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Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

I am most grateful to the Minister for his response. I am greatly encouraged by his closing remarks, in which he said that clause 19 gave ““freedom”” to the Assembly to decide which model it wants to use, whether to have one or two Departments, and which provisions of policing and justice ought to be devolved to it. In the light of the point made by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), and the Minister’s response to it, I would like the Minister to reflect again on the impact of these measures on the Policing Board. If there were a scrutiny committee in the Assembly to look after policing, on which MLAs would serve, as well as the Policing Board, on which other MLAs serve, there could be rivalry and claims of superiority between the two. That is a really serious issue.