Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) (No. 2) Bill

My Lords, by the leave of the House, I shall make a few comments on the Bill. First, I welcome it enthusiastically. It has been said that yesterday was an historic day. That is a dangerous term. It was certainly a remarkable day, but you never take anything for granted in Northern Ireland, and we must wait another few years and then look back before deciding whether it was in fact an historic day. It really is the Belfast agreement with some minor changes, as the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, said. I am glad to hear praise for the leadership at the time of the noble Lord, Lord Trimble; he negotiated the Belfast agreement together with Sir Reg Empey, the present leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, and me. I am glad to see it reaching the stage that it did yesterday. The Government were quite right to extend the date until May—the basis of this Bill—for if the DUP and Sinn Fein had reached an agreement, it would have been outrageous for the Government to have rejected it. We should not be criticising the Government in any way for extending that date. Yesterday was remarkable, as I say. Those of us who listened to the live broadcast by Dr Paisley from the DUP and Mr Gerry Adams for Sinn Fein were quite amazed at the words we heard: they were both statesmanlike in their own particular ways. For those of us who come from Ulster, it was particularly interesting and welcome that both of them invoked the will of God. I say this as one who suffered from the IRA—shot 10 times through my body—and I listened to people on Radio Ulster at 12 o’clock today, many of whose families had suffered deaths and injuries through the IRA. Most of them welcomed what happened yesterday; I underline that myself. As always in Northern Ireland, there are one or two doubts in one’s mind. The English press told us that Sinn Fein was supporting the PSNI—well, not absolutely: there were conditions, which we will have to watch. It is certainly supporting the PSNI in civic policing, be it burglary, drunken driving or what have you, but there is still a cloud over its position on security and terrorism. Just two weeks ago during the recent election campaign in Northern Ireland, one successful Sinn Fein MLA, Ms Gildernew, the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, said that if she saw the Real IRA running around with guns and bombs, she would not bring it to the attention of the PSNI. That worries us, as in the end it could undermine the success of what was achieved yesterday. Sinn Fein has accepted its position in a Stormont Assembly within the United Kingdom. While it does not support Northern Ireland being part of the United Kingdom, it has now accepted it. In turn, as things develop in Northern Ireland and relations improve between it and the Republic—and between the Republic and the United Kingdom—I hope that the Dublin Government will move further toward accepting the realisation that more than 1 million people on the island of Ireland are British. A lot more has to be done by Dublin to accept and recognise that position. This Bill restores direct rule for a limited period. I assume that it means that those of us who have been asking questions in the absence of devolution in Northern Ireland will still have the facility over the next few weeks to keep troubling Ministers on its internal affairs. Therefore, to be brief, I commend this Bill to the House and thank the Government for their response.