I welcome the Minister to the Front Bench. I know that he has already answered a Question, but this is the first piece of legislation he has dealt with, and, unfortunately, he does not bring us good news. However, I hope that an opportunity will arise in the future when he is able to bring us something that we genuinely want to hear.
This is a very sad state of affairs. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, for his tour de force of the political landscape, both past and present. He has experience of being involved in the talks and of being a direct rule Minister, so he has seen the issue from both angles. That is very useful expertise to have in your Lordships’ House.
The fact is that in January of this year, the outgoing Finance Minister, Sinn Fein’s Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, instead of bringing in a Budget to the Assembly when it was still there, did a runner. He did not bring the Budget in because he did not want to have to take the tough decisions that would accompany it. This is nothing new. I remember vividly sitting in the Executive when we had to take a difficult decision on the location of a hospital. The Executive agreed that the unit would close and later that evening Sinn Fein representatives were outside the unit waving placards in protest, so this is nothing new. They talk a good game about being in government but will not take difficult decisions. This Budget could easily have been accommodated before the Assembly came to a close in March.
We are talking about the principle of the Bill and there is no alternative to it: that is the reality. However, there is a collective failure here. While Sinn Fein may very well be the villain of the piece in this particular instance, the fact is that it was given opportunities towards the end of last year when the crisis arose over the RHI scheme, which people seem to forget. But in fact, the public hearings have been going now for a week, and some of the things that are emerging from them illustrate that the culture in that last Administration was entirely wrong. People had influence and power well above their station and outside the democratic process. It was the worst Administration we have had since 1921. If we want to talk about rights and opportunities for people, what about the rights of the patients—over a quarter of a million of them—waiting on lists? What about the 64,000 people who have been waiting for over a year to see a consultant? These are life and death decisions. Anybody knows that if you need to see a consultant and you have to wait over a year, and if you have a disease, it could reach a critical juncture in that period. Who is speaking for these people? What rights do they have?
I understand perfectly well the issue of culture. We spent two years talking with nationalist politicians about this, and we understand that the identity issue is at the core— we get all that. However, we negotiated into the Belfast agreement a series of protections for cultural identity. We set up an all-Ireland language
body, which has a Budget and a duty to promote Irish—and there was an Ulster Scots dimension to it as well. That body has been operating consistently since around 1999. We also have an Irish-medium education sector in Northern Ireland. Despite the fact that all the schools are under pressure, and the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, talks about people being educated separately, we now have four different streams. We now have an Irish-language sector, and some schools are being brought into existence with tiny numbers of pupils. We have broadcasting, which is perfectly reasonable —I have no issue with any of that. However, I point out to the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, that unlike Wales, where perhaps 25% of the population speaks Welsh, that is not the case in Northern Ireland. There is no identifiable geographical area where Irish is the spoken tongue. In addition, since 2000, the United Kingdom has signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which is an international treaty that guarantees the language. There are regular inspections every three years—the last one was in 2014—and recommendations are made to the signatories of the treaty to protect and guarantee the rights of Irish-language speakers. Therefore a whole range of protections is already in place, and all the commitments in the Belfast agreement have been met.
We have been arguing about Brexit, with a result of 52% to 48% in the referendum, but in the north 71.1% of votes were in support of the Belfast agreement with 28.9% against. People at that time knew what they were voting for. A number of us in the Chamber today were at those talks. At no time did Sinn Fein ever ask us for an Irish language Act. It was not mentioned in the first Executive or mentioned to me in the second Executive, although it subsequently appeared in the statement following the St Andrews agreement. However, it was never mentioned during the talks, and everything we were asked to do on cultural identity was done and implemented in full. So we need to get to the reality of what we are dealing with here.
The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, also mentioned the methodology in the talks. It has been confined effectively to the two parties; they are the largest parties, and that is perfectly understandable. However, the only time we got collective agreement was when everybody was involved, and nearly 40% of the Assembly has been cut out of this. Noble Lords may be shocked to learn that the last time the parties collectively sat round a table was in June. Since then, the other parties—making up nearly 40% of the Assembly—have been completely excluded, apart from meetings with the Secretary of State. Therefore, we need to look very closely at the methodology being employed.
