A BILL of Rights for Northern Ireland, which was one of the key sections of the Belfast Agreement, will not be put forward by the British government until there is agreement in Stormont, Northern Ireland Secretary of State Owen Paterson has said.
Mr Paterson told the British-Irish parliamentary body in the Isle of Man that the coalition in Westminster remained committed to maintaining human rights protections in Northern Ireland.
However, he said consultations by the previous Labour administration and a vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly earlier this year “revealed deep division and a lack of consensus on the way forward”.
“So it is difficult for us to make progress in the absence of this consensus among local politicians,” Mr Paterson said. The body includes TDs, MPs, representatives of British devolved governments, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
“It is very difficult to get that across because a legislative consent motion must be passed by the assembly in circumstances where the government brings forward any legislation at Westminster such as a Bill of Rights which will have a significant impact on devolved policy.”
Such a motion was unlikely to be “successfully passed” at Stormont. “The British government is happy to move, but there is no point in moving until we have achieved some sort of consensus which is very much lacking at the moment,” Mr Paterson added.
Liberal Democrat Lord Smith of Clifton said Conservative members had been encouraged not to support a motion for debate on the issue which urged the British government “to fulfil its obligations”.
Democratic Unionist Party MLA Jim Wells opposed a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. He said the DUP would not oppose the pledge to have one for the UK with a chapter for Northern Ireland.
