Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Lord Bew Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 15th July 2019 Lords Chamber

There are many innocent victims living under great hardship. It is about time—it is long overdue—that they got this reward, this pension, to help them, with many of them in their latter days.

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I support with as much strength as I can the amendment and the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and his colleagues in speaking to it. He has argued the case with unparalleled eloquence and persistence. I add my thanks to the Minister for the care that he has constantly given to this matter.

I want to pick up on a point mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Hain and Lord Cormack: the absence of nationalist representation in our Parliament. I completely accept that that has been given sharper relief by the absence of the SDLP from the other place. I am chair of the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and I am well aware of the problem. He is aware of how complicated and difficult it is and of the pressures involved in sorting it out, but I wanted to reassure him that I am well aware of this complex and difficult problem. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that I understand that it is thrown into sharper relief by the absence of the SDLP from the other place.

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hain, on his persistence in this matter. I am also encouraged that the Minister said last week at Second Reading that there would be no risk of a person receiving a pension if an act was carried out by his or her own hand. The criminal injuries legislation, if applied to this, would ensure that that did not happen. However, there is perhaps a risk with people’s relatives. Whatever we do, let us be absolutely clear that the language of the legislation clearly reflects Parliament’s intention; otherwise, somebody will JR the thing and the whole process will become discredited. That is my major worry. With that qualification, I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hain.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Lord Bew Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 10th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I support the Bill, but I have to say—I have said similar things on previous occasions—with a heavy heart. There is a sentence that is very worrying in the report of our own Constitution Committee:

“The Bill effectively perpetuates the stasis in Northern Ireland governance”.


It is an accurate sentence, but one that should give us all deep cause for concern—I know it does the Minister. However, there is no alternative to the Bill: I think we need to say that we need extra time and it is an attempt to gain extra time for talks on devolution, but there are other things to say.

In the other place, there were two significant amendments—Conor McGinn’s and Stella Creasy’s—and I want to indicate my support for those. I am of the view that, historically speaking, the broad tendency of the union has been to provide a better social and economic life for the people of Northern Ireland and a more broadly liberal life than would otherwise be the case. I am absolutely certain that in the not trivial matter of standards of living of ordinary people, working-class people in particular, the union has delivered massively throughout the last century. I have no doubt about that, or that the broad approach and the underlying positive operation of the union tends to be broadly progressive. I find it very hard, if we believe that, then to say, “Oh, I am not happy with what happened in the House of Commons in these two amendments”.

I realise the difficulties, and the Minister has left us in some doubt—I understand why—as to exactly what is going to happen, but I think something significant happened with those two amendments. However, I also want to say something else, particularly in response to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Morrow. I agree with him that the tone of much that was said on this subject in the Commons yesterday was unfortunate. I think it was Palmerston who talked about the English public in a fit of morality being a not particularly pleasant sight, and that is even true of the British liberal public in a fit of morality.

I think people should stop and remember something, and in this case I refer to the record of the noble Lord, Lord Morrow. For example, because of the stronger, if you like, Christian—one might say Christian conservative —impulse in its politics, Northern Ireland has led the way on human trafficking as an issue, very much in response to the work that the noble Lord put in in the Northern Ireland Assembly. If you talk about laws on prostitution, which is a fundamental question if we are talking about the status of women in our society, again you can argue very clearly that Northern Ireland has led the way. This is because of the stronger Christian impulse in the polity, if you like, and some of those Christians are going to be offended by what the Commons did yesterday.

I do not think that the absolute certainty of moral tone was appropriate. I believe it was the right thing to do—I have no doubt about that—but there was a certain priggishness and a dismissal of the attitude of the elected Members, which made those of us who actually supported the amendments very queasy as we watched that debate yesterday. It will produce a reaction in Northern Ireland that will not be helpful to the return of devolution. However, I still think that the other place did the right thing.

I want to encourage the Minister in his discussions. I am reluctant to mention the Good Friday agreement because it is so often exploited—most recently by Michel Barnier, who famously told the Irish Government, in a well-reported incident, to use it against Her Majesty’s Government in their negotiations. It is not an agreement that he understood, and in fact the Good Friday agreement is fundamentally incompatible in many respects with the clear negotiating objectives that the EU had at that point. So I am very reluctant to invoke the Good Friday agreement, but the time when that multiparty agreement was voted in—not signed—was a period of direct rule. The agreement says that Her Majesty’s Government have responsibility in the period, before an Assembly is set up and running, not just for making sure that the economy functions well and with stability but for measures of “social inclusion”. What we are talking about here, and what happened in the Commons yesterday, are essentially measures of social inclusion. I advise the Minister to look back—reluctant though I am to invoke the agreement, which has recently been so misused in the debate—at that passage on what the UK Government should do when preparing for the hoped-for return of devolution.

Also discussed yesterday by Dr Lewis and others were the very interesting issues of legacy—the noble Lord, Lord Empey, was quite right to say that it is a vital issue—and the statute of limitations. Later on today, my noble and right reverend friend Lord Eames will support, as I do, the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, who cannot be in his place this afternoon, supporting the WAVE Trauma Centre and the victims in that respect. I indicate my support for my noble and right reverend friend and the noble Lord, Lord Hain.

We must start chipping away at the way in which the past keeps a firm grip on Northern Ireland. We have got to move this forward. I was a friend, as many in this House were, of Maurice Hayes, a very distinguished public servant in Northern Ireland. In one of his last speeches in which he addressed this issue, I remember he said, “We are in a situation now where we have to say to the people of Northern Ireland, with respect to the way in which there is an endless grievance culture endlessly replayed, ‘Lift up your bed and walk’, as Christ said to Lazarus, and we have to start saying this quite soon”. There has to be a break.

