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Northern Ireland Bill (Allocation of Time)

I want to deal first with amendments 5, 6 and 8, tabled by the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson). I have to say that they are rather strange. His first amendment refers to a situation in which no Justice Minister has been appointed. If that happened before 2011 under devolution, what would the fall-back position be? Would the Secretary of State take over the post? If, after an election in 2011, the post could not be filled, what would happen? Of course, we would be looking for a Minister only if there had been agreement and there was sufficient confidence that we could devolve policing and justice in Northern Ireland. That would require us to be assured that there was confidence in the community not only that the Assembly would exercise the powers but about the person likely to be appointed Minister. That would be determined by our knowing which party or person was likely to be acceptable. The amendment would require us to consider agreeing to devolve policing and justice and then hope that we might be able to sort out who the person was going to be. That scenario is never likely to happen. I turn to the hon. Gentleman’s second amendment. We can prepare for the first step in devolving policing and justice following an election in 2011 and see whether we can agree a suitable candidate, but an arrangement could be put in place before 2011 that might not be possible thereafter because of the outcome of the election. My right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) has made it clear that my party wants policing and justice to be devolved only if there is long-term stability and confidence that it will be able to continue. Let us envisage the situation that the hon. Member for Tewkesbury suggests—that we cannot agree on someone to take over as Minister. Six months is a very long period to leave a Department without someone in charge, but if we shortened the period and said, "If, after two weeks, you haven’t got a Minister, you’ve got to have somebody in charge of the Department, so let it be the Secretary of State", that would be an odd, and very dubious, constitutional position. A threat of powers reverting to Westminster, with Westminster looking after the Department for much longer, would concentrate minds much more effectively than the possibility of the Secretary of State taking over the powers, even if we accepted that dubious constitutional arrangement. For those reasons, I do not believe that the amendments are necessary, or that in the worst-case scenario they would be the best way forward. The default position whereby powers would revert to Westminster would be more effective in concentrating minds. Amendments 3 and 4, which were tabled by the Liberal Democrats, deal with loss of confidence in a Minister. Under existing arrangements, there are no consequences to somebody putting down a motion of no confidence—people stick down a motion of no confidence just because they do not believe something that somebody else believes. If a motion of no confidence does not have to be tested, people stick them down rather frivolously; provided one keeps the support of the nominating officer, such frivolous behaviour can go on. I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) is looking at me; I do not know whether that is because I have lost his confidence. [Interruption.] I will not push that point too far. The mechanism for appointing the Justice Minister requires cross-community support and the support of the Assembly. If that is the method of appointment, surely we should use the same method when we no longer wish that Minister to be in place. I was appointed a Minister because I had the confidence of the nominating officer; equally, I can be removed if I do not have the confidence of that officer. If someone has been appointed Justice Minister because they had the confidence of the Assembly on a cross-community basis—not because one person said that they would be a good person for the job—why would it not be effective to be able to remove them through that same mechanism?