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Rev. Ian Paisley: I shall speak to amendments Nos. 3, 5, 4, 6, 7 and 8, which deal with the forum. If amendments Nos. 3 and 5 were accepted, they would cause clause 3(2) to read as follows:
- "The functions of the forum shall primarily be deliberative but it may, after deliberation, come to a resolution on any matter and may determine the level of support which exists for any proposal submitted by any of the participants in the negotiations".
Amendment No. 4 would cause clause 3(3) to read:
I hope that the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Dr. Hendron) notes that carefully, because it seems that the nationalists are fearful, but we are stressing that the forum will not have any legislative, executive or administrative functions--
Amendment No. 6 would cause subsection (4) to read:
Amendment No. 7 would then cause some words to be omitted and the following to be added:
Amendment No. 8 would add a sixth subsection, which would read:
It is very strange that the Government have been prepared to allow self-appointed people to carry on negotiations, some of whom have never been elected to any body in Northern Ireland, and that for a period--stretching now to about two years--the Government have appointed rooms for and put the names of the leaders of these groups on the doors at Stormont and held secretive meetings with them. No one knows what was said to them.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) said, some of those people are now saying that promises were made to them by the Government which the Government have not kept. Some are saying that conditions are now asked of them which were not asked of them previously. The Minister of State has been photographed with these people from time to time. Although some of them have not been elected to any body in Northern Ireland, long talks have been held with them. We have been privileged outside the remit of the talks to listen to them on the steps of Stormont or at press conferences telling us the types of things being discussed.
We receive letters from a Mr. Spring from Dublin, telling us that we will now be permitted to pass some sort of judgment on a paper that he submits to us--perhaps we would like to come to talk to him. In fact, he says that he did not know why the leader of the Ulster Unionist party did not go to have a nice chat with him. He has never said that I could have a nice chat with him, but at least he said that the leader of the UUP could do so.
That is not the way to negotiate the future of any country. If hon. Members think that the Ulster people are so dumb that they are prepared to put up with such treatment and be dealt with as if they had no real say in the future of our Province, they had better be disillusioned once and for all.
Some hon. Members think that they know what is good for Northern Ireland, but one has only to look back over their record since they took over direct rule. They blamed the Unionists for 50 years of bad rule in Northern Ireland. Certainly, they have not come very far because the other day I heard a republican saying that things were worse than ever. He said that there was now more discrimination, unequal treatment and terrible indignity suffered by the republican people than ever before. Some people will never be satisfied. If the apostle Paul introduced heaven to Northern Ireland, some would think that heaven was purgatory or some worse place.
I recently read a history of the House and the debates on nationalism in it. It made very interesting reading. One need only change the names to have the same hurling of contempt on all British rule in the island of Ireland. Things have not really changed, but we are now told that we are to have people elected to a body.
We are told that there is to be an election. People were at first to be elected to a body, but that body has become a forum. I always thought that a forum was a place where people exchanged views and came to a resolution about what they thought should happen. However, we are to have a forum that cannot come to any decision. It is supposed to encourage dialogue but not to come to any decisions.
I wonder how the House responded to the slip of the tongue made by the Secretary of State when he said the negotiating body would come "down" from the forum. Evidently, on that occasion, he thought that the forum was higher than the negotiating body. So it is, because if we did not have a forum we could not have a negotiating body.
Some parties are not going to get six people on to that forum. In fact, they will get nobody elected by direct vote of the people. If they are fortunate to squeeze into the first 10 parties, they will of course be given two representatives who will be able to attend the forum. They can bring who they like with them. Since the IRA has been taking members of its supreme command to the talks that have taken place at Stormont, one wonders what sort of characters will be pushed into the talks, which we, as good democrats, are supposed to support and in which we are supposed to have deliberations with such people. Every effort has been made to destroy the forum that was to be appointed as the place where the people of Northern Ireland would have an opportunity to express in public what they hoped would be achieved for them.
Where did that attack commence? It commenced with IRA-Sinn Fein, which told us that there should be no election. I do not wonder why a terrorist organisation such
as IRA-Sinn Fein would not want an election. It is not difficult to find an answer to that when one considers the way in which it has crucified its own co-religionists and carried out such desperate beatings in its own areas. I would not think that a person going around on behalf of IRA-Sinn Fein would be too well received in some homes in Northern Ireland.
