing so only in exceptional circumstances. As I go through my remarks this evening, I hope noble Lords will agree that this Bill meets, and indeed goes beyond, that high threshold.

In moving this Second Reading, I once again speak with a strong sense of disappointment. At the Second Reading of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Bill 2022, I said:

“No Government would want to be in the position in which we find ourselves today. It is clearly not a satisfactory state of affairs.”—[Official Report, 5/12/22; col. 22.]


That sentiment still applies as I stand before your Lordships this evening. It is also a sentiment shared, I would venture, by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and my noble friend Lord Dodds of Duncairn, who have tabled regret amendments to the Second Reading Motion. With their permission, I will not seek to pre-empt what they might say when they come to speak to their amendments. Instead, I will endeavour to listen carefully to what they say and respond in my wind-up speech later on.

The Government are bringing forward this legislation because Northern Ireland has been without a fully functioning Executive since February 2022 and without a fully functioning Assembly since after the May Assembly elections in the same year; as a result, it has not been possible to set a budget. His Majesty’s Government stepped in shortly after 28 October last year, when Northern Ireland Ministers formally left their posts, and we subsequently worked with the Northern Ireland Civil Service to set a budget for 2022-23. I place on record my gratitude to those in it for all their hard work.

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and I set out the budget allocations for each Northern Ireland department in a Written Statement which I placed before your Lordships’ House on 24 November 2022. The purpose of this Bill is to put those allocations on a legal footing. Setting this budget was not an easy task. Northern Ireland departments and Ministers who were, up until 28 October, in post had not been operating within confirmed spending limits and had not implemented plans to deal with looming overspends. As a result, we found ourselves facing an unenviable £660 million black hole in the finances—subsequently reduced, through discussions and agreement, to £330 million.

In facing this situation, we have, in what I would describe as the best traditions of a one-nation Conservative Government, prioritised spending on health and education, with an overarching objective of protecting the most vulnerable. This budget therefore increases education spending by just under £300 million and delivers a £786 million increase on non-Covid-related health spending. I suggest that these are not insignificant sums. We are acutely aware of the difficult decisions that now have to be taken in relation to health and education, and right across the spectrum in Northern Ireland, to live within this budget but the Government believe that, in the very challenging and difficult circumstances in which we find ourselves, it is a fair outcome.

Clearly, consideration will now need to be given to a sustainable and strategic budget outlook for the financial year 2023-24. If the Executive have been restored in time to set a budget for 2023-24, the UK Government will continue to work constructively with executive Ministers, including on a sustainable budget that delivers for the people of Northern Ireland and supports economic growth. However, if the Executive have not been restored, we are working closely with the Northern Ireland Civil Service to prepare for next year’s budget. I assure the House that the Government’s priority for that Budget will be to deliver a fair outcome for all taxpayers and citizens in Northern Ireland.

The pressures on Northern Ireland’s finances did not arise overnight. Many noble Lords will recall that both the Stormont House and fresh start talks in 2014 and 2015 were, in large part, driven by the need to deal with the Northern Ireland Executive’s finances. The Northern Ireland (Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan) Act 2016 included provisions to introduce further transparency around the budgetary process, including requiring the Finance Minister to set out how any draft budget would not exceed the money allocated to the Executive from the UK Government. Despite this, the Government still inherited a budget halfway through the year with, as I said earlier, a projected overspend of some £660 million, reduced to some £332 million following work between my officials and the Northern Ireland departments. Notwithstanding that, the situation is still, however, unacceptable and the unsustainability of Northern Ireland’s finances cannot continue.

I should point out that there are some who would have us believe that the main problem is that the UK Government have somehow starved Northern Ireland of cash. I would of course strongly refute that argument. Spending per head in Northern Ireland is already the highest of any region in the United Kingdom. In the spending review of 2021, which set the block grant for three years, Northern Ireland received record levels of financial support—the highest since the restoration of devolved government in 1998-99. Funding per head in Northern Ireland is some 21% higher than the United Kingdom average.