However, it is not just the people of Northern Ireland who need a break in mentality. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Empey, that the Northern Ireland Office needs one too. Here I am sympathetic. It is totally natural for the NIO to be focused, under the terms of the Good Friday agreement, on the return of devolution. Most of the energy now is hope, hope, hope—will they do a deal or not? They will not do a deal in short order. Nothing that was said in the other place by people who are obviously participating in the talks would give you the slightest hope that they were going to do a deal in short order. I personally believe that Stormont will return within the year, but I am also pretty sure that the Minister will be back again soon asking for more time. We now need to break with this desperate asking for more time; we need to accept the fact that we are moving into active, interventionist direct rule. That is what is happening.

We need to be honest about that and then think about what we might do on these questions of legacy and all the other things that plague us from the past. Indeed, let us talk about the Irish language. It may be that the parties cannot put together a deal on that. On the other hand, in the St Andrews agreement the responsibility clearly lies—or you could argue it does—with the United Kingdom Government. The language around the St Andrews agreement on that points towards producing a moderate “Irish Language Act”, one that a large section of the community could live with.

The Minister, who has worked so well on so many of these issues, instead of stumbling along and coming back here in a few months’ time to say, “Oh dear, we have got the same thing. Give me another few months, and then in a few months’ time another few months”, should recognise that this has gone on too long. We need to start trying to clear away some of the clutter, which will make it easier in the end; if the parties cannot clear it away, we need to start doing so in this House, but not in a way that is one-sided. That is where the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, is quite right. You cannot do it on the basis of, “Let’s look at what is bothering Sinn Féin”. A range of issues are bothering both sections of the community. We need to start clearing away the clutter in an even-handed way.

In that respect, I urge a break in the way that the NIO thinks about things. I remind noble Lords of the ghastly sentence I began with—that this “perpetuates the stasis”. I know the Minister is far more ambitious than that, but to come back another three months from now perpetuating the stasis is not a policy.

Northern Ireland: Inter-party Talks

Lord Bew Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

No stone will be left unturned in the effort to secure a restored Executive. The talks going on now are conducted in the most positive of times. It is important that, during this period, we make hay while the sun shines.

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, one thing delaying progress in these talks is uncertainty about the outcome of the judge-led inquiry into the renewable heating scandal. Is the Minister in a position to give any information on when the judge will finally report? All parties are waiting to see what the fallout will be before they commit themselves further in the talks process.

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The noble Lord raises a question to which I do not have the answer, but when I have it I will ensure that he and the rest of the House know exactly when the report will be published.

Devolved Administrations: 20th Anniversary

Lord Bew Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, this has been a very happy birthday party so far. I am almost reluctant to admit that 20 years ago I wrote a lead piece for the Spectator that was pro devolution but worried about some of the ways in which it might develop. In view of that, I stress that I am a strong supporter of devolution and was a strong supporter of the Good Friday agreement before it became quite the fashionable cause it has become, and I recognise that we need to have devolution in the United Kingdom. I absolutely take the points made very powerfully by the noble Baroness, Lady Bryan, about the promotion of women in politics—devolution has been a very positive thing in Scotland—and by the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, on social care in Wales. None the less, as we have had quite a happy party, I want to draw attention to some of the less successful aspects of devolution, particularly in my own part of the United Kingdom—but I will talk a little about Scotland and Wales as well.

One of our 19th-century monarchs famously said that Catholic emancipation in 1829 was one of those issues on which all the fools and bigots had turned out to be right and all the intelligent wise men had turned out to be wrong—by which he meant that Catholic emancipation had not solved the Irish question and that Irish nationalism continued to be a very troublesome issue. It was a perfectly fair royal observation. If noble Lords look at the speeches during the Catholic emancipation debate they will discover all the wise men saying, “If we can only get our heads around this difficult issue, the world will be a vastly better place”. It did not actually really become a vastly better place.

If noble Lords look at the speeches when we decided 20 ago to go for devolution, one theme comes up again and again, in this House and the other place, repeated ad nauseam: “Get our heads around the question of Scottish devolution and I can assure you that Scottish nationalism and the thirst for Scottish independence is dead. Finito. We will never be bored again by the Scottish National Party”. Every wise man and wise woman said that—but it did not turn out to be true. That is why sometimes 19th century kings have a point.

It very important to understand that, if I can say this more darkly, devolution was born out of our failure in this Parliament. In terms of the Celtic regions of the United Kingdom, we ceased to be an imaginative focus for a community. We must always remember that devolution is born out of a central failure. We are making the best of a bad job. It would have been better had we not failed in this way—but we did, and I accept that. It is the only way, and for a long time now I have been a strong supporter of it, particularly in the context of Northern Ireland. However, there is a rosy way of talking about devolution which means that we do not see its darker sides and its weaknesses, and then we are surprised when they turn up in the historical record—or we are surprised that, funnily enough, the SNP did not just go away, despite the appearance of devolution. We have to understand the springs of local nationalisms. Not all of them are easily placated in any given circumstance by any given devolution.

There is a way in which the wise, cultivated mind of the country has tended to deceive itself. The conventional wisdom of every single book of 20th century British history which discusses these matters, without exception, is that the failure by Conservatives and Ulster Unionists to grant home rule meant that Ireland left the United Kingdom, and the failure was responsible for the 1916 rising. Noble Lords can go to our excellent Library and will not find a historian who says anything else.

