House of Commons Hansard Debates for 29 Jun 1993

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at great length and in good humour in Committee. However, for the benefit of those who were not there and who have not read the Official Report, I shall say that we believed that the scheme was over-mechanistic and over-complicated and that it interfered unnecessarily with magistrates' discretion to impose appropriate fines in individual cases. The amendment goes some way towards reducing those evils, but it fails to do so entirely because to do that it would have had to abolish the scheme altogether, as we have done.

Under the system proposed in the amendment, the courts would be obliged to decide the weekly amount that an offender could afford to pay and would then multiply that by the number of weeks that related to the seriousness of the offence. That would produce some strange results. Because there are no parameters on the weekly amount that the offender might reasonably be judged to be able to pay, the courts could find themselves imposing fines that many people would regard as totally out of line with the seriousness of the offence.

Let us consider one extreme first. A millionaire might readily be judged to be able to afford a weekly amount of £10,000 to pay a fine. For the famous trivial litter offence, he would therefore receive the maximum fine for that offence of £2,500. That would mean that the potential difference between fines, already considered too great by many under the unit fine scheme, would be even greater. If the same millionaire were arrested in a minor scuffle with someone who was unemployed and the court decided that they were equally guilty, for the same offence their fines could range beween £5 or less and £5, 000.

There may be some who would not be especially unsympathetic towards a hefty fine, however unjust, being imposed on a millionaire, but I point out that the results would be equally unjust for offenders of more modest means. For a 10-week litter offence, a middle-income offender whom the courts judged to be able to pay £200 a week would be fined £2,000. For the same offence, an unemployed offender might be fined £40 or less. I cannot see how such wide discrepancies could be justified.

It is extremely difficult to combine discretion and such a rigid scheme. "Discretion" is defined by the "Oxford English Dictionary" as :

"the liberty of deciding as one thinks fit".

Operating a system requires one to proceed in certain prescribed ways. I suspect that the way in which the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth really expects his amendment to work would be as follows : once magistrates had decided on the amount that an offender could reasonably pay and had then determined the number of weeks of payment that would be commensurate with the seriousness of the offence, if they did not like the result--it seems very likely that, as with the unit fine scheme, there would be occasions when they did not--they would go back and change one of those parameters to arrive at the penalty at which they would like to have arrived if penalties were not prescribed by the unit scheme.

I have no objection to magistrates adopting an informal unit model if they find it helpful in setting a fine--for example, in reaching a starting point from which they can use their discretion to depart to reach a just result. However, I am not prepared to accept a statutory scheme whereby magistrates are then, in effect, expected to fudge to achieve justice in all cases.

The clear advantage of our new arrangements over this scheme is that they give primacy to seriousness and then

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allow financial circumstances to be taken into account within the parameters set by seriousness. The amendment does not provide for any relationship between the two elements. The same fine could be produced by a serious offence that was rated at 100 weeks in seriousness terms at a weekly sum of £10 as could be produced by a minor one that was rated at one week's seriousness at a weekly sum of £1,000.

The amendment, allowing for discretion, mixes uneasily with the remains of a rigid system. I accept that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth has made an honest attempt to try to come up with some form of unit fine system. However, our new arrangements provide for discretion and the guiding principles on which it should be exercised. I hope that he will agree that ours is the better combination.

The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland pontificated grandly, as is his wont, on the dangers of instant government. He decided that his amendments were not the appropriate ones to which to speak and that he should speak to the Labour amendments instead. He criticised the Labour amendments and what Labour Members had said as not being appropriate, but he still decided to speak to their amendments. He showed us an example of instant decision making that does not render him a suitable spokesman to condemn any other hon. Member for coming to a right decision.

The hon. Gentleman quoted from one part of Hansard, but he did not read the proceedings of the Committee as fully as he perhaps should have done. It was remiss of him to condemn me for being ill prepared and not carrying out a promise that I had apparently made, when he was totally wrong in that assertion. If he had bothered to read Hansard properly, he would have found that the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng) said that victims

"deserve and should be entitled to special consideration and we must ensure that they get it."

