My Lords, I think that there is a case for putting this on the table as a matter for discussion in the forthcoming negotiations. Obviously the Good Friday agreement is a structure that means that all sorts of different organisations have to operate at the same time. You have to have an Assembly, an Executive, a north/south ministerial body and a British intergovernmental conference with the Republic of Ireland. However, the noble Lord, Lord Empey, is right: you have to think outside the box. There has to be imagination. The noble Lord, Lord Trimble, has been talking for at least a year about using what could have been the original Welsh model, when the Welsh Assembly was effectively a very large county council. It has changed considerably over the years—in my view, for the better. But that was an opportunity for elected people in Wales to get together. We have just under 100 Members of the legislative Assembly in Northern Ireland. They do not meet formally or informally. This would give them a chance to go to Stormont and talk about issues, and also talk among themselves—to start talking again—because this is all about talking in many ways.
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In the late 1990s there was an Assembly before the original Executive was set up. I was the Finance Minister in Northern Ireland and spent at least one or two days
presenting the budget to the Northern Ireland Assembly, because there was no Executive. They then had an opportunity to question me as a Minister about these issues—but why cannot the same happen again? I hope that the Secretary of State and the Minister will also look at the conclusions of the Northern Ireland Select Committee in the other place, which put forward a number of suggestions not unlike the ones noble Lords have put forward in the last few minutes. It is worth thinking about—anything that brings people together is worth thinking about. It would also, as my noble friend Lord Adonis said, provide the opportunity to at least address the most significant issue facing the people of Northern Ireland—other than the restoration of the institutions—which is Brexit, which affects Northern Ireland so uniquely and strongly. It is worth thinking about, and I hope it is on the agenda for the negotiations.