My Lords, I want to speak very briefly to reiterate something that we said last week at Second Reading and touched on again earlier this evening in Committee. When there is no Northern Ireland Executive and no Assembly in session, it is quite wrong for Bills touching the lives of virtually every citizen in Northern Ireland to be disposed of so unnecessarily quickly in this House. I know my noble friend has some sympathy with this point of view—if I
may say so, he was magnificent in Committee. I would be grateful if he discussed it yet again with the powers that be through the usual channels. I am delighted to have seen the most senior representative of the usual channels, take a place—not his place—while I have been speaking.
There is one other point I would like to make. At Second Reading last week, my noble friend said that he would try to come back when we were dealing with the Bill today with any further information on the plea that many of us have made for the Assembly to be called into being and on the desirability—which I think we all share—of having some mediator figure to convene the various parties in Northern Ireland. It is now well over two years since we had an Executive or an Assembly. People in Northern Ireland have been short-changed by their politicians.
It is also deeply unfortunate that, when the real stumbling block over Brexit has been the border, we have had no opportunity to hear what the politicians elected to the Assembly in Northern Ireland think or for them to put anything into the debate. Although none of us knows whether this would have made any significant difference, given the fact that 56% of Northern Ireland voted to remain in the European Union and none of the elected representatives in the Westminster Parliament take that view, it would have been an opportunity that might just conceivably have produced some interesting ideas. So for every possible reason—and I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, nodding assent—I hope, as we all do, that we have an Assembly and Executive in being before long; but that we devote more time in this Chamber, where so much responsibility does and should lie, in the absence of a devolved Administration. I look forward to my noble friend’s response in due course.