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Mrs. Maria Fyfe (Glasgow, Maryhill): As that is such a massive problem, what does my right hon. Friend think
of a national day of reconciliation on which all relevant bodies might act together to provide reassurance to the others?
Mr. Mandelson: That is a creative and imaginative suggestion. I have always said--without in any way conceding an equivalence between legally and illegally held weapons--that normalisation of the security profile and elimination of the threat should go hand in hand. I am very willing to give further thought to those general ideas.
Let me quickly run through the contents of the Bill. It enables what I hope--if it proves necessary--will be the temporary return to Northern Ireland of direct rule. Under clause 1, while the institutions, including the Executive, are on hold, neither the Assembly nor its Committees will meet. All Northern Ireland Ministers and the Chairmen and Deputy Chairmen of Statutory Committees will cease to hold office, although under clause 3 all Ministers and other office holders who lost office but are still eligible are automatically reappointed to their previous office when the institutions are restored.
Clause 2 allows the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to make a restoration order to end the suspension, taking into account the outcome of the review. The schedule sets out that executive responsibility will return to the Secretary of State and the Northern Ireland Departments acting under the direction of the Secretary of State. Legislation that would normally be made by the Assembly will be made by Order in Council approved by Parliament. A restoration order and its revocation must, under clause 7, be approved by both Houses of Parliament. Clause 5 requires the Secretary of State to return the functions of the implementation bodies to the relevant Northern Ireland Departments, in line with arrangements agreed with the Irish Government. That reflects the underlying principle of the agreement that all these institutions are interlocking and interdependent.
Those are serious steps, but in the absence of any progress they will, I believe, preserve the institutions from collapse and enable us to revive them at the earliest possible date. May I say this to the House in conclusion? The bomb attack in Fermanagh on Sunday reminds us that, tragically, there are still people in Northern Ireland who prefer violence and chaos to peace and stability. My sympathy goes out to all those in Irvinestown whose property has been destroyed and whose peace has been shattered.
These futile, cowardly assaults on the overwhelming will of the people are what the Good Friday Agreement sought to end. I believe it is the duty of the British Government, and, indeed, of the Irish Government, and of all the political parties, to deliver the people's will and put this process back on track.
There will never be a better agreement than this. The Good Friday Agreement is a replete and robust agreement. It is a near perfect settlement, and I believe that if we were to scrap it and start negotiating it from scratch what we then ended up with would be very, very similar indeed to what we have at present. I really do not think there will be a better agreement than this. With this Bill the Government are moving to guard its integrity and the confidence of all sides in it.
Mr. Andrew MacKay (Bracknell):
I should like immediately to associate the Opposition with the Secretary of State's remarks about the people of Irvinestown. It was a devastating blow to that small and peaceful community when, at 7.20 on Sunday evening, a bomb exploded in the town and caused such damage. Can we as a House send one absolutely clear message to the men of violence, wherever they happen to come from? They will never succeed in their objectives by such dastardly actions, which are always, without exception, completely counter-productive.
We strongly support the Bill and shall vote for it if need be. We support it for a very simple reason: ever since it became clear that it was most unlikely that any substantial decommissioning would take place, we have believed that the only way forward was for the Secretary of State to suspend the Executive, the Assembly and the other relevant institutions. Clearly, for that to be done we must put direct rule back in place. That, basically, is what this legislation is all about.
Before I go into detail on the Bill, I hope that I shall be forgiven if I return for a final time to what I think has been a dreadful mistake by the Secretary of State. I believe that the House was owed an explanation as to why the de Chastelain report has not been published. The House has been put in an unenviable position, having to take decisions tonight on direct rule without knowing what the general said in that report.
I repeat again to the Secretary of State that I fully accept that there might be sensitive, particularly security-sensitive, items in that report. By all means exclude those, but we need to see the conclusions. Even at this late hour, I hope he will reconsider and, before we vote on Second Reading or on any of the amendments, will place the report, or at least its conclusions, in the Library or the Vote Office.
Mr. Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Hall Green):
The right hon. Gentleman overstates his case. He has already told us twice today that he welcomes the Bill. He has been calling for this suspension for weeks. Whether he sees the report has no bearing on his judgment; he has made it absolutely clear where he stands. Surely there is no point in pursuing this.
