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

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 27th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for clearly presenting the elements of the Bill. I identify with the sentiments of sympathy and concern expressed for DCI John Caldwell and his family. I also identify with the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, who pointed out the need to consider not only those who do violence, as was apparently done by people from the so-called “new IRA” in the attempted murder of DCI John Caldwell, but those who threaten violence if they do not get their own way, in particular at the moment on the loyalist side. It is very important for us all in this House and the other place—indeed, all political representatives—to make it very clear, as the community is doing, that neither doing violence nor threatening to do violence is acceptable any more, if it ever was.

That is the sad side, the worrying side, the downside, of today. But, of course, there is a very positive element to this Bill. I want to take the second part of the Bill first, if I may, the so-called Dáithí’s law element. Some of us spend much of a lifetime trying to get a little piece of legislation passed. Young Dáithí, at a very early age, with the support of his parents Máirtín and Seph, and with friends and colleagues such as Fearghal McKinney, as the noble Baroness said, and others, has ensured not only that he is getting legislation passed but getting his name attached to it. That is a remarkable achievement and I hope it presages well for him in the future, making a positive contribution not only on his own behalf but on behalf of many other people as well. He started off life with difficulties, with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, and we all hope he will receive a transplant soon to enable him to be fit and lively and enjoy his life. But he has made a tremendous contribution, by endearing himself to people, by persuading them and by being such an attractive character.

I am delighted, as a doctor who came from Northern Ireland and qualified at Queen’s University Belfast, to see this legislation coming forward. But I am also a little bit sad. We are the last part of the United Kingdom to get this legislation, this so-called opt-out clause that enables us to have more organs for transplant. I am a little sad because it was not always so. One hundred years ago, in 1923, a young girl was born in Lurgan, County Armagh—the town I was born in—and she went on to be one of the world’s leading nephrologists. Her name was Molly McGeown. She qualified in medicine and, like many other women of the time, found it difficult to get an appointment as a consultant because the senior staff said they could not afford to employ people like her, a married woman with children, at that level. It is wonderful how things have changed, although I have to tell your Lordships that my own wife ran into similar problems herself when she was working as a young doctor. But things have changed, and they changed because of people like Molly McGeown. She was absolutely determined to go ahead, and she did. She established the renal unit at Belfast City Hospital; took forward renal dialysis; developed what became known as the Belfast recipe, a particular approach to renal dialysis that massively improved survival rates; developed a renal transplant programme that was of benefit not just to the people of Northern Ireland but way beyond; produced huge numbers of academic papers in her work as a professor at Queen’s University Belfast; and was a star, not just in Northern Ireland, not just in the NHS, but across the world.

So there was a time when we were able to lead things. Now, we find ourselves coming in behind the rest of the United Kingdom. It does not have to be like that, but part of the reason it is, is the political difficulties and stalemate. It is not that the legislation was not approved and passed by the Northern Ireland Assembly, or that politicians in Northern Ireland did not want to see such legislation. Of course they did, and they passed it, but other political difficulties supervened, and it got held back.

I hope that on this auspicious day, we are able to look forward to substantial progress, which takes us to the second part of my speech and the first part of the Bill: the difficulties of establishing an Executive and, because of that, the Assembly itself being in suspension. There were other, political ways that protests could have been made against what people did not want to see with the Northern Ireland protocol. It did not have to involve the suspension of the Assembly and the Executive, and everything that went with it. That this House is having to pass Dáithí’s law here shows just what a disaster it is for the people of Northern Ireland to have elected representatives but not be able to pass their own legislation—that it has to be done here and be delayed. I desperately hope we can move forward, and quickly.

When I heard about the Bill and the talk of a delay of another 12 months, my first reaction was for my heart to sink and I thought, “Oh, my goodness, another year waiting around for things to move forward”. But I often try to look on the bright side and I began to think, “Wait a minute, the Prime Minister may have something here. He may know perfectly well that he is not that far from an agreement; he may also know that that agreement might not be immediately accepted by some of those who have been negative about the Northern Ireland protocol; and he may well be creating a bit of space and time where it is possible for them to find their way towards supporting it”. Maybe some of them want to get to the other side of the local government elections before they will give support to it, or maybe there are some discussions that they need to have internally. Whatever the case, creating that space may give an opportunity for a positive result. I hope that that is the case.

I look at friends and colleagues on the other side of the Chamber and I very much hope that they will use their best offices and realise that if Northern Ireland’s Assembly is not put in place, and power devolves back to London, it will not be exercised by London alone: it will be exercised by London in collaboration with colleagues in Dublin. Therefore, I think we have to be thoughtful about the future and about the prospects, and I very much hope that they and their colleagues will find it possible to move quickly. We do not want to wait another 12 months until good legislation such as this is passed at the Northern Ireland Assembly, where it ought to be passed. We want to see it happening quickly, for the betterment of all the people of Northern Ireland.

So, I congratulate the Minister and his colleagues, especially today, on trying to take things forward in Northern Ireland and I very much hope that all of us, together, whatever our differing perspectives, can find ways of ensuring that Northern Ireland legislation is done, as much as possible, in Northern Ireland by the elected representatives there, for the betterment of all the people. Young Dáithí has given an example to us that the people who attacked John Caldwell can never give, because he has pointed a positive way forward for all of us and the next generation.