Lord Bew: The point of Belfast Agreement was and still is bringing peace and stability to Northern Ireland, not good governance

His comments came when being questioned by Northern Ireland Affairs Committee over the effectiveness of the institutions of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.

Discussing whether the agreement should have evolved, Lord Bew, a Queen's professor and former advisor to the late UUP leader Lord Trimble, said: "I remember prior to the agreement itself, there was a framework document we were talking to Sir John Chilwell about. Everybody would say this is far too complex a document, it can't bring good governance. He would say that's not the point, the point is to bring peace.

"I would still give the same answer as regards these structures – the point is peace

"There is no possibility, by the way, of changing the thing that causes the most gridlock which is cross community veto because it's not just a question of what the DUP thinks, Sinn Fein will never agree.

"Lots of people that I respect enormously write and have written in favour of, because of the frustrations of the last few years, we need to be looking at this, we need to be changing this. There is actually no possibility. That's important – a tedious, but real fact.

"At this moment it's unfortunate to go on about it because people didn't go on about it when Sinn Fein brought down the Assembly to the same degree as they now do when the DUP have.

“The other reason why it's not helpful is that we're now at a moment where there is at least a reasonable and certainly a renewed chance of the return of the Assembly and of getting it to work again.”

Low Bew commented: “I don't want to be too brutal about it but I've never really believed that devolution anywhere was about better governance. There are political, psychological, communal reasons why you have to do it.

"Throughout the rest of the United Kingdom, it's very hard to point to results in education, health which are superior to which had previously existed an old style Westminster government.

"I do regard it as a political necessity which exists for political reasons, in the case of Northern Ireland the need for equality of esteem between the two communities. The sight of the two leaders of the two communities working together is a top down exercise in helping to reduce sectarianism. It hasn't cured it but it definitely reduces it.

"I've just never expected that suddenly creatures of the stature of Churchill and Attlee are going to appear in Stormont. But you can have a decent, agreed form of government in which people meet together and discuss their differences. We've done it for many years in Northern Ireland and we can do it again. It can be stable and Northern Ireland needs stability. The watchwords are peace and stability. I do not believe in significant changes to the structure of the Good Friday Agreement.”

Of the evolution of Northern Ireland’s two main parties he said: “One of the reasons I was so committed to what David Trimble was trying to do was I didn't think the DUP would pick it up and work it because I believed they were so set in their ways. It was a nonsensical assumption on my part, I was totally wrong.

"In general, people do not realise from outside how far things have actually changed within the two major parties in Northern Ireland – the DUP and Sinn Fein. The tendencies of thought within them are much more complex than they once were.”

He said if Northern Ireland gets stability he would not rule out the parties being flexible enough to generate support from the 10% of people who live in Belfast who were not born there.