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Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

Of course, the triple lock that the Secretary of State referred to means that it is not just the Government who must agree to the devolution of policing and justice; the Assembly must agree to it by a cross-community vote, and the First Minister and Deputy First Minister must initially agree to it before proposing it to the Assembly. I should be grateful if the Minister indicated when he winds up that the latter element of the triple lock is still in his thinking. I am very happy to say to the hon. Lady that I agree that it is absolutely essential that there be a veto in respect of the Assembly’s cross-community provisions, but my point is that that hardly requires a Bill at this stage. Neither now nor in the foreseeable future is there any prospect of the Assembly voting for such an eventuality, so we are spending a lot of time debating something that is unlikely to happen, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) said earlier.