May I thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the tone he adopted in his opening remarks? Like him, I will divide my remarks into two parts. First, I will make a few casual, general observations. I have seen the video clip that the Northern Ireland Office has put on Twitter today, marking nearly 1,000 days since there was last an Executive at Stormont. Clearly, that is a running sore and it just goes on. Although I usually travel in an optimistic frame of mind, Brexit is clearly the elephant in the Chamber and in Northern Ireland. It is hard, if not impossible, to see how Stormont could get up and running prior to 31 October, but I wish the Secretary of State and all parties well.
I say to Opposition Members and, indeed, to all political parties in Northern Ireland that from talking and listening to people and from reading what they say, my hunch is that we seem to have got incredibly hung up on process, whereas real people in the real world who are concerned about the delivery of vital local public services just want to see them delivered. Whether the issue is Brexit or the restoration of Stormont, the public have a limited reservoir of patience. When it is drained, that will be it—there will be no more reservoir on which to draw. That patience is running thin and people are not necessarily interested in the blame game politics of “He said, I said, they said, we would, they might, we didn’t”. The message is clear, just as it is on other things in this topsy-turvy political age: “Either make progress or get out of the way and let those who are interested in making progress have a go.” I think we are close to that point.