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Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

For the vast bulk of the time,Mr. McCord has been a constituent in Belfast, North. Certainly, his son was murdered while he was living there. In conclusion, these new clauses touch on wider political issues. As I said in my intervention on the hon. Member for Foyle, we could spend a long time on minutiae and mechanics and lose the context of what we are discussing. The latter part of the debate has focused on the real political issues at stake. There has been much talk about locks, triple locks, and quadruple locks. Some people will be on the side of the locksmiths and will try to build in safeguards, while others will be on the side of those who want to pick the lock and sneak into Government by the back door. We are on the side of the locksmiths and are building in safeguards. I am glad that the new clause means that we will have, not the triple lock that my party called for originally, but a quadruple lock. That quadruple lock requires the approval of the Secretary of State and this House, and the 50-50 approval of the Northern Ireland Assembly. I welcome that, for precisely the reason that the leader of the SDLP does not—it changes the Belfast agreement. Moreover, the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister have to agree before any proposal can be brought forward.