In Committee, I said :

"The hon. Gentleman is right to say that it is not a Home Office matter and does not require legislation. I can give the Committee an assurance that I shall draw the hon. Gentleman's remarks to the attention of the Lord Chancellor's Department and I shall add my view that I am entirely in sympathy with what he says."--[ Official Report, Standing Committee B, 17 June 1993 ; c. 290-91.]

If the hon. Gentleman had read Hansard, he would have found that I made no promise to rush back to the House today, having undertaken to consult the Lord Chancellor in the meantime. It was wrong of him to pontificate so grandly that we are ill prepared, when he was so ill prepared that he tabled amendments which, if we had accepted them, would have made total nonsense of the Act. He decided that he did not know whether to support the Labour amendments, simply condemn the Government or dither, as is the usual wont of the Liberal Democrats.

Mr. Maclennan : With the leave of the House, it would be too much to expect the Minister to reply to the arguments deployed in the debate. It was not entirely uncharacteristic of him to devote himself to an earlier debate in which there had been a passage about the view of the Lord Chancellor. In responding simply to that point, it seems that if the Lord Chancellor was consulted, the Minister had a duty to tell the House what the Government's senior Law Officer thought about the matter.

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I make it clear that I did not dissent from the view of the Labour party on the merits of its amendment--I thought that it was a good try. It is one of a number of possible approaches that one might take. The Labour party, like the Liberal Democrat party, would not believe that it made sense to propose a system of unit fines and suggest that it was the last word on the matter. Apart from anything else, neither the Liberal Democrat party nor the Labour party has Government resources at its disposal to enable it to produce schemes that will necessarily stand up to the test.

The Government have engaged in instant government. On 4 May, the Home Secretary said absolutely clearly that he agreed with the principle of unit fines but the system needed to be amended. On 13 May, he abandoned the principle of unit fines. I cannot recall a more clear example of instant government. If the Minister can cite a better example, I will happily give way to him. It is of a piece with the way in which the Government have legislated to deal with headline concerns--the introduction of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1989 and other criminal justice legislation.

It is scarcely surprising that they do not stick and that the Government must come forward with amending legislation. No doubt they will have to do the same with the Bill, once enacted, when the prisons are filled, as, predictably, they will be, with those who have defaulted because fines of unsuitable severity in comparison with their income were imposed and could not be paid.

The Minister is relatively new to his job and he would do better to address the substance of the argument than engage in the small change of petty party political abuse, which has been the characteristic behaviour of a number of Home Office Ministers of the past three years. That is not, by any means, in the best traditions of Conservative Home Secretaries. One recalls, for instance, the late Rab Butler. The Minister might choose to follow that model rather than that of some of the more recent occupants of that high office.

Mr. Michael : The Minister has recognised that we are trying to undertake the serious job of getting the legislation right. At the beginning of his speech, he sought to make the very cheap political points that he said he did not intend to make.

The Minister should be reminded that, from an early stage, reservations were sounded about section 29 of the 1991 Act and about the fine system. The method by which the fine system was implemented brought it into disrepute, as we have come to recognise. We must ensure that the new system does not replicate past problems--problems that led to many fine defaulters ending up in prison. The Minister has not, however, paid sufficient attention to that need. He should consider it carefully, because events will show whether our fear is justified or whether the legislation has been successful in getting the courts to approach the principles that we want to see observed sensibly.

The Minister was wrong when he said that our amendment did not give appropriate weight to the seriousness of the offence, because it states that the fine and the number of payment weeks will be such "which in the opinion of the court is commensurate with the seriousness of the offence, or the combination of the offence and other offences associated with it."

That is the first principle that a court must consider when it comes to punish.

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The burden of penalty is different according to whether it is placed on a well-off person or on a person of average or below average means. We did not have the opportunity to consider the fine system properly when the 1991 Act went through its Second Reading and Committee stage. That system was a late and important addition to the Act, which was debated on Report and, briefly, in Committee. Confusion and difficulty arose about unit fines because the Government decided to raise the maximum fine to £100 instead of the £20 that was set during the pilot scheme. It is clear that the system fell into disrepute. The Minister has enunciated the two principles that must be balanced. We seek to do that in the amendment. Section 29 of the 1991 Act enables consideration to be given to previous offences. The Minister has sought to say that no warnings were given about how that system would operate in practice. The records shows, however, that section 29 was subject to much debate. The former Labour Solicitor-General, Peter Archer, now Lord Archer, said in Committee on the 1991 Act that that issue should be subject to careful thought. The then Minister, the right hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten), shook his head at that request and Peter Archer responded :

"He does not want to give the matter careful thought. So it will be on the record for the future when we raise the problem."

