Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee — hearing of 15 July 2026: transcript & video

00:03 - 01:42

Speaker 2

Good morning and welcome to the public meeting of the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee. We're today holding our sixth public evidence session of our inquiry on Article 2 of the Protocol and Windsor Framework, the so-called non-diminution of rights provision. We are joined this morning by Dermot Nesbitt, who was the lead negotiator for the Ulster Unionist Party to the multi-party negotiations regarding human rights and equality, which led to the 1998 Belfast Good Friday Agreement. We are concerned in particular today with the Rights, Safeguards and Equality of Opportunity chapter, the RSEO chapter of the agreement, which is referenced explicitly in Article 2.1 of the Protocol Windsor Framework. You are very welcome, Mr. Nesbitt, and we very much look forward to your evidence.

The first time you speak, perhaps you would briefly introduce yourself. Today's meeting is being broadcast and a verbatim transcript will be taken for subsequent publication. It will be sent to you to check for accuracy. I refer to the register of members' interests as published on the committee's website. So I'm going to start the session now by asking the first question.

What was the starting point for the negotiations on equality and human rights provisions during the multi-party talks, and how did this relate to the six rights listed in the Downing Street Declaration of 1993?

01:42 - 02:53

Speaker 1

Good morning again. Well, what was the starting point? I had been involved in rights and equality before the talks, and I was very conscious of the developments that were occurring in Europe in the late 1980s, early 90s, and I was conscious of the Dublin Forum that the Irish government proposed and their documentation, and that led me to give the starting point. But the starting point from a European point of view, and this is where it, I believe, it is very important because we are part of Europe, and you go back to the Treaty of Versailles, where there were many countries newly formed after the First World War. But what those new countries comprised of, some with minorities, and as I give a quotation from the emeritus professor of Irish studies, Brian Walker at Queens, and he said most, many of those countries, some had majorities where they agreed with the changes and others had minorities where they didn't agree.

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