Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointment Functions) Regulations 2019

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Monday 18th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I operate in this House on one principle above all: to agree with everything that my noble friend Lord Empey says. I am happy to adhere to that principle again today.

I have three specific points that I want to raise on this instrument. First, it reaches us just days before a new Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People needs to be appointed. Why was the instrument not brought forward earlier? Secondly, the instrument specifies, as my noble friend has said, six appointments deemed to be critically important. What criteria were used to establish which appointments are critical and which are not? My third and final point follows from that and concerns offices not deemed to be of critical importance. What is to happen to them? Are they to remain vacant when their current holders reach the end of their term, pending the restoration of devolution, which today seems but a distant hope?

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

I think that the noble Lord, Lord Empey, was concerned with sins of omission rather than commission in terms of the content of the statutory instrument. He raises the point that effectively we are going on and on in this limbo of democratic nihilism, if I can call it that, having to institute ad hoc measures as and when necessary to fill the gap in the absence of real political initiatives. I presume that the Minister will be back here in less than five weeks, when the first term of the 2018 Act expires, because it is difficult at the moment to see that we are going to be in a position to restore the Assembly by the end of March—I do not believe that anybody would think that at all likely. So the question that arises is: what practical steps are the Government going to take to ensure that we do not get to the end of March, let alone the end of August, without having got to a position where functioning decision-making by the elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland can return? I am sure that the Minister does not find it comfortable to come to the House and say, “Please allow me the right to nominate these particular posts”. However, perhaps he could say something about Friday’s meeting, which I gather lasted 90 minutes. I am not aware that any specific proposals were on the table, which has not been well received.

I hope, from the Minister’s point of view, that the Government have started to think about what they can do to break the deadlock. The Minister will not be surprised to hear me say that a Secretary of State in a UK Government who are propped up by a hard-line unionist party in Northern Ireland is likely to find the perception of her office somewhat compromised in Northern Ireland. I repeat what my colleagues have said on numerous occasions: is it not time to find some independent authority that might bring parties together and start to identify what it would take to break the deadlock and get things back to normal?

Therefore, my specific questions on this statutory instrument—somewhat along the lines of what the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, said—are, first, what were the criteria that made these urgent, and what other appointments are coming down the track that may require us to be back here in the very near future? Secondly, much more to the point, what assurances can we have that there is any reasonable momentum to try to ensure that we get the political process back, or will we have either to impose direct rule—which I think many of us would regard as a disastrous failure—or institute new elections? Nobody is particularly happy about that either, but it may be the only way to unlock the democratic logjam.

The Minister is always entirely and highly constructive, conciliatory and thoughtful—if I may say so, I would rather he was in charge of the talks; if that was the style we might make more progress. It is important to try to find out what the real obstacles are, not the synthetic ones that have been put up, and how we can build, through trust, a means of getting these decisions away from this Parliament and back to the Assembly, where they belong.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Empey, on his consistency on the issue he has raised and on the fact that he is completely right—a pretty powerful combination. Are the Government cherry picking what they are seeking to do? I know that “cherry picking” is now a fashionable expression, but it seems that the Government are cherry picking appointments. What about other appointments? Why have these ones been selected—is there a particular reason for it? Also, what about the functions to be carried out by these appointments? Are there any constraints on how these individuals can carry out their functions, given that there are serious constraints on how government departments in Northern Ireland can carry out their functions?

The whole position seems extremely illogical. We need an indication of progress—I endorse the comments that have been made. Surely the time has come, not just for the Secretary of State to say that she is doing her best—I am sure she is—and for the Minister to say that he is sure that the Secretary of State is doing her best, but to have a new initiative on knocking heads together and bringing the parties together. Surely an impartial umpire/facilitator is needed. Let us get on with making that appointment, then we can have some progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

My Lords, as with other debates on Northern Ireland, this is one of two halves. I will focus on the first half, which concerns the instrument itself and some elements of it, and then move on to the wider issues which have been raised.

My noble friend Lord Lexden asked a number of questions to which I will attempt to provide answers. The first thing to emphasise is that the appointments have been identified by the Northern Ireland Civil Service. The principal criterion for that identification was obviously timing. My noble friend is absolutely right to say that this should have been brought before the House earlier, but we have to bring all the measures together. I accept my noble friend’s first point and apologise to him: they should have come forward earlier.