It is on the record that we have raised that problem. Similarly, we have properly initiated amendments to section 29 to deal with the inadequacies of the unit fine system. Our amendment led to the amendment in the long title.

I warn the Minister that he needs to continue to give careful thought to the matter. If he will not accept our amendment, I shall seek leave to withdraw it, but I warn him that he must ensure that implementation is effective and does not contravene either of those important principles.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 65

Powers of courts to deal with offenders

Amendment made : No. 18, in page 74, line 37 after factor.' insert--

(3) A probation order or conditional discharge order made before 1st October 1992 (which, by virtue of section 2 or 7 of the Powers of Criminal Courts Act 1973, would otherwise not be a sentence for the purposes of this section) is to be treated as a sentence for those purposes.

(4) A conviction in respect of which a probation order or conditional discharge order was made before that date (which, by virtue of section 13 of that Act, would otherwise not be a conviction for those purposes) is to be treated as a conviction for those purposes.'.-- [Mr. Maclean.]

Madam Speaker : We now come to amendment No. 32, with which we will discuss amendments Nos. 33 to 37.

Mr. Maclennan : Not moved.

It being Ten o'clock, further consideration of the Bill stood adjourned.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business),

That, at this day's sitting, the Criminal Justice Bill [Lords] may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.-- [Mr. Michael Brown.]

Question agreed to.

As amended (in the Standing Committee) again considered.

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Clause 71

Backing of warrants : safeguards

Mr. Trimble : I beg to move amendment No. 6, in page 79, line 45, at end insert

or any other offence which could lawfully be substituted for that offence.'.

Madam Speaker : With this it will be convenient to discuss also amendment No. 7, in page 80, leave out lines 45 and 46 and insert-- (2) No such Order shall be made unless a draft of it has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.'.

Mr. Trimble : It is a pleasure to be able to move the amendment. I am sure that the Minister will be glad that I have not been tempted by offers of coffee and tea but have forgone that pleasure to be here.

The two amendments are in my name. Amendment No. 7 is a procedural amendment to clause 71, which inserts new sections into the Backing of Warrants (Republic of Ireland) Act 1965. Those new sections refer to orders to bring the new sections into operation, and a subsection provides that those orders be laid before the House subject to negative resolution. Amendment No. 7 would simply make them subject to affirmative resolution.

However, there is a strong case for the adoption of the affirmative resolution procedure with regard to those orders. Extradition--or, to be more precise, the delivery of prisoners--to and from the Republic of Ireland has often been a matter of controversy. In dealing with matters which have proved to be controversial and which undoubtedly have the potential for future controversy, and where we are making significant changes to those procedures, the orders changing those procedures should come before the House and, because of their importance, should be subject to affirmative resolution.

The clause makes significant changes and amendment No. 6 would modify those changes. Is it open to the Minister to contemplate changes? Is there an agreement or treaty between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the Republic of Ireland requiring Her Majesty's Government to bring those provisions into operation? Does a deal lie behind those provisions? If so, the Government would have difficulty in even considering modifying those matters. I raised the issue on Second Reading, and was assured that there was no deal. That assurance now looks threadbare, however, because since then the Government of the Republic of Ireland have introduced legislation into the Dail to deal with anomalies under their 1987 extradition legislation. That legislation was based on the European convention on the suppression of terrorism and contained anomalies based on article 1 of the European convention. It removed the defence of a political offence from certain offences, and there were anomalies in how it operated.

One of the clearest anomalies was that article 1 of the European convention referred to the use of automatic weapons but did not relate to the use of weapons that were not automatic. If a murder was committed with an ordinary revolver, the political defence would be available, but if an automatic pistol was used, the political defence would not be available. There are other anomalies ; that is just one example.

