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Mr. McGrady: There is already a precedent in clause 2, which states:
- "The negotiations mentioned in section 1 are the negotiations referred to in Command Paper 3232 presented to Parliament on16th April 1996."
If it is possible to have the Command Paper mentioned in one part of the Bill, surely it is appropriate and logical to have it mentioned in another part of the Bill. I am not a legal person, and I may stand corrected.
Mr. Worthington:
It takes one to know one--I am not a legal person either. We believe that there would be problems in putting forward paragraph 24 in that way and having it accepted by the Government as legislatively pure. We are seeking an overarching principle which governs the rules of procedure, which inspires the forum, and which tells it the grounds on which the Secretary of State will approve the rules of procedure. The rules of procedure that are derived from the forum have to go to the Secretary of State for approval.
Our amendment tries to provide the Secretary of State and the forum with the principles on which the rules of procedure would be approved. That is why we have put it forward in this way. The Secretary of State is given the duty to
If the forum is to have the rules approved by the Secretary of State, it must pursue that route. It is a question of style. On Second Reading, I said that at this stage of its political development, the forum should be pursuing a Select Committee style in the way that it operates, rather than the style that we are using tonight. The forum has to draw up the rules of procedure, and it must know that they will be approved only if they meet this yardstick. The Secretary of State has to draw up the first guidelines.
Rev. Martin Smyth:
I understand what the hon. Gentleman means when he talks about Select Committee style, but on occasions Select Committees divide, and sometimes there is a difference of one vote.
Mr. Worthington:
Yes. The hon. Gentleman has been a long-standing member of a Select Committee of the House and, if that Select Committee is like most Select Committees, most of its reports have been unanimous. Does he agree?
Rev. Martin Smyth:
Yes, most of them. Nevertheless, Select Committees do divide regularly and one cannot always obtain consensus; allowance must be made for that.
Mr. Worthington:
As the hon. Gentleman knows, in Select Committees miracles are frequently achieved which would not be anticipated at the outset of the investigation. We are simply saying that people should enter the forum in the frame of mind in which people enter Select Committee.
The point I was making before I took that valuable intervention was that the Secretary of State must draw up the first guidelines. Obviously, if the amendment is accepted, he must follow his own guidelines of seeking to promote "dialogue, understanding and consensus"--the mandate that is given by our amendment.
The forum will have a year of guaranteed life, to the end of May 1997, after which the Secretary of State may extend it for a further year. When it starts, it will have less than a year of guaranteed life. It would be unprecedented--the evidence of this evening bears that out--if the Northern Ireland forum were simply to meet and say, "We agree on the rules of procedure," so there may be more than one or two months in which the forum seeks to approve its rules of procedure, although it would be simplest, if the Secretary of State got it right, for the forum to adopt those rules of procedure.
Rev. Ian Paisley:
The first Northern Ireland Assembly and the second Northern Ireland Assembly--with more power than the forum that we are discussing--and the Constitutional Convention established their rules and procedures in about 10 days. If they could do so, surely this forum can establish its rules and procedures--which will be simpler than full parliamentary rules and procedures--in 10 days. Moreover, the Minister concerned called the leaders of the parties together before each assembly met and said, "Let us look at some rules for the first day so that, at the first meeting, we can have something on board to keep us right for the first day's proceedings." Can that be done again?
Mr. Worthington:
I am inspired by the hon. Gentleman's words, and look forward to him pulling off
This issue is crucial to the success of the forum. Unless a broad consensus is pursued, the forum will not work. A forum at which everyone is not present is unbalanced and will not succeed. If everyone came to that forum using those guidelines, those rules of procedure, the forum could contribute a great deal.
Mr. William Ross:
I shall speak on one amendment standing in my name and one standing in the names of my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bannand myself.
I listened with interest to the remarks of the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington). He proposed apple pie and motherhood and we moved through pious hope back into the age of miracles. It gives me hope that anything is possible, not only in Northern Ireland, but in the House. We might even see hon. Members on the two Front Benches agreeing on the things that divide them before we are much older if this goes on--but I would not hold my breath.
Before we go too far down that road, perhaps we should pour a bucket of cold reality over ourselves. We did not arrive at the concept--as espoused by the SDLP and others--of support by a clear majority in each community overnight or by accident. I am sure that we recall when votes were taken in Northern Ireland on the basis of a simple majority--and the House still holds with that principle. We then witnessed the erosion of Unionist power through changes in the electoral system designed to break up the "Unionist monolith"--they were the words used in this place. That did not work, and now the Government have thrust upon us a monstrous system of government. It was certainly not suggested by anyone in Northern Ireland and it is not acceptable to anyone there, as the Minister well knows.
