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Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

That is not the only issue, if it is an issue at all. Not only Sinn Fein was concerned with the issue. I think that this is a sensible step and I am sure that everyone will agree. Clause 23, the decommissioning clause, is intended to take the peace process a step further. The full decommissioning of IRA weapons, independently verified, was of course welcome and highly significant, but there is more to be done. We want to see all loyalist weapons decommissioned, and also those of dissident republicans. The Bill will ensure that the amnesty scheme stays in place for a further three years to facilitate that process. The Bill is not just about the political process. It contains important provisions on energy that are designed to help to put Northern Ireland on a new footing by creating a single wholesale electricity market on the island of Ireland. Compelling market-led arguments resulted in similar action in 2003 to enable the Scottish market to be integrated with the England-Wales wholesale electricity market. Now it is Northern Ireland’s turn. The electricity industry and the business community in Northern Ireland support the move, for the simple reason that a single market makes sound economic sense. It will be both more sustainable and more liable to attract new investment. It is expected that the single market will bring consumer benefits by boosting economies of scale and creating fuel savings. Together with access to a larger marketplace, that should spur greater competition and provide for a more efficient pricing mechanism. Crucially, the new market will bring enhanced security and diversity of electricity supplies. Renewable sources offer a further outstanding opportunity to secure our energy supply, while protecting our environment. That is particularly important for Northern Ireland, where more than 99 per cent. of our primary energy requirements come from imported fossil fuels. That is a worrying level of reliance in economic and environmental terms, and in terms of security of supply. Increasing sustainability is not just an option but an imperative. Developing renewable energy and renewable technologies offers us a way forward and we must grasp it with a sense of urgency. Last month, I launched a £59 million package of assistance aimed at enhancing and accelerating the development and deployment of renewables in Northern Ireland. It is an initiative in which the public sector will lead by example and in which everyone will have a part to play, with the potential to lever in hundreds of millions of pounds in private investment. The Bill will enable that package of assistance to be effectively targeted at a wide range of renewable energy initiatives that will be critical to a more sustainable energy future for Northern Ireland. Clause 24 increases the threshold on the amount that the Northern Ireland Executive can borrow from the national loans fund, in effect extending the Executive’s overdraft limit. In particular, that will facilitate the massive increase in infrastructure investment that I announced in December. Clause 27 and schedule 3 extend to Northern Ireland the provisions in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 relating to the investigatory powers of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The purpose is to provide powers in investigations of serious offences that are undertaken in Northern Ireland equivalent to those available in the rest of the United Kingdom. The provisions will enable prosecutors and investigators to compel witnesses to provide information in serious organised investigations of matters that might otherwise have proved difficult to uncover. The creation of those new powers for Northern Ireland will give investigators and prosecutors additional weapons with which to tackle the major ongoing problem of serious organised crime on a UK-wide basis. Clause 28 will provide corporation sole status to the office of the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. It will extend to Northern Ireland arrangements similar to those that already exist for chief police officers in Great Britain, so that any prosecution relating to breaches of health and safety at work legislation will ordinarily be brought against the office of the Chief Constable, rather than against the individual office holder. Clause 29 will place a duty on relevant Ministers to fill judicial vacancies in Northern Ireland, except where the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland agrees that a particular vacancy may remain unfilled. That will bring Northern Ireland into line with the arrangements put in place for England and Wales in the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. The aim is to remove any perception that Ministers could use the filling of judicial vacancies to place pressure on the judiciary and influence its independence. The change does not disturb either the current arrangements for judicial appointments or the post-devolution arrangements already provided for in the Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002, as amended. The Bill’s reforms will help to sustain a different and welcome environment in Northern Ireland. The IRA’s historic statement of 28 July last year—ordering an end to the armed campaign and the dumping of all arms, and instructing volunteers to engage in purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful means—has been the subject of independent verification. The Independent Monitoring Commission’s reports of 19 October and 1 February show that the IRA has taken a strategic decision to turn its back on the ways of the past. In its most recent report, published on 8 March, the IMC said that, in its view, the IRA has taken a strategic decision to follow a political path, that it does not present a terrorist threat and that it is not a threat to members of the security forces.