It would therefore be simplistic in the extreme to say that the issues facing Northern Ireland as we stand here today are simply down to a perceived lack of money. Rather, the difficulties in which Northern Ireland departments now find themselves are the result of difficult decisions not being taken—not just this year, but in successive years before it. I would add that that situation was of course not helped by the lack of a functioning Executive and Assembly between 2017 and 2020. The Bill before the House will place the budget that I outlined on 24 November last year on to a legal footing. It will allow departments and other listed public bodies to continue to deliver public services into the first half of the 2023-24 financial year, through a vote on account.

I turn briefly to the individual clauses. Clauses 1 and 2 will authorise Northern Ireland departments and other specified public bodies to use resources amounting to £26,656,975,000 in the year ending 31 March 2023. This includes cash items such as payment of salaries, the purchase of goods and services, and investment in the construction of new capital assets, as well as non-cash items such as the depreciation of existing assets and making provision for future liabilities. Of that total sum, £24,242,000,000 is authorised for current purposes and around £2.5 billion is authorised for capital purposes.

Clauses 3 and 4 will authorise the Northern Ireland Department of Finance to issue nearly £21.5 billion out of the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund for this financial year. This is a lower figure than the resources authorised in Clauses 1 and 2 because departments do not require cash for depreciation costs, provisions and other non-cash items.

Clause 5 will authorise temporary borrowing by the Northern Ireland Department of Finance, up to approximately half of the sum issued out of the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund under Clause 3. This is a normal safeguard against the possibility of a temporary deficiency, and any borrowing authorised under this clause is to be repaid by 31 March this year.

Clause 6 will authorise Northern Ireland departments and other listed bodies to use the income they receive from the specified sources listed in part 3 of their Schedule 1 estimate. The authorisations in Clauses 1 to 6 supersede previous authorisations in the Budget Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 and other legislation. In order to give effect to that, Clause 7 allows the authorisations in the Bill to be treated as having effect from the beginning of 1 April 2022.

Clauses 8 and 9 authorise the use of resources by Northern Ireland departments and other listed bodies amounting to some £17.5 billion over the course of the financial year ending on 31 March 2024. Of that total, nearly £16 billion is authorised for current purposes and around £1.5 billion is for capital purposes. The authorisation for this is a vote on account at 65%, to allow public services to continue to be delivered into the first half of the next financial year. This is greater than usual: 65% instead of 45%. The vote on account does not imply the setting of a budget for 2023-24; its purpose is to allow the use of resources to ensure that services can continue to be delivered, pending the consideration of a budget Bill for the full financial year.

Clauses 10 and 11 authorise the Northern Ireland Department of Finance to issue just over £14 billion out of the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund during that period. Clause 12 authorises temporary borrowing by the Northern Ireland Department of Finance. Just as borrowing during the current financial year must be repaid before the end of the current year, any borrowing during the next financial year under this clause must be repaid in full before 31 March.

Clause 13 provides for the Bill, if passed, to have the same effect as if it were a budget Act of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Clauses 15 and 16 are minor and consequential.

I will make a short statement on legislative consent. Clearly, we have been unable to secure a legislative consent Motion from the Northern Ireland Assembly given that it is currently not sitting—indeed, if it were, I would hope we would not have needed the Bill at all. But the continued absence of the Assembly and the Executive means that we have been left with no other option but to take action here.

I express my thanks again for the ongoing hard work of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, which now has a responsibility to ensure that Northern Ireland departments live within the budget limits set out in the Bill. I recognise that this is not easy and will require difficult decisions. People in Northern Ireland rightly expect to see those decisions taken at Stormont, and I agree with them. I state again my continued disappointment that, as a Government, we are having to step into Northern Ireland affairs and intervene in this way. I look forward, as I think do noble Lords across the House, to the restoration of the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly at the earliest opportunity. However, until a functioning Executive return, the Bill will allow public services to continue functioning and help to protect public finances in Northern Ireland. I therefore commend it to the House.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Lord Caine Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 31st January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, for bringing forward these amendments, which I think are very helpful. However, she said earlier—the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, referenced it as well—that while many in your Lordships’ House, perhaps everyone, think that this Bill is not fit for purpose and should not be brought, there is an obligation on us to do what we can to improve legislation. That is our role, and I think her amendments today and the way in which she has spoken to them illustrate that sharply.

They are a very helpful amendments because surely at the heart of any investigation is access to information. I was struck by the noble Baroness’s comment about there not being clarity if there is a test or qualification about getting that information, as it can take longer, be more expensive and does not do the job that this clause is probably intended to do.