We have seen the slow shift from a simple majority to a weighted majority of 60 per cent., 65 per cent. and now 75 per cent. The step beyond that is a majority in both communities. We have come a long way, yet people are asking for still more. If we debate the matter in a year or two, they will demand a majority of 90 per cent. plus a clear majority across the communities.
The effect of the 75 per cent. figure is that the gunmen will have to be brought on board in order to achieve it. That is the intention of the proposal--we should not run away from that simple, clear fact. We are not talking about enabling parties that are democratic in attitude and in practice to take decisions; we are talking about satisfying the gunmen. In the past 25 years, it has been my experience that the gunman adopts a very simple approach: "Do what I tell you, or I will kill you,"--and he will. Once Parliament and this country understand that, they will adopt the same jaundiced view of the 75 per cent. that I have. That is why my amendment No. 175 proposes 60 per cent., which would allow majority decisions to be taken without forcing the democratic parties to bow to the gunmen and appeal to their non-existent better nature. I ask the Government to respond to that proposition.
According to the heading, this group of amendments involves three different issues: procedure, privilege and valid decisions. I draw the Committee's attention to amendment No. 66, which reads:
The amendment would omit from schedule 2 the words:
I know that there are many lawyers in this place and that they love words that they can twist and make money from. Every lawyer must have pricked up his ears at those words.
Mr. Soley:
I hope to persuade the Minister to proceed along the lines suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington), because amendments Nos. 58, 55 and 56 would take us where I thought the Government wanted to go. The Minister will recall that, when the Prime Minister made the statement in the House about the proposal to set up the elections and the forum, he responded positively to my request that the body should, to a considerable extent, mirror the forum for peace and reconciliation in Dublin. It was recognised that that forum had made significant progress in trying to understand the needs, fears and anxieties of the two communities represented in the north of Ireland, as well as addressing other issues. I understand that that forum did that and proceeded without votes, so I am not convinced that there is a good argument for votes in the forum under the Bill.
If we want to encourage discussion--I hope that the forum will not only encourage discussion but take evidence from different groups in Northern Ireland--the forum will work better without votes. We should give the people of Northern Ireland a voice in the forum, rather as we might do here in Select Committees or in Special Standing Committees, and enable people to give evidence to it, because that could be very valuable and would help to cross some of the divides in Northern Ireland.
The problem of votes is the 70 per cent. problem which has been mentioned by several Unionist Members. I believe that it is clear that we need to work by consensus in Northern Ireland. It is perhaps necessary to say that again, because it is not always accepted by some of the Unionist Members, but I believe it is accepted by the vast majority of other right hon. and hon. Members. We require consensus, not because we are following some grand principle of democracy in a precise design in Northern Ireland but because we recognise that in
Northern Ireland--as I said in an earlier speech--the political system has broken down. When political systems break down, people turn to violence.
At the moment, the level of violence in Northern Ireland is lower than it has been for some 25 years. That does not justify the level of violence that exists, but the level is lower than it has been for the past 25 years. It would be encouraging if we could keep it that way, and that is why we want people talking to rather than killing each other. That is what we are about when we debate the Bill. We are here tonight to pass what is, by any definition, an extraordinary piece of legislation, precisely because the system in Northern Ireland has broken down. That is why we have direct rule, and if we did not we would all be at home tucked up in bed, as we know. But because the political system has broken down, we are looking for different methods from those normally applied in a parliamentary system.
If we proceed along the lines suggested in amendments Nos. 55, 56 and 58, we could take out the contention caused by voting and we could proceed by consensus. It is also very important for the Bill to contain some recognition, as the Command Paper does--it is spelt out clearly in the Command Paper--that when decisions have to be made, especially on key issues, they should be by a majority of those representing the nationalist community and a majority of those representing the Unionist community. In that way, we could get around the problem, which one of the Unionist Members feared, that any little party, Unionist or republican, could veto progress. A little party could not veto progress because, as the Command Paper rightly points out, there would have to be a majority of both Unionists and nationalists. If we put that in the Bill and knock out the requirement for voting, we have the possibility of a forum that mirrors the one that took place in Dublin, which was very successful.
"make every effort to secure that the rules of procedure of the forum facilitate the promotion of dialogue, understanding and consensus across the communities in Northern Ireland."
"Schedule 2, page 8, line 27, leave out from 'defamation' to the end of the line".
"unless it is proved to have been made with malice".
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