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Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Bill

moved Amendment No. 2: "Page 5, leave out lines 12 to 15" The noble Lord said: I shall speak also to Amendment No. 29. Clause 5 provides for a ministerial code, among other things. I am in favour of a ministerial code, and we were in favour of putting it on a statutory basis. The Northern Ireland Executive drew up a ministerial code and revised it in the light of experience. If people are taking the former ministerial code as a starting point for a future ministerial code, it is important that they operate with regard to the revised ministerial code. It was never formally approved by the Executive as a whole. It would have been, but my party colleagues and I were not prepared to sign off on it. We had no objections to any of the provisions; our reluctance was due to the fact that I was in breach of the revised code and intended to continue to be in breach of it with regard to nominations to North-South Ministerial Council meetings. I thought it would be inconsistent for me to take a revised ministerial code to the Executive and say, ““Let’s approve this,”” and then say, ““By the way, I’ve got to continue being in breach of it””. We held it back in order to avoid that hypocritical action, but we did not disagree with any of its substantive provisions. It is important that it is that ministerial code because it contains a lot of additional material on accountability issues. We were developing questions of accountability. That is the background to Amendment No. 29. Amendment No. 2 removes subsection (10) of new Section 28A. It is important from a practical point of view. New Section 28A(10) states that, "““a … Minister has no Ministerial authority to take any decision in contravention of a provision of the Ministerial Code””." and, in the event of a ministerial decision being successfully challenged as having been taken in breach of the ministerial code, it would make that decision void ab initio. It states that there is no power to take that ministerial decision, and if he purports to take it—wrongly—it was not a decision. There may be an interval between a decision being made and it being challenged. If successfully challenged, everything that happened in between falls. What if the decision was to award a major contract to build a road, or something of that nature, and some months or longer later it turns out that the decision was void and the money improperly spent? The contract is then frustrated. This is an impossible situation to have. It is an impossible situation to put businessmen into because businessmen about to enter into a contract based on a ministerial decision would, if a significant sum of money was involved, have to inquire whether the decision was properly made. This is not practical. The effect of taking out subsection (10) would be to make ministerial decisions voidable—in other words, if successfully challenged they would be void just from the moment of that decision, not from the date of the decision. That is an important and practical distinction. It also reflects on the character of the ministerial code. I will not say more than that. I just wanted to draw the Minister’s attention to what the effect of subsection (10) appears to me to be—to make the decision void ab initio—and to point out that this will have huge practical consequences and is not advisable. It would be better simply for the decision to be voidable. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on the subject. I beg to move.