THE NORTHERN Ireland Office (NIO) should be abolished once justice and security powers have been fully devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, the British Liberal Democrats have proposed.
In a plan that would save £2 billion a year, the Liberal Democrats, meeting at their annual party conference in Bournemouth yesterday, said nine government departments should be scrapped, along with 100 quangos.
The NIO, represented by just one Minister of State, would be combined with the Scottish Office and the Welsh Office, along with housing and local government, into a new Department of the Nations and the Regions.
The powers of the NIO have waned significantly in recent years, following the creation of the Assembly and the Executive, as illustrated by prime minister Gordon Brown’s decision to give extra duties to secretary of state, Shaun Woodward.
“In 1940, when Britain was facing its biggest crisis of a century . . . the UK government had only nine cabinet ministers,” noted a party position paper, A Better Politics for Less.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, who could hold the balance of power in the House of Commons after the elections, rejected clear overtures from Conservative Party leader David Cameron.
In a weekend article, Mr Cameron, who has consistently led Mr Brown in nearly two years of opinion polling, said there is not “the width of a cigarette paper” between the Tories and the Lib Dems on major issues.
However, Mr Clegg said British voters cannot trust Mr Cameron, who “talks about a broken Britain, but who has tax policies that benefit the rich”, and “allies himself with climate change-deniers in Europe.
“I don’t know what believe, other than David Cameron and George Osborne sense an entitlement that people like them ought to run the country,” he told delegates.
Promising “progressive austerity, but with a purpose”, Mr Clegg said tough decisions about state spending are going to have to be taken by whichever party wins next year’s UK general election.
However, his reluctance to include a date to introduce a £12 billion plan to scrap UK third-level fees in the party’s manifesto is, however, proving to be deeply unpopular with many among the party’s grassroots.
He insisted that there is “no question-mark” about the party’s stand on fees, but only about when they should be abolished. “We have got to treat people like grown-ups,” Mr Clegg said.
The issue is particularly significant for the Liberal Democrats, since so many of its MPs hold seats in constituencies with large student populations, and many of its target gains are in those that also have large universities.
“Next year’s election is one of the most significant in the history of the United Kingdom, given the people’s increasing disaffection with politics and politicians. More people did not vote in the last two elections than voted for the party that won,” said Mr Clegg.
While issuing inviting approaches to the Liberals in case they need them after the election, the Conservatives are targeting 15 of the smaller party’s 63 seats, particularly those in the south and southwest of England.
Meanwhile, Mr Clegg is seeking to appeal to those who backed Labour in 1997 to support him now: “Labour has run out of road. They are knackered and exhausted. The country wants change, but what change?”
Former party leader Charles Kennedy, speaking to the conference’s opening session on Saturday, put it more colourfully, if harshly, saying that Mr Brown was “like a man in a coma who won’t die”.
Mr Kennedy also suggested that the Liberal Democrats could not enter a coalition government with the Tories because of David Cameron’s hostility towards the EU.