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Northern Ireland Assembly Members Bill [HL]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness for listening to the mood of the House, as expressed at Second Reading and in Grand Committee. In effect, she has moved, in substance, to deal with the issues which were raised—there could be a quarrel about some detail but very little. It is a substantial shift and we are very grateful indeed. I want to say why this government amendment is so necessary. On Monday this week in the other place, there was a debate on Afghanistan. In that debate, you could hear the accents of every region of the United Kingdom—Scottish, Welsh, Midlands, south of England and north of England—but no Northern Irish voice. That is not the fault of the Members of Parliament, most of whom, as the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, has said, are also Members of the Assembly. That is why the issue old double-jobbing is so crucial. We in this House all accept that they had important business in Belfast and at Hillsborough which required their attention. Indeed, the double-jobbing situation is an accident of a complicated peace process and no reflection on any individual, but it is now time to move away from that system. None the less, it reveals a fundamental point, because the people of Northern Ireland contribute to the war in Afghanistan, as do all the other regions of the United Kingdom. Young men from Northern Ireland fall in that conflict, as do young men from Scotland, Wales and England. It is a fundamental issue that the opinions and the tones of their Members of Parliament are heard when these issues come up. This problem relates not only to defence issues, but to broader United Kingdom policy issues—economic, social and national security—on which in recent times, because of the domestic pressures that exist in Northern Ireland, we have not heard Northern Irish voices at Westminster. We need to make a break from that—we need to make a break quickly—and the provisions that the noble Baroness is advancing today are part of that work. For the health of democracy throughout the United Kingdom, we need to create a condition in which the voices of all the regions are heard in our Parliament on matters that affect all the regions of the United Kingdom. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for doing that. We have had a situation that the mastery of two or three themes of the current sectarian debate in Northern Ireland could put an individual into the Assembly and into the Westminster Parliament. No mastery of any other political issue is required. That again is something we have to make a break from. We need to move forward in the context of Northern Ireland, and I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for her proposals which will help to do that and to bring new people into politics.