My Lords, I support what my noble friend Lord Empey said: this is a question of fairness, justice and equity. As my noble friend said in his powerful and persuasive speech, those of us who take an interest in the affairs of Northern Ireland have had many communications from people who, frankly, are at their wits’ end as to how they can survive financially. I have had letters from poultry farmers, hoteliers and others who, in good faith, with a written ministerial assurance, made an investment. It is not for us to say whether that was wise or not, but we have to recognise that these people were acting on government advice. I do not want to quote a lot of letters but I shall quote just one sentence from a poultry farmer: “Is it fair for the Government to renege on tariff payments that had been guaranteed?”
The system is incredibly complex—my noble friend Lord Empey made that plain— and I do not pretend that I understand all of it but, as a former chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in the other place, I am delighted that my successor but two has decided to take this on. I hope his committee will be able to conduct a thorough, expeditious inquiry. I know not what it will say, but I know that this particular scheme, however well intentioned, was certainly not well designed. However pure the motives, the results have been catastrophic; they would have been even more so had something not been done. As my noble friend said in his speech, we would have been talking of a sum in excess of £1 billion for a part of our country which I love dearly but is not the most populated part.
I share my noble friend Lord Empey’s faith and confidence in our Minister. He is a man of totally good intent and I hope that he will be able to come up with a solution that will persuade my noble friend not to press his amendment. I hope there is another solution to that.
I come back to one simple point. We are dealing with citizens of the United Kingdom who have been—maybe inadvertently, although I am not entirely sure of that—misled, who have made financial decisions, who have in some cases, in good faith, borrowed and been lent very large sums of money, and who now find their very livelihoods on the brink of collapse.
We have lamented time and again in recent debates, particularly last Tuesday when we were critical of the fast-tracking of Northern Ireland legislation, the fact that for over two years neither the Assembly nor the Executive have met. In all parts of your Lordships’ House, this is something that we deeply deplore. It means that, temporarily at least—I very much hope it is temporarily—a great weight of responsibility rests on our shoulders for the people of a much loved and, over the years, much troubled part of our United Kingdom. I hope we will be able to do them justice.
I hope above all that my noble friend the Minister, who is both determined and sensitive—we know that in this House—will be able to satisfy the points raised so admirably by my noble friend Lord Empey. I have great pleasure in supporting him.