Policy background

2. Northern Ireland Assembly elections were held on 5 May 2022, as five years had passed since the previous Assembly was elected. Prior to the election, there was no functioning Executive due to the resignation of the First Minister on 4 February 2022. The First Minister’s resignation meant that the deputy First Minister also ceased to hold office and that there was no longer any functioning Executive Committee.
3. As a result of the election on 5 May, 90 Members of the Legislative Assembly were elected, forming a new Assembly. The Northern Ireland Act 1998 requires that the Assembly first meets within 8 days of a poll, and that meeting commences the period for filling Ministerial offices.
4. The Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Act 2022 implemented changes agreed within New Decade, New Approach (NDNA), the agreement that restored the devolved institutions in 2020. These changes include provision for a longer period of time in which to form an Executive, and allowed for an initial period of 6 weeks from the date that the Assembly first meets, followed by 3 successive periods of 6 weeks (i.e. 24 weeks in total), unless the Assembly resolves (with cross-community support) that the period should not be further extended. During this time, Northern Ireland Ministers who were in post before the election were allowed to remain so in a caretaker capacity.
5. The period for filling Ministerial offices after the Assembly election in May 2022 initially came to an end on 27 October 2022, with Northern Ireland Ministers ceasing to hold office on 28 October 2022. As those offices were not filled, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland fell under a duty to propose a date for a further Assembly election as soon as practicable to take place within 12 weeks.
6. Parliament subsequently passed the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2022 (NIEFA 2022), providing for powers that allow the senior officers of Northern Ireland departments to exercise the functions of those departments when in the public interest, notwithstanding the ongoing lack of Northern Ireland Ministers. NIEFA 2022 also retrospectively extended the period for Executive formation from when it ended on 27 October until 8 December 2022, and for the powers to be extended until 19 January 2023 by regulations. The Secretary of State exercised that power on 7 December, thereby extending the period for Executive formation until 19 January 2023. The period was further extended until 18 January 2024 by the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Organ and Tissue Donation) Act 2023.
7. To date, the UK Government has made limited interventions to ensure financial stability and respond to the governance situation in Northern Ireland including NIEFA 2022, legislating to set the level of regional rates for 2022-23, giving indicative budget allocations and providing a full Northern Ireland Budget for 2022-23, and enabling a reduction in pay for Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly. These have largely been direct legislative interventions, rather than transferring to UK Ministers powers normally exercised by Northern Ireland Ministers, with the exception of the power to issue guidance and to make specified public appointments under NIEFA 2022.
8. In the context of ongoing political instability in Northern Ireland, and the expiry of the senior official decision-making powers on 5 June 2023, further legislation is required to manage the governance gap in Northern Ireland.