Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Bill

I hope I will be able to deal with the points raised. I shall deal first with AmendmentsNos. 2 and 29. I am happy to deal with the generality of Clause 5 as well. Amendments Nos. 2 and 29 relate, as the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, said, to the ministerial code under Clause 5 and the draft ministerial code provided for under paragraph 4 of Schedule 1. Amendment No. 2 seeks to remove subsection (10) of new Section 28A of the 1998 Act, which is inserted by Clause 5. Subsection (10) provides that a Minister or junior Minister does not have ministerial authority, "““to take any decision in contravention of a provision of the Ministerial Code made under subsection (5)””." That is, where the ministerial decision in question relates to a matter which should fall to the Executive Committee for consideration and agreement by virtue of Section 20(3) and (4) of the 1998 Act. Clause 5 makes provision for a statutory ministerial code to be in place to safeguard appropriate ministerial accountability to the Executive. New Section 28A(10) makes it very clear that a Minister has no authority to flout the duty he or she is under to refer matters which are for the Executive Committee. Of course, in some cases, where the duty is breached, the Executive Committee might, nevertheless, choose retrospectively to ratify a decision or to re-take it. But that would be a matter for the Executive Committee. We are satisfied that subsection (10) is appropriate and does not in any way hamper ministerial autonomy when exercised in a proper fashion. I turn to Amendment No. 29. As drafted, paragraph 4 of Schedule 1 places a duty on the Secretary of State to impose a draft ministerial code in the event that the transitional Assembly is unable to approve a draft code before 24 March 2007. The Bill provides that the basis for the Secretary of State’s code must, as far as practicable, be in the form of any parts of the draft ministerial code that havebeen approved by the transitional Assembly before24 March 2007; or otherwise in the form of the former ministerial code approved by the Executive and that applied to members of the Executive prior to the most recent suspension. Noble Lords will be aware that, as we have been informed by the noble Lord, prior to the suspension of the Executive and the Assembly, the former ministerial code was undergoing a review process and a revised version had been drafted by officials, although not agreed by the Executive. Amendment No. 29, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, would amend the definition of a former ministerial code on which the Secretary of State must base his code to mean a revised draft code drafted prior to suspension, but which had not been considered or agreed by the Executive, and had not therefore applied to members of the Executive—