IRA-Sinn Fein said, "No election," and then said that there should definitely be no forum. It will probably try to bypass the forum, for in the forum it would have to talk directly to and engage in debate with the grass-roots representatives of all the Protestant people. It would not be sitting in the cosy company of the two Governments, who for so long have conceded and conceded. Our Government published a book that told of about 100 concessions that they have made to the IRA. Not one concession was made by the IRA to them.
The attack was joined by the Dublin Government. Mr. Spring said, "We do not need elections," although it is no part of his jurisdiction. He said, "There is to be no election and there is to be no forum. We should go direct to the negotiating table." The SDLP also took that attitude, although I must say to it that at least the parties of Northern Ireland have had talks together and, although there is a great divide between us, at least we came to some broad agreements on things relevant to an election being held. A degree of democracy prevailed so that we could have a conversation and put our views forcefully to one another. Those meetings were not a cosy little chat, because we all have strong views, which we put and discussed. We agreed to disagree, but at least we made considerable progress.
I apologise to the Labour Front-Bench team because I should have said that its members, too, were not keen on the forum. When I spoke to their spokesperson, they felt that the forum should be elected, but then they thought that the forum should be forgotten and that they should go immediately to negotiations. I do not want them to feel that I did not praise them for joining the rest. I would not like them to think that their opinions were rejected and not listened to.
So there was all that conspiracy, saying, "Do not let the Ulster people have a forum; do not let them express themselves in that forum; do not let any democracy prevail; do your best to silence them, they should not be heard anyway." When the House takes that viewpoint--the words of the Secretary of State tonight have been heard in Northern Ireland--the people in Northern Ireland feel that a dark cloud has descended, and that the road to elections and a democratic voice of the people being heard will be bound by rules and regulations.
One matter that concerns me greatly is that the Government will not take responsibility to deal with those who violate what we are told are the first principles of getting to the table. I do not know what
happens when those negotiators meet. The night before we have read in the press some of the things that they have said about the future of Northern Ireland. We have heard Mr. McGuinness say that they have nothing more to give--not that they ever gave anything--but murder and mayhem and that it is up to the Unionists to give. I wonder what they want us to give. I think that they want us to surrender to a united Ireland.
After that, the same thing would happen as happened in the south of Ireland. When the line was drawn, 10 per cent. of the entire population of the Irish Republic was Protestant. Today, only 2.5 per cent. of the population is Protestant, which means that 80 per cent. of the Protestant population of the south of Ireland have disappeared. [Interruption.] The Labour Front-Bench team can argue what they like, but that is a fact. One need only talk to people in the south of Ireland to discover how the land has been denuded of the Protestant population.
I heard Gerry Adams say, "We have to get the Brits out. There can be no more British rule. That is what we are going to talk about in the talks." I always thought that nothing could be done to the constitution of Northern Ireland as an integral part of the United Kingdom until we had a referendum, but, evidently, now there is a republican consensus. We heard Mr. Ahern on the same track last night in Dublin. He was praising the IRA leadership and castigating Mr. Bruton because he did not invite Gerry Adams to discuss the breakdown of the ceasefire with him, as if the Taoiseach should have immediately consulted Gerry Adams and asked him to explain why the ceasefire had broken down. Those are all the things that are happening in the environment that surrounds the coming election.
Are we to have a body that can express the views of the people of Northern Ireland or not? How far are those views to be expressed? Will this body have any power at all to impress on those who are ceded from it to be negotiators or is it to have none?
Will the people of Northern Ireland be taken into account? They certainly cannot be taken into account by the negotiators because, we are told, they will negotiate three days a week. I had a letter from the Secretary of State this morning in which he said that there would be negotiating three days a week. If three days a week are spent negotiating, how shall we meet representatives of the Churches, of the trade unions and of all the other people who want to talk to us? That will be impossible.
We should remember that there could be as many as 70 people at the table in the negotiations, and perhaps even more. One can understand how large the room will have to be and one can understand what a folly it will be when 70 people are sitting around the table trying to negotiate. That will be impossible.
I believe that there should be committees in the forum and I believe that the committees could do a useful job in sounding out the views of various people and reporting those views to the negotiators who will be speaking for them. That matter needs to be taken care of. However, in the letter I received from the Secretary of State this morning, I was told that the forum may meet just once a week. How can the forum possibly do a useful task when there are official meetings of the negotiators? The Dublin Government will be able to say, "We must have an official meeting of the negotiators." That will mean that the forum in Northern Ireland will have to quit its work.