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It is good that the Irish Government are removing those anomalies, but it is remarkably suspicious that they are introducing such a provision after a measure has been introduced into the House limiting the scope and operation of the British legal system on persons who have been delivered from the Republic of Ireland.

On Second Reading I asked whether there had been a deal, why we were making a fresh concession to the Irish and whether we were getting something in return. I was told that there was no deal, but the circumstances suggest that there was a deal and that the Irish Government agreed to extend their law only if we agreed to limit ours. If there is an agreement, it has not been published, because it is likely to have been made in that secret body which represents the real government of Northern Ireland--sometimes called the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference--with its secretariat behind it. I wish to ask the Minister whether that is the case. He may deny it, but is he sure that he has been told the truth? We are fairly sure that we are hardly ever told the truth about the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference.

The clause stems from the case of Mr. Desmond Ellis, who was delivered from the Republic of Ireland to the United Kingdom in 1990 on warrants presented by the proper authorities in Great Britain alleging offences contrary to the Explosive Substances Act 1883 and the Criminal Jurisdiction Act 1975.

After his delivery to the United Kingdom :

"The Crown applied to the Thames Stipendary Magistrate that Mr. Ellis be committed for trial on those two charges The magistrate declined to commit on those charges,"

on perfectly understandable grounds and instead

"committed Mr. Ellis to stand trial on two quite separate and distinct charges, namely, conspiracy contrary to section 1(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977."

I quote from the subsequent judgment of Mr. Justice Swinton Thomas in the Ellis case.

Mr. Justice Thomas went on to say :

"It is common ground that that committal offends the rule of speciality whereby a person who is extradited from a foreign country can be tried in this country only for crimes in respect of which he was extradited. Accordingly, the crime reinstated the original offences contained in the warrants in the present indictment". He went on to consider the charges, although the outcome of the consideration is not relevant to this discussion.

I quoted that extract from the judgment of Mr. Justice Swinton Thomas because it contains several mistakes. It states that it was common ground that committal offends the rule of speciality which is common where persons are extradited. Where there is an extradition treaty, there is a rule of speciality, but there is no extradition treaty or arrangement between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.

We loosely use the term "extradition", but the procedure that operates between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland is the backing of warrants. There are no speciality, rules with regard to the backing of warrants procedure, and it was quite wrong for the judge to refer to what happened and the actions of the Thames stipendiary magistrate as breaking the rule of speciality, because the rule of speciality did not and does not apply to the backing of warrants procedure and would be foreign to the nature of that procedure.

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There is a clear distinction between the backing of warrants procedure and proper extradition. The legislation is confusing the two by introducing into the backing of warrants procedure a rule of speciality that is appropriate strictly for extradition. If they were dealing strictly with extraditions, so called, the Government's proposals would be reasonable--but they are not necessary for a backing of warrants procedure, and one must query why those proceedings are being introduced.

When the Thames stipendiary magistrate made that decision, there was immediate reaction in the Irish Republic. The Irish News of 25 April 1991 reported :

"The Irish government responded to the magistrate's decision by insisting the British legal authorities challenge the ruling in a higher court."

Mr. Burke, the Irish Minister of Justice, was reported as telling the Dail on 19 February 1991 that the action of the Thames stipendiary magistrate broke a "gentleman's agreement" whereby the rule of speciality was to be operated by the British and Irish sides that were party toit.

The Irish Government insisted that the British Government do something about the Thames stipendiary magistrate's decision, and the Government did precisely that. Mr. Burke also told the Dail on 19 February :

"It would be preferable if we had speciality within the United Kingdom legislation".

Now we have legislation coming forward in which the speciality rule is being introduced.

On 21 November 1991, my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, East (Mr. Welsh) asked the Prime Minister whether, as a result of what had been said and done with regard to the Ellis case, there would be any further bargaining between the British and Irish Governments, and whether any further concessions would be made by the British Government to the Irish Government, to get them to do what they ought to do in any event. The Prime Minister replied :

"we do not bargain and we do not do deals".--[ Official Report, 21 November 1991 ; Vol. 199, c. 419.]