At this point, you might stop and think, “What does Scotland tell us?” Actually, that one can give devolution and then nationalism becomes even more intense, almost to the point of taking us out of the United Kingdom. I do not wish to insult Scottish nationalism, but the reasons for it, the historical legacy it draws upon, are as nothing compared to Irish nationalism. The poll tax is not the same as the famine; it is as nothing, and yet it almost took us out of the United Kingdom. Therefore, why for so long have we assumed that devolution for Ireland would have solved all the problems? It would not have—Scotland’s history over the last 20 years tells us that.

We want to believe these benign things about nationalism, but it is not always such a benign force, and not always as easily placated as we would like. All of this I say as somebody who now believes that this is a crucial moment in the history of our devolved settlement, because it is undoubtedly challenged by Brexit. There is no question about that. I hope that my friends in Dublin will not hear us—they would get quite a shock. It would cause a lot of indigestion tonight if they thought that they would be acquiring Northern Ireland any time soon—so I hope for their sake they are not paying too much attention to Lords debates.

There is no question but that Brexit is destabilising Northern Ireland, although the extent of that should not be exaggerated. The balance between unionism and nationalism is essentially the same as it was before Brexit—but none the less Brexit has destabilised the place, even if people tend to exaggerate that. It is remarkable to me how little traction Scottish nationalism has gained from Brexit, which is, in many respects, a wonderful issue for it—although that does not mean that the argument is over or closed.

There is no alternative to making this system work. I will simply advocate a slightly more cautious, less starry-eyed way of talking about it. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, rightly said that there are certain things that have flowed from the EU which we have accepted but which are now going to be contentious, precisely because of this. I was in Cardiff this week, at the National Assembly, as chair of the intra-UK allocations review, which is trying to take some of these incoming problems to a better place. I also met with the Welsh Assembly’s environment committee, which is a clear-cut success for Wales. As has been said already, Wales has been ahead of UK policy in this respect and has set a fine example.

However, the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, made a key point about Wales: the numbers and figures for Welsh educational achievement at any level are not impressive. That is putting it very kindly. This is part of the United Kingdom with a tremendous educational tradition. There is a problem with resources, which is also true of Scotland, which also had a tremendous educational tradition, and where again the numbers are not great. One would have thought that devolution in education and health would have been tremendously successful. It is often argued that in smaller countries in Europe the Education Minister can get a grip on what is required in terms of policy, can talk to a lot of headmasters and top people in education and push through a policy. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that a smaller country can get a good education policy going and introduce necessary reforms, but that does not seem to be happening in our devolved areas.

Northern Ireland also has a younger population than the rest of the United Kingdom. Therefore, why, even under devolution, are there longer hospital waiting lists and a general crisis in the National Health Service? Surely it is capable of some local policy-making to deal with the problem, since it does not have the ageing population which explains so many of the problems in the rest of the United Kingdom.

So it is important to retain a degree of balance when talking about devolution. There is no alternative to the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland. Everything that was said by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, was entirely correct, and I particularly support what he said about victims. I have one area of dissent in defence of Her Majesty’s Government, which is that there is a double problem here. You can argue that the Prime Minister does not have a feel for Northern Ireland the way that recent Prime Ministers had, but we also have an Irish Prime Minister who has no feel for it in the way that other Irish Prime Ministers did. It is a double problem. These problems with devolution are not simply our Government’s fault. However, there is more chance of a deal in the next few months. It will not happen quickly, but there is more of a chance, and a new mood. The local government elections clearly showed that there was a better mood and a desire for a return of the Assembly.

However, before we get there, the consequences of the RHI heating scandal will have to be sorted. I will make a couple of observations on this. First, was it really wise for the centre to say, six or seven years ago, “We don’t need a Committee on Standards in Public Life in the devolved areas”? Are we sure that the Nolan principles have been respected more vigorously as a result of that decision in the devolved areas? Does this scandal—however you define it—suggest that the Nolan principles were really taken on board by many of the people in the Northern Irish Government?

Secondly, there is the major reform of the coalition period. The noble Lords, Lord McNally and Lord Lester —and, indeed, Lord Thomas—played a major role in libel law reform. That does not apply in Northern Ireland. The result is that we have a fantastically litigious local political class—our last remaining entrepreneurial activity is libel law. The achievement of the noble Lords was to open up a bias in favour of honest investigative reporting, making it easier to be an honest investigative reporter without being worried about landing up in court for libel—but it did not apply in Northern Ireland.

Is that unconnected with the fact that we had this scandal? Northern Ireland retained the old law, as, under devolution, it was perfectly entitled to do. It is a little example of the way in which devolution is sometimes not very progressive at all, while the things that come from the centre are that little bit more progressive. That is one of the things that stands in the way. The judge-led report will come out next month, and it will have to be cleared out of the way before we see a return of devolution. But there is significantly more chance of a return to power-sharing devolution than there was a few months ago. I think that is widely accepted, even though it is still a difficult path.

Perhaps by the time of the next birthday party for devolution that we have here 20 years from now I would like to see Scottish and Welsh education figures looking a lot better than they do today. That would be a tremendous, positive thing for devolution. As I mentioned, I would also like to see a better record on the health service in Northern Ireland. But above all, I would like Northern Ireland to make the transition from a form of devolved government that is—rightly and inevitably—essentially community psychotherapy in the form of a power-sharing Government, to something else. We will need a transition from that towards a form of devolved government that has as its main principle the objective of good government.

Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) (No. 2) Bill

Lord Bew Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 12th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I support the two Bills and thank the Minister for arranging the briefing from his officials in the Northern Ireland Office yesterday. During that discussion, I was struck by a point already raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, this evening: the possibility of a University of Ulster medical school in Magee. The cost mentioned in yesterday’s meeting was £30 million. I asked officials about the cost of the current inquiry into the Scappaticci affair, which according to press reports has cleared £35 million, but no one knew the answer.

I am here making a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, which is that the expense of these legacy inquiries really mounts up. In principle, at least, obvious social goods for the future of Northern Ireland might be obtained if money was not going in that direction on the dramatic scale it has in the past. The Bloody Sunday inquiry, for which I was proud to be an historical adviser, has cost £200 million and is still going on. At the time of the Bloody Sunday inquiry, I did not believe that we would still be having these inquiries, and there are many more to come unless, somehow or other, we get a grip on this. Otherwise, there will not be a medical school in Magee or many other social benefits in Northern Ireland in future.

I have one more point to make to the noble Lord the Minister. I think he is perfectly aware that Northern Ireland housing associations are restricted in their operation by a definition from the Office for National Statistics. This issue was raised in the other place when the legislation was debated, and on 6 March the Secretary of State seemed to hold out the prospect of legislation, although the situation was not made completely clear. I am pressing the noble Lord on the issue of timing. Can we have action before the summer? I understand that he may need to write to me. This is a way to expand social housing, affordable housing, in Northern Ireland without putting any pressure on the block grant. It would therefore be very helpful if progress could be made in that area.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The night is still young, exactly.

Returning to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Empey. In stressing the notion of the cancer strategy, he placed his finger on one of the more important questions: in the previous Act we set out our ability to offer guidance to civil servants in Northern Ireland but at what point does a civil servant in receipt of information feel he is comfortable to implement it or not? There is no doubt in my mind that there is a strong difference between a civil servant who feels so empowered and a Minister who wishes to move things forward, and there is no point pretending that one is the same as the other. I recognise that a cancer strategy is only as valuable as it is implemented in all its manifest forms, and I also recognise how important that will be.

The noble Lord asked about turning capital funding into resource funding. In the current arrangements there will be £130 million of that, and he is absolutely right that the Treasury has in the past not been overly fond of this approach. This particular approach is one method of trying to balance out that budget, but I recognise that there will be other challenges. He rightly points out that there are enough capital projects in Northern Ireland to keep Northern Ireland busy for some time, which is again why there will be £200 million from the confidence and supply arrangements, focused primarily upon infrastructure. That should in some sense help to recognise how we can balance out these particular aspects.

My noble friend Lord Lexden was very critical, and I accept his criticisms in the spirit in which they were given. We deserve some criticism in this area. We should be doing better, so I will take that on board. Again, he flags up the vital role undertaken by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, which should have a stronger role in all the things which we are discussing. There is no point in having a Northern Ireland Affairs Committee if the only thing it does not discuss is what you are up to in Northern Ireland in this context, so I shall take that on board. He was right also to remind us of the role of Airey Neave, and the tragic circumstances in which he died. There is much to learn from that period about how we can move things forward.

The noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, asked several questions. The first one, which he has touched upon previously, was: has the reform of the council structure had any benefit? I do not have an answer to that but I am going to find one and report it to him directly. He also asked what the role of state aid will be after the point at which we depart. The reality is that the state aid approach will be adopted broadly by a UK-based entity called the Competition and Markets Authority, which will apply common rules. I will write to him with more detail so that I can set out at greater length the information which I am here slightly gliding over the top of.

I hope I have answered the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, so I will glide over the top of those and move on.

The noble Lord, Lord Morrow, like many others, raised the very serious point of scrutiny. I hope we can find a way of doing this differently. This time last year, I somewhat foolishly made a bold promise, which I will not be doing it again, as I have discovered that Northern Ireland is not the place to make bold promises—certainly not as far as I am concerned. However, I believe we need to find a different way of scrutinising. It is right and necessary that the people of Northern Ireland have faith and confidence in the way that their money is being administered, and that is going to be done only if they have genuine confidence. The notion of using expedited or emergency powers creates this sense of emergency, which in itself is self-defeating, so we want to move away from that as best we can.

The noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, asked certain questions on proxy voting. I will chase up the responses tomorrow and ensure that the noble Lord gets them. He read into the record one of the letters from the responsible devolved Minister, reminding us again that all those individuals who have written to each of us about the RHI scheme did so on the basis of very clear, simple, straightforward guidance. They did the right thing, and so it is important that is on the record and part of the wider discussions that, I do not doubt, will follow on from the report which will be published. That echoes the points raised by my noble friend Lord Cormack, and I am pleased he was able to raise the issue of pensions on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, which we should be able to move forward on, once we are receipt of that information from the victims’ commissioner.

The noble Lord, Lord Bew, asked about how much the Scappaticci affair cost. I do not know, but I will find out and report back to him. I hope I was able to give him some comfort on the Derry medical school.

[Lord Bew]

I am also interested in whose budget it comes from.

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I will make sure the letter covers that point as well. On the housing association aspect, I have assurances from my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland that we will find time, and this will move forward as quickly as we can. Whether it will be by the summer will slightly depend upon events, but there will be an ambition to move forward quickly. The longer we delay in moving this aspect forward, the greater the cost to the Exchequer, as the noble Lord will know. If we do not make progress by the end of the financial year, it will have cost us £45 million, which is money we could better spend on a thousand different areas.

