Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Bill

In the course of my remarks I will nail each and every one of those misrepresentations of what actually happened. The fact is that for key decisions, the ministerial code, and particularly the ministerial code as amended, including in the aftermath of the decision on Belfast maternity services, already made it very clear when Ministers had to bring things to the Executive. The DUP pretends that nobody had to bring anything to the Executive—that there were no requirements for accountability, transparency or notifying people of anything. We had quite a sizeable ministerial code, which covered all those issues. Ministers also had to get the approval of the Executive for key proposals, and even DUP Ministers did so; even they had to submit memorandums to the very Executive that they had promised to destroy. Yes, it was a bit of a phony correspondence between the Executive and the DUP, but the fact is that DUP Ministers had to abide by the ministerial code and send a number of their key proposals in to the Executive. Yes, we have proposed on previous occasions, and will propose again, that far more transparency should be built into prior notification of possible ministerial decisions, to the departmental Committees as well as to the Executive, but all our proposals for added transparency and up-front declarations by Ministers and Departments were actually rejected by the DUP when we made them in the review of the Good Friday agreement and at the subsequent talks at Leeds castle. The DUP said that our proposals for far more accountability, transparency and scrutiny in the Assembly were actually providing for too much transparency and too much accountability. The truth is that the DUP is not interested in accountability in the true and proper sense of that term, or transparency for the public good; the DUP is into private vetoes, and DUP contributions to the debates this evening prove that members of the DUP are not reformed vetoholics. They are still vetoholics, committed to taking every veto they can get when they can get it, and once they start on the vetoes they just cannot stop themselves. That is the reality. That is why I pointed out earlier the mistake that was made in the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2006, which gave the DUP the triple lock on the devolution of justice and policing. The DUP has been brandishing it ever since. We now get these cries of ““Shock!”” and ““Horror!”” and ““Disgrace!”” from Sinn Fein—the very people who applauded as that veto was handed to the DUP in legislation, when people were doing handstands and saying that it was wonderful legislation that would seal the devolution of justice. Our amendments purport to address what we see as a number of problems with new vetoes that are gratuitously given, especially to the DUP, in the Bill. Decision making will be snarled up and complicated. That is something that the provisions in the Bill invite via politics, and they will guarantee bad government. We are reinforced in our opposition to the provisions in clause 5, and some of the provisions in clause 6 in the light of the Minister of State’s answers to the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson). He gave carefully choreographed answers—it was a side deal unveiled in public—that show that this is really about giving the DUP the sort of drive-by vetoes that the SDLP has complained about ever since they were provided for in the so-called comprehensive agreement of December 2004. Members of the DUP might argue that they want to have more controls and more constraints on Ministers—further obligations for Ministers. But under legislation already passed by Parliament, if a Minister breaches the ministerial code a complaint can be brought to the Independent Monitoring Commission, and if the IMC upholds that complaint, the Secretary of State can impose sanctions against the Minister, regardless even of the will of Assembly. That, as well as a ministerial code that the DUP has been in denial about, undermines and refutes the case for the sort of changes in this Bill that Ministers have granted to the DUP. The Bill goes radically further than what existed before, because it imposes a legal duty on Ministers to comply with the ministerial code—a code that cannot always be as tightly drafted as one might want, and which, for very good reasons, might in part have to be drafted more loosely. Clause 5 goes on to provide that a Minister has no authority to take any decision against the ministerial code. As the Minister said in reply to questions asked by the hon. Member for Belfast, East, that will mean that any decision taken that might not be in compliance with the ministerial code could be subject to full legal challenge. When I look at the existing ministerial code, I can see all sorts of grounds on which Ministers might take cases against other Ministers for supposedly not complying with it, and possibilities that subsequently, one or two years down the road as things are being implemented, consequential issues will be raised and people will then discover that those issues all stem from a ministerial decision taken a couple of years ago that was not in compliance with the ministerial code. A vested interest—perhaps a wealthy business person or some other third-party interest—might then decide, ““We can gridlock the whole thing; we can take this into the Northern Ireland courts.”” They will not have to find a ruse involving people breaking a European Union regulation and take that to Brussels. They will have far more things on which to take Ministers and Departments to court than merely issues such as not complying with consultation requirements—the very issue that has seen Ministers from a number of Departments in courts in recent times. We could have Government gridlocked. Taking such decisions into courts can cause hardship for third parties who are relying on decisions being implemented and followed through, and that can of course be exploited by cynical third parties who want to stand in the way of people benefiting from certain Government decisions; those third parties might want to complicate issues regarding contracts that have been awarded, or to stop contracts in their tracks, which might prevent roads or hospitals from being built. That is what can come from elevating into law the requirement for Ministers to comply with the ministerial code, and from saying that anything that people can allege is shy of the ministerial code to any degree can automatically be a matter for the courts. Under the Bill’s provisions, it will be impossible for Ministers to move quickly to deal with emergencies such as an influenza epidemic—avian flu might hit us—or foot and mouth disease. Foot and mouth hit us during the last period of devolution, and there were issues and sensitivities concerning the fact that the then Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development took the straightforward decision to close the ports. That helped to save Northern Ireland from the scourge of foot and mouth, but under the proposals being discussed, that Minister would not be able to do that. Under these proposals, that Minister would have to wait at least a week until there was an Executive meeting, and even then would not be able to take that decision if other Executive Ministers had any issues with it. So under these provisions we could end up not with bad decisions but with no decisions, which would be worse. The Government will say that the provisions are necessary in order to implement St. Andrews, which states that a duty to comply with the code will be placed on Ministers. But we have heard tonight from the leader of the DUP, the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley), that St. Andrews is just a white document between two Governments, which has no meaning or standing. He does not himself feel obligated by anything else in St. Andrews. If that is his attitude, why should the Government feel obligated to make the provisions in St. Andrews that are under discussion, just because they are for the DUP? When the DUP does not want to abide by St. Andrews, that is okay by the Government. When the DUP wants everybody else to abide by St. Andrews and hold us ruthlessly to it, that is okay by the Government too, because the Government are just here to do the DUP’s will—that is just the way that this process is run at this stage. It is not necessary to meet any legitimate concerns that people have about making sure that the ministerial code has good standing, because we have provided other amendments to this Bill that would do that. They would impose a duty in respect of the ministerial code through the pledge of office. If the DUP find it significant and pertinent to have other commitments made through the pledge of office, why not also make commitments to the ministerial code and its standing through the pledge of office? Of course, the advantage of that is that a duty under the pledge of office can be enforced—should such a situation ever arise—by the International Monitoring Commission, not by the courts.