On 28 November, my hon. Friend the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. Maginnis) asked whether any agreement had been reached at the Anglo- Irish Conference on 19 November. The hon. Member for Peterborough (Dr. Mawhinney) replied :

"The detail of discussions in the Anglo-Irish Conference is confidential, but my right hon. Friend has indicated that the question of setting the existing agreement on speciality in statutory form is primarily a matter for the Home Secretary and would be considered if and when a suitable legislative vehicle arose."--[ Official Report, 28 November 1991 ; Vol. 199, c. 607. ] That was one week after the Prime Minister had said that there would be no deals, but now we have a deal coming through. My simple amendment relates to persons who have been delivered from the Republic of Ireland to the United Kingdom. It states that such persons can be proceeded with only for the offences listed in the indictment or some other offence that could lawfully be substituted for it. That is part of the normal operation of our legal system. By not accepting that amendment, the Government will limit the range of offences for which people could quite properly be proceeded against in the event of their being delivered. British authorities applying for the delivery of a person would therefore have to make sure that they got the offence exactly right before sending the papers to the Irish Republic. That would continue to produce cases--and

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there are too many of them--in which persons who appear to be guilty go free because the charge was not correctly briefed and some procedural requirement was not properly observed.

These are important matters--some of the most serious terrorist offences that could be considered. It is not right that we should limit the scope of the legal system to be effective in respect of such cases. The Government are doing that because a deal was done with the Irish--concessions were made to them. Many concessions were made to them in the past, and we have seen precious little return in terms of the number of persons delivered up to justice. We see far too many persons whom we believe to be guilty of serious offences at full liberty in the Irish Republic. Right hon. and hon. Members may remember press coverage of persons who have gone fishing when they were supposed to be delivered here to stand trial.

It is not right that the Government should make such concessions. I hope that they will look favourably on my amendment, which seeks only to preserve the normal operation of our own legal system with regard to persons delivered for trial here.

10.15 pm

Mr. Maclean : I have listened carefully to what the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) has said. Amendment No. 6 would serve to defeat one of the objectives of clause 71--that the United Kingdom and Irish legislation on speciality should be identical in respect of extradition between the two countries. The hon. Gentleman said that we have backing of warrants rather than an extradition system, but it is a simplified form of extradition, so let us use the word "extradition", because we all understand it.

It is only by making our law on specialty identical that we can minimise the scope for misunderstandings and any gaps in our arrangements. I understand that the hon. Gentleman's amendment is well intentioned, and I appreciate what he seeks to do, but I am afraid that it would mean that our legislation would not satisfy Irish legislative requirements for extradition. Therefore, offenders could argue in the Irish courts that the courts had no power to order their return to the United Kingdom.

Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South) : The Minister said that we all understood. Some of us are a little confused. Will he answer the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) asked? Has there been agreement between the two Governments? Has an understanding been reached? Or will we continue to exercise the farce that allegedly friendly Governments do not co-operate in handing over traham, pressed for proper extradition arrangements between the two countries, and was murdered because he was getting too close to the mark.

Mr. Maclean : The hon. Member for Upper Bann asked me whether there was a treaty and whether there was a deal. There is no treaty. I am not privy to what goes on in the Anglo-Irish forum. I am not privy to those discussions. All I know is that there has been a mutual understanding of long standing that the rule of speciality should apply to

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extradition. There has been such an understanding between the Law Officers of the two Governments for some considerable time.

Mr. Trimble : The Minister said that there had been a mutual understanding of long standing between the Law Officers in the two jurisdictions that speciality would apply. Can he date that understanding? Since when?

Mr. Maclean : The short answer is no, I cannot. But the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends will agree that it is sensible to reproduce that understanding in both our laws, and to ensure that, in our discussions with the Irish Government, our extradition laws are as evenly matched as possible, so that there can be no possible misunderstanding which a potential offender could exploit in any court to avoid extradition.

As the range of charges which could lawfully be substituted is, depending on the circumstances, considerable and not confined to offences related to that for which the return was ordered, the amendment would in practice render the concept of speciality meaningless.

A substitution of charges would be possible in certain circumstances pursuant to the new section 6A(3)(d). That enables the description of the offence to be changed if certain prescribed conditions are fulfilled, but, in the circumstances, I do not believe that we should go any further. Following my explanation, I hope that the hon. Member for Upper Bann does not wish to pursue his amendment further.

