The widow of Nobel Peace Prize winner David Trimble has backed Liz Truss in the leadership race saying she is confident that her late husband’s legacy of peace in Northern Ireland “will be safe with her”.

The crisis-hit Stormont Assembly has reconvened for a special sitting to pay tribute to David Trimble, one of the principal architects of the devolved institutions in Belfast.

Northern Ireland’s political leaders will return to Stormont later for a special sitting to deliver tributes to Nobel Peace Prize winner David Trimble.

The former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party played a key role in forging the 1998 Good Friday/Belfast Agreement that ended decades of conflict in Northern Ireland

John Hume’s fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner David Trimble said the way they celebrated their award sent a signal of what a new Northern Ireland could look like.