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Northern Ireland Act 2000 (Modification) Order 2006

To be honest, that is not a good example. There have indeed been trade delegations, particularly to India and China, where we are seeking to improve the inward investment into Northern Ireland, and into the island of Ireland. It can work both ways. Investment into the south, where there may be pressures, can be satisfied by extra investment by some of those inward investors in Northern Ireland. We want to take advantage of the position as part of the UK economy but increase co-operation with the vibrant economy in the south. No one can argue there is not a vibrant economy in the republic after the way it has taken off in the last few years, for many reasons that there is not time, and I am not briefed, to go into. There are some advantages to our working together in seeking inward investment. There have been delegations to India led by the Taoiseach and including people from the north, and I believe the Secretary of State is going to India in the Easter Recess, while my colleague Angela Smith has led a delegation to China this year. Of course we co-operate. I fly to Northern Ireland twice a week on an Airbus, and I have a funny feeling that was a result of UK-French co-operation against American competition. We are in the business of co-operating to our advantage, and the Americans are damned annoyed about it. That is their problem. There are plenty of opportunities to debate these issues. The fact is that we are quite legitimately doing what we are doing, but we would rather others were doing it. I have said repeatedly, as has Peter Hain: we are not going to mind the shop as direct-rule Ministers. We will force the pace of change. We would rather that was done by local politicians, but because they do not or cannot do it, or because it is not facilitated, does not mean we will not do anything. I do not accept that this amounts to coercion, either. The pace of change may be in the review of public administration. We announced the final decisions on that yesterday regarding quangos and the reform of local government. The total of public bodies in Northern Ireland has been cut from, I think, 154 to 75, over a period. It will not all happen at once. The order for the implementation of the local government changes has been laid today. It has to go through this Parliament and will be on the statute book by the end of May or June. That will have the force of law behind it. The Boundary Commission will then go to work. We have listened to views expressed in consultation about the number of councillors per council and have said it will, on average, be 60 rather than the 50 we announced in November. There will be about 420 councillors, somewhat fewer than the 582 there are at present. We made announcements in November and yesterday that we have doubled the amount of public expenditure for which local government will have responsibility. It is still very small compared with what we understand as local government in England, because it does not include education or social services provision, for example. Nevertheless, the amount for which local government is responsible has doubled, so it will be much more vigorous in dealing with those issues. The pace of change will continue, and if we can we will speed it up. Those responsible in Northern Ireland who want to make these decisions and see them through to implementation—the sooner they come back, the better. I am not standing in their way—far from it. But we are not going to deprive the people of Northern Ireland of better systems of economic development, which we can do by co-operating with the south, and of better government, which we can do by cutting out some of the red tape and bureaucracy, resulting in a more democratic structure. The more that goes into local government, the more democratic it is. Cutting down the quangos will mean more democracy. We have also announced—and this will pinch a few people—that from now on anybody on a quango will be appointed on merit only. There are no more appointments from bodies, whoever you are. If you go on a quango, you have to go through the Commissioner for Public Appointments. There will be nominating rights, but not for individuals. It will be on merit only. We are not stopping councillors sitting on quangos, but they will be there on merit, not because they are a member of a particular local authority. There is some force in what was said about restorative justice, but it was probably not quite fair. I fully accept that the current system has a degree of unsatisfactory procedure about it. The police are not involved; it is funded by American charities, as I understand it, which is why, last December, we published the draft guidelines for community-based restorative justice. There was a 13-week consultation period, which finished on 3 March. We had 49 responses, which are being analysed. Ministers intend to make decisions on the way forward once the respondents’ views have been considered. We will fund only systems which are above board and which work to agreed guidelines. I do not want to pre-empt anything, because we have just finished the consultation. But the present system needs tidying up, to put it as politely as possible. Let me say to the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, that I do not accept that there are not enough people of quality to run the smaller number of more powerful councils. I understand that going from 26 to seven implies a substantial change for many people when it comes to their career and their work location. There is an awful lot of work to be done in bringing this about. Our intention is to have shadow elections some time in 2008 so that people take over their responsibilities in the spring of 2009. Nine task forces are being set up to oversee this. A public services commission will look at the human resources and staffing implications. There will have to be changes to legal arrangements. A substantial piece of legislation will have to go through this place—I cannot say when, but probably not before the end of this year. It will take the rest of the year to draft the legislation dealing with the powers going from central government and the quangos to local government. The order for the boundaries is only for the seven plus the numbers of councillors—there is a degree of latitude—to enable the commission to finalise the boundaries. The broad blocks of which council goes with which have already been decided, but the external boundaries could need tidying up and the electoral boundaries for councillors have to be dealt with. As for the rest of it, work will actively commence when the work streams and the task forces come to some conclusions. So there will be plenty of opportunity in this place and in the other place to discuss the actual powers that are going and the individuals. We want to leave as much as we can to the new local government structure, it is true, but a lot of decisions still have to be made if we are going to make a success of a shadow election in 2008 to take over power in 2009. That needs managing from the centre, and it will be managed actively from the centre. It is not a question of making the announcement of walking away—it has got to be carried through. Nevertheless, I or some other person will be back later in the year, or early next year, to deal with that legislation. Indeed, it may not be like that—it could be the Assembly for all I know, because this could be part of the role for an Assembly, if it was back again in a proper form. The Assembly could deal with the implementation, because that is what its role would be. When the decision has been made and the order has gone through this Parliament, that is the legal force—that is the legality. If the Assembly wants to overturn that, it will have to use its procedures to do so, and I am not so sure that the votes are there for that. But we would much rather that the people and politicians of Northern Ireland were dealing with the details of implementation, whether of education, health or local government. But, no doubt, I shall be back on that later in the year. On anything that I have not covered, especially on the issue relating to the trade, I shall write to noble Lords.