I perfectly understand the reasons behind amendment No. 7, but I am afraid that I must resist it, too. The negative resolution procedure is clearly preferable, because it is possible that events could require an order to be made or amended urgently, when, for example, Parliament was in recess.

Negative resolution enables us to start the legislative process, but not to finish it during the recess. I am sure that, even under a negative resolution procedure, the hon. Gentleman would ensure that the orders were debated.

We have no wish to deprive the hon. Gentleman or his hon. Friends of that opportunity nor to resist proper scrutiny by hon. Members in this House or another place. However, we wish to maintain the negative resolution procedure, because of its advantages of speed and flexibility. Therefore, I hope that, in his usual courteous way, the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.

Mr. Trimble : We have heard some remarkable comments from the Minister. He cannot bring himself to face the facts, which speak for themselves. There has been some dirty work at a crossroads before we came to this legislation. The Minister may avert his eyes from it and say that he will not inquire too deeply into its origins, but I urge him to do so. If he looks into the background of this legislation, he will find that there are some things of which the Government cannot be very proud.

I do not have any pleasure in seeing this legislation go through, but, because of the lateness of the hour, we have no desire to prolong the sitting further by dividing the House. On that ground, and that ground alone, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

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Clause 77

Short title, extent etc.

Amendments made : No. 19, in page 84, line 4, after 23,' insert (Appeal against order forfeiting drug trafficking cash) ,'. No. 20, in page 84, line 4, after 71,' insert

(Power to extend certain offences to Crown servants and to exempt regulators etc.) ,'.

No. 21, in page 84, line 5, at end insert--

paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 of Schedule (Extensions and exemptions) .'.

No. 22, in page 84, line 6, leave out from beginning to end of line 12 and insert--

(3) The following provisions of this Act extend only to Great Britain--

sections 13(9) to (11), 21(3)(e), 24(2), (3) and (7) to (10), 28 to 31, 33(1), 34, 66(1) and 72 ; and

paragraph 3 of Schedule (Extensions and exemptions).

(4) The following provisions of this Act extend only to Scotland-- sections 17, 19, 20(2), 21(3)(c) and (d), 22(2), 24(12) to (15), 25(2), 32, 67, 68, 74 and 75 ; and

paragraph 2 of Schedule (Extensions and exemptions). '. No. 23, in page 84, line 15, leave out from 43' to extend'. No. 24, in page 84, line 17, at end insert--

( ) The provisions of Schedules 4 and 5 have the same extent as the provisions on which they operate.'.-- [Mr. Maclean.]

Mr. Trimble : I beg to move amendment No. 8, in page 84, line 30, leave out from period' to end of line 36 and insert

containing provisions corresponding to part I and sections 16, 18, and 28 to 31, shall be laid before each House of Parliament within a period of three months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.'.

This is a simple amendment, and it would be a simple job. This is a funny Bill. It contains a range of provisions, some of which apply directly to Northern Ireland. I am delighted to see pass through the House primary legislation which applies to Northern Ireland, as it gives Northern Ireland Members an opportunity on Second Reading, in Committee and on Report to participate in the debate.

Although that aspect of the Bill is commendable, there is also a hangover from the bad system of legislating for Northern Ireland, because there are provisions for Orders in Council. Worse than that : we have provisions for an Order in Council under what my right and hon. Friends call the theft clause. We call it that because it was first used in a theft Bill. It is appropriate to call it a theft clause, because it steals from us even that little fragment of parliamentary procedure that the direct rule regime allows to us. When Orders in Council are proposed and debated in the normal way, we have an opportunity to contribute in a discussion that is sometimes limited to 90 minutes, without the opportunity to amend. However, at least there is a little discussion. Clause 77(11) is what we call the theft clause. It provides that equivalent legislation to part of the Bill can be made for Northern Ireland by Order in Council, subject to negative resolution. Therefore, it deprives us of the opportunity of any debate on the issue.

I know that, with the negative resolution procedure, there is the theoretical possibility of gaining sufficient support to have a debate. That is only a theoretical possibility and for Northern Ireland Members there is no substance in it. Therefore, authorising the negative

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