Terrorism (Northern Ireland) Bill

moved Amendment No. 1:"Page 1, line 13, at end insert ““and may by order extend that period for further consecutive periods of twelve months””" The noble Lord said: The amendment was also tabled by my honourable friend in the other place in Committee and on Report. We feel that the Government are being somewhat over-optimistic in setting a complete end date and shutting the door on the issue. We are not comfortable about dissident republican terrorism abating. There is no reason why it should not increase, although we have to hope that the IRA will do its best to support the police at some stage and prevent it from growing, but we do not know that yet. The provision sends a wrong message at this time to everyone, as it says, ““We think that the normalisation programme will be in place by this date””. As I said in the debate on the Statement yesterday,"““we must be certain that the commitment to peaceful and democratic means is permanent and irreversible before the final endgame””.—[Official Report, 11/1/06; col. 171.]" We are not there yet, and I have no reason to believe that we will be by the date. I do not see the benefit of setting a deadline. I feel that we can give the government of the day, whenever it may be, the flexibility by order to extend the period for 12 months at a time. It is not a big deal, but I would not be surprised if the Government had a look at doing something like this for terrorism on this side of the water in Great Britain. We feel strongly—it is the only thing that we are arguing about with the Government on the Bill—that there is no need to set a specific date. We do not think that wise, and we ask the Government to change their mind on closing the door on the option that we have suggested today. We will pursue our argument. I beg to move.