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Northern Ireland Bill

No, because we have limited time and we have agreed sensibly to allow as many hon. Members as possible to speak by accepting a self-imposed time limit. The hon. Lady took some time to explain her difficulties with the proposals in the Bill. She railed against the Assembly that the measure sets up, but I wish that she and the wing of her party that so vehemently supported the Assembly that was set up in 1998, with all its fundamental flaws, including IRA-Sinn Fein in government without decommissioning, had expressed even one word of concern about it and its make-up. Had she done so, her complaints today would have had a bit more credibility. Likewise, had she and her colleagues on the wing of the party that she supports opposed the deferral of the election in May 2003, first for four weeks and then until the November—they did not want it even then—her concern about the moving of the election date would have had more credibility. My party is happy to face the electorate at any time. We will face them quite happily in May 2007, because every time we have gone to the polls, they have endorsed our position and given us a clear mandate. We have no doubt that, when we face them again—we are happy to face them sooner rather than later—they will once again give us a resounding mandate. I have a lot of sympathy with what the hon. Member for North Down said about executive power in the hands of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, but I would remind her and those in the wing of the Ulster Unionist party that supports her that she supported the handing of full, untrammelled executive power to Ministers in the Northern Ireland Assembly—and to all-Ireland bodies—so that they could carry out enormous acts of damage to the people of Northern Ireland, to its economy and to its health and education systems, as evidenced by the decisions of Bairbre de Brún in a number of cases, and by Martin McGuinness over the 11-plus. So I am glad that a different approach is now being taken, but I shall wait and see whether it will be carried out in practice. On the matter before us today, the Secretary of State said that there would be serious consequences if the parties involved did not carry out their mandate and act maturely. This party has certainly been elected on a mandate to try to bring about devolution. We were devolutionists when other parties in the Unionist community were fully fledged integrationists that did not want Stormont or any kind of local accountability whatever. There is no doubting our devolutionist credentials. However, our mandate also states that devolution must be based on sound democratic principles, and must involve a complete end to paramilitarism, terrorism, violence and criminality, along with certain changes to the Belfast agreement. I shall not rehearse all those points, because my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Campbell) and others have already outlined that mandate. We have come a long way, in regard to not only the change in the circumstances on the ground in Northern Ireland, but the attitude of the parties and of right hon. and hon. Members. We are now talking about the need for absolute clarity and certainty, and for the completion of the transformation of the paramilitary groups into exclusively peaceful democratic entities, and I am glad that the policies that we put forward for many years, from 1998 and before, are now widely accepted. Everyone in the House now says that the IRA must completely end all criminality, terrorism and paramilitary activity. Indeed, the Prime Minister talked in his famous Custom House speech about acts of completion. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) has talked about adopting a Blairite approach to these matters, but I think that it is the other way round. The Prime Minister has adopted a Democratic Unionist party approach, and that approach is working. It is delivering, and our party deserves credit for that. Previously, the Ulster Unionist party was prepared to go along with the policy that stated, ““Bring Sinn Fein and the IRA in and give them positions in government, and they will learn to be democrats””. Well, we said that that would not work, and it did not. We said that they would want to have their cake and eat it, and that people would suffer as a result. The approach that we are now taking demands that, before Sinn Fein-IRA can come anywhere near the Government of Northern Ireland, there has to be a complete end to criminality, terrorism and paramilitary activity and a complete transformation to democracy, with certainty and clarity. That is the right approach, and we must keep working at it. It is delivering, and it is the sound and sensible way to proceed. As far as the work of the Assembly is concerned, I welcome the opportunity for elected representatives in Northern Ireland to debate and discuss matters of deep concern, but we will want the Government to respond to their views. It is essential that the Secretary of State does not proceed with contentious legislation and change. If he does, that will ultimately act as a major disincentive to the restoration of devolution. Many people will say, ““Even if we have devolution back, we will not be able to change some of these matters of vital concern to our people.”” I urge him, in the interests of his project to restore devolution, not to proceed with some of the more contentious matters mentioned in the House. There are issues of concern. The IMC report published today had the inevitable spin and hype prior to publication. We have had some selective quotes from the report even today in the House. Of course, we welcome the progress made, but we want more progress so that there is completion. There are major issues, such as the retention of guns. It is now clear that guns have been retained, the report says, without the authorisation of the leadership. Surely we cannot just leave it at that. Something has to be done about it. If members of an organisation are acting outside their authority, we should at least expect the leadership to do something about them. Is it okay simply to say, ““That was without the authority of the leadership””? Is it all right if the IRA has now moved from a centralised structure to a federal structure? For the people living in Markethill and elsewhere in South Armagh, Fermanagh and Tyrone along the border, or in my constituency, it will be of little comfort to say that the guns held by the local IRA are not authorised by the brigade headquarters in Belfast, but just by the local IRA commanders. We must grasp that. Movement on that issue will be needed if we are to see progress. On criminality, I listened to what the IRA said over Easter, and I have listened to it being praised today about that matter. Let us remember that as far as the IRA is concerned, any act that it carries out in pursuance of its objectives cannot be criminal. It is easy for it to condemn criminality, because it does not regard anything that it does as criminal, even to the extent that, as Mitchell McLaughlin famously said, the terrible atrocity of the kidnap and savage murder of Jean McConville, who was then buried for decades, and about which the IRA lied, was not a crime in its eyes, and is still not regarded as a crime by Sinn Fein-IRA. We need to be careful about those matters. The people of Northern Ireland know how the IRA operates; they know its theology and thinking and how it will interpret everything according to the letter of its constitution and values. Those of us on the ground must judge what it is up to and what it is about. It is important that we do not make the mistakes that were made in the past but that we bring the IRA to the point of completion and bring about a permanent and irreversible transformation to democratic politics. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) has made it clear that if we reach that point, we can make real progress, and we will not shy away from the commitments that we have made. Until we reach that point, however, we will stand firm in the interests of democracy.