HL Deb 10 November 1981 vol 425 cc104-5
Lord Denham

My Lords, it has been agreed through the usual channels that, in view of the length of today's list of speakers and the importance of the debate, the Statement which is to be made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister on the Anglo-Irish bilateral meeting will not be repeated in your Lordships' House.

I will however arrange for the text of the Statement to appear in the Official Report.

The Statement read as follows:

"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the meeting which I had with the Taoiseach, Dr. Garret FitzGerald, in London on 6th November.

"This meeting was one in a regular series. It was held on a similar basis to those which take place with other Heads of State and of Government of the European Community. However, it was exceptional in that on this occasion the Taoiseach and I received the Joint Studies commissioned at my meeting with the then Taoiseach in Dublin on 8th December 1980.

"The House will recall my undertaking to place before it the recommendations on matters of policy arising out of the Studies. The Studies, other than that on security matters, will be laid before the House tomorrow. They deal with possible new institutional structures, citizenship rights, economic co-operation and measures to encourage mutual understanding. I have already placed in the Library of the House copies of the Joint Report of Senior Officials on the Studies and of the Communique which the Taoiseach and I issued on Friday.

"At our meeting the Taoiseach and I affirmed our agreement on a number of points which are fundamental to relations between the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic.

"We were agreed on the benefits of close relations between our two countries. We are determined to work for a deepening and strengthening of those relations.

"We were agreed on the need to find ways to reduce the tensions between and to reconcile the peoples of the two parts of Ireland.

"We were agreed on the need to intensify economic cooperation between both countries and in particular between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Such co-operation should assist the economies of both countries as well as encouraging further co-operation in other fields.

"We were agreed in our resolute opposition to violence and terrorism. We are determined to maintain the very high level of co-operation between the security forces of both countries. As the Communique states, we noted with approval the efforts being made to ensure that those who commit crimes in one country should not be able to escape prosecution and conviction by seeking refuge in the other.

"We were agreed, finally, that 'any change in the constitutional status of Northern Ireland would require the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland'. This is a fact which both the present Taoiseach and his two predecessors have publicly accepted.

"It is against this background that the Joint Studies must be seen. Many of the suggestions in the Joint Studies are for further consideration. But the Taoiseach and I agreed that an Anglo-Irish Inter-governmental Council should be established. It will provide a framework which will facilitate more regular and more frequent contacts between Ministers and officials. It involves no change whatever in the constitutional position as regards relations between the United Kingdom and the Republic.

"In the same context, there was agreement to work towards the establishment of an advisory committee on economic, social and cultural co-operation. Closer co-operation and friendship are not matters for Governments only. I hope that this committee will have a wide membership, representative of a broad cross-section of ordinary people and organisations with interests in this country and in the Republic of Ireland.

"The suggestion was made in the Studies that an Anglo-Irish inter-parliamentary body might be established at an appropriate time. It was envisaged that the members of such a body would be drawn from the British and Irish Parliaments, the European Parliament and any elected assembly that may be established for Northern Ireland. The Taoiseach and I agreed that this would be a matter for the two Parliaments to pursue.

"This, Mr. Speaker, was a friendly and constructive meeting. It has helped to consolidate the relationship between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. The Government's objective is to create a situation in which meetings between the British Prime Minister and the Taoiseach are seen to be routine. We took a significant step in that direction on Friday."