As we know from other Troubles-related investigations, relevant information can be held by different authorities and different agencies. One of the things that the commission—I say that to save having to go through the initials and stumble over them—will have to do is access that information quickly if it is to gain as complete a picture as possible. I will be interested to hear what the noble Lord has to say and hope that he will view the amendments sympathetically when he comes to respond.

I understand the reasons the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, has put forward the amendments about the affirmative resolution. I think there is a general issue about government regulations; they seem to be heavily weighted. If we were to look at a chart of how many decisions are made or how much legislation can be done by secondary legislation, I think we would see quite a sharp incline in recent years. It is not a big leap from a negative to an affirmative procedure; it just guarantees that it will come before both Houses. But these are quite big issues. If something cannot be in the Bill, and if there are reasons why it has to be done by regulation, then it seems perfectly reasonable to have the affirmative procedure. Will that be enough, given that, as we all know, statutory instruments are an adequate of way of legislating when everything is set out first in the primary legislation? As I understand it, this is about looking at individual cases. I hope the Minister can give some reassurances on that. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, has done the Committee a service by bringing forward these amendments today.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to those noble Lords who have put forward these amendments. In responding, I am conscious of the experience in these matters of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, both in her role as police ombudsman and in the subsequent investigations and reviews that she has carried out.

The noble Baroness’s Amendments 37, 40, 191 and 197 aim to redefine the disclosure requirements of certain relevant authorities by, as she pointed out, creating a new tier of “special relevant authority”. This would mean that any authorities left in the “relevant authority” category, such as the ombudsman or the chief constable of the PSNI, would be required to disclose all material to the ICRIR regardless of whether or not it is reasonably required, while certain other agencies, such as MI5 and MI6—the Secret Intelligence Service—would be able to rely on the provisions as drafted, being required to provide information only where reasonably required.

The Government’s view is that the amendments are unnecessary, as we are clear that the disclosure provisions in the Bill already go further than ever before in statute in terms of putting relevant authorities under a duty to disclose information if it is reasonably required by the commission for its investigations.

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

I thank the Minister for giving way; I know that it is late. I just want to let him know that, as police ombudsman, I had a power to require information. There was no requirement of reasonableness in the requests; clearly, the requests were reasonable, but there was no requirement for them to be so. This is a new requirement.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I totally accept what the noble Baroness says about her experience as police ombudsman; I think that it has been less straightforward in the case of information from other bodies over the years. That is why the Government have placed this obligation on bodies to disclose information, which goes further than ever before. Indeed, the provisions directly mirror those included in the draft legislation to give effect to the 2014 Stormont House agreement, so they have been around for some time, certainly in draft form.

The noble Baroness will be aware that “reasonableness” is not a term created or policed by the Government. It is widely used and understood; it is included in other legislation, such as the Finance Act 2008; and it has a specific purpose in terms of creating obligations on others to provide information. The law requires all public bodies to exercise their powers reasonably and proportionately. It is open to authorities to challenge an assessment of reasonableness, of course, but our expectation is that the ICRIR would request the information only if it were reasonably required for the purposes of discharging its functions, so any challenge would be likely to fail if the commission followed this practice. Ultimately, it will be for the courts to decide whether the commission has acted reasonably in any case.

On Amendments 39 and 185, which would add to the list of individuals who may be required to assist the commission in handling information that they have disclosed under Clause 5, the Government are confident that all relevant individuals are already listed in the legislation. However, I am happy to take that away and look at the clause again.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, pointed out, Amendment 145 in her name—I welcome her to our debates—would require regulations regarding the retention of biometric material under Clause 31 to be made by the affirmative rather than the negative procedure. I assure her that the Government take their international obligations in this area—and in other areas, I hasten to add—very seriously. We are confident that our approach to the retention of legacy biometrics, if I can use that term, is compliant with the relevant European Court of Human Rights rulings in this area.

