DUP will nominate minister to joint office when devolution returns, says Donaldson

Appearing at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on Wednesday, the DUP leader said he wants to see the NI Assembly up and running again, and that having a minister in the “joint office” of first and deputy first minister is “not the issue”.

He said: "I want to see the Assembly fully functioning and doing its job even better than before. I want to see an Executive that works, and maybe we can improve that, too, in the future.

"There are some who allege that the DUP's reluctance to go back into power sharing is because of the way in which the first minister and deputy first minister will operate going forward.

"They are joint offices. When devolution returns, we will nominate a minister to that office. We are very clear about that, that is not the issue for us."

The DUP is refusing to participate until its concerns around the Northern Ireland Protocol are addressed by the UK Government.

The UK re-entered negotiations with the EU earlier this year around post-Brexit arrangements and agreed the Windsor Framework.

Sir Jeffrey insisted his decision to withdraw Paul Givan as first minister in February 2022 was "proportionate".

"It was with great reluctance that I took the decision in February 2022 to withdraw the first minister," he told MPs.

"I felt it was a proportionate decision that would buy time to allow for negotiation to take place whilst all the departmental ministers remained in place, albeit the Executive itself couldn't meet, but at least there were ministers in post and that enabled a degree of decision-making within government departments.

"So I was hoping that within that period, that we would see meaningful engagement and negotiation leading to solutions in terms of the concerns that unionists have about the agreement."

​The Windsor Framework is due to come into force in October.

Sir Jeffrey said his party had submitted a document to government which was understood to outline what it needed to re-enter Stormont.

“We have put that paper to the government. We want to give the government time to respond to that and I think it’s important we respect the integrity of that process,” he told the committee.

“We’ll see what the government responds with and then we can determine what we say publicly, obviously, the outcome of this process will become a matter of public record, it has to do, but I want to ensure that we get the right outcome.”

Sir Jeffrey said his party was looking for “protection for the ability of Northern Ireland’s businesses to trade with the rest of the UK in the event that there’s future divergence between UK law and EU law”.

“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say to the government of the United Kingdom, we need to ensure that where divergence may occur in the future between EU law which applies to the manufacture of goods in Northern Ireland and UK law, that the government will ensure that we can continue to have access to the internal market of the United Kingdom and the changes to either UK law or EU law will not inhibit our ability to trade within our own country,” he said.

“That in essence is what we’re looking for.”

Quoting former SDLP leader John Hume, Sir Jeffrey stressed the importance of consensus in NI politics.

"In a divided society, you cannot operate on majority rule, you've got to operate on the basis of consensus," he said

"John Hume championed the concept of consensus and the reality is that at the moment in Northern Ireland, that cross-community consensus in relation to some very fundamental issues that impact on the day-to-day lives of the people of Northern Ireland, arising from the Northern Ireland Protocol as part of the EU Withdrawal Agreement, means that that consensus has been seriously undermined," he added.

Sinn Fein MLA Conor Murphy said: “The time for excuses and delay is long past. What the public need to hear now from Jeffrey Donaldson and the DUP is that they are ending their blockade and going back to work”.