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Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Bill

With the amendments, the DUP is trying to push back the date by which the Assembly should be up and running and the Executive formed. The timetable set out in the St. Andrews agreement is that the First Minister and Deputy First Minister should be nominated by 24 November, and the rest of the Ministers in the Executive by 14 March, with power set to be restored to the Assembly on 26 March. If that timetable is not followed, schedule 3 of the Bill comes into effect, which would mean that the Assembly would be dissolved. The DUP amendments would allow the Secretary of State to let that deadline slip. We have criticised the Government previously for allowing deadlines to slip, so we would certainly not be willing to support amendments providing for the expectation that the current timetable will fail. The incentive of a deadline, which, if not met, would mean that the Assembly would be dissolved, is needed to persuade the parties to move and to reach agreement. The Government must convince us all, however, that the deadline is real, as unless the parties believe that, we will simply not see agreement. The DUP, in moving the amendment, has shown that its mindset is to expect the 26 March date to be pushed further back. I hope that the Secretary of State will make it clear that that is a real deadline.