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Northern Ireland Bill

Therefore, under it, both the publication and the person to whom the remarks are attributed are covered by full privilege; however, the Bill establishes that they will not be so covered. Privilege will be qualified, in that such a statement must have been made without malice; alternatively, it must be impossible to prove that it has been made with malice. There are two further issues on which I want to comment, the first of which is the powers of the Secretary of State. I said to the hon. Member for North Down in the House yesterday that I concurred with many of her misgivings about the storing up of more and more power—indeed, unfettered power—in the Secretary of State. Effectively, in many instances he can do what he thinks fit, which is clearly a cause for concern. However, the difficulty is that although the hon. Lady has taken away such responsibilities from the Secretary of State through her amendment, she has given them to no one else. That takes us back to the question of why the Secretary of State is setting up ““the Assembly””, rather than ““the Northern Ireland Assembly””. Had he detailed all such responsibilities and designated them to various individuals, or groups of individuals, in effect, he would have been amending the entire 1998 Act. I would not have worried greatly about amending the 1998 Act, but I suspect that there are some people sitting behind the Minister who would not be too keen on doing so. Of course, the reality is that the jobs that the Secretary of State has been given the power to perform under the Bill have to be performed. If we are to remove his responsibility for performing them, we must also amend the Bill to give that responsibility to the Assembly or someone else. That is the deficiency in the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for North Down, but I concur with her view that the Secretary of State is taking far too much on to himself. It would show greater faith in the elected representatives of Northern Ireland if he vested some of that responsibility in the Assembly itself. I turn finally to the election of the Presiding Officer. The wording in paragraph 2(6) of schedule 2 is clumsy and unusual, even if it is not such that I would oppose it outright. I do not like the idea of somebody appointed by a Secretary of State being"““deemed to have been elected””." The Secretary of State is not the Northern Ireland electorate—he does not have the power to elect anybody in Northern Ireland. He can appoint, and I would have been quite content for him to make the ““appointment””, and for it to stand until the Northern Ireland Assembly itself elected someone. Paragraph 2(6) of schedule 2 states:"““The person who is presiding officer of the Assembly immediately before the effective date””—" the Secretary of State’s appointee—"““shall be deemed to have been elected as Presiding Officer of the Northern Ireland Assembly under section 39(1) of the 1998 Act””." I hope that that will not be an issue. I would far rather that the Assembly met and elected its own Presiding Officer or Speaker. That would be an indication of the maturity of the Assembly and its ability to reach agreement. Indeed, if it could not reach agreement on such issues, one must question whether it would reach agreement on some of the greater issues that it will face. I hope that it does not become an issue, but I do not like the idea that the Secretary of State can be deemed to have elected a Presiding Officer for the Assembly. In reality, the person concerned will be the Secretary of State’s appointee and, with due respect to the Secretary of State, will have less authority as an appointee than if elected by the Assembly as its Speaker. I hope that the Assembly will elect a Speaker, but I am concerned by the terminology in the legislation. It suggests that the Secretary of State can allow the Assembly to elect its Speaker, but it does not have the power to do so until such time as it reverts to Northern Ireland Assembly mode. Under the present mode, it will not have the power through this legislation or under the draft standing orders—some of us at least have seen them—to elect a Speaker.