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Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Bill

I accept and hear what my hon. Friend says, but these amendments would remove the duty on a ministerial code from the Bill. There would not be a ministerial code under the Bill if these amendments were accepted by the Government—nor could the Assembly draw up its own ministerial code—and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State could not place a ministerial code before the transitional Assembly if it did not introduce such a code. These are serious amendments, the effects of which would damage the process begun at St. Andrews on 13 October. My hon. Friend made the point that there might be occasions when the Assembly had to deal with emergencies, which could be referred to the Executive, thus delaying implementation. Nothing whatsoever in the legislation stops, for example, the transitional Assembly making proposals in the code to ensure that emergency circumstances were dealt with; nor is there anything in the ministerial code that stops the Executive calling an emergency meeting. In the circumstances that my hon. Friend described earlier—for example, a foot and mouth outbreak—if a Minister decided to close the ports in Northern Ireland to prevent access and even if such a decision had to be referred to the Executive under the ministerial code as ultimately drafted, there would be nothing wrong with the Minister requesting an urgent meeting with the Executive that day, as would happen now in the Cabinet to determine such issues. My hon. Friend’s conjecture is not likely to happen in the event of serious emergencies. Such matters would be dealt with by the Minister taking a decision on non-controversial issues. Controversial or urgent matters could be dealt with by an urgent Executive meeting.