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Devolution (Northern Ireland)

I, too, congratulate the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Minister, the Taoiseach, the Irish Foreign Minister and, as the Prime Minister said, all their predecessors, on the considerable amount of work they put in to everything that led up to this very significant deal between the DUP and Sinn Fein. I also join the Prime Minister in recognising the painstaking work of General de Chastelain and his colleagues on the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning. The Liberal Democrats have long believed that policing and justice powers should be devolved to the Assembly if and when it wanted such powers. That is a crucial element to devolution, and it will be a momentous achievement if the powers are indeed devolved as early as April, as the agreement has set out. There is no place for party politics here: the biggest contribution that we in this House can continue to make is to do what we can, on a non-party basis, to ensure that normality returns to Northern Ireland. I am sure that the Prime Minister will recognise—indeed, he already has done—the importance of now bringing on board all the political parties in Northern Ireland, including those that were not directly involved in the negotiations. Will he confirm that he and the Secretary of State will continue to help all the parties in Northern Ireland to work together constructively to avoid any further logjams in the peace process? Finally, on one specific point, we share the concerns of our colleagues in the Alliance party that there is little in the agreement on how to build progress on community relations on the ground, which is where it counts, on everything from public services to the role of community groups. Perhaps the current agreement is simply not the appropriate place for such a commitment. Yet it is undoubtedly true that a political agreement between the parties will be durable only if it is accompanied by concrete steps towards greater integration between the communities. I spoke with David Ford about that this afternoon, and I know that he has also raised the issue directly with the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister agree that improved community relations are crucial to the future of Northern Ireland, and can he assure us today that the parties in Northern Ireland will work together constructively to take forward an agreed and practical community relations strategy?