| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman will have to withdraw that statement. The Secretary of State is not misleading the House. No Member is misleading the House.
Mr. Cash: I am perfectly prepared to say that the Secretary of State has misinterpreted the Belfast agreement--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Do I take it that the hon. Gentleman is withdrawing his statement?
Mr. Cash: I regret to say that I will withdraw the original statement--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must withdraw his statement that the Secretary of State is misleading the House. Will he do so?
Mr. Cash: I will withdraw the statement, but I also--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Does the hon. Gentleman wish to withdraw the statement?
Mr. Cash: Yes, I have said so.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Well, there is no point of order. I call the Secretary of State.
Mr. Mandelson: As I was saying, I hope that with a reasonable amount of good will on the part of all members of the Executive this matter can be properly resolved. Rather than see the enthusiasm, vision and high hopes with which many people greet the prospect of a return of devolved power to Northern Ireland frittered away on endless symbolic disputes such as this, I am prepared to try to settle this potentially divisive issue myself. It is on that basis that I commend the draft order to the House.
10.50 pm
Mr. Andrew MacKay (Bracknell): I accept the Secretary of State's apology and explanation of why he could not give the House, myself and other spokesmen more notice of the draft order. We are in a fast-moving situation and it was right and proper that, at short notice, the draft order was brought before the House.
As far as the order goes--although I do not think that it goes far enough--it is broadly helpful. I think that hon. Members would agree, in reflecting on legislation that we passed a year ago, that we were unwise to have transferred to the Executive the decision on flags flying from public buildings. That view is now clearly shared by the Secretary of State. The order, to all intents and purposes, but not as specifically as we would like, will ensure that the decision is a reserved matter.
I shall briefly describe the Opposition's position; it is very straightforward and simple. We are the first to acknowledge readily, happily and warmly that Northern Ireland is very much part of the United Kingdom. It is absolutely clear that, by way of consent, the majority of people in Northern Ireland wish to remain part of the United Kingdom. While that consent is forthcoming, which I hope will be for a very long time, it must be right and proper that Northern Ireland is treated exactly the same as the rest of the United Kingdom--no better, no worse--and that on the matter of flying flags on public buildings, it should be treated identically to other parts of the United Kingdom. That is my understanding of what
the Secretary of State said, particularly in his answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth).I endorse the comments of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), the hon. and learned Member for North Down (Mr. McCartney) and the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) that, given that the Secretary of State is so clear and so much in agreement with us, we cannot quite see the point of the order not being more specific and clear--that the matter is reserved and the Secretary of State rightly believes that, as Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, it should be treated identically to the rest of the United Kingdom.
Mrs. Maria Fyfe (Glasgow, Maryhill): Has the right hon. Gentleman considered that there are wider implications? We also have devolved bodies in Scotland and Wales. Is he agreeing with his hon. Friends on the Back Benches, who seem to imply that any time such a body disagrees about something, we in London should simply step in and say that we will take over? Surely there is a principle that devolution must be allowed to work, and therefore the terms of the order make more sense than his hon. Friends have suggested.
Mr. MacKay: I am grateful to the hon. Lady because she neatly takes me to my next point.
Huge offence was caused because two Ministers in the Executive, both representing Sinn Fein--the Minister for Education and the Minister for Health, Social Services and Public Safety--refused to fly the Union flag on days when it was flown elsewhere in the United Kingdom, and instead wished to fly the tricolour. That has been very harmful to the process that the hon. Lady and I support. Therefore, it must be right and proper that the matter is reserved. As the Secretary of State rightly pointed out just a moment ago, that means that the Executive can get on with more relevant matters and he can make the final decision.
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough): The Secretary of State has made it absolutely clear that only the Union flag will fly, but I am not entirely clear whether Sinn Fein Ministers will still be able to refuse to fly any flag. Is that right?
