Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Bill

Thank you for calling me to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker; it is very kind of you to do so as we have only a brief time to complete our debate. It is a travesty that six and a half hours have been set aside for this Northern Ireland legislation. It has constitutional implications for Northern Ireland—and I must say that I do not like the Bill one little bit. I can assure the hon. Member for Strangford (Mrs. Robinson) that not only did the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) smile this afternoon, but he was certainly smiling on Thursday after the publication of the Bill. I do not wonder a bit about that because the Bill contains so much of what the Democratic Unionist party wanted it to contain. That has come at a very high price for the rest of us because the people of Northern Ireland are fed up with direct rule. They are particularly fed up with having direct rule Ministers from the Labour party, because the Labour party does not organise or field candidates in Northern Ireland, and therefore the five current Northern Ireland Office Ministers are completely unaccountable to the people of Northern Ireland. That is not intended as a personal reflection on those who hold those offices, although I must say that if I were the Secretary of State I would be sincerely considering my position if I had read a High Court judgment of the tone, and with the depth of criticism, of that delivered by Mr. Justice Girvan in the Downes judicial review proceedings. Therefore, it is rather rich of the Secretary of State to come before the House and to talk about Sinn Fein delivering on policing and justice, when he knows that there are obligations on all Ministers to be candid, frank and open, and that they have an overarching duty to be honest with the courts. I must say that the credibility of the Secretary of State and the Government are in question. Today, in response to remarks of the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik), the Secretary of State stood up at the Dispatch Box and glossed over the deadline of the 24 November. The commitment to that deadline was clearly given in this House on 26 April 2006. In a debate on the Northern Ireland Bill, the Secretary of State told the House:"““The Bill sets in statute 24 November as the date by which we must be able to restore devolution. That is the date by which the political parties in Northern Ireland must take responsibility for the Government of Northern Ireland, as they have been mandated to do.””—[Official Report, 26 April 2006; Vol. 445, c. 597.]" The Bill before us today asks us once again to push the people of Northern Ireland to accept a change in a deadline. That is a moveable feast and it is not fair to the people of Northern Ireland, who desperately want a devolved Assembly to deal with issues such as water and water charging, their rates, their education and local government reorganisation. But there is a cost—the people of Northern Ireland want the real Assembly, not a Hain Assembly or a transitional Assembly. Our current Assembly has been suspended since 2002; it has been suspended for four years, with salaries and allowances continuing to be paid to Members of the Legislative Assembly, which means that about £2 million per month is being paid for a suspended Assembly. The people of Northern Ireland are entitled to know that, at some stage, a deadline means a deadline. I listened very carefully to everything said by the hon. Member for Belfast, East—as I always do, regardless of whether I agree with him, which I rarely do—and by the leader of his party, the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley). From what they have said, as well as from other responses and interventions, it is clear to me and to the Government that the DUP does not regard the 26 March deadline as a deadline at all—[Interruption.] DUP Members are nodding and making sedentary interventions confirming that. In fact, the only amendments that they have tabled this afternoon would move the 26 March deadline. I, for one, am absolutely weary with this Government setting deadlines and then blinking first—they always blink first. The difficulty with blinking is that the Government’s credibility is always on the line. The Prime Minister has—