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Northern Ireland Act 2000 (Modification) Order 2006

I am grateful for the contributions of noble Lords and their welcome for the order. Unfortunately, as I think everyone accepts, it is necessary. This is not an excuse for me not to answer the points, but some of the issues that have been raised will specifically have a chance to be debated in your Lordships’ House in some detail. First, there will be the education order. Secondly, and probably more importantly because it is primary legislation—it is not more important; I will correct myself on that—there is the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. So there will be primary legislation dealing with criminal justice, the police, cross-border issues, electricity and other matters relating to the north and south. It is a rag-bag, but that is why it is called ““miscellaneous””. The Committee stage of the Bill has only just started in the other place—if it has not started today, it is due to do so imminently—and once the other place has finished with it we will no doubt spend many hours dealing with it some time in the late summer. This may spoil noble Lords’ visits to the garden parties and the Terrace in the evenings, but we will have plenty of opportunity to deal with the Bill. Nevertheless, as regards devolving the criminal justice system and the changes to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, it is conditional that the Bill will legislate but not activate. The Bill will not be activated until we are satisfied that there is a system to activate. But it is a part of the issue and, if you like, a matter of good faith, that Parliament has legislated and is ready to switch on when the other bodies are ready to fully co-operate. As I have said repeatedly, both in Grand Committee and on the Floor of the House, if you are not in favour of the Police Authority, it means you are in favour of the crooks, the criminals, the muggers and the rapists. That is my line and I will keep repeating it. It is simple as that. We want to get devolution back. I am tempted to speak about the final point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, about joint authority, but I have no briefing. I keep in touch regularly by listening and talking to my ministerial colleagues and officials and I also tune in regularly to the BBC Northern Ireland website. I learn a great deal about what is going on here and there in Northern Ireland, who is saying what, who has what plan and so on but until it comes to this House, nothing can move. That is the point. At the end of the day, whatever is agreed, there will have to be some changes from a parliamentary point of view. As the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, said, however, this is the year. I can assure noble Lords that, to the best of my knowledge, the Assembly will be up and running this year. If it is not, the MLAs will be stripped of their salaries, their expenses, their power and their authority and that will be the end of it. We have made it clear that there will be no elections next year; we will stop the election taking place. However, it is still only March. There is still a good deal of time to go yet and there are several options up for grabs. But this is the year. I hope this is the last order, but I cannot be certain about it. As I said, I think the order will last until 14 October so it may or may not be in the overspill Session, but parliamentary authority will be needed anyway to deal with any changes. The noble Lord, Lord Laird, started off by thanking me—which I appreciate—for announcing a policy last week on countryside development, specifically on single properties, which have been despoiling the land in Northern Ireland’s countryside on a massive scale over the past three or four years. I will not go over that in detail now. There is a consultation process but, to be honest, for those who are in the system the policy operates from the day I made the announcement last Thursday. I am speaking from memory now, but the average number of single properties in the countryside over the past few years has been about 3,000 a year. Three or four years ago they started to take off, to the extent that last year 9,000 approvals were given and this year, to date, 12,000 have been given. That is more, by the way, than in the countryside of England, Scotland and Wales put together. Northern Ireland is being despoiled. As I said over there, I am fairly subjective—I am not trained in this—but, to me, a lot of those properties are real rubbish to look at, leaving aside the unsustainability of the communities. I am quite prepared to defend that view in due course. There is a consultation process to go through but I know there is a good deal of support in some surprising quarters across Northern Ireland for the robust policy which I announced on behalf of my honourable friend in the other place, Sean Woodward, as part of his day-to-day responsibility. I will deal with the issue of political party funding. The noble Lord gave me notice of this and I am grateful to him for that. I do not know a great deal about this but I have found out a few things over the past couple of days and on the doorstep earlier today in a London borough. As the Lord Chancellor has said, there is legislation before the House. We have not tabled any amendments, so we are not absolutely clear, but, given the new arrangements that are to be introduced for the regulation of donations—that is, loans—and although we want to look at the issue for Great Britain, it would be our intention to have parallel provisions in Northern Ireland. There is no earthly reason not to once we have legislated in the way we are going to. I cannot say whether that will be covered in the same piece of legislation, but our intention would be to have parallel legislation for Northern Ireland. On Inter Trade Ireland, I will have to write to the noble Lord and other Members of the Committee on the point he has made. The allegations about religious discrimination are serious and are quite unacceptable on the basis of what he said, but clearly there is more to this and I will follow it up in writing, if I may. There will be an order regarding education. I presume I will be in Grand Committee or on the Floor of the House one day to deal with this. We would argue that it is a question of opening up opportunities. It is not at all our intention to level down. That is always the allegation that is made but it is not what we intend to do. There is a first-class education in many of the schools in Northern Ireland. We want to widen the range of opportunities, but we will have a good—and, I suspect, robust—debate on that. I will come to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, but first, with regard to the examples of north-south co-operation, the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill will have a section creating a single wholesale market for electricity on the island of Ireland by the summer of 2007. That is an excellent example of common-sense co-operation. There have been times when the south has been short of power in certain parts, and the north has benefited as well. The idea of not having a common electricity network on the island and both halves sometimes running short is absolutely barmy.