My Lords, first I add my words of condemnation of the footage that is doing the rounds at the moment, which is vile and has deeply hurt the McAreavey family. There is no place in society for such action.
It would be foolish to disregard the current political situation in Northern Ireland as we debate this Bill. The current situation, brought about by the Northern Ireland protocol arrangements, is deeply regrettable. The protocol lacks cross-community support and fundamentally undermines the core principles which underpin the democratic structures in Northern Ireland. That makes it impossible for power sharing to operate on the basis of cross-community consensus. We have even had Tony Blair in the last few days saying very clearly that the protocol was a bad deal which is undermining the Belfast agreement and peace in Northern Ireland. In the last few days, the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, has said much the same words. They are very much architects of the Good Friday agreement and are saying very clearly that the protocol is now causing serious damage to the Belfast agreement.
In respect of the Bill before the House, I criticise the Government for introducing the Bill before dealing with the concerns about the current operation of the Northern Ireland protocol. The New Decade, New Approach agreement of 2020 was entered into in good faith. But it was a package that was agreed. The introduction of a Bill that cherry picks one element of the agreement while ignoring the commitment to protecting Northern Ireland’s place in the UK internal market from the carnage of the protocol is both ill-judged and imbalanced. It totally undermines devolution in Northern Ireland.
We have seen over and over again with one party’s wish-list that, if it does not get it through Stormont or the Executive, it brings it here. Usually, the Government do what needs to be done to get whatever has to be got through this House and the other. That creates a problem for devolution in Northern Ireland and how it can be delivered, not only in the future, but also for all the people of Northern Ireland. There has also been no attempt to build consensus towards this Bill at a time when confidence in the Government and devolution has been eroded to the point of being on life support.
Everyone in Northern Ireland should feel comfortable expressing their national and cultural identity. This includes those who cherish the Irish identity. I want to say something briefly about identity, which I have
raised several times with government Ministers. I hope at some point to raise it in this House through a Motion. Here is one example: people who were born in the Irish Republic, have moved to Northern Ireland and lived there all their life—paid their taxes and national insurance, voted, and all of that—find it very difficult to apply for and get a British passport. In fact, the cost of applying for a British passport through the whole process, which will take six months to one year, is £1,300, which many people in Northern Ireland cannot afford. It is an issue I want to raise in this House at some point because it creates a problem for people who want to have a British identity and passport and to be British. At this moment it affects around 40,000 people in Northern Ireland; that is a huge number of people who find it difficult to get British identity in Northern Ireland. The only reason is because they were born in the Irish Republic. I will leave it at that, but that is a very serious issue that needs to be addressed when it comes to culture and identity.
The way forward in our approach to legislation must be fair and balanced to each tradition, recognising and reflecting the balance of the community it relates to in Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, there are aspects of this Bill that are certainly not balanced. There needs to be a lot of work done to get this Bill where we need to get it to and to get the balance within the Bill, which is not there at this minute in time.
We all want to see the institutions up and running, but progress can be made only with the support of unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland moving forward together for the future. It is important that, during the passage of this Bill and especially in Committee, consideration is given to the inaccuracies of this particular Bill. For example, on the whole issue around funding and the rollout of this Bill on the ground, how is it going to work? The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, talked about weaponising the Irish language, and that is a real fear within the unionist community. How will the language be used by certain people in and around public bodies and in and around courts? All of that is very serious for the unionist community.
On the whole issue of funding which I have alluded to, we do not know the cost of all of this. At the minute, the Irish language gets about £170 million a year from the Executive. You would nearly think the way some people are talking they were getting nothing. Is that figure going to increase? Quite obviously it is going to increase. The Bill is silent on funding.
Another issue in the Bill is that the Secretary of State will take powers so that, if he feels that a Minister or a department is not doing what they should do, he can intervene. Once again, to me that undermines devolution in Northern Ireland.
I will leave it there. I want to say to the House: do not underestimate the situation in trying to get the Assembly up and running. It will be a very difficult job to get it up and running if the protocol and the issues around it are not resolved.
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