Northern Ireland

First, I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his good wishes, and for putting it on the record that, in general terms, the Opposition will support the initiative. I agree that it is in no one’s interest to attempt to wish away what he described as the serious difficulties afflicting this process. There is deep mistrust, and I agree that responsibility does indeed lie with republicans to ensure that everyone—not just their supporters, but their opponents—is persuaded that they are genuinely committed to peaceful and democratic means; that they have, as the Independent Monitoring Commission has reported, rejected their past commitment to terrorism; and that they are committed to rejecting criminality, about which I will say more in answer to the hon. Gentleman’s specific questions. The hon. Gentleman asked for further information on the murder of Denis Donaldson and on the vodka heist. He asked for further information on whether they were carried out by the IRA. I accept that he himself made a distinction between those events and the Northern Bank robbery, which the Chief Constable was quick to say was the responsibility of the IRA. No firm conclusions have been yet drawn by the police on either matter, and there is certainly no evidence that I have seen, or that the police have provided to me, or any intelligence, that either very serious incident, not least the barbaric murder of Denis Donaldson, was sanctioned, approved or in any way organised with, as it were, prior thought by the leadership of the provisional IRA. Let me quote for the House’s benefit a statement issued by the IRA on 13 April—[Interruption.] I think it important to put this on the record."““The IRA has no responsibility for the tiny number of former republicans who have embraced criminal activity. They do so for self-gain. We repudiate this activity and denounce those involved. The IRA remains committed to the peace process . . . The leadership . . . believes that it is possible to achieve the republican goal of a united Ireland through the alternative route of purely peaceful and democratic means.””" I may add that the president of Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams, has made clear his total condemnation of the murder and of criminality that may be carried out in the name of republicans. On education reform, I am happy to provide assurances that I believe it would be a suitable matter for discussion in the Assembly if the Assembly chose to discuss it and if there were all-party agreement to do so. Undoubtedly, if all-party policy positions were agreed by the Assembly, the Education Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Angela E. Smith)—and I would want to take careful note of them. We intend to bring forward an order next month to set the overall architecture, but there will be considerable scope once the Assembly has got going to determine the exact new admission arrangements, the nature of the pupil profile, curriculum detail and so forth. Those would be appropriate issues for the Assembly to discuss, but no one, I think, is in any doubt about—I have heard no one defend it to me—the continued existence of a method of deciding a child’s future on the basis of two one-hour tests, after which their future opportunities are either closed or opened up. There is agreement, however, that there is genuine debate on the issue and there will be an opportunity to influence the future over exactly how the new regime will operate. On the supremacy, as it were, of the United Kingdom Government in the governance of Northern Ireland, I am happy to agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. There is absolutely no question of joint authority or joint governance. There is plenty of scope, however, and the hon. Gentleman implied that he agreed with this, for practical co-operation, as provided for through the architecture of the Good Friday agreement, which was endorsed by the people of Northern Ireland, for cross-border co-operation in a number of areas—for example, on energy, the economy, child offending, and getting rid of unfair mobile phone roaming charges so that there is a single, all-Ireland rate. On those sorts of issues, and on many more, there is tremendous scope for future co-operation, much of which, indeed, is already taking place. But there is no question of joint authority. There is no question of that at all. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s general support on the emergency legislation and will be happy to take him through the detail when we have an opportunity to do so. I am being very cautious about Orders in Council; I know there is sensitivity to them in Parliament, both in this place and the House of Lords. However, I want some flexibility to make progress. I had hoped to include in the Bill provision by Order in Council, should we be in a position to reach a final agreement, and also to amend the strands 1 to 3 arrangements, which everybody understands will be necessary in terms of the original architecture; for example, the Democratic Unionist party has made its position clear. I had hoped to include an Order-in-Council provision in the Bill, but it seems that there is opposition to that, so we shall have to look at emergency legislation later in the year, should there be the conditions for the necessary all-party agreement and the restoration of the institutions that we desire. I shall obviously consult the hon. Gentleman on all the detail as we go through the process.