Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Bill

That intervention shows, as I pointed out previously, that Sinn Fein and the DUP give each other vetoes in relation to policing, and the devolution of justice and policing. Sinn Fein’s position is that it will not move on policing, it will not accept the PSNI and it will not take its places on the Policing Board, unless and until the DUP agrees a date for the devolution of justice and policing. It is clear, however, that the DUP has a whole variety of preconditions for the devolution of justice and policing, over an unspecified testing period, including an unspecified indication of satisfaction or confidence on the part of the public. That brings us to the nub of the matter—the huge contradiction at the heart of what we hope to do. In the St. Andrews deal, the two Governments have told us that they believe that they have a basis for ensuring that Sinn Fein moves on policing and that the DUP moves on restoration of the institutions. If the DUP does not give an indication of a date, however, that will be Sinn Fein’s excuse for not moving on policing. If Sinn Finn failed to move on policing on the basis that the DUP already has the triple lock on the devolution of justice and policing, Sinn Fein would blame the DUP for the failure of the St. Andrews agreement, and the DUP would blame Sinn Fein. That is why those parties have given each other vetoes—so that they can blame each other. The Government need to address that question with a bit more robustness. I do not doubt that the DUP has some neck in pushing these things as it has. I certainly do not doubt that Sinn Fein has neck in how it pushes things. We need to see a little more backbone from the Government in dealing with this issue, rather than their just pretending that the problem does not exist, or that somehow we will go past it. There are other issues in the Bill that my hon. Friends will touch on as well. Not least, we disagree hugely with what is provided in respect of education. We do not believe that a veto should be created on the opportunity for equal education arising from ending selection. It could be a poor start to a restored Assembly if the first item of business involved failing to confirm the ban on academic selection—only to be in a position where we could not provide for anything in place of the 11-plus. We would then end up with the worst possible combination of the unfair, the unknown and the unworkable in making future provision for secondary education. When we are in those difficulties, no doubt it will all end up being called ““Hain’s hames””. People will be able to blame everybody else for that gridlock. That is why we want to get away from the vetoes, the side deals and the go-slows. We want to see the Government push the pace of progress and put it to parties to accept a deal that has been approved by the people. That is the way to make progress—not to keep putting things off or demanding extras, and not through side deals. Straightforward up-front agreements, not side deals, are the way forward. Parties need to be put under pressure as far as those clear fundamental principles are concerned. I regret that, rather than putting parties under clear pressure and giving the public clear answers, too often the Bill panders to parties. We have misgivings about the Bill, but we know the exigencies of the timetable. We want to see the nominations for the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister on Friday, and we know that that depends on the passage of the Bill. That is why we will not divide the House on the Bill, or on some of the important issues that we are raising in amendments. We do not want to give anybody any excuse. However, when the Government are getting that degree of tolerance and understanding from other parties in the House, they need to make it clear that they will hold the parties that need to stand firm on living up to this agreement to that requirement.