My Lords, first, I express outrage about the events that occurred at the weekend. As the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said, a viable device was left at the Omagh cenotaph—an appalling act carried out by evil people. In my own city of Londonderry there have been a number of shootings in the past few weeks. These incidents show that without political agreement in Northern Ireland, other people in Northern Ireland will fill the vacuum. That is the worrying trend in not getting political agreement in Northern Ireland. The history of Northern Ireland has been that if there is no political will to resolve the issues, other people feel they can resolve them through violence. It is an important point to make to the House.
I support the Northern Ireland Budget Bill. With the failure of the talks process, the Secretary of State had no option but to act in the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland in bringing forward a Budget before public services run out of money. If the current impasse continues, I believe there will be a greater initiative from London to get involved in the politics of Northern Ireland. It should be a warning to all our political parties in Northern Ireland—I have to say, especially to Sinn Fein. I know that to some people some of these issues seem simple. They are not. The bottom line is that we have a political party in Northern Ireland—Sinn Fein—which does not even recognise the very existence of the country. So that is where we are starting from, unlike in Scotland and Wales, where at least there is a political will to be part of the country and make it work. In Northern Ireland that is not the case, so that compounds the issue for my party to try to come to an agreement.
To pick up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, we are willing as a party to go the second mile in trying to resolve these political issues. Certainly, we will make a number of attempts to resolve these issues because we all want to see a fully restored Executive in Northern Ireland, where decisions can be made in the best interests of the whole community in Northern Ireland. That is our goal. We have always been a devolutionist party. We still want devolution to work in Northern Ireland but it takes all the parties committed to Northern Ireland to make that work. As a party, we have made it clear over and again that we are willing to break the current impasse. It is important to say that. We would form an Executive and continue negotiations in parallel, as the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, said earlier. We are prepared to do that. For many people in Northern Ireland, health, education and the economy are far more important than what Sinn Fein is arguing for when it comes to the Irish language.
I will say something about the Irish language in Northern Ireland. There are many groups in Northern Ireland which speak the Irish language and which
have grown the Irish language, but which have not brought politics into the Irish language. For many years Sinn Fein has used the Irish language as a stick to beat unionists with. I think the fear from the broader unionist community is: what would Sinn Fein not do if it had an Irish language Act? When you ask Sinn Fein to spell out what an Irish language Act would mean, how it would be delivered on the ground and how it would work, it finds it very difficult. As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said, the Irish language has been protected. A lot of money has gone to it, and rightly so, but one has to say that when it comes to an Act there is fear in the broader community and the unionist community about what it all really means. We are dealing with a different situation from that of the Welsh and Scottish languages, As I keep saying, we have a political party in Northern Ireland that wants to use language for its own aim: to create a problem for another community. That is our greatest fear in these negotiations.
We all want a shared future in Northern Ireland; we all wish very much to achieve that and believe it can happen. When I look back over a number of years at the personal sacrifices made by so many to get devolution up and running—many people who are in the House at this time, and those outside it—it is sad that it could be coming to an end. I do not say that with any willingness. We want devolution to work for Northern Ireland and an Executive to deliver for all the people of Northern Ireland. That is still our aim. I keep saying to the House that, yes, we will go the second mile as a party to try to achieve that, but there is only so much that we as a party can do in that process to make it happen.
I welcome the Minister to his position this evening and I want to come to the budget itself. I see within it that the Executive’s office, which is not functioning at the moment, has had a 32% increase in its budget. Can the Minister explain how that has happened? The noble Lord, Lord Empey, raised that as well. The Minister will know that there is cross-party support for the Hart report’s recommendations on historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland. I understand that the leaders of the five main parties in Northern Ireland have written to the head of the Civil Service to try to move that issue forward. Having spoken to the victims, it is sad that it cannot move forward with the head of the Civil Service because the letters went to him. It was thought that he could act to try to resolve the issue and implement payments for those victims.
I very much support the Bill before the House. I hope that by the time we speak in this House again, we will have devolution up and running in Northern Ireland for all of the people there.
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