Professor Colin Harvey:

The process is stuck in a long list of issues and stuck for reasons that are familiar. It is blocked in seeking party political consensus and stuck in relation to the Assembly. The British Government is abdicating its responsibility to take reform measures forward in these areas. What I am saying is that in the context of the conversation on human rights, Britain is perfectly willing to take forward measures on Brexit without political consensus, but it is not unlocking some of the human rights reforms at Westminster, which would be perfectly acceptable, for example, when it comes to expectations about Irish language legislation. If one looks at the Good Friday Agreement and the section on a Bill of Rights, it is explicit that it was supposed to be done through legislation passed at Westminster. Obviously, one way forward would be for Westminster to unblock it. The reasons are well known and include the lack of party political consensus. My view is that it should not stand in the way of achieving the human rights and equality reforms about which we are talking.

On the Assembly and power-sharing institutions, to refer again to the previous point, the North is falling behind, but it seems that politics is behind the people because from the evidence we have seen across a range of these issues there is majority support in Northern Ireland for change in the area of human rights and equality. If some of the measures need to be taken through the Assembly, there is a very familiar ongoing debate about the petition of concern and the way it is being used to block change and reform. We will need to give the issue serious attention in the time ahead to unlock the potential for change in Northern Ireland in a range of areas, but we do not have the Assembly. I am increasingly of the view that there is no excuse for the Government at Westminster, obviously in discussions with the Irish Government, not to unlock these issues through legislative reform at Westminster. In an ideal world, in a number of these situations, it would be wonderful if it was possible to do it in the Northern Ireland Assembly, but we do not have it. There is no Executive and Northern Ireland is falling ever further behind. To put it crudely, the Westminster Parliament needs to step up to the plate.