Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)

There are so many noble Lords in this House who participated and delivered peace in Northern Ireland—none more so than my noble friend Lord Murphy. I am very grateful, both for his mentorship and for the work that he did throughout his time as Secretary of State and that he continues to do to ensure that these matters are raised on a regular basis. On the specific questions that my noble friend raised, he will know much better than I, given his former roles, that on the timescale, as fast as we may wish to go, we have responsibilities under the Inquiries Act 2005, which we will follow, and we will report to the House in due course. We hope to establish the public inquiry as quickly as possible, and I look forward to returning to your Lordships’ House with more detail as quickly as I can. With regard to the consultation on future legacy arrangements that I believe my noble friend was touching on, we will of course be working with the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive to make sure that they are fully engaged in our future arrangements, and that any future changes to the legacy Act have their confidence to deliver for the people of Northern Ireland. On that note, I want to put on record how delighted the Government are that both the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Executive are up and running and that their programme for government was published this week. In terms of engagement with the Republic of Ireland, before we announced the inquiry, the Secretary of State engaged with the Tánaiste, Micheál Martin, and spoke to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland to make sure that everybody was up to date and informed before a decision was made.