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Northern Ireland Bill

Thank you, Sir Michael. I have to make clear what the hon. Member for Foyle has suggested to the Secretary of State: amendment No. 7 really says, ““Listen, irrespective of the will of the people, let us go back to the Belfast agreement.”” The hon. Member for Foyle had better realise that the Belfast agreement is dead. We have moved on. The people of Northern Ireland, through their electorate, have moved on. That is why his party has three Members in this House, the Democratic Unionist party has nine and the Ulster Unionists have one. It is because the electorate have moved on. We cannot accept a situation in which no cognisance is given to the realities of what is going on and in which there is an attempt to pretend that we must have what has failed in the past. We have to look at the realities, rather than our wish list for the future. There was a lot of stir about the word ““Assembly””. Should what we are discussing be called an assembly? Is it a forum, rather than an assembly? In many ways, that is a storm in a teacup. Those who are going to the Assembly are Assembly Members. With the greatest respect, it is not a forum. In 1996, I was elected to a forum—the Northern Ireland Forum. It was a forum and so I was called a Forum Member, not an Assembly Member. No one can call what we are discussing a forum, because I am not a Forum Member. I will be called there because I am an Assembly Member. That is why the invitation will be issued to me. Why is the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) not invited? Because she is not an Assembly Member. Others will be invited because they are Assembly Members. The body will not be the Northern Ireland Assembly, or the new Northern Ireland Assembly, but will be the Assembly of the Assembly Members of Northern Ireland. We should not take up time in the House by arguing that the body should be called not the Assembly, but the ““Forum””, or something else, because no one can call it anything else. Assembly Members will be assembling together because they are Assembly Members.