Mr. MacKay:
I think that the hon. Gentleman has missed the point. The House must have the maximum information available before reaching a decision: that is how it works. The Secretary of State rightly referred to the report both today and in his statement on Thursday, and, as right hon. and hon. Members have said--not just Conservatives, but Liberal Democrats and Unionists--if a report has been referred to, it is only proper for the information to be placed before the House so that all Members can reach a decision.
I willingly acknowledge that--as the Secretary of State has heard me say a number of times, from the Dispatch Box and elsewhere--I believe suspension to be right. I am not convinced that all Members share my views at this stage, but they might if they saw what was in the
report. I believe that the report should be published, but I will not dwell on the issue. I leave the Secretary of State to reflect on it further as the debate proceeds.
This is an extremely sad day for the people of Northern Ireland. They, naturally, yearn for a lasting peace, and they have hoped and prayed for decommissioning. They have been dreadfully let down. Over the past few weeks, they have enjoyed having their own Executive and elected Assembly. The democratic deficit that I consider to have been so damaging to the body politic in Northern Ireland had been eradicated, and we saw Northern Ireland's elected politicians taking responsibility for much that happened in the Province. That was healthy, right and proper. As the Secretary of State willingly acknowledged, it is the first and best option for the present and future governance of Northern Ireland. It was working, and I believe that it would have continued to work.
A number of distinguished past office holders are present--Members who have served in the Northern Ireland Office as Secretaries of State, Ministers of State and Under-Secretaries of State. I know they would agree that the alternative, direct rule, is very much second best. Although it will now be necessary, it is a great pity that it had to happen at all.
It is worth reflecting on why the Secretary of State has introduced this Bill, and why it is gaining support on the Opposition Benches. I believe that, towards the end of last year, the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) was courageous in agreeing to serve on the Executive along with his Unionist colleagues, although there had been no decommissioning by the Provisional IRA, and to serve with Sinn Fein Ministers. It was a brave decision, but it was also the right decision--a decision that I have consistently and strongly supported. That decision was made, however, because there was an understanding that, once the Executive had been set up, decommissioning would commence in a matter of weeks. The Secretary of State confirmed that to me at the Dispatch Box on Thursday.
I do not wish to apportion blame unduly, but I think that we must be clear about this. The simple truth is that the First Minister, the Secretary of State and I, along with the whole House, have been let down by Sinn Fein and the Provisional IRA. They have failed to deliver the decommissioning that it was understood would happen once the Executive was in place. It must be said that with the paramilitaries, whether republican or so-called loyalist, it has been all take and, to date, absolutely no give.
As the Secretary of State rightly pointed out, every other aspect of the Belfast agreement has been implemented, or is being implemented. In other words, the two Governments, British and Irish, and the constitutional parties, Unionist and nationalist, have fulfilled all their obligations. The only people who have not fulfilled their obligations under the Belfast agreement are the paramilitaries, republican and loyalist: they have failed to decommission any of their illegally held arms and explosives.
I want to address the arguments presented by Mr. Adams, Mr. McGuinness and some of the so-called loyalist paramilitary leaders. They say, "All that the Belfast agreement stated was that over a two-year period, concluding on 22 May, all illegally held arms and explosives must be decommissioned; so why the rush?
We do not have to do it yet." Looking at the situation and knowing that all illegally held arms and explosives have to be decommissioned over a two-year period by 22 May, any reasonable person would conclude that, 21 months on, the fact that not one gun or ounce of Semtex has been handed in by any of the parties that signed up to the agreement shows that they are not fulfilling their obligations. That is why it is absolutely essential that decommissioning commences before the Executive and the Assembly can be reinstated.
As the Secretary of State confirmed, prisoner releases are a sensitive issue. If we go back to the summer of 1998, when the House passed the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Bill, initially, we understood why the Government released terrorist prisoners early back on to the streets of Belfast. It was right--in fact, it was essential--that the Government showed their good will to the paramilitaries and moved first. However, by the autumn of 1998, it was clear that a large number of prisoners, republican and loyalist, had been released early, yet there had been no decommissioning whatever.
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