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Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Bill

First, I hope that the hon. Gentleman appreciates, as I do, that the apparent slippage that he is talking about by the Government will actually be sourced in the slipperiness of some of the political parties involved in the process. Does he also recognise that there is slippage already on the St. Andrews agreement? The Programme for Government Committee was to meet on 17 October. It did not meet until yesterday, 20 November. The St. Andrews agreement said that legislation would be introduced here, in November,"““once parties have endorsed the agreement and agreed definitively to restore the power sharing institutions.””" We did not hear such an endorsement from parties. Instead, we got Vicky Pollard: ““Yes but no, but—not our fault, see!”” Also, we had an indication on Friday of who will be First Minister and Deputy First Minister, not nominations as set out in the St. Andrews agreement.