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Northern Ireland Bill

I will be brief because we have had a long debate on the amendments, probably because they are wide ranging. I do not especially want to join in the debate on what the name for the new Assembly should be. There is a little confusion about what the Bill does, and it has sometimes been difficult to explain that to people, who have responded by saying, ““Oh, so you’re setting up a shadow Assembly,”” and I have replied that it is not quite like that. Although the situation is difficult, I do not want to take up the Committee’s time on that issue. As other hon. Members said, it is important that the Assembly deals with real issues. That will be an incentive to make it work, so that the real Assembly—or the Northern Ireland Assembly, as I should call it—can be set up and full devolution can be realised. If it ends up as a talking shop, which I very much hope it will not, we will not have served the cause of devolution well. I endorse everything that my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) said. In particular, it is important that we put on hold as many statutory instruments as possible until the Assembly is up and running and fully able to consider those matters. We recently considered water rates and local government, and we are about to consider education. Those are big issues. I do not want to get to the point in November, or, I hope, before then, when devolution is fully triggered, to find that the Assembly is landed with a load of legislation of which it does not approve. That would not be a helpful start. I appeal to the Secretary of State to allow the Assembly to have something left to do. That is important. However, it is wrong for this House to decide such important matters for the 1.7 million people who live in Northern Ireland. I do my best from the Dispatch Box and in Committee, but I do not have, and do not pretend to have, the knowledge that hon. Members from Northern Ireland have. We all do our best, but we cannot have the same expertise as they have. On privilege in the Assembly, again, I am not a lawyer, but I would find it odd if the word ““malice”” remains as a qualification in paragraph 6 of schedule 1. I realise that malice is an important factor in the law on murder, for example, but we are talking about a very different matter when it comes to defamation. To prove that someone said something with malice would be very difficult. I do not think that it should remain in the paragraph. We would have preferred the Assembly to elect the Presiding Officer, for the reason given by the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson). He or she would command greater authority, and it would also be fairer for the Assembly and the people who serve in that office. On the Secretary of State’s powers to set the proceedings of the Assembly, it would have been useful for the Bill to include ““after consultation with the Presiding Officer.”” That might have been better, but probably only if the Presiding Officer had been elected by the Assembly, rather than appointed by the Secretary of State, to avoid an incestuous relationship. We have some concern about the fact that the Secretary of State is taking on extra powers. We seem to be considering so much legislation. Some of it is definitive, but then we come to a clause that says, ““The Secretary of State can do this, that and the other””, and think, ““Why bother sitting through all the deliberations if he can do that?”” I am fearful of that, because it is wrong to vest so much power in any one person. I have no objection to this particular Secretary of State, but it would lead to more statutory instruments, which we all want to avoid. He should think about the powers that he is taking and whether they are going to lead to more statutory instruments. I think we would agree that that would not be a good thing. However, it is a temporary measure, and we do not intend to divide the Committee on it. We wish the Bill well and look forward to hearing what the Secretary of State has to say in reply to a number of good points raised.