On 27 February, the Lords debated and passed legislation to defer elections in Northern Ireland that are now due since there is no immediate prospect of restoring devolution. The debate coincided with the Prime Minister’s announcement of a far-reaching new agreement on Northern Ireland with the European Union. That excellent agreement will largely reverse Boris Johnson’s betrayal of Northern Ireland, which Alistair Lexden condemned in his speech.
There is widespread agreement that the interests of our fellow countrymen and women in Northern Ireland would not be served by another election in present circumstances. What is happening today must reinforce that view.
This Bill is entirely appropriate, and there can be no objection to its rapid progress through both Houses. The legal position must be regularised.
But it is painful to contemplate a further period in which the Northern Ireland departments will not be under ministerial control.
Northern Ireland civil servants, who will continue to administer departmental affairs, deserve high praise, but, as we all know, they labour under serious constraints.
Policies agreed by Ministers before their departure cannot be amended. Spending plans cannot be adjusted in response to changing needs.
It is truly tragic and heartbreaking to hear of the ever-growing problems afflicting the great public services in Northern Ireland. Hospital waiting lists spiral to extraordinary lengths. Standards in Northern Ireland’s schools—some of the finest in our country-- are under severe threat.
Serious consideration should surely be given to a major programme of reconstruction and reform when devolution is restored.
Would there not be merit in undertaking such a programme in close partnership with the Northern Ireland Office-- indeed with the United Kingdom Government as a whole?
Funding will, as always, be a central issue. So too will the full and successful incorporation in the great public services—the NHS in particular—of all the latest digital and other remarkable advances that are transforming today’s world.
I listen to what our Health Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Markham, says about the plans that are unfolding for the long-term benefit of patients in the NHS in England, and I think “Ulster should have that too.”
Northern Ireland must enjoy the full benefits of the Union, and that will not happen without a close partnership between it and the rest of the Union.
The imponderable factor in all this will be the attitude of Sinn Fein. There have been—and will almost certainly continue to be—difficulties in securing Sinn Fein’s successful involvement in the devolved institutions.
It is shocking that a Sinn Fein Finance Minister should set irresponsible budgets that the Northern Ireland Assembly turns down.
And yet it is hardly surprising. Sinn Fein’s goal is not a secure and flourishing Northern Ireland within our Union, but its absorption by one means or another in another state.
Unionism, which expresses the wish of Northern Ireland’s majority, exists to stop that happening—and it needs reinforcing to enable it to go on succeeding in its historic aim, so we can continue to confound those who have said throughout my lifetime that Northern Ireland’s departure from the Union is inevitable .
As someone who thinks of himself as a Unionist first and Conservative second, I want to see a reversal of the betrayal that took place in 2019.
Mr Boris Johnson said that there would not be a border down the Irish Sea, and then created one.
He presented himself as the person who would restore full sovereignty to the United Kingdom, and then left one integral part of it subject to laws made in the European Union.
What kind of Unionist is that?
Real, responsible Unionists throughout the entire country—not just in Northern Ireland but everywhere-- should look for a settlement that puts a decisive end to the weakening of the Union, for which Mr Johnson was responsible.
Last week Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, said: “The wrong deal will not restore power-sharing, but will deepen division for future generations.”
For the sake of Ulster today, and for future generations in which divisions lessen not deepen, our country needs a settlement that will, in the words of the Conservative manifesto at the last election, help sustain “a proud, confident, inclusive and modern unionism that affords equal respect to all traditions and all parts of the community.”
