House of Commons Hansard Debates for 5 Jul 1990

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"1. Why was no action taken to investigate the allegations the witness described as James' had passed on?"--

I have a clear idea about James, and I believe him to be a credible witness --

"2. Why was this witness told to drop the Kincora case?" If the matter had all been part of the past, do hon. Members think that television, with all else that goes on, would still devote a long programme to it? Television does not do these things unless someone is interested, and we are interested in that question. The letter asked :

"3. Why was he told to sever contact with his source? 4. Did MI5 know what was going on in the home?

5. If MI5 did know, was it prepared to let it continue for another purpose?"

I am very concerned about "another purpose", but I shall not get into difficulty tonight by surmising what those purposes may be. Some of us have certain thoughts, and I just leave it at this : I am very curious about what the purpose could conceivably have been. The letter went on :

"No reply was ever received. In the circumstances, I would appeal to you to provide an explanation for this failure to co-operate with the RUC. There are obvious implications for the primacy of the police and the respect for the rule of law by all security agencies. The whole issue should now be subject to the full and thorough investigation which it is obvious has not yet taken place.

Furthermore, the testimony of James' validates the evidence of Mr. Roy Garland. This fact alone indicates that the security forces were aware that there was cause for concern in connection with Kincora. As a result, the key question is no longer whether or not the security forces were aware of the concern, but why they did not act upon this awareness. Once again I appeal to you to recognise that the Government has a responsibility to the innocent victims of Kincora, whose lives have been devastated, to establish finally for once and for all the truth about this squalid business."

The Secretary of State knows that he received a letter of 12 May. He also knows about the personal letter to the Secretary of State for Defence on 18 May. He further knows that some of us are bothered about the passing of the buck. On Thursday 24 May, I tabled a question :

"To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether the Calcutt inquiry announced on 30 January, Official Report, column 112, will be taking evidence from (a) Len Garrett, (b) Sir Peter Leng, (c) Denis Payne, (d) Jeremy Railton, (e) "--

this is most important--

"Penny Sadler, (f) Bernard Sheldon"--

who was the legal adviser for many years--

"or (g) John Waterfield ; and whether it would be open to representatives of Colin Wallace to cross-examine witnesses." I should have thought that that was an important matter of public policy, but the Minister of State for the Armed Forces stated : "These matters are for Mr. Calcutt."--[ Official Report, 24 May 1990 ; Vol. 173, c. 379. ]

I do not know how David Calcutt will decide, but I should like it on the record in Hansard that some of us will be very disappointed if he does not see every one of those named individuals. It is all very well to say that there should be a quick conclusion, but seeing witnesses takes time and Mr. Calcutt may have to see them more than once. What sort of an inquiry is David Calcutt supposed to be undertaking? No inquiry could be full without seeing those witnesses.

In conclusion, there is a whole history of letters to the Prime Minister. There was a very important letter on 12 May which was not properly answered. The answer that I

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received to my speech in the Army debate on 20

June--D/Min(AF)/1/3--was no response whatsoever to my detailed speech. I do not apologise for speaking at such length. I thank my parliamentary colleagues for having been so patient and, by their demeanour, not signalling impatience, but concern.

Several Hon. Members indicated assent.

Mr. Dalyell : When I say that they are signalling concern, they are nodding. I do not know whether any of them would like to confirm that--

Mr. Roy Beggs (Antrim, East) : I am pleased to state that by nodding I was assenting to what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and supporting him in his efforts to establish the truth and, through that truth, to establish justice and proper treatment for those who have been guilty of offences that bring into disrepute this House and the entire establishment that is responsible for this nation's affairs.

Mr. Dalyell : I cannot put it more eloquently than that. On that note, I sit down.

9.28 pm

Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann) : I trust that the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) will forgive me if I do not take up any of the concerns that he expressed because I wish to return to the Secretary of State's speech. However, I shall make just one comment on the matter to which he referred, which is more relevant to the speech of the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone). I was glad to hear the hon. Gentleman pay tribute to the work of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and to make it clear that, in the investigation into that very sorry affair, the RUC was not party to any cover-up, and pursued matters as far as it could. The same is also true in respect of another issue that also appears to be becoming a cause ce le bre--the so-called Stalker matter. If people are fair when they look into that matter, they will see that the RUC investigated it carefully and thoroughly. If there were obstructions and cover-ups, they tended to come from the same source about which the hon. Gentleman complained.