The noble Lord, Lord Rogan, reminds us of the challenges we face if we are not able to deliver, and he is right to point out the challenges of a vacuum, and who will fill it. It is a stark reminder, and we are living through that reality now. We need to make sure we can make some progress, because it is too important an issue for it to fall into that particular abyss, from which it will be harder and harder to extricate ourselves.

The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, as ever, brought forward a useful summary, and trenchant criticism, which lands upon us as the Government. It is important that we recognise the issues we have tried to take forward, and how we can improve the way we do business. He asked a specific question about the small towns initiative, to which I do not have an answer, but I will get an answer and I will write to him, lodging my answer in the Library for those who wish to have that information at their disposal.

The noble Lord, Lord Bruce, posed a question on scrutiny, and the noble Lord, Lord Empey, touched on this. The actual spend is scrutinised by the Northern Ireland Audit Office, but there is a difference between scrutinising post facto spend and the other way around. I take that on board, as I hope he will understand. The noble Lord, Lord Bruce, also asked why the flaws in the RHI scheme were not caught earlier. It is a good question, and there have been attempts throughout the process to ameliorate what has become a significant problem. When the scheme was set up, the figures being discussed were in the £20 million range, but when we look at the simple costs now for this scheme, were it to have run the full distance, we would already be at £500 million, which is a significant overshoot. The reason why the judicial review, which is going to appeal and will report soon, found that there should be reform of this is because we need to balance the commitments we make to individual participants in this scheme, and the wider sense of common good and public finances, which are challenging in this regard.

The noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, also raised proxy voting. It is important that we get clarity on this, and I will write to him and will share that information with others.

I think I have answered all the questions I can. If I have not answered particular questions, noble Lords should grab a hold of me, and I will answer them. If I cannot do that, we will arrange a meeting where I can answer properly.

Northern Ireland: Devolution

Lord Bew Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

We are not travelling fast down a road toward direct rule, but it remains one of the options if we are unable to deliver what we believe is the most important outcome: a sustainable Executive. Good governance is clearly the most important aspect of this whole function. On whether my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has initiatives, she has been actively and tirelessly engaged in discussions to try to bring about the early stages of these talks. It has not been easy, but I hope that we will have some progress within the period—I want to correct myself from earlier: it is 26 March and not 23 March. Forgive me.

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, yesterday in the other place the Secretary of State said that on 26 March the context changes. One respect it changes is the possibility of calling an election. The Secretary of State has talked quite a lot recently about a border poll and has successfully annoyed the DUP on that point. However, rather oddly, since the Brady amendment was passed, the DUP and the Government are in the same place as to the way forward in Northern Ireland. Does the Minister accept that one of the prizes if we move in any way successfully on the Brady amendment is that it opens the way for calling an Assembly election in a different context, in which there will clearly not be a hard Brexit? At this point, with the prospect of that, it is too risky, but does he accept that, after 26 March, if things go well in another sphere, serious consideration should be given to the calling of an Assembly election?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I thank the noble Lord for his thoughtful contributions. There is a lot on in that week of 26 March and I am fully aware of how important it will be that we make progress before 22 March on the key aspect of delivering a functioning Executive. He is of course correct that after that point, if we have made progress and are moving through the Brexit process, the world will look quite different, and that is something that I hope will be to the positive endeavour of all the parties in Northern Ireland. He will be aware that the local government elections in May will represent the first test of public opinion, outside of polling, and may give some indication of exactly what we can expect in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Bill

Lord Bew Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 30th October 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Bew]

5: Clause 3, page 3, line 7, at end insert—
“(4A) The Secretary of State must establish an advisory panel which senior officers of Northern Ireland departments may consult in cases where they are required to exercise a function of the department under subsection (1).(4B) If a senior officer consults the advisory panel under subsection (4A), then the senior officer must have regard to the advice of the advisory panel.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, before I speak to the amendment I should like to say that the noble Lord, Lord Hain, is right in his belief that he has my support on the earlier amendment and I am happy to give it. Amendment 5 is about a less emotive matter, but it still addresses a serious question. Noble Lords will have heard, particularly in the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, but also in an allusion just now by the noble Lord, Lord Hay, about the morale at the top of the Northern Ireland Civil Service. It is in a very bad way. Part of the context has already been described by the noble Lord, Lord Empey: the incredible bullying by spads. Of course you hear about bullying by spads in Whitehall but believe me, as someone who knows both worlds, this is a qualitatively different level of bullying. The consequence has been that the Civil Service has lost some of its élan and, to be blunt, self-confidence.

Related to that is the fact that at the beginning of the Brexit crisis the Irish Government, under Enda Kenny, the then Taoiseach, had allowed practical discussions about the border and other questions to go on with Northern Ireland civil servants, but that was then stopped under a new Irish Taoiseach. In fact, the Northern Ireland Civil Service has not had the sort of practical impact on Brexit discussions—even with our own Government, in a weird kind of knock-on effect—that it might be expected to have. When you read that three or four weeks ago Michel Barnier was asking for figures on the trade flows on the island of Ireland—east-west and north-south—your jaw drops because you know that the senior officials at the Northern Ireland Office all know these things just like that but apparently we have been conducting a negotiation with the rather important issue of exactly what is going on in this trade relationship not even known. Perhaps it is not that surprising; there are things at stake in this negotiation other than the actual practicalities of the trade relationships from north to south and east to west, but still they seemed to have disappeared from the scene.

