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Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

The hon. Gentleman invites me to guess, so I presume that he invites me to look in his direction on this matter. If he is holding up his hand and admitting guilt in this matter, I think he is rather short-sighted. He is providing cover to Sinn Fein, which will be by far the main beneficiary of this provision. Far from helping his own party, he will disadvantage it vis-à-vis Sinn Fein in the long run. Many people in Northern Ireland regard this as being designed purely and only to benefit republicans and nationalists. It will give them an unfair advantage and should be looked at carefully. In Committee, we will want to look at many matters, not least that raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) when he mentioned the changes to the institutional arrangements for the working of the Assembly. We might yet have to deal with those arrangements in Committee. It seems bizarre that during this Second Reading we are not able to discuss that matter, but we may spend a considerable amount of time in Committee on provisions that have not been proposed. Nevertheless, we will await developments on that and see what transpires.