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Northern Ireland Bill

To give the Assembly positive powers on a cross-community basis would, in effect, give one community or another, or one party or another, a veto on positive proposals and that would not be constructive in this situation. We do not want to give life to any sort of diversionary, half-baked Assembly. In so far as we are faced with this Assembly, which would not have been our choice—we wanted to go for full restoration—we will make the most of what is put in front of us, but we are not going to give life to something that diverges significantly from the agreement. This is a temporary Assembly. If the idea of the 25 November deadline is to concentrate minds and to say to parties, ““You will face serious consequences if you let all this fizzle out and the prospect of devolution turn to dust,”” giving that temporary Assembly the temporary power of political estoppel on matters that are clearly unpopular in the Northern Ireland community, would at least let people know that, if there is failure by 25 November, the effect of that power of estoppel will go. People will know that the community will pay a price and hopefully then parties will pay a price in front of the community for having allowed their success in stopping and preventing some of these measures to evaporate, because obviously the Government are then free to return to implement those measures under direct rule. Concentrating and galvanising the power of that incentive makes the deadline count for far more. It will give people in the wider community—the various policy communities and sectoral interests—some mission and purpose in looking to the temporary Assembly to send a signal of a real prospect of better policy outcomes for them. They will be pressing parties to make the most of the situation and to make sure that we have success before 25 November, not failure. That is the purpose of amendment No. 6. I will not address the other amendments in detail.