I think, by the way, that this issue has constitutional significance. The NICS has a strong sense of the way in which the Good Friday agreement was established, particularly the notion that if you are going to adhere to the agreement then north-south regulatory arrangements, however they develop, depend on the co-operation and support of the Northern Ireland Assembly. That point is critical: if you are going to defend the Good Friday agreement, you also have to be careful about what is projected in terms of regulatory arrangements north and south, and the Assembly has an effective veto.

We have lost a lot through a lack of morale. It means that when this legislation came down the pipe, officials could be heard rather nervously saying, “I don’t want that authority”, even though, to be absolutely blunt, the Queen’s Government must go on and these decisions are necessary to prevent extreme cases of waste, if nothing else. So it must happen and the Government are right to take the powers. However, in the context in which we are now living, it is right to offer the officials, who strongly suspect that they will be subject to judicial review and all manner of clamour locally about decisions that people do not like, some sort of advisory panel—which might include Assembly Members—as a kind of cushion against some of the pressures that will come their way. It is hard in the current public climate in Northern Ireland to ask a single Permanent Secretary of a given department to, as it were, take on the burden of these decisions on their own because all hell will break loose, even over decisions that we consider the simplest, and the most obvious and clear-cut. There will be calls for judicial review and major public controversies. So there is a case for having some kind of advisory panel so that officials would, in effect, be able to say, “I took the advice of the advisory panel”. That is the case for this amendment, given the current public climate. When the morale of the NICS was somewhat stronger I would not have made it, but let us be clear that everyone knows—the noble Lord, Lord Empey, explained why today—that its morale at the top levels could not now be lower. That is why this is the specific moment at which to advocate this point.

I have one final point. In a slight aside, the Minister talked about the legislation as having been designed to progress public appointments that have lapsed or are not happening. One of those categories is QCs, and I wonder whether the Government have anything to say to clarify their general position on quite rightly wanting to speed up public appointments.

This is essentially a probing amendment and I am strongly in favour of the Bill in general terms. Whatever happens today, though, the Government should be very mindful of the exposed state now of those who head up, as Permanent Secretaries, the individual Northern Irish ministries.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bew, for his thoughtful Amendment 5, and for giving us advance notice of it. I also note the support given to the amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Empey.

I say at the outset that I appreciate the intent—seeking to give Northern Ireland civil servants some further cover. I listened very carefully to the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Bew, of the status quo, especially on the question of morale: that was very much taken note of. I want to assure the noble Lord that we have considered options for providing support in this way to the Northern Ireland Civil Service, and will keep them under review.

The decision-making provisions in the Bill are needed urgently, and while the case could possibly be made that there would be some merit in having advice from an external body such as an advisory panel, the challenges and time commitment associated with setting one up mean that we have opted to proceed without one at this particular stage. I should say also to the noble Lord that my noble friend Lord Duncan and I have spoken in this Chamber before about the burden on civil servants, and I add my voice to the understanding that has been given today about the genuine burden that falls on the Northern Ireland Civil Service.

The amendment, however, causes problems in terms of how such a panel, if mooted, would be constituted: under what authority; how it would operate; and what would happen if it could not agree a position. I am sure that the House will understand those questions and the difficulties involved, again alongside the need for speed and urgency today. We will continue to consider carefully whether Northern Ireland civil servants need further support, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, said, it would have to be temporary. For today I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

I turn to the second amendment in this group—Amendment 13, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Empey—which seeks to direct departments to publish their responses to the Northern Ireland Audit Office. As the noble Lord, Lord Duncan, made clear in his opening speech, the Bill and guidance are not a move to direct rule. To include this amendment in the Bill would introduce a level of formality that we believe is not appropriate and runs too close to directing Northern Ireland departments. That goes against the spirit of the guidance, which is intended to assist departments in deciding whether exercising their functions is in the public interest but does not direct them to take specific actions.

We fully recognise the importance of transparency, which is why the guidance published alongside the Bill seeks to build on the arrangements agreed with the Northern Ireland Civil Service as part of the budget. In addition to Northern Ireland Audit Office reports on budgetary matters, this guidance sets out that all reports and the respective departmental responses will be presented to the Assembly and shared with the Secretary of State, who will promptly lay these in Parliament. This effectively makes them available to the public. The Secretary of State will also now be writing to share these with the Northern Ireland political parties to encourage their scrutiny of all Northern Ireland reports and departmental responses.

The noble Lord, Lord Bew, raised the question of QC appointments. The Bill deals with the bodies that are currently considered to be the most pressing cases. Making the necessary appointments to those bodies is essential to the good governance of vital public bodies in Northern Ireland. The Bill enables the Secretary of State to extend this to other offices by regulation, and we will continue to monitor the situation and assess whether further offices—including QCs—should be included in regulation, which would then be debated by affirmative procedure.

The noble Lord, Lord Empey, raised a point about the RHI inquiry. As the noble Lord says, the inquiry is ongoing, so there is a limit to what I can say on this, as I am sure he will appreciate. However, the House will recall that it agreed legislation earlier this year for external cost-capping regulations to ensure that scheme continuity can be kept. This allows the Northern Ireland department to consult on a way forward to develop options for a longer-term solution.

I hope that this short debate will provide sufficient comfort for the noble Lord, Lord Bew, to withdraw his amendment on the basis that it is already provided for in what we are proposing.

[Lord Bew]

I am happy to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 5 withdrawn.

Good Friday Agreement: Impact of Brexit

Lord Bew Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for securing this debate. I am well aware of his great experience of Northern Ireland and the time that he has given to it.