However, that is to go off at a slight tangent. I wish to come back to the speech made by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when he opened the debate. Together with my colleagues who spoke earlier, I express our appreciation of the Secretary of State's efforts over the past few months to find a way forward from the present impasse and to get round the obstacles concerning the administration of Northern Ireland. We appreciate what he has done. We particularly appreciate the integrity with which he has pursued the matter. It gives us some confidence for the future. I hope that he will not allow the road block that he has run into to bring him to a complete stop but that he will consider ways in which he can surmount or avoid it.

I welcome some aspects of the Secretary of State's statement. When discussing the administration of Northern Ireland there is a tendency to talk about three aspects. The hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume) referred to a tripartite arrangement, and other hon. Members have used that phrase. They referred to the circumstances within Northern Ireland, the relationship between Belfast

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and Dublin--the so-called north-south axis- -and the relationship between Dublin and London--the so-called east-west axis. I was glad that the Secretary of State made it clear that there are not only three parts.

There is a fourth part--or one could regard the fourth as implicit in the first. It is impossible to discuss representative institutions in Northern Ireland without addressing their relationship with this House and with London and their position within the kingdom. When one talks about arrangements within Northern Ireland, one does not talk solely on a Northern Ireland basis but on a United Kingdom basis. That must be underlined, and the Secretary of State did so. We are glad that the Secretary of State made it clear that, in any discussions about arrangements for Northern Ireland and its place within the United Kingdom, the Government of the Republic of Ireland would not be directly represented. Unfortunately, he went on to mention ways in which the Republic might have an input. We would not welcome that. We hope that that will be one of the changes that will result from the developments that will certainly take place--whether today, this month, this year or whenever.

I do not want to speak at length about the Anglo-Irish Agreement, but it has had its day. It is on the way out. It was a bad mistake. We are sad that it has taken the Government so long to appreciate that a mistake was made. The Secretary of State used the ritual phrases that the Government are not considering an alternative agreement, that the current agreement is a valuable instrument and so forth. The logic of his position on replacing the agreement, however, is fatal to the agreement. He referred to the need for institutions to have widespread acceptance and support within the commu -nity. He knows--indeed his reply to my intervention showed it--that the agreement does not have widespread support in Northern Ireland. It never did and never will. He referred to the opinion polls that underline that fact. We can refer not only to opinion polls but to election results, which show that opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement has not diminished. If anything, the opinion is becoming firmer. The sorry shambles that we have seen today and yesterday will only reinforce that.

The Secretary of State and others who may speak at the end of the debate will not want to describe too bluntly the nature of the problems that they encountered during the past day or two but the press and the public are aware of it. They also know that the Government of the Irish Republic have put down their interdict and that the Government appear to have stopped as a result. That itself will give rise to renewed anger over the agreement. So one can confidently predict that opposition to the agreement will not diminish but will, if anything, get stronger.

Having praised part of the Secretary of State's speech, I fear that I must express disappointment--my hon. Friend the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. Maginnis) dealt with this at length--over the fact that he did not deal with the constitutional position, and particularly with articles 2 and 3 of the constitution of the Irish Republic. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to treat that as a matter of no great import and suggested that it would not provide an obstacle.

The hon. Member for Foyle encouraged us to look at European parallels. One parallel that springs immediately to mind provides an instructive contrast. I refer to one aspect of the unification of Germany which is now taking

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place. Hon. Members will recall how, a few months ago, intense pressure was brought to bear on Chancellor Kohl over the recognition or otherwise of the Oder-Neisse line, which demarcates the border between what is still technically the Democratic Republic of Germany and Poland. That line was produced as a result of Stalin's expulsion of millions of Germans from Pomerania and Silesia. Those people, or their forebears, had lived in that area for eight to 10 centuries. They were expelled violently with massive bloodshed in the months after May 1945.

