Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meets Stormont parties in Belfast

Rishi Sunak is meeting the leaders of Stormont's five main political parties as part of his first visit to Northern Ireland as prime minister.

The two-day trip is being described by Downing Street as marking the return of naval shipbuilding to Belfast.

Earlier, the Northern Ireland secretary met the five main parties.

The round-table talks with party leaders focused on efforts to restore power-sharing.

Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland Secretary, said he remained of the view that there was no reason for the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to stay out of the executive.

In a statement, Downing Street said the prime minister will meet businesses and communities, as well as political leaders, while in Northern Ireland.

It added that he will highlight the UK-wide nature of the naval project and demonstrate how Northern Ireland's economy is intertwined with the rest of the UK.

"Northern Ireland - its people and its future - are rightly at the centre of our shipbuilding ambitions," he said.

"The thousands of high value jobs and the skills that are gained from delivering it now will help to lay the foundations of prosperity for tomorrow."

Talks with political leaders on Thursday evening will likely focus on the absence of a power-sharing executive at Stormont.

Unionists argue the post-Brexit trading arrangement undermines Northern Ireland's position in the UK, as it keeps the nation aligned with some EU trade rules to ensure goods can move freely across the Irish land border.

The DUP has repeatedly refused to vote for a new speaker - a position that must be filled before any other business can be heard and maintains that it has a mandate from voters not to return to power-sharing until the protocol is changed significantly.

Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris said he has urged all the parties to work together to restore the executive, "reiterating that this political impasse cannot continue indefinitely and that MLAs should be fulfilling all their duties for Northern Ireland's people".

"The UK government's priority is to see the return of a strong, locally accountable devolved government, in line with the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement," he added.

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said he had "spelled out" to Mr Heaton-Harris what the party needed to see in order to return to the executive.

"Restoring Northern Ireland's place in the UK internal market is the key to unlocking the door to Stormont," he said.

"That is what we signed up to at the beginning of 2020 when the government committed to the New Decade, New Approach (agreement) to protect our place in the internal UK market."

Sir Jeffrey also welcomed the prime minister's visit saying Northern Ireland was the last part of the UK that Mr Sunak would be visiting since taking office.

Sinn Féin's deputy leader Michelle O'Neill said her party was dissatisfied with the meeting, claiming the secretary of state appeared to be "bereft of a plan".

"Even at this stage we are still left in political limbo," she said.

"There was no concrete proposals as to how they're going to reach an agreed way forward on the protocol."

Regarding the visit by Mr Sunak, she said she wanted a political meeting with the prime minister "not tea and sympathy".

Alliance deputy leader Stephen Farry described the meeting on Thursday as civil and respectful, but frustrating.

"We are circling on a range of issues which the parties here, at best, only have an indirect influence," he said.

Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie said he did not leave the meeting "heartened" as nothing had moved forward but, remained positive.

"I leave it on the understanding that there were five political parties in the room and all five political parties were looking at what we could do to improve the situation here," he said.

The SDLP's Matthew O'Toole said that the meeting was "not hugely productive in terms of outcomes".

"The person who ultimately has the responsibility for forming an executive at the minute is Jeffrey Donaldson," he said.

There was a time when the prime minister jetting in to Northern Ireland in the middle of a Stormont crisis was a sign that pressure was being ramped up on the parties.

And very often the intervention of Number 10 was key to breaking the deadlock.

These days Downing Street takes more of a hands off approach when it comes to political problems in Northern Ireland, leaving it instead to the Secretary of State.

So this feels more like Rishi Sunak coming to Belfast to fulfil a fixture in his first visit as prime minister.

But he can expect to be challenged about the nurses strike, the stalled £600 energy payment for homes, the protocol negotiations and what pressure is he applying on the DUP to return to the executive.

We are not expecting too many answers.

Meanwhile, UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly is meeting EU Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic in Brussels.

Talks have been happening at a technical level for some months, but a resolution does not appear imminent.

Teams on both sides have said a window of opportunity exists to agree a deal but have not specified a timetable.