As a remain voter, I do not find it difficult to accept that the decision to leave the European Union has had destabilising effects in Northern Ireland. There is really no question about that; none the less, I am not sure that they have been carefully defined in this debate, nor has there been any attempt to sketch a way forward, given that this has happened. However, it is not just Brexit; alongside it is a perfect storm of the Irish language, the renewable heating initiative scandal and other issues relating to laws on abortion and gay marriage. All those things have come together in a perfect negative storm. It is not just Brexit but Brexit is the biggest issue and possibly the one that makes it harder to ensure the return of Stormont.

I accept that there needs to be clear evidence that there will be no hard border. I think it is in almost any conjuncture extremely unlikely—almost inconceivable—that there will be a hard border, but we need to have that in place. It needs to be visible for people before we are likely to get Stormont back.

I acknowledge the scale of the difficulty, but we have a way of talking about this that is not totally precise, and there is an ethical balance which is awry. For example, twice in this House today the fact that the DUP did not support the Good Friday agreement has been referred to. Sinn Féin also did not support it on the day. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, was there on that day, and he knows it. The noble Lords, Lord Murphy and Lord Trimble, know it. It did not support it. The agreement came into being in effect as the result of a vote, a decision and an alliance between the Ulster Unionist Party and the SDLP. Sinn Féin brilliantly claimed later that it owned it, but it did not support it on the day, and, without the vote of the SDLP, we would not have had it. We do not owe the Good Friday agreement to Sinn Féin’s vote.

But in this House it is only the DUP that was not there on the day. This indicates a certain sliding of the moral scales as we talk about this. It is a small indication, but an important one. As a matter of substance, just read Sir Jeffrey Donaldson this week. There is no doubt that the DUP has come to terms with the Good Friday agreement in substance—that it had effectively come to terms with it was part of the agreement on supply and consent with the Government. So there is a way of talking about this which skews the balance in a way that is not accurate.

If I may say so, there is no proper way of discussing the impact on the psychology of Northern nationalists, which I accept has been harmful, particularly on the Catholic middle class—perhaps more so than on any other section of Catholic society. The Good Friday agreement allowed people to consider themselves citizens of Europe—possibly evolving towards Irish unity, possibly not—and continuing to enjoy the National Health Service and their pension from London as before. It allowed a very happy set of slightly conflicting assumptions in people’s minds—but people like to live with slightly conflicting happy assumptions in their minds—and it has rather woken that up, because it is a certain type of assertion of the United Kingdom as a separate state, which is a problem. On balance, historically, I support the secret, very tricky—you could say dangerous—negotiations in March 1993 between the Major Government and the IRA. Let me point out to noble Lords the message from the British Government on 23 March, two days after the Warrington bomb which killed children, to the IRA leadership and Martin McGuinness:

“The final solution is union. It is going to happen anyway. The historical train—Europe—determines that. We are committed to Europe. Unionists will have to change … The island will be as one”.


Nobody disputes that this message was actually sent. One can talk about whether it was wise or not—I can understand why it was.

None the less, the truth of the matter is that we are now not committed to Europe. The message is extinct. It is dead. It is an ex-message. That is the reality of where we are now, and life has changed for a lot of nationalists in Northern Ireland who would like to believe that something like that message represents the truth of things. We have to accept that. That is why we have to be very careful to put in counterbalances. For example, I think the British Government should support completely the Irish Government’s recent suggestion that people in Northern Ireland should be able to vote in the Irish presidential election. We need to look at ways of bringing the scales back towards a compromise.

The fundamental choice referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is still there, however. If a majority of Northern Ireland votes to join the Irish Republic, it can so do. That part of the Good Friday agreement is still absolutely in place, and it is accepted now by the European Union that the so-called East German solution is available: if Northern Ireland votes to join the Irish Republic, it will automatically join the European Union. Fundamentally, the glide path that nationalists like to live with for constitutional change of that sort on a democratic basis is still in place and in no way changed by Brexit. It is very important to note that.

The noble Lord, Lord Trimble, rightly made the point that there is not enough discussion in London about the dangers to the Irish economy of a no-deal Brexit. But the clatter in Dublin now is massive. All the think tanks, all the serious economists, all the newspaper headlines, the central bank headlines and ex-ambassadors all say how dangerous a no-deal Brexit would be to the Irish economy. This therefore means that there really is an exceptional impetus on us all to compromise at this point. Regarding the outlines of that compromise, the poorly negotiated transitional agreement of December 8 none the less contains language in paragraphs 49 and 50, and even just in paragraph 49—the European press point out that Michel Barnier always looks slightly ill when paragraph 50 is mentioned, because he does not like it and is trying to wriggle out of it—laying its emphasis on the consent principles. When you are talking about future regulatory change in Northern Ireland, it must be done in a way that protects the Good Friday agreement. You cannot protect it by riding roughshod over the principle of consent as it affects the unionist community.

It seems to me perfectly possible to draw up—as is probably necessary as a fig leaf for the Irish Government—some kind of legal provision, which would, as long as it keeps to the real principles of paragraphs 49 and 50, embody those principles, and be something that we could all live with, as long as we stay on 49 and 50, and not on the later, more fanciful, proposals of March from the European Union. That is a critical thing to bear in mind. The Good Friday agreement was not an agreement—I even used to hear Irishmen talking about it being “signed”, showing that they do not understand what happened—between nationalists and a few human rights lawyers. It was an agreement between nationalists and unionists. It is as simple as that, and the agreement can still be made the basis for a reasonable historic compromise.

