---

Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

I am very grateful—rather more often than I expected to be—for the hon. Gentleman’s interventions, but I disagree profoundly with the point that he makes. If that were the case, we could understand the need for the amendment. If we say, as one of the amendments specifies, that everybody holding office has to swear to uphold the rule of law, that implies that we can pick and choose our obedience to the rule of law. Every single one of us is subject to the rule of law, so it is otiose and unnecessary to say that we will respect it. It is like saying that one gets wet when it rains—these are facts of life. The hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) referred earlier to the past and the present, and he is absolutely and precisely right. Although the past is in some ways uncertain because it is constantly reinterpreted, at least we know what happened in the past, and we can examine it. What we cannot do is to legislate for attitude. How in heaven’s name can attitude be analysed, delineated, listed and then legislated for? I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman’s comments should not commend themselves to the House, because of the simple fact that it is impossible to analyse attitude.