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Northern Ireland Bill

I would like to thank the Secretary of State for introducing the Bill and for his inclusive approach to consultation about it. As we said in our response to his statement last week, we can give a general welcome to the Bill. We are pleased to see that there is now a very clear target, set down in legislation, for the restoration of the Assembly. I think that we would all agree with the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy) that Northern Ireland is best served by local politicians taking local decisions on local issues. It is right and proper that those who take responsibility for health care, education, the provision of public transport and the stimulation of the economy in Northern Ireland—to name just a few—should be directly accountable to the people who will be affected by their decisions. There could not be a bigger contrast between how decisions are taken now—in a fairly undemocratic fashion, I believe, through Orders in Council—and how they will be taken when the Assembly is fully functioning. Liberal Democrats very much hope that this Government initiative will succeed in restoring devolved government to Northern Ireland and that the Assembly will become a secure and permanent institution, not dogged by the instabilities of the past few years. There are still huge difficulties to overcome before we reach the point of restoring devolved government. Hon. Members have already alluded to them so I do not intend to repeat them, but to make some new points. First, the Government must not shy away from their responsibilities in ensuring that those difficulties are faced up to and dealt with in the coming weeks and months. There remains a fundamental and deep mistrust between the political parties, which cannot be dealt with on a quick-fix basis. Will the Secretary of State therefore reaffirm his commitment to instituting inclusive, round-table talks? We have stated many times our belief that that is the only way in which a lasting settlement can be achieved—when all the political parties in Northern Ireland are involved in the negotiations. Far too often, Northern Ireland parties have been separated, so Ministers do side deals with one or two parties. Each of those initiatives has ultimately failed. The Government cannot afford to make that mistake again and squander the good will—to an extent, they have already done so—of some pro-devolution parties that Ministers and successive Secretaries of State have taken for granted. If the Government want to achieve a lasting settlement, they must ensure that all the parties work together to achieve it; otherwise we will find ourselves with another temporary deal that will ultimately come unstuck. I also very much welcome the statement by the IRA in July last year and its subsequent act of decommissioning. While many were sceptical about those words, I think that the IMC has pretty much confirmed that significant action has taken place in that regard. The reports that have followed have served to reassure Liberal Democrat Members at least that the terrorist threat from the IRA is now massively diminished. However, we still feel quite troubled about the IRA’s continued involvement with organised crime. That has been noted once again by all hon. Members who have spoken so far—the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State have made that point—and it is something that we simply cannot ignore. The Organised Crime Task Force has done some very good work, but it seems to have scarcely scratched the surface. Does the Minister agree that if Sinn Fein were to join the Policing Board and unequivocally support the police and the criminal justice system, the people of Northern Ireland would be greatly assisted in believing the IRA and Sinn Fein statements that they oppose any form of criminal behaviour? That has been an ongoing inconsistency, and Sinn Fein must live up to its responsibilities. Although I disagreed with some of the changes made to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, many of them were expressly introduced to make it easier for republicans to support mainstream policing and the rule of law. I think that Sinn Fein is in deficit in its responsibilities towards the police. One of the very important actions that Sinn Fein can now take is positively to encourage republicans and Catholics to join the police, and it has been rather slow in that regard. However, on a very positive note, the IMC report seems to show that intelligence gathering has diminished, and there seems to be no coherent paramilitary intelligence-gathering activity of the type that the paramilitaries used to undertake to inform their terrorist atrocities. That is one of the most important findings in the IMC report, and it is one of the reasons why I am a little bit more optimistic that the process that the Bill puts in train can be successful. I hope that some of the sceptics on the loyalist Benches will regard the abandonment of a significant part of the intelligence-gathering exercise as a very significant, albeit circumstantial, straw in the wind to show that there has been a permanent shift in Sinn Fein’s ability to tool up and return to paramilitary violence as before. Indeed, the 10th report underlines the belief that the IRA is now much further from the ability to conduct organised, politically motivated paramilitary events than in the past. Do the Government accept that the changes to the structures and working of the Good Friday agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to ensure that design flaws and general problems are properly addressed should form part of the current negotiation process? The Government will recall the difficulties posed by the system of designations, for example. The Secretary of State has said nothing about that today. So will the Minister reassure the House that if such changes are deemed necessary before the Assembly can elect a First Minister and Deputy First Minister, adequate time will be available for the House to debate them? I turn now to the specifics of the Bill. I have a few questions for the Minister, and the Secretary of State knows—the Minister probably does, too—that the Liberal Democrats have already tabled some amendments by which we hope to have a full and considered discussion in Committee tomorrow on those various points. Our primary concern is about the Assembly’s ability to act in relation to issues on which the Government legislated during suspension. Can the Minister confirm whether the Assembly will be able to amend or repeal any Order in Council passed in Westminster since October 2002? Surely, once the Assembly resumes responsibility for transferred matters, it is up to the Assembly to determine policy on all those matters. Therefore, I should like the Minister to reassure us that the Assembly can reverse, by means of an Act of the Assembly, any policy decision that the Government have made and brought into operation during suspension. That point has been made already by Members on the SDLP Bench. I am cognisant of the fact that the hugely unpopular changes to student funding that the Government forced through using the Order-in-Council process, despite the unanimous opposition of every political party in Northern Ireland, is a classic example of the kind of thing that a fully operating reconstituted Assembly should be able to repeal. It is not good enough for the Minister simply to say, ““Well, I’d like to see where the money will come from.”” That is not the answer that we are looking for; we want to know whether, in principle, the Assembly has the right to make those changes. After all the bonhomie and positive consensus seeking by the Government, it would be extraordinarily undemocratic if they sought to scotch the Assembly’s opportunity to repeal something that was unanimously opposed when it was introduced in the first place.