One understands why, in the past, German leaders were reluctant to give unequivocal recognition to the Oder-Neisse line. But nobody suggested a few months ago that Chancellor Kohl--if he achieved a united Germany and was still its Chancellor--would launch a European war to recover Pomerania and Silesia. He was reluctant finally to disappoint the dispossessed Germans whose homes were in the lost territories. Because of that reluctance, tremendous pressure was brought to bear on him, by our Prime Minister among others. The recognition of that frontier--the withdrawal of any possibility of a territorial claim, bearing in mind that Germany does not have a territorial claim over Poland ; there was just the possibility that there would be a claim in future--was regarded as a matter of massive concern, yet the border existed, with peace on both sides. Nobody was conducting a war, or even a proxy war, by encouraging or supporting terrorism, directly or indirectly, in other territories.

Move to the frontier of the United Kingdom, for it has a frontier, and one finds that it is disputed. There is disturbance there. Something close to a form of proxy war is being waged, indirectly, by the Republic of Ireland against the United Kingdom. The Secretary of State says that that is not an obstacle. Of course it is an obstacle.

Consider what has happened in Europe in the last 20 to 40 years. A number of states with minority and boundary problems are beginning to evolve a relationship together--we need not go into the vexed question of what the nature of that relationship will be in future--on the basis of forswearing territorial claims over the territory of each other and on the basis of the recognition of existing frontiers. That recognition is achieved not in a qualified but in an unqualified manner which does not recognise any possibility of change. Consider the situation in the Sud Tyrol, an area which is 75 per cent. German-speaking. It was always part of a Germanic state up to about 1922. Austria, by the treaty of Vienna in the 1950s, forswore any territorial claim to recover those territories which had been part of Austria. On that basis, it is proving possible to construct a legitimate regime within the Alto Adige and to have some local administration that is functioning, admittedly with difficulty. That is an example of what should be done.

When one looks at other societies in Europe that have had such problems, one sees again and again that the key to the solution is the recognition of existing frontiers and a recognition that they will not change. That is embodied in the Helsinki and the Vienna agreements. To say that the matter will not be raised with the Irish Republic and that its territorial claim will be ignored is not good enough.

I should add that the so-called guarantee in article 1 of the Anglo-Irish Agreement is, as we all know, worthless. It

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might be more fruitful to take up with the Irish Government the fact that their constitution is in breach of the Helsinki and Vienna agreements, which the Irish Republic has signed. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs might occasionally refer to that matter. I am sure that the other countries of Europe would be interested in taking up that matter.

I emphasise that the recognition of existing frontiers is important if they are regarded as immutable. To hold out the possibility of change is to encourage terrorism. The so-called guarantee of Northern Ireland's position that has been repeated here again tonight by the Secretary of State--that Northern Ireland will remain part of the United Kingdom so long as the majority of the population wish is in itself a cause of instablility because it recognises the possibility of change.

If by some strange chance it should happen that at some future referendum a majority in Northern Ireland voted in favour of unity with the Irish Republic and that was carried into effect, creating an all-Ireland state, does anyone think that the next day the Taoiseach of the Irish Republic would turn round and say that the six counties that were previously Northern Ireland would be part of the Irish Republic so long as the majority so wished? No. The national unit would be regarded as settled, in just the same way as people in England regard the English national unit as settled. They would be amazed if a Minister said that Kent would remain part of England so long as the majority of its people so desired.

To refer to change is to hold out the possibility of change. Here again, the institution of direct rule reinforces the possibility of change. The fact that since 1974 the House has not been prepared to handle Northern Ireland affairs properly gives terrorists the message that the Government do not really want Northern Ireland to be part of the United Kingdom ; that they would get rid of it if they could. The Secretary of State said that the Government would not bow to terrorism, would not want to see change, and so on. He also said, I think wrongly, that all the policies and actions of his Administration are consistent with the eradication of violence. They are not. The maintenance of direct rule is inconsistent with policies designed to eliminate terrorism. Eliminating direct rule, treating Northern Ireland as if it is part of the kingdom, and dropping the reference to the possibility of change would help to reinforce policies to eradicate terrorism.

If it is thought that dropping the so-called guarantee presently enshrined in section 1 of the Northern Ireland Consitution Act 1973 would create some uncertainty, I can say that it would not. The position of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom was created not by the 1973 Act, but by article 1 of the treaty and section 1 of the Acts of Union, which all stated the union to be for ever and to be immutable. That is the correct position to which one should return.

That issue should be addressed and if, as a result of any future progress, one wants to see stability in the affairs of Northern Ireland, that is the way to achieve it. I note that it was said that stability was one of the aims of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, and now we have shown how it can be achieved.

I commend other aspects of the Secretary of State's speech. He recognised the disadvantage of the present system of direct rule to the political health of Northern Ireland. I hope that he will deal with that problem

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urgently, not only through promoting schemes for

devolution--although that would be good--but through tackling the position of local government.

It is not healthy that the present 26 district councils have no effective powers. At the last local government elections, we and other political parties encountered considerable difficulty in persuading people to become candidates. Indeed, there was an average of only 1.7 candidates per seat--a remarkably low figure. There is a real danger that the district council system will collapse at the next elections unless something is done to make local authorities more attractive, especially against the background of the Government's policy of contracting out such services as are left to them.

Those problems should be dealt with urgently. If local government is to be attractive and if people are to be encouraged to serve in it, legislative changes must be made well in advance of the next elections. We all know how difficult it is to fit legislation into the parliamentary programme and to get it enacted.

I am talking about legislative programmes because I do not envisage any such change being made by Order in Council. It is generally acknowledged that that procedure is indefensible. I am only amazed that it has taken so long for the necessary changes to be made. No legislation is required to end the Order in Council procedure. It could be ended tonight or tomorrow simply by the Minister deciding to make no more such orders and to take through the House, under the proper Bill procedure, all those measures that it is currently intended should be made by Order in Council.

There is no obstacle in the way of the other major change that is required to remedy the defects of direct rule, namely, the introduction of a Select Committee. That point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth). It can and should be done, and there is no reason why it should not be done urgently. We must consider whether we are sending out the wrong signals. Failure to handle Northern Ireland business in a proper, democratic, accountable way is sending out a message that Northern Ireland's position in this House and in the United Kingdom is temporary and contingent. If we want stability, and if we want to discourage those who seek change by violent means, we must make it clear that Northern Ireland's position is neither temporary nor contingent, and that its affairs are treated with real concern by this House.

I wish to deal with those parts of the Secretary of State's speech that outlined forms of devolution, and to comment briefly on the concept of widespread acceptance. That is usually regarded as being a synonym for power sharing. It means that one party is guaranteed a position in the Administration, whatever the circumstances. The right hon. Gentleman used the phrase "democratic accountability". I hope that he recognises the incompatibility between democratic accountability and power sharing.

Under power sharing, one or more parties is guaranteed a position in power, irrespective of the election. Therefore, by definition there cannot be accountability. Democratic accountability must mean that it is possible for the people to vote a Government out of office. Power sharing means that certain parties cannot be voted out of office.

The Secretary of State referred to widespread acceptance. I shall draw a parallel that relates directly not

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to Northern Ireland, but to the House and the Government. Do the present Government have widespread acceptance throughout the community?

Mr. John D. Taylor : No. They have 38 per cent. support.

Mr. Trimble : But does the present system of government have widespread acceptance? of course it does, because the system springs from the operation of the House, in which Governments are formed. The system has widespread acceptance, although any particular Administration may or may not have widespread acceptance or support, depending on their popularity. One would not automatically decide that the system of government cannot operate if, for example, the Government's standing should fall below 40 per cent. in the opinion polls, which I believe happens occasionally.

Mr. Taylor : It has fallen to 34 per cent.

Mr. Trimble : In that case, should one say that the House should be abolished and closed down because the Government no longer have widespread support? Of course not ; what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The principles and standards of democracy must remain, and so long as the institution has widespread support, Governments may come and go. If that holds true here, it must hold true across the few short miles of water that separate Northern Ireland from Great Britain.

In that light, we are sometimes puzzled by the concept of widespread support and acceptance, and we wonder whether the matter has been properly thought through. In the past, proposals for power sharing have tended to give a certain party a guaranteed position in Government. As a consequence, that party has a veto on the Government, so a minority group is given a veto over the operation of an Administration. Obviously that creates an impossible situation, just as the veto exercised by the Dublin Government over the proposals that the Secretary of State was about to introduce to the House creates a difficult if not impossible situation.