To remain compliant at all times, the commission will need to carry out regular, periodic reviews of the data that it retains for the purposes of its investigations, as set out in Clause 31(2)(a). This will of necessity involve the commission making decisions regarding the deletion or retention of certain data based on strict proportionality criteria that we will outline in secondary legislation. We feel that the negative procedure will provide an appropriate level of scrutiny for a power such as this, that is very limited in scope in the sense that it exists solely to ensure ECHR compliance in this area through the appropriate management of biometric material retained by the commission. The regulation-making power ensures that the commission retains only a limited category of biometric material in prescribed circumstances, for a limited purpose and a limited amount of time, after which it will fall for deletion.

The power allows only relevant biometrics to be retained and used by the commission to ensure there can be effective Article 2 investigations, while also ensuring compatibility with the provisions of Article 8 relating to the right to a private life. It also allows for biometric data no longer needed by the commission to be deleted, again to ensure ECHR compliance. So, in our view the power is proportionate and does not, for example, enable the commission to take new biometric data from individuals, but if the noble Baroness still has concerns about this, again, I am very happy to sit down with her. On that basis, I urge her to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Caine]

84: Schedule 4, page 64, line 39, leave out “£1,000” and insert “£5,000”
Member’s explanatory statement
This increases the maximum penalty for failure to comply with an information notice under section 14 from £1,000 to £5,000.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

My Lords, I plan to be brief. At the introduction, the Bill made provision for amendments to the early release scheme under the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998, with the effect that a person convicted of a Troubles-related offence could, in future, apply for immediate release from prison, regardless of the amount of time served, thus removing even the current two-year minimum requirement. This reflected a focus on reconciliation. But a number of Members in the other place, as the Bill was going through, questioned the rationale behind this approach, arguing that it would not encourage people who may have information to come forward and provide it in seeking immunity. This is a very fair and reasonable challenge, and one which was also raised by a number of interested groups and parties during the engagement that I have been extensively carrying out since the summer. I have therefore carefully reflected on this, and I am pleased to bring forward an amendment that will address this issue and, in the Government’s view, strengthen the Bill. Under these amendments, only certain categories of people will be eligible for the early release scheme in future. These are people who were convicted before the establishment of the Bill’s conditional immunity scheme as well as people who were convicted after it but following a prosecution that began before.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

These are reasonably sensible amendments, but they go only so far. The points made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, are valid and we look forward to the Minister’s reply. If these amendments came to a vote, it is highly unlikely that we would oppose them. It was quite good that the Minister had, for example on Amendment 84, listened to the victims’ commissioner. We look forward to his reply.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful to those who took part in this short debate. By way of a brief response, I disagree on the point about incentives. I have spoken to a number of victims’ groups and political parties that, while they might not like other parts of the Bill, have no issue with this and think it a sensible strengthening of the incentives to co-operate and the disincentives not to.

Having reflected on the earlier versions of the Bill, the Government think it right and proportionate that somebody who chooses not to co-operate with the commission on an investigation, if they are subsequently prosecuted and convicted in the normal way, should face and be liable to a full sentence. In many of the circumstances covered by this legislation, such as the Troubles-related offences, that could mean a sentence of life imprisonment. As a matter of common sense, that would be a stronger incentive to co-operate than an individual perhaps serving two years or no sentence at all. This is a sensible and proportionate change to the Bill which should genuinely encourage people to co-operate. If they do not co-operate, they do so in the knowledge that, if someone comes knocking on their door and they are convicted, they are liable for a lengthy prison term. I withdraw the amendment for now.

Amendment 84 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, having had a long debate, we are now moving at pace. These are interesting amendments. Just as the immunity debate went to the heart of the Bill, in many ways this one does as well. Although we have not seen victims mentioned much in the Bill, it is entitled the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill, and if victims are not at the heart of what we do here, it is hard to see how reconciliation follows. That is what prompted the amendments before us today.

I have said before in this place that one of the most profound experiences I had was as victims and survivors Minister for Northern Ireland, which I did for about two and a half years. There is not a homogenous design whereby you can say, “Victims want this.” Different people have had different experiences, and different things have happened to them in different ways. There is not one experience whereby everyone can say, “Yes, that is how I feel; this is what I want.” They are looking for different things, and that is what makes this so complex and these amendments so important.

