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Northern Ireland Bill

I am happy to say once again, as most of my hon. Friends said yesterday on Second Reading, that of course we are not in the business of trying to create or maintain a talking shop. Indeed, if amendment No. 6 is pushed to a Division, we shall go into the Lobby to support it. We have always wanted the Assembly that is to be created to have the maximum authority and power and there have been some useful suggestions for making direct rule more accountable in the interim period. That would be sensible and I think that view is shared by parties in Northern Ireland. We want to take account of the reality spelled out yesterday. When we reach the last week of November, the IRA and Sinn Fein may not have done everything necessary to make them acceptable as members of a Northern Ireland Executive. Let us be frank. Given the findings of the Independent Monitoring Commission report and the current circumstances, it will require a major step change in the provisionals’ current attitude to criminality and other things that disqualify them from office to enable them to meet that deadline—although who knows what might happen? My party leader has already told us that he believes in miracles. Given his theological position, no one should be surprised at that statement. I believe in miracles, too—I share many of my right hon. Friend’s theological positions as well as his political one. The provisional movement has let us down many times in the past, however, and it has a fair way to go to convince people that it now has a purely democratic and peaceful methodology. It also has a considerable way to go on policing, as we all know. In the Secretary of State’s comments in this place and outside over the past few days, he has referred to policing only in the context of the devolution of policing and justice powers. However, as I said in my contribution to the British-Irish interparliamentary body in Killarney, it is essential to recognise that for members of any party to exercise power as Ministers in any part of the United Kingdom it is extremely important not only that they support the police but that they urge their supporters and the community at large to give information to the police. They should not be half-hearted or equivocal about that matter. That extremely important issue cannot be ducked, set aside or ignored. So those in the provisional movement must deal with lots of issues. They are the ones who are holding up progress and who apparently stand in the way of the restoration of the Executive—not the DUP or the Unionist population. Amendment No. 14 would add a requirement to clause 2 that must be met before the Assembly can be restored. A number of conditions are set down in the Bill that must be met before a restoration order can be made, but amendment No. 14 would have the effect of adding the condition that the IMC must have reported that"““no paramilitary, criminal or other illegal activity is being carried out by or on behalf of the Provisional IRA.””" Of course, we all know, given the political reality of the situation, what the circumstances must be, but as well as understanding that, it is important that the Bill refers tothe outstanding issue of the day, which must be dealt with before the Executive can be restored. It is not just simply a matter of the parties getting together to elect a First Minister and appointing other Ministers; it is the central issue: whether or not Sinn Fein and the IRA have committed themselves to exclusively peaceful and democratic means. I believe that the Bill should refer to that condition, as well as it just being understood as a political necessity. That is the purpose of putting that condition in the Bill. I hope that, when the Minister responds to the debate on this group of amendments, he will seriously consider the matters that we have proposed—I emphasise what has been said by my hon. Friends—in the sense that we want to see this process work. We want to see it deliver. We want to see the restoration of devolution, but we want to see it restored in the right circumstances and in the right conditions. We do not believe in the use of an arbitrary deadline set down by the Government that may not be met, not as a result of any unwillingness on the part of Unionists or any other democratic party to play their role in devolution, but because of the failure of the republican movement to measure up to what needs to be done. It would be entirely wrong then to see the whole edifice of devolution crash down and for the people of Northern Ireland to suffer in those circumstances. I believe that it is absolutely essential that we should try to maintain the momentum and to try to restore to Northern Ireland the maximum degree of devolution that can be possibly attained in those circumstances.