Finally on this point, the White Paper, which I know many people dislike, clearly moves substantially towards resolving this question, because of the degree of regulatory and customs alignment it proposes with the European Union. I understand if any noble Lords hate it—I have good friends who intensely dislike it—but it is not possible to say that the Government are not driven by a policy that the Prime Minister says day in and day out that she is pushing in large measure because she thinks it helps to solve the Irish question. It is clear that it effectively removes a number of the possible regulatory, customs-based and other issues that might arise in the short term. It is as simple as that. It may not happen, but there is no question that it is her intent, and there is no question that that is what it would do if we had a deal based on Chequers.

Northern Ireland Executive: Update

Lord Bew Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I always like being asked specific points. I will correct this if I stray from what I understand to be the case, so I ask for a certain tolerance in what I am about to say. Much will depend on the interpretation of the standing orders that the Assembly has constructed and drafted as to whether it can meet in a different formation or formulation. At present that has not happened, but we are having to think afresh. So if there is indeed a role as part of a functioning wider body, which may draw on trade unions, churches or others to bring those voices to bear—whether it meets in a different room or in a different place entirely—none of these things can be dismissed. There needs to be an opportunity for those voices to be heard, but—this is the important point—voices that continue to repeat the worn phrases of the past and bring nothing to refresh the future are no advantage to us in this regard. We need to have new voices with a new focus. If we cannot have that, bringing Assembly voices into it would be a retrograde step—but if they can think afresh, those voices will be welcomed to the wider debate. I will correct that if I am not fully accurate.

[Lord Bew (CB)]

I thank the Minister for reading out the Statement, and I reiterate the points made so forcefully by my noble and right reverend friend Lord Eames. There is great frustration in Northern Ireland about the failure to achieve devolution. The measures being talked about today are an attempt to gently push the line towards devolution. I accept that that is absolutely the purpose. It will not be done tomorrow, but over the next few months there is some chance. It probably awaits the resolution of key questions on Brexit. Everything in the legislation gently helps.

Let me also say something colder and more brutal, which has already been referenced in the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Hain. We are moving towards direct rule by proxy. I do not regret the clarity of this, because people who are holding up devolution need to remember that there is a fantasy life in Northern Ireland politics. I have discussed the Buick case and the judgment with the Minister. I am very unhappy with the legal judgment in that case, but the people of Northern Ireland can live with a situation where the United Kingdom supports the Northern Ireland economy to the sum of £10 billion a year but cannot make any reasonable decisions to prevent extravagant economic waste. That cannot go on for ever, and that is why the House is proposing legislation to deal with that.

Equally, there is legislation about the necessity to call an election in the event of a crisis in the Assembly. That legislation has sat on the statute book and been ignored. We live with the ludicrous anomaly that we have legislation on elections but nobody pays it the slightest attention. At least that has been cleared up, too. So we are doing something a little tough here as well. But, in my view, these moves of necessity towards better administration, which are inevitably taking at least half a step towards direct rule, are important for those who want devolution back, and to make people realise that this cannot go on for ever.

I congratulate the Government on sharpening up realities in the Northern Irish debate.

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The noble Lord is right to recognise what the Statement represents, which is to provide a safe space in which we can focus on the necessary elements of delivering a sustainable Executive. He is right, again, about the gentle push. But I have discovered that it is easier to give a gentle push to things on castors, so you can move them in a real direction rather than continuing to try to shove against resistance. We need therefore to be aware that if people are resisting and pushing back, we will make no progress at all.

It is correct that there is legislation on the statute book with regard to elections. The purpose of the Statement is to reflect on that and create space on which that election will not be called upon. The reality remains the same: if we are unable to deliver during this period, we will have to move very swiftly towards alternatives. Whether the parliamentary arithmetic will change after another election remains to be seen, but if it does not and we find ourselves ever further along that route towards the very thing we are stumbling towards by proxy, which we are trying desperately to avoid, we need to recognise that good governance is borne of those from the Province recognising what is needed.

Whether there is waste that needs to be addressed wholesale, these things must be done by the critical endeavour of those who are elected to do so, with those individuals held to account and, when they are found wanting, voted out. It must be the functioning aspect of any democracy to deliver what should be good governance—and, indeed, what the people of any democracy would wish to have.

Northern Ireland: Legacy of the Troubles

Lord Bew Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, much has been said tonight that is critical of the Government. I think we have to accept one thing: they are in a difficult position. They are caught and linked in to the hard-won Stormont House agreement. At this difficult moment, the Government will not walk away from the only semblance of an agreement between the parties, the Irish Government, and so on. However, we will be where we are now for several months.

The Secretary of State, in talking about the legacy arrangements, has made the point that above all we must promote reconciliation. That is impossible in these particular arrangements. I note, by the way, that one of the key people in the Democratic Unionist Party has already moved away in public from the key paragraph 34 in the legacy section of the Stormont House agreement.

Some movement is now going on. I do not know where the chips will fall, but these arrangements will not bring about any form of reconciliation. I draw the attention of noble Lords to Dr Maguire, the police ombudsman, who is no stooge of the British state. He is causing a great deal of irritation to many people retired from the services. He said recently that we are stuck and are making no progress towards resolution. He makes the very important point that in two of his investigations, in which he decided that there was no collusion, the families would not accept that and could not come to terms with it. It made no difference, so he carried out an investigation. He is well known for being, to say the least, critical of the security forces at times. He says to the families, “Sorry, there is nothing there”, and they do not accept it. Why are we then considering a huge set of institutions to just reproduce this experiment into the future?