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Northern Ireland Bill (Allocation of Time)

I believe that the reason it has not been used is the very reason that I have given. I therefore believe that amendment 3 is unnecessary, because there are already mechanisms in place to prevent the situation that it envisages from occurring. I turn to the Social Democratic and Labour party’s amendment 21, which would require the nominating officer’s consent to a Member’s nomination as Justice Minister. I suppose that a lot of the matters that I have mentioned are interlinked. The whole point of the method of appointing the Justice Minister is that it is not to be a party decision or an appointment made on the basis of a preference expressed by one person, the party nominating officer. It is to be made by the Assembly because it has a particular reason to have confidence in the person chosen. The fact that policing and justice was not a devolved matter in the first place indicates that it was a much more sensitive issue than any of those that are currently being addressed by the Executive and by Ministers and Departments of the Northern Ireland Government. The appointment is to be made not by the nominating officer but by the Assembly in a cross-community vote. The requirement of the nominating officer’s consent therefore not only seems unnecessary but would give the impression that the Minister was in post only because he commanded the support of that one individual, rather than because he had the support of the Assembly. That is also the reason why I do not accept the need for the Liberals’ amendment on the removal of the Justice Minister. It will be a sensitive post, and removal from it will require a large number of people in the Assembly to have not just been annoyed by the Minister but totally lost confidence in him. It is important that that mechanism is in place, given the sensitivity of the post. It will be a different post from others, and the Minister will be appointed in a different way and require a different level of support. Equally, he must therefore be held to account in a different way. For that reason, we will not wish to support the amendments.