---

Northern Ireland Bill

I am persuaded by the hon. Gentleman’s eloquence. He made the important point earlier that if we were almost to reach the deadline, surely it would be better to let the Assembly to continue to run for a while—at least we would have something—than to get rid of everything. That could lead to full devolution more quickly than would otherwise be the case, so, on balance, we will support the DUP if the amendment is pressed to a Division. The Government set a good deal of store by what the IMC says and I understand why the Secretary of State quoted from the report extensively yesterday. I would be surprised if the Government opposed amendment No. 14. I accept that the IMC cannot dictate what we do in the House because that is up to hon. Members. However, I also accept that there are worries among the Unionist parties and, probably, the SDLP about going into government with people who have not fully given up violence. It does no one on the Unionist side, including me, any good to pretend that there was no good news in yesterday’s report—no one has suggested that—but it does the Government no good to pretend that the whole report represented a clean bill of health. I quoted at length yesterday the parts of the report that said that senior members of the IRA were still involved in criminality and cited specific expulsions that were still being carried out by the IRA. That was all in the report as well as the good news, so if we are to accept the IMC report, we must accept the whole report. I thus have a lot of sympathy with amendment No. 14, too.