Referendum needed for any major reform of Stormont power-sharing: Arlene Foster

The former DUP leader and first minister was responding to comments made by Brandon Lewis, who said people deserve a more "resilient" form of devolved government.

Writing in the Telegraph newspaper Mr Lewis, who served as NI Secretary from early 2020 until last July, said: “The question we must dare to ask ourselves is: what next? How can the Agreement be evolved to better support effective and resilient government for all the people of NI? How must the structure of Stormont be reinforced so that it is not so fragile?

“People deserve accountable politicians and a resilient devolved government that is able to deliver on the issues that matter to them, rather than the sporadic governance of recent years.”

Mr Lewis also said it was time to “confront difficult questions” about whether the current electoral system is reflecting the recent rise in the Alliance Party, which has enjoyed an increase in support in recent elections.

“The growth in the vote for the Alliance Party underlines the feeling that many more people now want to vote on issues, not on sectarian lines.

“That should be embraced as the greatest success of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. But if the Agreement does not evolve further, under current rules, if Alliance and its vote share continues to grow, it will never have the right to nominate the first or deputy first minister,” Mr Lewis added.

Speaking on GB News television, Mrs Foster said: "I think he's talking about fundamental change to the Belfast agreement because of course, the Belfast agreement was based on a balance between nationalism and unionism, the fact that if you're going to move forward, you need the consent of both sides of the community.

“What Brandon's talking about is going back to ground zero when actually I think we would probably need a referendum to deal with all of those things that he's talking about.

“But isn't it interesting that when unionism is in the majority, we have to pay our share, but when we're in a slight minority, if it goes back to majority rule.”