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Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Bill

I just want to unburden myself of a few thoughts. This is an issue that has existed since the agreement. I can well understand how certain parties, especially the Alliance Party, feel seriously disadvantaged by this arrangement. As a matter of principle, I must agree that it is undesirable and that dividing or, at least, entrenching communal divisions, is not the way to overcome them. I understand that. However, the point is that effectively, as a matter of practical politics, it was necessary to do that to get an agreement. Had we not done that, there would not have been an agreement. Having an agreement between nationalism and unionism has been hugely important and has had a huge effect. Despite all the difficulties that there have been since 1998, it is quite clear that the politics of society and politics generally have been transformed. As evidence of that, you have only to look at the distance that certain parties have moved from where they were before the talks in 1997 to where they are now. It is not just one party that has moved; several parties have moved. My close colleagues and I therefore recognised that we would have to have this arrangement if it was not possibleto gain agreement on comfortable terms. But I appreciate that it is undesirable in principle, which is why it is important to say that my view, and my hope, is that in the not-too-distant future when, through the experience of operating devolution over time and seeing that there are more than enough safeguards, through the close balance of parties and through the provision for the European convention to be entrenched, it might become possible for parties that wanted this safeguard in 1998 to see that it was no longer necessary and that we could move beyond this situation. I hope that that will happen. It will happen when there is sufficient confidence in the political parties for it to happen. I must say to the noble Baroness that moving to a two-thirds figure will be more difficult in practice because of the cross-community requirement. It can be, and was, met on occasions with votes that were not much more than simple majorities. Always aiming for two-thirds would create considerable difficulty. That would be the practical consequence. I do, however, understand the point of principle. I know how it bears hard on the Alliance Party, although I have to mention parenthetically a small party that I hope is unlikely to be elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is behaving very eccentrically. I am talking about the Conservative Party, whose leaders in Northern Ireland have declared that they would not designate themselves unionists if they were elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is incredible that a party that was formerly the Conservative and Unionist Party officially announces that it refuses to be identified as unionist. I hope that those who represent that party here will find some way of reflecting to their members in Northern Ireland that they should try to pay some regard to the basic principles, their heritage and what is really at the very heart of conservatism. I am greatly encouraged by the response that I have just had to that in the Chamber.