{"id":64295,"date":"2015-11-17T18:19:19","date_gmt":"2015-11-17T18:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=9f43c624fdb2bb1af45a0d027d1df341"},"modified":"2015-11-17T18:19:19","modified_gmt":"2015-11-17T18:19:19","slug":"speech-secretary-of-states-speech-on-the-new-agreement-a-fresh-start-the-stormont-house-agreement-and-implementation-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=64295","title":{"rendered":"Speech: Secretary of State’s speech on the new agreement: A Fresh Start – The Stormont House Agreement and Implementation Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

This is a good day for Northern Ireland and a fresh start for its devolved institutions.<\/p>\n

Ten weeks ago when we brought the parties back to the table we set ourselves two main objectives.<\/p>\n

The first was the implementation of the Stormont House Agreement.<\/p>\n

The second was to deal with continued paramilitary activity.<\/p>\n

I believe that the agreement published today goes a long way towards fulfilling both objectives and tackling the issues that have threatened the survival of devolution over the past two years.<\/p>\n

First, on the Stormont House Agreement.<\/p>\n

The agreement will help give the Executive a stable and sustainable budget assisted by further financial support of around \u00a3500 million from the UK Government.<\/p>\n

This will assist the Executive in tackling issues unique to Northern Ireland and paves the way for completion of the devolution of corporation tax powers.<\/p>\n

Measures in the Stormont House Agreement designed to address the issues of flags and parades will go ahead.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s agreement on reforms to the Executive and Assembly to make devolution work better.<\/p>\n

Second, on paramilitary activity.<\/p>\n

The document takes Northern Ireland\u2019s leaders further than ever before on this issue.<\/p>\n

It strongly reaffirms the commitment to upholding the rule of law and makes it absolutely clear that in no circumstances will paramilitary activity be tolerated.<\/p>\n

It places new shared obligations on Executive Ministers to work together towards ridding society of all paramilitary activity and groups.<\/p>\n

And it commits to a concerted and enhanced effort to combat organised and cross border crime.<\/p>\n

While there is no final agreement on the new bodies to deal with the past, much progress was made and we will reflect with other participants on the way forward.<\/p>\n

This agreement is the result of ten weeks of discussions involving literally hundreds of meetings involving all participants.<\/p>\n

As the overwhelming majority of issues were in devolved areas, the package has rightly been driven by Northern Ireland\u2019s political leaders in particular the First and deputy First Ministers.<\/p>\n

But the agreement as a whole seeks to reflect the views of all of the participants in the process.<\/p>\n

I believe that this package gives us the opportunity for a fresh start for devolution.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a further stage in delivering one of the Government\u2019s key manifesto commitments for Northern Ireland, the full implementation of the Stormont House Agreement.<\/p>\n

And it is another step forward towards a brighter, more secure future for everyone in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Secretary of State delivers a speech following the publication of today’s agreement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}