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Northern Ireland Bill

My Lords, first, I apologise for arriving after the start of the debate. I am afraid that the speed and efficiency with which your Lordships’ House dealt with business has caught me on the hop rather than public transport, which I usually blame. As a whole I welcome this Bill and I think that everyone knows where I stand: it is my sincere wish to see the restoration of a Northern Ireland Assembly. When I spoke on the local government order last week, I made fairly clear my disquiet over how the Government had allowed matters pertaining to the 1998 Belfast agreement to be corrupted by secret deals with Sinn Fein. That type of deal is not new: it has consistently made the unionist tradition sceptical of the Government’s sincerity; it wrecked my party and it wrecked David Trimble—the most forward-looking, balanced and fair-minded leader Northern Ireland ever had. I wish I could be sure that we are not being dragged down that road yet again—that the Government are not sitting with yet more secret arrangements in place with Sinn Fein/IRA and in the belief that they can bully me, and people like me, to acquiesce. I should at this point say how grateful I am, as I think the people of Northern Ireland in general are, to the Independent Monitoring Commission for the uncompromising manner in which it has examined and reported on the illegal activities of paramilitaries on both sides so that government have been unable to ignore the stark reality of paramilitary criminality. To a large extent, it is the work of the IMC that has allowed us to begin to move forward once again. However, the IMC cannot be an alternative to government dealing straight and dealing fairly. There is one substantive point that I wish to have clarified—we will not see it in the Bill but it is contained in the draft Standing Orders that were issued to MLAs last week and, if my interpretation is correct, it must be addressed in the context of the Bill. Ministers in the Northern Ireland Assembly are chosen by the d’Hondt mechanism, which is a form of proportional representation. The strengths of the political groupings in the Assembly at the time that the d’Hondt mechanism is triggered will determine the number of ministries that each party or grouping achieves. However, in the draft Standing Orders issued by Secretary of State Hain, the strengths of political groupings are to be set in stone on 15 May—in two weeks’ time—and not at the time that d’Hondt is triggered. Surely, in any parliamentary assembly, it makes sense to allow provision for the maximum flexibility, especially in this case, rather than to set an arbitrary date for determining the strengths of the groups. I understood that it was always the policy of Her Majesty’s Government to encourage the creation of coalitions in order to provide a representative government in Northern Ireland—hence, the Government should be encouraging such coalitions rather than placing an insurmountable obstacle in their path. A number of independent Members in the Assembly should be given the opportunity to join a party or group that might form on the Back Benches if and when the intervening talks begin to yield dividends. That would ensure that the vote of every Member in the Assembly counted equally, especially as the autumn approaches and major decisions have to be taken. The aim of the Bill should be the restoration of devolution in Northern Ireland. It seems to me that the Government—perhaps unintentionally, perhaps not—in this single proviso are making it more, rather than less, difficult to get the alliances and agreements that we all want. Clarity on that point is necessary at this stage. I am willing, on behalf of my party, to work in co-operation with the Government on this issue, if they so choose; otherwise, it may be necessary to table an amendment—and I give notice that we may need to do so—to give effect to the resolution of this concern during the remaining stages next week.