Mr. MacKay: Subject to the Secretary of State putting me right, my understanding of the order is that if agreement cannot be reached within the Executive, he will take the decision. He has made clear to our right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst what his decision will be. Those Ministers will not be entitled to overrule the Secretary of State's decision in respect of their public buildings. I do not see the Secretary of State rising to tell me that I have misinterpreted the order--in fact, I think that he is now vaguely acknowledging that I am correct. That is as close to confirmation as I am likely to obtain from him, and I am grateful for that apparently positive movement. I think that we can take my answer as accurate.
I have a word or two to say to any Members of Parliament who are thinking of opposing the order. If they do so and they win, the status quo will remain. It is distinctly possible--even probable--that a new Executive
will soon be formed, and the rules state that that Executive must contain two Sinn Fein Ministers. Therefore, the result of rejecting the order will be a return to the situation in which Sinn Fein Ministers provocatively fly the tricolour instead of the Union flag. I cannot believe that that is what those hon. Members want.We support the order, but we regret that the Secretary of State has not gone further and put in the order his clear and unambiguous response to questions asked today. He has clearly and categorically said that, as and when he takes over responsibility for the matter, which I fear that he will inevitably have to do--deep down, he knows that the Executive will not agree on the flags issue, which was the subject of fundamental disagreement between Ministers of different parties within the Executive--the Union flag will fly on public buildings on appropriate days, exactly as it does elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield): I still require clarification. Does my right hon. Friend think that the Secretary of State would in any circumstances permit the tricolour and the Union jack to be flown side by side on a public building? I hope that the answer is no. Through my right hon. Friend, I say to the Secretary of State that the issue is not merely symbolic: as one Member said, it is constitutional, and that is more than symbolic.
Mr. MacKay: It is not for me to stand at the Dispatch Box and translate the Secretary of State's words, but my understanding of his remarks is that they were absolutely clear and unequivocal--to echo my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe. If and when--in my view, when--the matter becomes one for the right hon. Gentleman's decision, the Union flag and the Union flag alone will fly from public buildings, exactly as it does in Macclesfield and elsewhere. I think that the Secretary of State is now nodding, so we have an absolute, categoric answer.
To conclude, we support the order, even though we regret that it is not more straightforward. None the less, we are pleased that, in replying to various interventions, the Secretary of State has, from the Dispatch Box and from a sedentary position, made clear what the position will be when he is in charge of flags. For that, we are grateful.
10.58 pm
Mr. Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire): First, I have a small gripe about the process of communication. I understand the importance of moving quickly to keep pace with events and circumstances that change hourly, if not minute by minute. However, it has been difficult to obtain information: at one point, I was given the impression that officials had no knowledge whatever of what would happen tonight, even though it had been announced to the press and, through the Government Whips Office, to other parties that the order would be debated tonight. I understand that the situation is fast moving, but the "I can neither confirm nor deny" approach was not 100 per cent. helpful. Perhaps we can tighten up communication between the parties on such matters.
My main point relates to how issues of devolution and flags have been handled elsewhere. In February, there was a debate in the Northern Ireland Assembly about the
flying of flags. An Alliance party staff member was asked to research the attitude adopted to flags by the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament. He telephoned the Scottish Parliament first and was passed around several extensions before he found anyone who could tell him which flags, if any, were flown from the building. Upon calling the Welsh Assembly, he was greeted by a long silence from a Liberal Democrat researcher, who went to look out of the window and was astounded to find not only the Welsh flag and the Union jack, but the European flag flying over Cardiff. Interestingly enough, that did not cause a walk-out or any suspension of the process of the Welsh Assembly--[Interruption.]--although I know that some members of the Opposition think that it should.Not surprisingly, flags have taken on profound symbolism in Northern Ireland, as the debate suggests. In that context, it makes sense to put the order through Parliament. The Secretary of State has been clear about the implications. However, I should like to think that what is needed is a not a change of flags, but a change of attitude. That is the ultimate goal of the process.
The challenge is not to attempt to eliminate the difference and the strongly held national identities in Northern Ireland. Instead, we should try to eliminate the fear of the difference and start to value that difference. Once we do that, I have no doubt that the flags issue will fade away into the ether, and more importantly, we will make significant progress in valuing the difference between the communities and getting on with the process of allowing Northern Ireland to govern itself.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |