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Mr. Barnes: I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman has considered the persons who may stand as candidates. Schedule 1 makes provision for disqualifying certain persons, but it does not state which persons will qualify to stand as candidates. As a candidate can be anyone appointed by the leader of any of the 33 parties, theoretically it would be possible for a Teachta Dala from Dublin, myself or any other hon. Member to be nominated. An amendment is required to stop that happening, and I have just submitted it.
Mr. Taylor: That is a very good point, and no doubt the Minister has heard it and will respond. I trust that the reply will be that candidates must be on the electoral register in Northern Ireland, but we will have to wait and see what he says.
Paragraph 4 of schedule 1 concerns the franchise, which I mentioned in an earlier intervention. I still cannot understand why an election that is based on parliamentary constituencies does not use the criteria for the parliamentary franchise as its basis. According to this system, the election will be based on Westminster constituencies, but we will ignore the Westminster electoral roll and instead use the district council electoral roll. That seems to be a rather peculiar decision, and I should like to know the explanation for it.
Paragraph 5 of schedule 1 is about parties and party lists. Paragraph 6(6) states:
There must, again, be some explanation for that peculiar qualification, and I should like to know the Minister's reasoning for including that restriction.
The list of parties in part II of schedule 1 makes very interesting reading, and one could make much play out of it. I shall simply ask the Minister to tell the House how many members there are in the British Ulster Unionist party, how many members there are in the No Going Back party, and when he first heard of those parties. How many members are in the Northern Ireland party--whatever that is--and how many members are in the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition? We require further information on those political parties.
We then come to paragraph 2 of schedule 2, which concerns meetings. Paragraph 2(1) states:
On the first day, on 10 June, we will have negotiating meetings straight away--strands 1, 2 and 3--but there is no suggestion when the forum might meet. It might meet this Christmas. We require clarification on why no specific date has been stated for the forum. I should have thought that the obvious answer would be for the forum to meet on the first day and for other things to follow from that.
The very last point, paragraph 6 of schedule 2--"Miscellaneous"--states:
The Secretary of State has told us in this Bill that the negotiating teams will meet at Stormont castle grounds, but he has not told us where the forum will meet. We have heard mention of it going all around the British Isles, but I should like the Government to tell us today where the forum will meet, and to confirm that they have thought this one out and chosen a permanent location for this new Northern Ireland forum for the next two years.
There is a great challenge to all political parties in Northern Ireland--nationalist and Unionist--to practise what they have claimed for so many years. We have had 25 years of violence, and we now have a great opportunity to bring about a negotiated agreement in Northern Ireland that will provide peace, reconciliation and the enjoyment and fulfilment of life for all our people on the basis of consent and the total and absolute rejection of violence. It is an opportunity that should not be missed.
For members of the Ulster Unionist party, this opportunity will secure Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom, and will create the conditions in which Catholics and Protestants, Unionists and nationalists, can work together in the administration and good government of Northern Ireland. It will also create the basis for an enhanced relationship between Dublin and Belfast, a development that is much more logical now, 23 years after we joined the European Union.
Mr. Tony Worthington (Clydebank and Milngavie):
I find it difficult to follow the right hon. Member for Strangford (Mr. Taylor). He intends to vote against the Bill and rely on the rest of us to vote for it so that he can take part in the elections. I promise him that we shall fulfil his intentions.
Until the moment when he said that he intended to vote against the Bill, I thought that there was a great deal of value in the speech of the right hon. Member for Strangford. He raised many of the serious issues in relation to the Bill, which we shall tackle in Committee.
I shall not repeat the points that he made, but he gave a masterly analysis of some of the major points that are in the Bill.
I couple my party with the sentiments of all those who expressed their sadness at the illness of the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon). We have missed his powerful contribution tonight. We ask those who go to see him in hospital--we hope that it will be a short stay--to convey our good wishes for a speedy recovery. Even if one does not agree with him, he is one of those Members of Parliament whose integrity is appreciated across the House.
The issue tonight is not whether we would start from here. We have to start from here. There is no alternative if we want all-party talks on 10 June. There is little point in talking about the past or how we arrived here. The only way in which we can have all-party talks on 10 June is through the Bill. There is no alternative. That is the central issue. Do we vote for the Bill and have all-party talks on 10 June or vote against it with the clear implication that we do not want all-party talks on 10 June? We may want them at some other time, but it would not be so early as 10 June. That is why we shall support the Bill tonight, although we could add--I may do so myself--to the problems in the Bill.