As has been noted, some will be saying, “We want justice. We know who is responsible. There should be action.” Others say, “I just need to know the truth. I want to know what happened”, because the agony of not knowing is so great. In some cases, knowing what happened creates additional agony. I remember a discussion where the truth for one individual was going to be awful. They wanted it and needed it, but it was not a pleasant experience for them in any way at all. Others just want acknowledgement that this is what they and their families went through. When we are talking about victims and survivors, one thing that was brought home to us all by those we met during the process of this Bill is that the trauma of what happened can survive several generations. It is not just the individual who has been through the experience of the Troubles; the family can be affected, whether financially, emotionally or physically.

This group of amendments is really helpful and goes to the heart of what the Bill should be about. Possibly the biggest failure of the Government is not recognising that. There have been a lot of warm words for the Minister, and they are well deserved, but he is there to support the Government in defending this Bill and he may be disappointed that only one member of his party is behind him to offer support. We have all been there; it can be a lonely experience on the Front Bench in those circumstances—although I am not sure I have ever been in quite the same circumstances. That is why, if he cannot say tonight that he will accept these amendments, it would do the Government well if he can say what he will bring forward to address the issues that have been raised.

My noble friends Lord Murphy and Lady Ritchie have signed these amendments, which allow family members to provide a victim impact statement as part of the review process. Without that, this will be one of the biggest failures of the Bill—and we have mentioned many tonight.

The Bill allows family members to refer cases and make general representations, but it is not clear what the family member gains from that process. If, as the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, has proposed, the Bill explicitly allows statements and for the proper resourcing of that process, that would go some way towards some resolution of that issue. It would not go the whole way; I think the Bill is so badly drafted and ill-conceived that it cannot address all the issues. The noble Lord made the point that has been made many times today in every part of the Bill: we would not start from here, but as Members of this House we have a duty to do what we can and fulfil our role—though I have been struck by how many of the individuals and organisations that I have spoken to have said they almost feel they are compromising their own integrity by bringing forward and suggesting amendments and changes to us.

I commend my noble friend Lord Hain on the different approach that he has taken. It is not one that I had considered before and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on it. My noble friend is suggesting that we amend the code for prosecutors, and he talks about how that could be done: it would take account of

“the likelihood of the accused re-offending … the time elapsed since the offence … the volume and seriousness of the crime, and … the character and behaviour of the accused since offending.”

The code would have to

“ensure that the views, interests and well-being of victims, and of the families of deceased victims, are considered when determining whether criminal proceedings should be instituted for a Troubles-related offence.”

I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say on that tonight. If he cannot give any satisfaction then I hope he will agree to have further meetings so that we can progress it. It seems to me that this is one of the biggest failings of the Bill, and it is what has caused so much upset and unhappiness among those who will be affected by this legislation.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful to noble Lords. When the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, and my noble friend Lord Morrow were referring to the lack of members of my own party sitting behind me tonight, I could not help but reflect on the famous poster, with which noble Lords behind me at least will be very familiar, from the period of the third home rule Bill, with the caption:

“Deserted! Well—I can stand alone.”

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

Good choice.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

Maybe, like Ulster in 1912, I have no choice.

I appreciate the sentiments behind these amendments. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, referred to the fact that victims groups are not a homogenous group of people. People are looking for different things. She referred to her time as victims Minister. As I have said before, I have probably met more groups over many decades than any person, certainly any politician, who does not live in Northern Ireland.

Yesterday was the 51st anniversary of the events of Bloody Sunday. I vividly recall that, a few weeks after David Cameron responded to the Saville inquiry in June 2010, I went with the then Secretary of State to the City Hotel in Derry, where we met members of the Bloody Sunday families. It will not be any surprise that they did not all speak with one voice. Some of them thought that what had happened with Saville and David Cameron’s response was fantastic: “We can now move on and get on with the rest of our lives”. Others said to us, “It was fantastic, we really appreciate it, but now we want to see the next phase of this, which is prosecutions”. I have referred to the later time when it came to taking a decision on that. Another group—by far the smallest—said to us, “Well, the Saville inquiry did not finger Edward Heath, Brian Faulkner or the military top brass and so on, therefore it’s a whitewash and, 12 years and £200 million later, we need another inquiry”. So I was struck that, even on an issue such as that, where most people suggest that the Government got it right in June 2010, not everybody was satisfied and people wanted different outcomes.