My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the Bill—although I think all of us are unhappy that there is a need for it to be here at all. I echo his tribute to Sir Anthony Hart, who died earlier this week. We all recognise that he was a man of integrity and honour. Perhaps the best tribute we could pay him is to implement his recommendations as quickly as possible—and I know that others will raise this.
This piece of legislation is a holding measure for an intolerable situation. It is certainly no substitute for getting the application of the Good Friday agreement and power sharing back on the road. It is fundamentally unsustainable, which is why it has to be stepped and timetabled in the way it is. We all know—it has been repeated many times in this House—that there is a growing backlog of decisions and issues in Northern Ireland that are simply not being addressed, and cannot be addressed, because there is no legal framework for doing so. The Province is falling further and further
behind, and public services are becoming increasingly inefficient, unreformed and stressed. In addition, we have Brexit coming down the track, and nowhere is more vulnerable to its impact than Northern Ireland; nowhere else in the UK would be so hard hit. The longer this goes on, the more difficult it will be for Northern Ireland to catch up and get to where it ought to be.
So, while we recognise that the Bill is necessary, it is difficult to know what its dynamic is in relation to the ongoing talks. I hear some people say that it puts pressure on for a solution, but others say that it takes that pressure off. We need to know which it does, because we desperately need a solution. People want to see progress. When the talks were restarted, many of us thought that there was a real window of opportunity for progress to be made. The longer that progress is not made, the more the window starts to close—if not slam. The only consolation is that it has not shut yet.
I will touch briefly on the changes made to the Bill yesterday in the Commons, to which the Minister referred. Like the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, I welcome the Commons addressing the issues of abortion and same-sex marriage; I know that our sister party in Northern Ireland welcomed that completely. I note the Minister’s points. I also echo the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in saying that we need to know that the Government intend to make this work, not block it. Importantly, this would not need to happen if the Assembly were up and running.
Similarly, we support the amendments put forward by Dominic Grieve. Again, they should not be necessary, but, with our likely Prime Minister saying that he is prepared to prorogue Parliament in order to crash out, which would have serious consequences for Northern Ireland, it seems legitimate for Dominic Grieve to have moved them and for the Commons to have supported them to ensure, effectively, that that cannot happen without parliamentary consent.
I know that the Minister recognises the importance of the clauses in the Bill on pensions for the victims and survivors of the Troubles and on the implementation of the inquiry into historical institutional abuse. Of course, all the Bill does is provide for reporting on these issues, but I hope that simply having those provisions in the Bill, along with some degree of pressure, will lead to more than just a report back. The fact that the report was necessary should help us to achieve real progress. Otherwise, it will be another depressing example of simply moving things on and not taking action.
It is abundantly clear to any observer or attender of the Province that vital issues are simply not being addressed. We do not have what we hope to see: a vibrant, progressive and shared society. Most of us saw how much Northern Ireland blossomed after the Good Friday agreement, but it is almost as if those blossoms have now bloomed and are threatening to fall off the tree.
The Minister can be in no doubt that the Liberal Democrats are a party of devolution; we and our predecessors have been that for more than 100 years. We want to see a functioning, thriving devolved
Administration and Assembly in Northern Ireland. That is the best solution for Northern Ireland. The longer the impasse continues, the more dangerous it becomes. The hard-line nationalists and hard-line unionists—I must say, they are becoming increasingly aligned with the English nationalists who are strangling the Conservative Party—are digging into their trenches. It is the people of Northern Ireland who suffer, because the lack of an Executive means that services decay and urgent issues go unaddressed.
So, with some temerity, I say this to the unionists: you cannot stand for the defence of the United Kingdom but ignore the social changes enshrined in law in the rest of the UK and deny them to the same groups in Northern Ireland. That is not consistent unionism. To the nationalists, I say this: you cannot rail against mainland interference in Northern Ireland while there is no means of taking decisions in the Province. To both groups, I say that politicians who do nothing do not deserve to be there. There has been a shift in voting habits in the Province, which points to a growing yearning for some degree of common sense and constructive engagement; I suggest that the two polarised parties ignore that to their cost and to the cost of the people of Northern Ireland.
With the potential devastation of Brexit coming down the track and a desperate need for day-to-day government in the Province, kicking the can down the road does not lead to easier solutions—as we on the mainland are discovering only too well—but gives birth to more extreme ones. The best way for the parties in Northern Ireland to kill this Bill or to make it moribund if it becomes an Act, is to get the Assembly up and running and face up to their responsibilities to the people of Northern Ireland. It is really time that they stopped blaming each other, shirking their responsibilities and letting down the people of Northern Ireland.
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