The second point concerns when the broad functioning elements of the boards become, if you like, out of kilter with the membership. There needs to be a recognition of the balance of the members on the individual boards themselves. A number of the appointed chairs and vice-chairs have reached the end of their terms, which in itself creates the need to move forward. Some have indicated their intention to accept an extension, and that is the likely outcome. However, again, the key aspect has been identified by the Northern Ireland Civil Service, not by Ministers in the Northern Ireland Office. It is our intention to do so only as far as the legislation allows, in order to move the situation forward in that regard, following the detailed advice we have received. There may be other information I can provide and if so I will make sure that it is conveyed to my noble friend directly and shared more widely. I have no desire to keep secrets on this issue.

My noble friend is also correct to say that there will be others unless we resolve this matter. In answer to the question, “Which others?”, it will be all the others, frankly, unless we can get this moving. Every appointment will be done in this way until we actually have a functioning Executive. I am not trying to exaggerate the case or make it seem worse than it is, but that is the reality of where we are. Until there is an Executive, this legislation will allow us to move forward with each appointment that is required. While it is true to say that we may think that some are more important than others, all of them are important to the good functioning of governance in Northern Ireland, be it those I have iterated today or those that will be need to be iterated in the future, should we not make progress on an Executive. Perhaps that is a rather dispiriting answer, but it is the correct one.

Before I turn to the broader elements, I should say that I welcome the support of the House for the instrument, which is a necessary one and will help in the functioning of these bodies. I was anticipating a broad discussion, so perhaps I may say this. On Friday of last week all the parties gathered together in Northern Ireland. It was the first time that that had happened in more than a year and it was an attempt to move things forward in a fashion which would ultimately lead to the creation of a sustainable Executive. Noble Lords may have read about the outcome of that meeting. It was not wholly supported by the Sinn Féin party, which has made its points very clear in the newspapers, which your Lordships are more than at liberty to read. I was saddened to read those reports but they are a matter of public awareness. That is not good and there is no point in pretending otherwise.

The Northern Ireland Office had hoped that, using this, we would be able to see the steps which could be taken to bring about the very things that the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, has put to us. He mentioned the notion of an independent facilitator. Like my noble friend Lord Cormack, I do not like the term either, but I accept that it is one we are using at the moment. I also recognise the need to think outside the traditional, such as, “Let us always meet in the same office space”; rather, we should be thinking of new places. I had hoped that out of these gatherings a clear timetable would emerge to bring about those very things, and to be able to stand before noble Lords today repeating a Statement from the other place on what we all hoped would happen. We did not make the progress we had hoped for, and for that I am sad and sorry. That does not mean that we stop or that this is the end of the journey, but it has not led to the breakthrough I hoped to see. That is a simple statement of fact.

None the less, we cannot in good conscience fail to address the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Empey. He is correct to say that noble Lords will be seeing a bit more of me over the next few weeks, I am afraid, because I will be bringing forward further legislation. Not the least will be the Northern Ireland Budget, and I do not doubt that the noble Lord will make the points that need to be made on the health service, the wider education service and so on.

You might recall that this time last year, when I spoke of that Budget, I said it was getting ever more difficult to plot the trajectory from the point of the outgoing Executive and their spending ambitions to where we are now. It is getting considerably harder. Last year I said that that would be the last time I would make that point, and events have made a liar of me: it was not the last time. I hope the one coming will be the last time, but the noble Lord rightly raises his eyebrows, and I take that on board. There is also the issue of the five-month extension window, anticipated in the Act of last year, within which we can look at delivering the Executive. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, is quite correct that that will necessarily have to be brought forward in the next few weeks as well. He is right to flag these things up.

I struggle to find new ways to tell noble Lords the same thing. I do not wish to sound complacent as I do so, but finding new ways to say this is proving difficult. Ultimately, the only way we will be able to move this forward is for the parties themselves to recognise the need for progress. Until that happens, the Government themselves will be unable to create the “eureka” moment. It is not wholly in their gift.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie]

The Minister is making a powerful and practical point, but why cannot the Government proceed with some kind of independent mediator? Exactly as others have said, the perception of a Government who are parti pris does not help and makes it much easier for Sinn Féin to do and say the things it does. I am not naive—I am not saying that it would not say that to an independent mediator—but why are the Government finding it so difficult to move forward on that?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The noble Lord is right to raise that point. There are only so many times I can talk about the box metaphor and thinking outside it before noble Lords become tired of that. We had hoped, through those discussions last week, to get some coherent agreement on moving things forward on that basis, and we were not able to do so. We now have to think afresh. We have to think whether that can be done without the support of all the parties involved. These things need to be thought through again. I am not trying to postpone answering the noble Lord’s question, but I am aware that we have not been able to resolve it in the fashion I would like. That remains at the heart of the problem.