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Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

It is not a question of importing the comprehensive agreement wholesale into legislation. The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson) and I have spent some time talking to the hon. Gentleman’s party, the DUP, the Ulster Unionist party, Sinn Fein and the other parties about a consensus on the way forward, which remains our objective. We intend to try to achieve that, but I need his party to engage positively, rather than to pretend that everything should remain unchanged. The small tweaks, as it were, to the existing arrangements could easily be dealt with by common agreement if his party would focus on the detail, rather than simply saying on principle, ““No, we’ll never change anything.””