No one could pretend that the route to the talks has been easy, logical, rational or straightforward, but we are now in a position to open the door to talks through the Bill. We see no point in being critical of past mistakes or wrong turnings. The Mitchell report contains many wise words. One sentence says:
Those are the words that stick with me. The right hon. Member for Strangford said that there was an opportunity here and that we must put aside the past. That is why, although there have been some recriminations in the debate today, the Opposition's approach rejects recriminations.
We are pleased that in recent weeks the procedures covered by the Bill and the Command Paper have moved in directions of which we have approved. We urge that Mitchell's six principles should be placed on the table at the start of the talks and signed up to by all the participants. Subscribers to peace and democracy will be able to sign up to those principles. The Mitchell report has not been dumped or binned, as was alleged. Those who allege that it has been binned will have most difficulty in facing up to the Mitchell principles. I should like to see them face up to that challenge. We urged that Mitchell's approach to decommissioning should be embraced and followed, and all those who are genuine about abandoning violence will be able to accept that.
We urged the British and Irish Governments to get back together and to act in concert because the peace process moves forward only when that happens. In recent weeks, as the right hon. Member for Strangford pointed out, it has seemed that the two Governments have genuinely worked together in a sense of partnership.
We urged that the electoral process chosen should ensure that the smaller parties--such as the Progressive Unionist party and Ulster Democratic party, which have links with important constituencies--have a place at the negotiating table. The Government have given them that opportunity. That has led to some problems in the electoral process, but we applaud the fact that those
parties will have the opportunity to attend the talks. The smaller parties will not have a guaranteed right because they will have to come into the top 10, but they will have the opportunity to be at the talks.
We urged that the whole package should be laid out, not just the Bill for the election process but the ground rules, which are now Cmnd. 3232. We thought that it was important that people should be able to judge the whole scene rather than not know what they were getting into. That has happened.
We urged that the talks and the forum should be separated and that the forum should lose all the connotations of previous majoritarian assemblies. We have moved a long way towards that aim. The forum will be deliberative only and will have no legislative, executive or administrative functions. We believe that the forum could be valuable for building consensus, but that will depend on appropriate rules of procedure. I shall return to that point.
Substantial work remains to be done in Committee. Real progress can be made in Committee, although there is a timetable because the talks must occur on 10 June. The biggest single contribution to the success of 10 June can be made by the IRA with an unequivocal restoration of the ceasefire. It is overwhelmingly clear that that is what the overwhelming majority of the people of Northern Ireland, of the Republic and of the United Kingdom want. The IRA has no mandate whatever from anyone for bombing. It is also important that Sinn Fein is at those talks, although progress could be made without it. Sinn Fein and the IRA have what they have always demanded--a date for all-party talks and a comprehensive agenda. There is no excuse for them not to restore the ceasefire, and they must do that. They must also embrace the Mitchell principles, which present no problems to any democratic party or to other nationalists.
In Committee, a number of issues must be addressed. Many hon. Members have commented on the details of the Bill, but I shall not deal with those now. I am sure that the Minister will wish to refer to some of those comments, but he will shortly have two full days in which to respond.
The Government will want to explain to us the principles on which they have constructed the list of parties. That subject is one of those that has caused most concern, because it seems a little arbitrary to say that there will be a list of parties, some people protest and the Government add more parties. That approach will lead to considerable problems, especially when one bears in mind the independents on the list, but if the House and the members of different parties work together in Committee, we could tidy up the Bill considerably. Suggestions have been made for assenters, deposits or other mechanisms that could be used to solve the problem.
We also have the incongruity that some people will be allowed to put their names on the ballot paper, but others will not. I look forward with keen anticipation to dealing with those issues on Monday and Tuesday.
The major issue that confronts us now is the role of the forum and its style of operation. As we heard from the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady), the nationalist community has great difficulty, to put it mildly, in envisaging a role for the forum that adds anything to the talks or to the search for a settlement. It will not take part in anything that has elements of
Stormont. A body in which people shout or abuse one another will do nothing to build trust, reconciliation and consensus.
"A party's regional list must include at least two candidates who are not on a constituency list for the party."
"The first meeting of the forum shall be at a time decided by the Secretary of State."
18 Apr 1996 : Column 924
"The Secretary of State shall provide for the forum the services of such staff, the use of such premises and such other facilities as he thinks appropriate."
"If the focus remains on the past, the past will become the future."
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