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Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Bill

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point, but he appears to labour under the misapprehension that there is not already a fairly well developed ministerial code that clearly sets out when Ministers need to bring matters before the Executive—and if they are not sure whether they need to do that, when prior notification needs to be given to the Executive secretariat. We had also developed a sub-structure—a ministerial representatives committee, at which both departmental representatives and Ministers’ special advisers would meet to discuss what was on their agenda and on the radar screens of various Departments as a way of alerting other Departments, Ministers and parties to the sort of issues that we were developing. Much of the provision is therefore unnecessary. There was intelligent sharing of information and proper anticipation that could help in all the matters that we are considering. Other amendments and improvements can be made to the ministerial code, the operation of the Executive and providing more scrutiny in the Assembly. We made proposals for all that, but the idea of rogue Ministers being able to go off, dream up their own stuff and do their own thing is palpable nonsense. Ministers simply could not do that, not just because they had to refer to the Executive but because some things have to stem from budgets. Ministers had to have their budgets approved not only by the Department of Finance and Personnel but the Assembly and the Executive. On ministerial accountability for budgets, the SDLP proposed that, as well as the Finance Minister providing for the overall budget, all departmental Ministers should present their spending plans in their own dedicated sitting in the Assembly. They could thus justify their spending plans and be asked questions about their budgets. Again, that proved to be too much scrutiny and accountability for some people. For us, it would have been an aid to good government and transparency, and it could have worked. It proves that the DUP’s interest in the matter is not true transparency, accountability or better government but ““gotcha”” politics. The danger is that if we go through with the provision as it stands, we will end up with gotcha and gotcha-back politics. For different reasons, the same applies to our difficulties with clause 6—the next provision to be considered.