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Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

My Lords, first, I apologise to your Lordships and the Minister for being a few seconds late in my place at the beginning of the debate. I was watching the monitor, which was rather slow out of the blocks—not for the first time today. I noted a similar problem at Question Time. We have had an interesting and broad debate, with a certain amount of repetition, which is to be expected, and which will give the Minister something to think about before the Committee stage. Perhaps I should summarise where we in the Conservative Party are. We are now in the thick of the election campaign for the Northern Ireland Assembly, with polling taking place in a little over three weeks on 7 March. I am sorry that virtually no unionist Peers have been present today, particularly from the DUP, which is the largest party. This is an extremely important Bill and I feel that it was their duty to be here, but they are not. The timetable set out at St Andrews stipulates that the relevant parties—