Northern Ireland Political Institutions: Reform

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. We have had a catalogue of reasons why there need to be changes to the arrangements for government in Northern Ireland. We have had collapses, difficulty in getting a three-year budget, the fallout and the use of veto powers by the parties.

The thing that strikes me is all these things have happened under different Administrations in Northern Ireland over the last 22 years. When the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists were in power, the Administration collapsed about five times—

[Claire Hanna]

Who collapsed it?

[Sammy Wilson]

Well, it was collapsed by the parties that were in power at that stage, because they had the ability to keep it running—but they did not. It collapsed again when the distribution of seats changed. It collapsed for a number of reasons, but the important thing is that those arrangements were put in place to safeguard minorities. The Alliance party and the SDLP, which are now calling for reform, were the keenest to have that consensus requirement in the Belfast agreement.

[Sorcha Eastwood]

rose—

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[Sammy Wilson]

I will give way in a moment. They are now proposing that consensus be removed and—here’s the thing—that we go to majority rule, albeit with a weighted majority of 66%. That is not reform; that is retreating to something that they condemned in the first place, and that they said required the arrangements in the Belfast agreement to be put in place.

[Claire Hanna]

Will the right hon. Member confirm whether he believes that the Assembly has or should have responsibility for international affairs, which is included in the Windsor framework, and can he outline where cross-community consent for Brexit was demonstrated?

[Sammy Wilson]

I find it rather odd that the hon. Member has talked about how dysfunctional the Assembly is but wants more powers for it. Either it is dysfunctional or it is not. If it is functional and she wants more powers for it, why do we need the changes?

Let us look at the words that are used. “Reform” is one, and I have noticed that another phrase—“keyhole surgery”—has come in. Of course, these are all euphemisms for removing the very safeguards that were required when nationalists were in the minority. That is why they were put in place. Now the arithmetic in the Assembly has changed, and we find that those parties that believed there should be safeguards for minorities no longer require those safeguards and want to revert to a form of majority rule.

[Sorcha Eastwood]

I am really glad that the right hon. Member is making this point, because there is a bit of an idea out there that this is about not protecting minorities. Does he not agree that the make-up of Northern Ireland is very different and that everybody is a minority, and therefore everybody—Unionists, nationalists and people like me who are neither of those things—deserves protection?

[Sammy Wilson]

If that is the case, the requirement for consensus rather than majority rule is even stronger, yet the proposed changes would remove those safeguards.

The difficulty of getting the three-year budget through has been mentioned. I served in the Assembly for a number of years; I was Finance Minister in the Assembly for a number of years. In the first year after I took over, we had an immediate 3% cut to our budget, and then we had a 2% cut year on year, under the coalition Government that existed at that time. We got a three-year budget through, despite the fact that the two biggest spending Ministers were outside with the unions protesting against any cuts.

How did we do that? Instead of thinking we could just drive it through, as the current Sinn Féin Minister is trying to do, we had hours and hours of negotiations, compromises and so on to get it through. That might be difficult, but that is no reason to remove the requirement for consensus and the safeguards for minorities. We now have a cabal in the Assembly of nationalists, republicans, the Alliance party and a bunch of individuals, who form a majority and would be able to drive things through if it came to a majority vote.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

My right hon. Friend is rightly alluding to the issue of consensus. Does he agree that the one fundamental building block to making any progress is some form of consensual approach to how we make politics in the Assembly work? I am not talking about vetoes, but we cannot make progress unless there is agreement among the divided communities that make up Northern Ireland.

[Sammy Wilson]

Of course, and we have seen how divisive some of the decisions made in the Assembly have been, whether on cultural issues or economic issues, as the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) pointed out. Alarm bells should ring if we are considering removing the fabric that is there to ensure proper discussion before final decisions are made.

I notice that there is not a great deal of interest in this debate from parties other than those from Northern Ireland—and selfish interest, as well. I do not care what has been said; this is selfish interest. In fact, we are now told that the Irish and British Governments should come together and try to force through the changes that the new majority cabal wish to impose on the Assembly. I think that is wrong, we will be opposing it, and there is certainly no logical, political or community reason why the changes that are being demanded should be made.

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[Mr Kohler]

I entirely agree. Compelling as many of the arguments are from all sides, a situation in which governance is not happening cannot be right and cannot be the solution. Surely, compromise must be reached.

[Sammy Wilson]

The hon. Gentleman asked why weighted majorities do not give the protection that the consensus requirement gives. There are two reasons. First, it depends at what level the weighted majority is set. Secondly, if the weighted majority were seen to be used in a way that prevented changes or things getting through, we would have exactly the same arguments about the weighted majority: that it should be reduced and reduced in order to free up any logjam. That is why consensus is much more important. It recognises that there are nationalists and Unionists, and that their interests have to be safeguarded.

[Mr Kohler]

That is helpful. The current 60:40:40 system strikes me as one that does protect minorities, while the danger of the consensus is that you get tripped up by hold-outs. That is what I see happening from my perspective outside.