My Lords, there is one reason why I would support the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, has put forward: from the beginning, the element of the Northern Ireland institutions that worked rather well was the Assembly itself. When it came to the Executive functioning, that was much more contentious and difficult, but the Assembly functioned rather well. The idea of finding ways in which the Assembly could start to meet again, to debate issues of some substance that would increase, to some extent, the accountability of the Government side—be it civil servants or others—is a good one. To simply bring the Assembly back together for one occasion to debate a contentious issue would potentially be damaging because the old splits would re-emerge. To come together on a number of occasions to debate issues that are not necessarily of high contention but are nevertheless important seems to me a good idea. Whether one follows the very specific proposal in this amendment, or some of the other ideas that the creative mind of the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, has produced
over the last little while, the principle is important and merits exploration by the Government. To that extent, I support the amendment.