In one sense, we were rather amused, because we remember that a number of years ago the hon. Member for Foyle went around lecturing people saying that the problem was the existence of a veto and that, if the Unionist veto were removed, everything would be sweetness and light. But now we discover other vetos that he does not recognise as vetos and does not wish to remove. We hope that the rather salutary lessons of the past few days will encourage the Government to remove those vetos. They should be removed, as they are obstacles to progress.

We do not regard what the Secretary of State has done or the talks that have taken place as anything new. Immediately after the 1987 general election, the leaders of the Ulster Unionist party and the Democratic Unionist party initiated a series of talks with the then Secretary of State. Those talks about talks went on for some time, until in 1988 the Unionist leaders put before the Secretary of State an outline of proposals for an alternative to and replacement for the Anglo-Irish Agreement. The then Secretary of State let them gather dust and did nothing about them. Following the appointment of the current Secretary of State, the Unionist leaders brought the matter before him and the recent series of discussions emerged from that.

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From our point of view, what is happening is a response to the initiative which the Unionist leaders launched two years ago. It has taken a long time to reach this stage, but we appreciate the fact that the present Secretary of State has at least made an effort which has always eluded his predecessor, and we are glad that some progress has been achieved.

We are also glad that the sequence of events outlined by the Secretary of State corresponds with the sequence of events often outlined by the Unionist leadership--that there will be statements by the Governments of the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom about their willingness to replace the Anglo-Irish Agreement, to be followed by suspension of the meetings of the Intergovernmental Conference and of the working of the secretariat, followed by bilateral talks to establish whether there is a basis on which people can proceed. They would have to be followed by inter- party talks, aimed at trying to achieve an acceptable solution with regard to the Northern Ireland dimension, which includes the United Kingdom dimension. Consideration would then have to be given to the consequences of that for the north-south axis and the east-west axis.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) outlined that sequence of events some time ago. We are therefore surprised that, within the last week, the Dublin Government have found difficulty with a sequence of events that was made clear to them months ago.

Mr. Molyneaux : In August of last year.

Mr. Trimble : Yes, in August of last year. Presumably they were aware of them. They intimated a number of months ago that they were willing to proceed along those lines, so they must have known what they were doing. One wonders, therefore, why those difficulties have emerged during the last few days and what caused the Irish Government to change their mind. Was it because they thought that some kind of manoeuvre would extract last-minute concessions from us? If so, they are wasting their time.

As for the issue that concerns the Irish Government--the circumstances in which any Unionist might find himself holding discussions with the Dublin Administration--it is remarkable to us that it does not seem to have occurred to them that, in the last analysis, the only people who will decide when Unionists will speak to the Dublin Government are Unionists. We shall not speak to the Dublin Government unless we are satisfied that the circumstances are right. One wonders, therefore, why they approach the matter indirectly. Is it yet another example of their inability to treat the Unionists who live in Ulster with the respect with which they insist that other people should be treated?

9.57 pm

Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East) : My role once more seems to be to sweep up before the speeches from the Front Bench. The issue is direct rule and, therefore, the lack of democracy in Northern Ireland.

Democracy is partly about people having the vote. Northern Ireland is ahead of England, Scotland and Wales, in that its electoral register is in a very healthy state.

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The effects of the poll tax mean that 600,000 people in England, Scotland and Wales are missing from the electoral register. That is not the case in Northern Ireland. The number of those who could vote for the first time last year in Northern Ireland increased by 18 per cent. During the past three years there has been a fall in the number of people who could vote for the first time in England, Scotland and Wales.

Although Northern Ireland's electoral register is healthy, unfortunately the electors have little opportunity to vote. They can cast their votes in general elections, European Community elections and local government elections of limited importance, but they cannot vote on matters that affect Northern Ireland. Democracy is not just about having the vote. The minorities in Northern Ireland feel that majority rule is oppressive.

The spirit of democracy and the civil liberties arrangements in the system are of great importance. The speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) was relevant to the matters that we need to discuss--the health of the democratic system generally in this country and in Northern Ireland in particular. The civil liberties and rights of minorities and individuals are of overwhelming importance, but the rights of the majority must be fully considered, responded to and reflected on in that spirit. We often forget how much people from the island of Ireland and Northern Ireland, especially working-class people, be they Protestant or Catholic, have in common. Their interest in having jobs with decent wages, in seeing that the prices that they pay for goods in the shops are correct and in having proper and decent health service and social security provision is the stuff of politics. They are matters of common concern. Hon. Members from Northern Ireland advance those common interests, especially in appropriation debates and in debates on the economic and social welfare of Northern Ireland. That is not to deny the fact that strong issues divide people in Northern Ireland. We are only too well aware of them because Northern Ireland affairs sometimes bring the House to life. Yet sometimes we forget the issues of common interest.

