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Mr. Hogg: My right hon. Friend would not carry his colleagues with him.
Mr. MacKay: I ask my right hon. and learned Friend to restrain himself for a moment. I used the word "if". If I was of a charitable nature and wanted to do that, and if I managed to persuade, by the strength of my argument, my right hon. and learned Friend and other right hon. and hon. Friends not to speak, we would immediately move on to the main business. If I did so, there would be a slight change. The time available to debate each amendment would be 0.6 of a second instead of 0.36 of a second. With 666 amendments to consider, curtailing the debate would make virtually no difference to our consideration of those amendments, but it makes a huge difference to explaining to Labour Members that the guillotine breaches democracy and is a constitutional outrage. The proposal is totally wrong, and they will live to regret it.
I turn to the specifics of both Bills. I should appreciate it if the Home Secretary and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, who, I guess, will tomorrow carry some of the burden associated with the Disqualifications Bill, paid a little attention. More importantly, I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who will also be closely involved, will pay attention.
A strand runs through both Bills, which significantly affects Northern Ireland--the appeasement of and concessions to Sinn Fein. There is no reason to pass the Disqualifications Bill other than to offer an additional confidence-building measure to Sinn Fein so that its politicians will be able to sit, on the one hand, in the Northern Ireland Assembly--possibly as Ministers in the Executive--and, on the other, in the Irish Dail and, possibly, in this Parliament. That is wrong because the Republic of Ireland is not part of the Commonwealth and because the reasons behind that measure are very dubious.
The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has to deal with such matters on an hourly basis, so he will know that endless concessions have been made to the republicans, and that nothing has been gained in return from them. It has been all give by the Government and all take by the republicans.
Mr. Robert McCartney (North Down): Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that some of those who may sit in the Dail Eireann and in the House may also sit as fully fledged members of the seven-man IRA military council?
Mr. MacKay: That could conceivably happen. I suggest that the hon. and learned Gentleman and I
pursue that matter further in tomorrow's debate--that is, if he is able to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in the three hours available. It is far from certain whether he will be able to do so as we shall be discussing a controversial measure that is widely opposed.The Home Secretary lightly referred to the Disqualifications Bill as a modest little measure of only a few clauses and said that a debate of three hours would surely be sufficient. However, the amendment passed in the Lords removed clause 1. That effectively castrates it, which was our intention. We are not talking about minor amendments or small details in a large Bill about which we could have a narrow debate--you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would rightly call us to order if we strayed. We are talking about the detail of an entire Bill.
We need to discuss all the merits of a Bill which has been rejected in another place. Will the Home Secretary speculate on when a whole Bill was last thrown out by the other place? The answer must be at least several years ago. A Bill that was effectively thrown out will be reinstated in just three hours. I am sure that, on reflection, he will agree that that is wrong.
Mr. Forth: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Bill must be regarded as a constitutional measure? It has important implications for the House and the other place, as it bears on people's qualifications to sit in the House of Commons. It also bears on the relationship between this place, the Northern Ireland Assembly and, potentially, the Dail in Ireland. Can there be any more constitutional measure than that?
Mr. MacKay: As so often, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) is right. We are discussing a serious constitutional measure, which makes changes that many hon. Members and a majority in the other place want to resist. We will attempt to do so tomorrow in the limited time available.
Let us return to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill, and its effects on Northern Ireland and on the funding of political parties. After yesterday's amusing outburst from the Home Secretary about the different national football teams in our country, and in the light of his desire, which I broadly share, to increase awareness of what he likes to call Britishness, one might have assumed that he would want United Kingdom political parties to be treated identically.
However, it has shocked many people that measures ensuring that political parties cannot receive foreign donations will not apply in Northern Ireland, although it has been widely agreed in Parliament, and accepted in the Conservative party, that it is wrong for political parties to receive such donations. That is strange and anomalous, and there is only one reason why it is the case. It is another sop to Sinn Fein and another piece of appeasement. It reflects a strand that runs through both Bills.
Mr. George Howarth: I should like to correct the impression given by the right hon. Gentleman. I consulted all the political parties in Northern Ireland about the provision. Every one of them asked for it, as they were
afraid that retaliation would occur if they had to publish the sources of donations. Let me set the record straight. It may surprise the right hon. Gentleman--as, indeed, it surprised me at the time--that the one party that opposed the measure was Sinn Fein.
Mr. MacKay: As usual, the Under-Secretary is charming but wrong. The issue on which we agree and on which he tried to organise a little smokescreen just now is security. The only respect in which Northern Ireland political parties should be treated slightly differently from parties elsewhere in the United Kingdom is in respect of allowing them not to publish the names of major donors, for simple security reasons. That is widely accepted.
Mr. MacKay: I am pleased to see the Under-Secretary nodding. However, it is not correct to suggest that Northern Ireland parties should be treated differently from parties representing the rest of the United Kingdom in respect of collecting money from abroad. If the Under-Secretary gained the support of all political parties in his consultations, something has since gone badly wrong or he misunderstood his conversations.
The amendments tabled my myself and the right hon. Member for Upper Bann have the full support of Unionist Members. They are intended to ensure, among other things, that overseas donations are not received by Northern Ireland political parties. Allowing that practice has only one benefit, of which we are all aware: to ensure that the money flows into the IRA from the Americans and, to a lesser extent, to the minor loyalist paramilitary parties, which fish in the same murky pond on the eastern seaboard of the United States.
Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann): I assure the right hon. Gentleman that, in respect of consultation with Northern Ireland parties on the wholly anomalous arrangements that allow them to receive foreign donations, my party vigorously and consistently opposed the exemption during consultation. It is misleading of the Under-Secretary to suggest otherwise.
Mr. MacKay: I am grateful to Northern Ireland's First Minister, the right hon. Member for Upper Bann. If the right hon. Gentleman had not been in his place, but on duty in the Province as First Minister, the Under-Secretary would have been allowed to mislead the House. It is good news that the right hon. Gentleman is present to put the record straight and to confirm my remarks.
Mr. Robert McCartney: I, too, endorse everything said by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble), and I think I can state with confidence that the same position would be held by members of the Democratic Unionist party, who are not present.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that the terms that have crept into these exchanges are unfortunate, and perhaps had better not be repeated.
Mr. MacKay: On a lighter note, I was about to say--anticipating you, Mr. Deputy Speaker--that I suppose we should congratulate the Minister on at least uniting,
unusually, all three Unionist parties represented in the House. That does not happen as often as some of us would like.I think that we have clarified the position. We have heard from two of the three Unionist parties, and I am fairly confident that the hon. and learned Member for North Down (Mr. McCartney) is able to speak for the DUP on this matter.
Mr. Howarth: I can say that the hon. and learned Member for North Down (Mr. McCartney), and probably, as he and the right hon. Gentleman have said, the DUP, were--in common with Sinn Fein--opposed to the provisions. But I think the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) will be aware that the late Josias Cunningham of the Ulster Unionist Council said in evidence:
- Taking the American example again, we have several well-heeled sympathisers. It would be very embarrassing if one of them said, "I would like to support your election campaign or party machine generally. Here is a cheque for $10,000." And we had to say, "Sorry. We're are not allowed to accept it".
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