I have almost lost count of the number of times I have taken to my feet in this Chamber to say that Northern Ireland is governed best when it is governed locally. At last, we can now say that will be the case. No doubt, in terms of the agreement—the settlement that has been reached—there will be imperfections, compromises and asymmetries, and elements that are not for the self-appointed purists. However, there is certainly enough there for the pragmatists to allow for the progress that needs to be made.
Over the course of my time speaking for the Scottish National party on Northern Irish issues, I have had the great pleasure of serving as a member of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Understandably, much bandwidth in that organisation has been taken up with Brexit and its aftermath, the resulting fallout—and indeed many of the occasional fallings out that have resulted. However, when my committee met in Edinburgh last week, there was a definite change in the tone of conversations outside the formal business. I hope I am not putting words in any Members’ mouths by saying that there was a pleasure, a realism, certainly an optimism, and definitely a realism about recent developments, but the key thing was that nobody was any longer asking about when might Stormont return; rather, it was what would now be done by Stormont to improve the lot of people in Northern Ireland now that it had returned.
Within the agreement, one of the areas that leaps out—I hope that, in time, Ministers will expand on their vision for it—is the East-West Council to deal with matters of business, education and culture across that east-west axis. Even from the perspective of a hard-bitten Scottish nationalist much like myself, that opens up a great deal of useful space potentially to share and develop all that we have in common, all that we continue to have in common, and all that we will have in common and which will endure regardless of wherever our respective constitutional journeys happen to conclude in future.