I would like the Secretary of State and the Minister to tell us how the system will work. How can we have committees of the forum in session which suddenly have to stop their work because there are going to be negotiations? Does the Secretary of State envisage that the negotiations will be held as the previous negotiations were held and that all the parties concerned will be round the table? We shall have to wait long hours until the Irish delegation gets to the meeting. Having sat and kicked our heels for at least an hour until the Irish Government get there, we shall have to wait until matters proceed on a grace and favour basis.
We must discover what opportunities the forum will have. People will stand for election. What do the leaders of the parties tell those people? Do they tell them, "Well, you will have a job of work to do"? Alternatively, do they tell them, "You are very nice; give up your job"? I know a young man who wanted to stand for my party. He told his boss, who said, "Well, I think you would be better resigning your job." I would have thought that the Secretary of State should at least say that he wants people from all walks of life in the negotiations. Industry should be exhorted to let off from their work those who want to stand and to be elected so that they can make a contribution to the future of our Province. That should be done immediately.
Unlike some of the other leaders, I now have all my candidates in place, so I am not pushed for time. However, it was a difficult task to ask people to stand for a forum when no one knew what the forum was or even if it was going to exist. I am sure that any person in politics will understand how difficult it is at times to get good candidates to stand, especially if they do not know what they are standing for, what remuneration they will get or what will happen to them after they are elected. There is a great difficulty.
We agree that the functions of the forum should be primarily deliberative, although it should have other functions as well. We agree that the forum should have no legislative, executive or administrative functions. We are fully agreed on that and I do not think that any of the major parties desires anything else for the forum. However, we believe that those who are doing the negotiations--the leaders of the parties--should be able to test some of the things that are being discussed in that forum to see whether they have real support across the divide. It would be a useful function--a litmus test--to see exactly how the forum would respond to certain propositions. You should be well assured, Dame Janet, that if the proposals could not get past the forum, they would never succeed in a referendum of all the people of Northern Ireland. Anyone who thinks otherwise should think again.
The argument is posed, "What if there was a majority of Unionists?" The forum will certainly not have 75 per cent. of Unionists; that is one thing that will not happen. We have, therefore, included that figure in the amendment. There would have to be a broad consensus and every representative section would have to agree with the outcome in some way.
Under the rules of procedure, the forum could take up certain matters and discuss them. Added to that, we would want to see that the forum had the useful role of looking at the overall package. I suggest to the Committee that that would, indeed, be a useful role for the forum. Members of the forum will not, of course, be at the
negotiations; they will not determine the course of those negotiations or their conduct. That will be for the negotiators themselves to decide.
However, members of the forum will have influence in the outcome because they will have the opportunity to discuss the agreement, some agreement or a little agreement, whichever has been achieved. They will be able to look at that and discuss it, not behind closed doors, but in full public view so that all the people of Northern Ireland can understand what is happening and what the proposals on the table are. They would be able to understand what people were arguing about at Stormont, and what arguments the parties were putting forward to try to secure a future for our people and our families, for our children and our children's children.
The House would do well to ensure that the forum could do useful and rewarding work, and that those people could have a real say in shaping the future. Who are those people? They are people who are willing to make a sacrifice, because the remuneration offered is small, and some of them will have to leave their jobs and lose their pay.
Some of them will also put at risk their prospects of getting back into employment afterwards, because politicians are not the most likely people to get jobs in Northern Ireland. Former Members of Parliament find it easier to take early retirement than to get a job, and Members of the Stormont Assembly found it difficult to be re-employed. So here we have people who are prepared to make a sacrifice to do a reasonable job of work for the future of Northern Ireland. The House should encourage them in that role.
Again I stress the fact that we are not asking for executive, legislative or administrative functions. I do not want people to say, "You just want to turn the forum into a new Stormont." We want nothing of the sort. It should be the objective of the talks to bring about a situation in which we could have a real Assembly in Northern Ireland, with real powers to deal with the bread-and-butter issues that are important to all the people of Northern Ireland. But that must come after the negotiations, not during the negotiations, and we want to make that fact perfectly clear.
"Accordingly the forum shall not have any legislative, executive or administrative functions,"--
"or any power to determine the conduct or course of the negotiations mentioned in section 1."
"But when, in accordance with any rules of procedure adopted by them, the participants in the negotiations refer any matter to the forum".
"it shall consider such matters and determine the level of support which exists for any agreement reached by the participants in the negotiations".
"No agreement shall be reached by the participants in the negotiations unless it is tested to measure its level of support in the forum and shall not be considered to have reached sufficient consensus as referred to in Command Paper 3232 unless it is approved on a vote by at least 75 per cent of those voting."
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