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Northern Ireland Assembly Members Bill [Lords]

We welcome the Bill. We have had various discussions on clause 1, which, as the Minister says, contains most of the meat of the Bill. We welcome the fact that the Northern Ireland Assembly is to gain the competence to set up a body for the independent setting of salaries and allowances. This will bring it more into line with what happens in Scotland and Wales. We are also pleased that the Government met us halfway on the second part of the Bill, which deals with preventing anyone who is a parliamentarian elsewhere from receiving a full salary in the Assembly. It is important to move towards the end of double-jobbing, and we feel that it would be better to achieve that through consensus. We have three basic objections. The money side of the matter, which the Bill addresses, is perhaps the least important, but it is none the less an important matter. There is also the question of whether people who are elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly can spend sufficient time in this place, as the work here becomes more onerous by the day. I am sure that it does in the Assembly as well, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to be in two places at once.