MLAs cede South Pole role to London

It’s been revealed that in 1998 the Antarctic was inadvertently devolved to the Northern Ireland legislature despite the fact that the UK Government through the Foreign Office has been dealing with Antarctic matters on a UK-wide basis since 1994.

Although the Antartic was devolved to Belfast no Department was ever set up to deal with it. The Stormont Assembly could have set up a Department of Antartic Affairs if it wanted to but never did and has now decided to cede reponsibility to London.

Top civil servant Neill Jackson from the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) explained that Whitehall wanted to straighten the issue out.

And apparently local politicians are not interested in retaining responsibility for the Antartic continent.

After Mr Jackson explained the UK Government’s dilemma to the Office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) Committee, its Deputy Chair Chris Lyttle asked colleagues - including Londonderry MLA Colum Eastwood and East Londonderry MLA George Robinson - if they were content to support a consent motion making the regulation of activities in the Antarctic an excepted matter.

Only DUP MLA Stephen Moutray said: “Chair, I think that we will all sleep easier in our beds at night when this is put right.”

Deputy Chairperson concluded from this: “So there are no strategic interests in Antarctica.”

The matter was brought to the OFMDFM Committee’s attention because a new Westminster Antartic Bill extends to Northern Ireland and includes a provision that the regulation of activities in Antarctica be made an excepted matter.

Mr Jackson explained: “The purpose of the Bill under way in Westminster is to implement a new annex to the protocol that relates to the prevention of and response to environmental emergencies in the Antarctic and includes proposals to enhance environmental protection, particularly for marine plants and invertebrates.

“The key issue, however, is the reclassification of Antarctic matters as excepted in our devolution settlement. To date, all legislation on the regulation of such activities has been made on a UK-wide basis, and all the relevant functions have been carried out by the UK Government through the Foreign Office.”

It turns out that as the current Bill was being drafted it was discovered that local MLAs could have been legislating for the Antartic - and still can - under the Antarctic Act 1994.

Mr Jackson said responsibility for the subject matter of the Act “had inadvertently been devolved to the legislatures in Scotland and Northern Ireland.”

“In our case, that meant that the matter of the regulation of activities in the Antarctic was omitted from schedule 2 to the Northern Ireland Act 1998,” he explained.

“The UK Government now wish to rectify this on the basis of the need for a single, coherent regulatory approach to their international obligations under the Antarctic Treaty.

“Subsequently, and with the consent of the Scottish Parliament, they have made this a reserved matter as far as Scotland is concerned by means of the Scotland Act 2012,” he added.

He said that although the matter was “technically devolved” to the Assembly no relevant functions were transferred with it and no Department established with any legislative powers in relation to the Antartic.

Thus the Assembly would have to legislative and potentially create a responsible Department to confer such powers were that ever considered necessary, he explained.

“Having considered the UK Government’s request, the First Minister and deputy First Minister believe that there is no compelling reason to argue for the continued devolution of Antarctic matters,” he said,

“ Having now obtained the agreement of the Executive to do so, they propose to seek the agreement of the Assembly that the matter of the regulation of activities in Antarctica be made an excepted matter in schedule 2 to the Northern Ireland Act 1998.”