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Northern Ireland Bill

I would only add what I said when we discussed the Bill before. I feel great sympathy with the amendment. It is unlikely to encourage people in Northern Ireland to rule themselves and to get on with it if the Government meanwhile enact such decisions as those made on education, which were discussed at Second Reading, without waiting at least to give the Assembly the chance to say what the people of Northern Ireland want. It is not really respecting democracy on the one hand to say, as the Prime Minister has, that it is obviously nonsense to make decisions that may have to be changed by the Assembly, but on the other hand to continue to do it. I hope very much that the Government will feel able to refrain from taking actions which might need to be reversed. If they do so, it makes a much stronger argument for the Assembly to get on with it.