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Northern Ireland Bill

I am grateful to be called to speak on the Second Reading of such an important Bill. As the Minister and hon. Members will have gleaned from the number of interventions that I have made, I shall speak against the Bill. For obvious logistical reasons, I will not divide the House this evening. Not only would I lose, but more importantly, I would not able to supply the Tellers. I pay tribute to the Democratic Unionist Members who supplied the Tellers last week in Committee, when we were debating amendments that I had tabled. However, this is a different week and a different subject. The right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) welcomed the Bill. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) for calling into question the amount of Executive power being taken by the Government in the Bill. As I said, I shall speak against the Bill but will not divide the House, so any hon. Member who needs to fulfil an engagement later can do so. I am disturbed by a pattern adopted by the Government—a pattern whereby they use the ends to justify the means. In doing so, they take to themselves an enormous amount of Executive power. In opening the debate, the Secretary of State mentioned the peace process, the restoration of devolved government and direct rule. Those are all laudable aims. Although I loathe and detest direct rule, I take no exception to any of those laudable aims. I do, however, take grave exception to the Bill, for three reasons. We are being asked to approve not the lifting of the suspension, but the creation of a completely new creature, which has, unfortunately, been christened, ““the Assembly””. It is not a shadow Assembly or a devolved Assembly, and it includes the same 108 Assembly Members—I am not one of them, but I have enormous regard for them, regardless of their party. The Secretary of State has indicated that he does not regret christening the new creature ““the Assembly””. What will the new creature do? It can talk and think about electing a First Minister, a Deputy Minister and Executive Ministers, and if it is very lucky, it can also discuss such other matters as the Secretary of State thinks fit. In other words, 108 noble Assembly Members must sit and wait for the crumbs to fall from the Secretary of State in order to discuss anything. What will be the effect of any of their debates or resolutions? The hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) has discussed the review of public administration, on which the resolutions of the Assembly will have no effect whatsoever. Very soon, people in Northern Ireland will discover that the new Assembly cannot introduce legislation to, for example, monitor sex offenders, save grammar schools or roll back the review of public administration. The public could become disenchanted with the Assembly and the devolved Administration generally, which would cause me great concern. I hope that other hon. Members are also concerned about the public feeling disillusioned with attempts to restore devolved government in Northern Ireland. I was particularly perturbed that the hon. Member for Belfast, East made no reference to the Assembly election being postponed. On 14 May 2003, he stated:"““There can be no more crucial issue in any democratic society than maintaining the purity of the electoral process, and there is no more serious constitutional matter than a Government stepping in to abort a democratic election.””—[Official Report, 14 May 2003; Vol. 405, c. 422.]" I was disappointed that he did not make that point earlier.