Given where we are today, and having been at this for a long time, I think that going down the steps of Stormont is easy but getting back up them will be very difficult. Strategically, Sinn Fein has a long-term plan. I do not believe that Gerry Adams is committed to Northern Ireland’s existence. In the strand 1 talks, neither of the two larger parties was involved in any way whatever. Although Sinn Fein was technically in the building, it played no part, produced no papers, responded to no papers and made no contribution whatever on the basis that it was ideologically not its business to support an internal settlement, and at that
time the DUP was outside the talks shouting “Traitor” at the rest of us. The fact is that nobody who is currently dealing with this situation was involved in the negotiations and that is significant. If Sinn Fein was so worried about an Irish language Act, why did it not ask us? Why did it not put that on the table?
Coming closer to home, when the crisis over the heating scheme arose last December—it was a very important issue—it was perfectly obvious that Sinn Fein was well aware of it before suddenly saying that it was a terrible development. I believe that it knew very well about the scheme because some of its Members were promoting it in their constituencies. I think that the First Minister of Northern Ireland made a mistake in not standing down for a few weeks and getting it over with. If she had done so, I do not think that we would have the crisis that we have today. It could easily have been avoided. It has happened before. She stood in for the previous First Minister twice, and when the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, experienced difficulties on a previous occasion, I stood in for him and after a few months the situation was restored. Therefore, in my personal opinion, the crisis could have been avoided.
The noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, mentioned that we should be talking about next year’s Budget. Normally at this time, the Executive would have special meetings to decide on the spending priorities for 2018-19, and this was raised in an earlier briefing. The Civil Service has at least something to work with because it knew roughly where the Executive were coming from last year. However, that will not be the case when we come to next year’s Budget. What will the Civil Service work on then? I know the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service very well—he is a good chap—but the fact is that he is effectively unaccountable to anybody. The Secretary of State has no power over him and there is no Assembly.
Therefore, I ask the Minister to take back to his colleagues and his right honourable friend this thought. If we cannot get an agreement now, it will be very easy to bring in direct rule and good governance and so on, but I can tell this House that it will be many a day before we get Stormont going again if we let it go down the drain this time. We should not forget that north/south and east/west bodies are involved and, in the middle of it all, Brexit is creating huge political tensions in Ireland. In my opinion, the Irish Government are perhaps moving towards holding an election before Brexit, and Sinn Fein is very happy to exploit the whole situation. If we are not careful, we will fall into a trap and I urge the Government to look at the options. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, has mentioned some in the past and the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, has mentioned others. There are loads of options and models, and we have to think outside the box. If we let these institutions slip through our fingers, it will be many a day before we get them back.
Yesterday we had a visit from SAVIA—Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse. I am sure that representatives from all our parties in both Houses met its members. These are people who fought for years to get a public inquiry into their plight. That was eventually granted to them and Sir Anthony Hart reported at the beginning of this year. The contents of
that report were truly shocking but the Executive that set up the inquiry were not there to receive it or do anything about its findings. Those people are effectively being abused again. The Ulster Unionist Party will be writing to the Secretary of State and the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service—I urge all the other parties to do so and believe that they will—to ask that a line be included in the Budget for 2018-19 for at least an interim payment. Some members of the group have died and all are under great strain. This is an example of another group of people whose rights are just ignored. This House and this Parliament have a duty to ensure that they are not put through more trauma.
We cannot keep away from Brexit. I have asked this question many times: where is our voice? It is not being heard. We are affected more than any other part of the country and yet we are out to lunch. The idea floating around from Mr Verhofstadt, and indeed from the Irish Prime Minister at the weekend—that we should remain in the customs union and the single market while the rest of the UK leaves—is a non-runner. Only 15% of our trade is with the Irish Republic, which means that 85% is not, and 90% of the Irish Republic’s goods go either to or via Great Britain. The problem, therefore, is for the Republic in many respects, but it has to be resolved. The Brussels policy of trying to separate this issue from trade is nonsense. We have to look at the big picture. I do not want to see a border; nobody does. But we have to talk sensibly, and creating a border up the Irish Sea instead of where it is currently makes no sense, neither economically nor politically. We will come to further discussions on Brexit, and I suspect that when the Bill comes to the House, one or two colleagues may wish to make a contribution. I am quite sure that this issue will figure largely. To use the coined phrase, the problem of Brexit and the border “will not go away, you know”. We have to deal with it.
I urge the Minister to take what I have said back to his colleagues. We need to think outside the box and look at options and alternative ways of involving the politicians in Belfast. There is no point going on about their salaries if there is not an opportunity to give them something concrete to do and participate in, which is what the vast majority of them want.
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