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Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

In that case, I would ask the Minister why we are dealing with any of this legislation at all. We are dealing with issues of permutations. When other parties are insisting that they need safeguards and triple locks to protect them from all sorts of perils, is it not right that we who are here to legislate on these matters should ensure that we do that properly, so as to prevent unintended problems and contrary effects to those that the Government claim to intend? We have tabled amendments that would avoid re-running d’Hondt on a tactical basis by parties. That would mean that the First Minister and Deputy First Minister could nominate a person from a different political party, without the inconvenience of re-running d’Hondt for ordinary ministerial offices. I ask the Government to reflect on our amendments, even if they do not accept them now. Perhaps they will consider introducing their own amendments elsewhere that would have a similar effect. They would protect the integrity of what the Government say that the Bill is trying to achieve, namely to provide arrangements for a menu of options from which to appoint justice Ministers without doing any damage to the basic architecture of the inclusion formula in the Northern Ireland Act 1998. I also want to express our support for the Liberal Democrat amendments Nos. 14 and 15. They would make it clear that justice Ministers could be elected by cross-community consent, in contrast to the present requirement for parallel consent alone. The Good Friday agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998 provide for only two occasions on which parallel consent alone is required: the election of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, and in the context of the special equality procedure. We see no reason why that especially high threshold should be required solely in those circumstances. We are obviously not content with the Government’s new clause 3 and consequential amendments Nos. 5, 6, 8 and 9. Section 4 of the Northern Ireland Act already states that devolution of any additional functions cannot occur without prior Assembly cross-community support. However, new clause 3 proposes that additional requirements be introduced only for policing and justice. The First Minister and Deputy First Minister must pray that the matter be devolved, and a vote by parallel consent—and only by parallel consent—must also take place. For no good reason, that is being required here. But perhaps there is a bad reason, and perhaps this goes back to previous deals and understandings. After the comprehensive agreement in 2004, the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) boasted:"““The Comprehensive Agreement is merely the core of the proposals which we have accepted but is also augmented by over a hundred clarificatory answers, notes and letters.””" The Government have refused to publish those documents, despite their assurance to the House on18 April that"““the talks will be genuinely all-party. Whatever happened in the past, and whatever the arguments about that are, given the distrust that has set in over the past couple of years, we cannot proceed without all-party, inclusive negotiations.””—[Official Report, 18 April 2006; Vol. 445, c. 27.]" How inclusive are more than 100 side deals and secret understandings with the DUP and, presumably,Sinn Fein that the rest of us are not allowed to see? And are these proposals the by-product of them? There seem to be clear indications that that is the case. Martin McGuinness is on public record as saying that the whole issue of how the devolution of justice and policing was to be dealt with was all done and dusted in the negotiations in the run-up to the comprehensive agreement. Are we now seeing the result of all that doing and dusting here in the legislation? Is that why the Minister cannot accept even a straightforward amendment such as the one tabled by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik)?