A new report by the
Northern Ireland Affairs Committee into
the effectiveness of the institutions of the
Belfast/Good Friday Agreement has issued a raft of
proposals aimed at restoring and stabilising Stormont.
Among the measures are calls for the UK Government to urgently
reform the Assembly Speaker election rules so that a candidate
can be elected by a two-thirds supermajority of MLAs.
The same threshold should be used to elect First and Deputy First
Ministers, the report recommends. It adds that in recognition of
their equal status, the positions should be rebranded as ‘Joint
First Ministers’ with the position open to any two MLAs of any
two parties rather than just the largest parties as is the case
today.
Each of these changes would require consultation with the Irish
Government as co-guarantors to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement
as well as the parties of Northern Ireland and would require
tweaking the 1998 Northern Ireland Act that came from the
Agreement. The Act enshrines power-sharing government and
devolution in NI.
Currently, votes from a majority of MLAs within both the
Nationalist and Unionist traditions are needed to secure the
posts of Speaker, and First and Deputy First Ministers. With the
growth of the proportion of NI society identifying as neither
Unionist nor Nationalist since the Agreement, supermajority
voting would effectively equate to cross-community consent, the
Committee heard during its inquiry.
Committee Chair Sir said, “When Stormont
collapses critical public services are cast adrift. Health,
education, policing; all are feeling the strain while important
decisions go unmade, and the people of Northern Ireland suffer.”
“More stringent safeguards are needed to protect against the
cycle of restoration and collapse that has dogged Stormont.”
“The short-term measures we’ve proposed will shore up the
stability of Stormont increasing the incentives to keep the
institutions moving and enabling the Assembly to run without an
Executive in place.”
“In the longer run, we feel that a full independent review into
the effectiveness of the institutions of the Belfast/Good Friday
Agreement should be conducted with input from all stakeholders.
This should include the North-South and East-West elements, but a
fully functioning Stormont is the foundation on which the rest
stands.”
Notes to editors
- You can find the full report
attached and on the following link after
publication: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5804/cmselect/cmniaf/45/report.html
- The Committee started the inquiry
in October 2022.
- At the outset of this inquiry,
Strand One institutions had been non-functioning for some 40% of
the time since their inception. Stormont has collapsed three
times, the most recent began on 3 February 2022 and is ongoing.