The cultural divisions--with religion as their symbol--and the divisions in loyalty among people of the two communities are powerful, but surely in looking for solutions to Northern Ireland's problems we should be building on their common concerns and interests. At last, the Government and the Secretary of State seem to be searching for a democratic framework for Northern Ireland that will allow their differences to be expressed without destroying the political framework. I welcome the noises that have been made in that regard. There is a fracture in the position that the Secretary of State outlined in his speech. At one point he said, correctly, that we should be considering

"increasing job opportunities for all and improving living standards."

He sees that as crucial

"to restoring social harmony and self-confidence, and reducing deprivation and communal divisions."

Earlier in his speech, he said :

"Industry must become more competitive, its labour force more skilled and its culture more imbued with the spirit of enterprise." There might be nothing wrong with that last quotation, but the problem is that we know that it is coded language for other values and ideas. Crude free enterprise,

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devil-take-the-hindmost Thatcherism is pushed as the economic and social framework for Northern Ireland, as it is for England, Scotland and Wales.

There is a difficulty. It may be possible for the Secretary of State, by sleight of hand, to advance some of the principles in his speech, to consult the oracle and to draw the various forces together so that moves can be made towards greater democracy and unity in Northern Ireland, but unless the economic and social elements of a democracy are involved, that will be achieved only by clever politics, rather than by more deep-rooted factors which could begin to draw people together.

We have fair employment legislation in Northern Ireland which sometimes assists both sections of the community, but full employment is even more important and would allow the principles on which fair employment is based to function more readily. I hope that the democratic principles of voting, of civil liberties, of rights for the individual and of concern for the different sections of the community will be considered as principles that can be drawn together, both in the devolution measures that Northern Ireland needs so that it can have its own Parliament making its own decisions, and in allaying the fears of individuals among the minority and the majority. A Bill of Rights is especially important for Northern Ireland.

We are not discussing whether a Bill of Rights is relevant to England, Scotland and Wales. The position in Northern Ireland is different from that in England, Scotland and Wales, but we might learn from a Bill of Rights being established there. The question of what is in a Bill of Rights is beginning to be important. Civil liberties, rights of access to education and jobs, and other provisions that need to be built in are beginning to be important considerations for the Northern Ireland community.

Rev. Martin Smyth : I understand the hon. Gentleman's point about the contents of a Bill of Rights. However, as far back as the Northern Ireland constitutional convention, which produced a report that the House did not bother to read or to debate properly because an element of the convention would not vote for anything unless it was given a guarantee that it would be in government, we gave a commitment that failing a Bill of Rights for the United Kingdom, an assembly in Northern Ireland would introduce a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland.

Mr. Barnes : As part of the discussions leading up to the establishment of devolved government for Northern Ireland, a Bill of Rights may begin to be worked out, whether it is instituted through the House or in Northern Ireland. It may be an essential element in helping to knit those areas together.

In Northern Ireland, we have policies, for example, on education for mutual understanding. That development is to be welcomed, but we also need participation and democratic procedures through which mutual understanding can begin to develop and grow throughout the community. If we are not prepared to work solidly in that area and if the politicians from the different parties are not prepared to be pulled together in working for this, there will be considerable shortcomings. That is a contrast with the developments in eastern Europe and the developments, which many of us support vigorously, in South Africa. The

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principles that we believe are to be exported from the United Kingdom sometimes need to be imported into areas such as Northern Ireland. I remind the House of my initial point about the extension of the franchise and the defence of the franchise for England, Scotland and Wales.

Unfortunately, many of our debates on Northern Ireland take place on Orders in Council and are crammed into one and a half hours late at night. Our debate on an education measure that was as significant as the Education Reform Act 1988 lasted three hours--about one minute for each clause and 10 minutes for some 13 schedules. That measure did not merely duplicate the Education Reform Act ; it contained many provisions that were special to Northern Ireland.

Those hon. Members who do not attend our appropriation debates--and my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone), who made a very interesting speech--would be most welcome to come and debate the bread-and- butter issues with us. Democratic Socialists may have differing views about the solutions to Northern Ireland's problems and to constitutional matters, as well as to the major and more dramatic issue of terrorism, but we have a view of the way forward, and it will be a long haul. We believe that the answer lies in democratic arrangements for which we Socialists believe there is a social context. Where markets lead to monopoly and exploitation, collective action must come in. Collective action is open to bureaucratic abuse, which can be contained only by democratic and participatory forces. The solution for Northern Ireland is very different from that which has been peddled in England, Scotland and Wales in the past 10 years.

10.13 pm

Mr. Peter Robinson (Belfast, East) : The task of the House today has been to consider the extension for a further year of direct rule in Northern Ireland, although I note that the column listing parliamentary business in this morning's edition of The Independent said that we would be debating home rule. I do not know whether that was a Freudian slip. Since I came to the House in 1979 it has been something of a ritual to come along every year to renew direct rule. There never appeared to be much prospect that we could look forward to anything other than the previous years' arrangements.

As we are considering the renewal of direct rule, it seems to me appropriate to look at what direct rule means to Northern Ireland and how it works in Northern Ireland. First, let us consider how direct rule works in relation to legislation that comes before the House and how Northern Ireland is treated. I am a Northern Ireland Member, but, in dealing with the mass of Northern Ireland legislation, I do not have the opportunity to do what I can do when the House considers legislation for England and other parts of the United Kingdom. We take Bills through their various readings, and in Committee we can table amendments. On each of those occasions, we can speak for as long as we like or for as long as Mr. Speaker or the Chairman will tolerate us. We can have dozens--in some cases even hundreds- -of hours of debate in Committee and on the Floor of the House. That appears to me to be a reasonable way of dealing with legislation. Lest this House should allow anything to slip through its fingers, the other place goes through exactly the same process. That is how the arrangements work for England, Scotland and Wales.

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As a Northern Ireland Member, I can table amendments to legislation affecting other parts of the United Kingdom and I can speak on it until I am blue in the face--by and large, in prime time on the Floor of the House.

When it comes to Northern Ireland business, we are treated in the most shabby way possible. We have what is called an Order in Council which first sees the light of day by way of a draft order that arrives on our desks. It also goes to various organisations that might have an interest in the legislation and they are permitted to comment on it by a certain date and to offer their views and suggestions. When that draft order comes to the House and is considered, we do not have the various stages and we cannot table amendments even if we see something that is blatantly inaccurate in the proposed legislation. We cannot amend it : it is on a take-it-or-leave- it basis and, with the Government's majority, it is usually a take-it basis.

That is the way in which our laws are made for Northern Ireland. They pass through the House in 90 minutes flat. The Government Front-Bench spokesman will expect at least 15 or 20 minutes in which to open the debate and the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman will expect the same time. What time does that leave for Northern Ireland Members out of that one and a half hours? In the face of that, we are supposed to be happy that the United Kingdom is treating Northern Ireland in that way.

Rev. Ian Paisley : Are not we getting extra time tonight only because this is an Order in Council and we have an hour and a half after 10 pm?

Mr. Robinson : As always, my hon. Friend is right.

We should consider the attendance in the Chamber during this debate. We have been dealing with an important Northern Ireland issue, but the attendance is different when we deal with issues that affect the rest of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland is treated badly by the House in the way in which its laws are made.

The Secretary of State said :

"We are governing via the artificial mechanism of direct rule under constitutional arrangements which are avowedly temporary"-- they are "temporary" but we are extending a 1974 order

"and which no one would dream of inventing as a long-term way of governing any sizeable community."

That is inadequate in relation to the way in which the laws are made for Northern Ireland in the House, and it is just as bad when we consider the way in which Northern Ireland is administered. While hon. Members from other parts of the United Kingdom have local government which is responsible--no matter how much the Government would like to control it-- for health, housing and important issues relating to the environment, in Northern Ireland we have none of those powers. In our local government we are allowed to be responsible for recreation and community centres, for parks, for emptying the bins and for burying the dead. That is the beginning and the end of it.

The people who take the local decisions in Northern Ireland are people from England, Scotland and Wales who

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