Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Alan Mak.)
7:34 pm
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance): I am grateful to have secured this Adjournment debate. I thank the Minister of State for responding on what is a busy day.
This debate is about the operation of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive. The irony will not be lost on people that neither institution is currently functioning. Next year is the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. Its principles, components and interlocking relationships remain as sound as ever, but we do need to discuss and debate reform. This is a relevant matter for this House, as the issues of concern relate to the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and its subsequent modifications. Even at the time of the Good Friday agreement, some of us were concerned that some of the structures and mechanisms of the agreement were too unwieldly, and that it locked in a false assumption of two communities.
The agreement put in place a rather hard consociational model of power sharing when other approaches were possible. Over the past quarter of a century, the reality of continued breakdowns in Government, including in the present day, plus demographic change and electoral realignment make the need and urgency for change even more compelling. Since the institutions were first formed in 1999, they have been either suspended or non-functioning for 43% of the time. Surely, that reflects an underlying problem. Reform should happen because it is the right thing to do, but there is also a clear self-interest in progressing reform for the Government and the other guarantors of the Good Friday agreement.
I do not want to dwell on the protocol; that this is not what this debate is about. However, it is important to acknowledge that Brexit posed particular challenges to Northern Ireland—a society that works only on the basis of sharing within the context of interdependent relationships and a close partnership between the UK and Irish Governments. Before 2016, there was a certain fragility to the institutions, but in the context of Brexit, sustaining governance becomes even more problematic. The Government are currently pursuing their protocol Bill. I am on record as saying that it is unnecessary, unwanted and counterproductive, but it may not be successful in its objective of securing the return of the Democratic Unionist party to power sharing. Even if that were to happen, it might be built on such insecure foundations that governance proves impossible to maintain, and we know that Northern Ireland has seen a succession of crises.
If, come the late autumn or early next year, the Government are still at an impasse and facing prolonged deadlock, they face a range of unpalatable options. Recurring elections without a change in dynamics would see little change in the order of the parties, but perhaps even greater polarisation. Continued deadlock with care and maintenance from civil servants, and perhaps with this Government setting an annual budget, is not sustainable. Direct rule is one-sided and undemocratic, and it would not be regarded as balanced or legitimate. Many would argue that any direct rule would require an Irish dimension. However, that would be particularly challenging in the current context of difficult Anglo-Irish relations, and it would also be very difficult to get the balance correct without creating offence to one or other of the competing sides in Northern Ireland.
Therefore, in that context, reform of the institutions to allow those parties with mandates that are willing and able to govern should be considered. A range of reforms should be considered. Some are longer term, but others are measures for which there is a clear necessity in the current context.
The most egregious aspect of the current structures is the designation system and the associated so-called cross-community voting system. That designation system has three major flaws. First, it locks into the public square that Northern Ireland is and will perpetually be a society based around two competing communities in which political, national and religious identity perfectly coalesce: where Unionist equals British equals Protestant, and nationalist equals Irish equals Catholic. That ignores the reality of open, mixed and multiple identities, those who have come to live in Northern Ireland and those who have moved away from traditional formulations of identity or formed relationships and even families across the traditional divide.
Secondly, the mechanism sends out negative messages about the continuation of division and impinges on efforts to build a shared and integrated future. Thirdly, there is a lack of equality of votes. My Alliance party colleagues in the Assembly, who sign as “united community” and are treated as “Other”, do not see their votes counted as equal whenever cross-community voting mechanisms are either required by law or invoked by a petition of concern.
The two thresholds are either 50% of unionists, 50% of nationalists and 50% overall; or 60% of unionists, 60% of nationalists and 40% overall. That could perhaps have been dismissed as an anomaly back in 1998, when only eight out of 108 Members of the Legislative Assembly were non-aligned. Today, however, 18 out of 90 MLAs are neither Unionist nor nationalist. That lack of equality of votes is not something that would be tolerated in any other legislature. It certainly would not be accepted in this Chamber.
The current voting system also creates a low bar to vetoes. Most recently, on Friday 13 May, although 72% of MLAs present and voting supported the election of a Speaker, it was blocked. In comparison, in 1998 the support for the Good Friday agreement was 71% of voters, which was taken as a clear demonstration that sufficient consensus had been reached for progress, including among Unionists, nationalists and those who were neither.
The key reform should be to introduce a system of weighted-majority voting for all key decisions in the Assembly, with simple majority used for the bulk of votes. The threshold for that should be set at around two thirds of the Assembly, at a level that would ensure cross-representation of different traditions in support. A weighted majority could also be used to sustain a voluntary coalition, which would provide a more efficient, effective and flexible alternative to the current mandatory coalition. While a mandatory coalition has been broadly representative—I say broadly, as the D’Hondt formula is weighted towards the largest parties—it has not led to stable or effective government.
While much has been achieved under devolution, too many opportunities have been missed and many reforms blocked because of deadlock. Every Government needs to operate on the basis of trust, respect and partnership. There must also be a shared understanding of the common good, a commitment to cohesion and adherence to collective responsibility. Moreover, the current system depends on the active participation of both of the two largest parties. At different times in the recent past, both the Democratic Unionist party and Sinn Féin have withdrawn from the Executive, leading to its collapse. Indeed, in the early years of the Executive, there was also instability, with the Ulster Unionist Party walking out.
There is also the issue of vetoes inside the Executive. Much has been said in recent years about the misuse and abuse of the petition of concern in the Assembly. That was eventually addressed in the New Decade, New Approach agreement. However, the vetoes in the Executive that trigger a cross-community vote, which again exclude Ministers from non-aligned parties, are just as corrosive. Instead, after any Assembly election, it should be for the parties to come together and to negotiate an Administration and a programme that could be sustained under a weighted-majority vote.
I recognise that that would be the most far-reaching reform. It would require significant consultation and confidence-building measures. In particular, I am conscious of the perception that it could be misrepresented as a desire to exclude particular parties from government on a semi-permanent basis. That should not be the intention. Rather we should see parties moving in and out of government, as is the norm in other democracies.
Other reforms should be considered, including renaming the titles of First Minister and deputy First Minister as Joint First Ministers to reflect the reality that both posts are co-equal in all respects, including powers, responsibilities and status. The perception of winning and claiming the First Minister title has distorted and twisted Assembly election campaigns, at the expense of genuine debate about issues, and it has fed polarisation. This is probably not a reform to do mid-term, but it is something that should be changed ahead of the next planned Assembly election.
The inclusion of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister posts in the d’Hondt calculation, in the same way that the Justice Minister post is allocated by a separate procedure but counts towards that party’s allocation under d’Hondt, should also be considered. The removal of designations, the introduction of weighted-majority voting, and a different approach to Executive reform are all longer-term reforms. However, they are important and the Government should now be exploring them in earnest and initiating the process of change.