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Mr. Davies: I shall take the hon. Gentleman's point seriously because we are dealing with very serious matters. Disbandment means the end of the IRA, or the end of the paramilitary organisation concerned, as a paramilitary organisation—in other words, the end of any structures or activities that are directed towards violence. That must be absolutely plain. I cannot be straighter than that.

As regards decommissioning, one of the great virtues of the Belfast agreement and the peace process is that we have the huge advantage of having an objective mechanism so that we do not have to argue until kingdom come about whether decommissioning has been completed and whether the odd shotgun is stuck up in someone's attic—that is bound to happen—because we have General de Chastelain and the international commission. When General de Chastelain determines that decommissioning has been completed, it has been completed.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. May I say to the hon. Gentleman, who is not alone in this respect, that interventions are getting longer and longer? In fact, they are starting to get longer than the contribution by the hon. Gentleman who has the Floor.

Lembit Öpik: Furthermore, Mr. Deputy Speaker, we are in danger of providing the world with a treatise on Conservative party policy on Northern Ireland, and I am guilty of that.

I will conclude my defence against the Conservative outburst by highlighting the difficulty of the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford, who, in trying to describe full disbandment, simply said the same thing using different words. Would he think that if 10 people in Northern Ireland who used to be IRA members happened to go for a drink together and talk about the good old days, it would mean that they had failed to disband? How would he define the disappearance of structures given that in many ways structures are both attitudinal and a passive, sleeping environment that could be restored at any time? A more serious point is involved. If the hon. Gentleman seeks to portray himself as having great clarity, he needs to be more understanding of the nature of attitudes in the republican movement. For him to demand complete disbandment is not only unmeasurable but counterproductive. By comparison, the proposal in amendment No. 48A is clear, measurable and deliverable, and it would reintroduce the Northern Ireland parties to the loop. I accept that the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) has raised

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one of the amendment's problems and I do not say that it is perfect. However, we have made progress by convincing the Government that it represents the way forward.

I understand that this week the British and Irish Governments are due to publish the package that was put before the parties at Hillsborough and I shall be interested to see what it contains. All sides will have to consider what the institutions of government are worth and ensure that their actions are sufficient to demonstrate that they are acting in good faith.

The bottom line of the debate is whether we accept amendment No. 48A as a significant improvement to what we had before. The Liberal Democrats actively welcome it and it is, apparently, grudgingly accepted as a long second by the Conservatives. Alternatively, we could reject the amendment and retain the original provision. The Liberal Democrats have a practical approach on Northern Ireland policy. We are honest about what we say and open about what we believe. I am pleased that people in all parties share the same approach much of the time. John Major spoke to terrorists while they were still killing our soldiers, which was to his credit because if it had not happened there would have been no progress. It would be nice to see the Conservative party welcome—just once—a measure of substantial importance in good faith. If it does, when the Liberal Democrats are in government we shall be more sympathetic to its proposals.

Lady Hermon : I apologise for my lengthy intervention on the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik). I shall be delighted to give way to him later, and I look forward to him being in government, although I am not sure whether he will be a member of the Liberal Democrats. He will be a member of the Ulster Unionist party, of course. [Interruption.] He will join the Ulster Unionists before he joins the Conservatives. He has a lot of common sense.

The agreement that I voted for and that I still strongly support is my benchmark. Under the heading "Policing and Justice", it spells out clearly the perceived new beginning for policing. It says that the parties

"believe that the agreement provides the opportunity for a new beginning to policing in Northern Ireland with a police service capable of attracting and sustaining support from the community as a whole."

The key words are:

"from the community as a whole."

On Report on 26 and 27 March, we made significant changes to the Bill to allow people with terrorist or criminal convictions to become independent members of district policing partnerships. We also changed the rules on the sub-groups in Belfast.

I shall refresh hon. Members' minds about implications surrounding district policing partnerships. They will operate locally and every one of the 26 district councils in Northern Ireland will have one. Belfast will be divided into four sub-groups. There will be regular interface between a superintendent or chief superintendent and members of the DPPs. It is a matter of great disquiet, to put it mildly, that I regularly hear from constituents who are very concerned that people with criminal convictions, not only terrorist convictions, will be able to join a DPP and tell others how to police the district. That is a very sensitive issue.

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The Minister was right to open her speech by referring to what she said on Report in March. She consistently maintained that changes would be made and that commencement orders for the sub-groups and DPPs would be introduced only in the context of acts of completion. However, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was not so consistent. It is worth bearing in mind where we have moved from and where we are today. Early on in that debate, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said:

"We have made it clear that the commencement orders will not come into effect until after the acts of completion."

I thought that that was clear. However, later in the day—perhaps he should not have been so generous in taking interventions—he seemed to change his mind. In relation to the commencement orders, he said:

"They will not come into effect unless there are acts of completion. They will not come into effect unless we have agreement that those acts of completion have been dealt with."—[Official Report, 26 March 2003; Vol. 402, c. 317-361.]

So it was with considerable surprise and huge irritation that I saw the amendment to change the sub-groups and district policing partnerships. The issue of independent members is sensitive and such changes should not be made lightly. It seems that commencement orders can be made if the Secretary of State brings an order before the House to lift suspension. That is a huge change from where we started in column 317 on 26 March.

5.30 pm

I am not happy with the change. I have alluded to the difficulties that the Democratic Unionist party will have with it. In addition, the Ulster Unionist party agreed unanimously—we do that occasionally—on the resolution of the Ulster Unionist Council when we discussed it in our meeting in Belfast on Saturday 21 September 2002. We had a lengthy and detailed discussion on two separate proposals, suggested by right hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) and my colleague, the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson), and decided to bring them together. The Ulster Unionist Council agreed unanimously last September—I am not inventing this—in paragraph 6 of its resolution that:

"The Ulster Unionist Party will oppose further unnecessary changes to the policing legislation and gives notice that it will withdraw from the Policing Board in the event of the government capitulating to the unreasonable demands of Sinn Fein/IRA for further police reform including places for convicted terrorists on district policing partnership boards."

Every time that Democratic Unionist party Members have been in the House when we have been discussing policing, I have taken my courage in my hands and intervened on one or other of them to ask what their policy would be if Sinn Fein were to join the Policing Board. They have consistently kept to the same line: that they will follow the Ulster Unionist party members of the Policing Board. They have never said what they will do when they stand alone, but they will come off the Policing Board if Ulster Unionist members leave it.

The Government need to be sensitive to the difficulties that my right hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann has with any changes. He has an Ulster Unionist

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Council resolution, agreed unanimously last autumn, and members of the council will be sensitive to changes to policing legislation. If the Government were to introduce an order lifting suspension of the Assembly, I repeat that it is a constitutional provision in existing legislation that only suspended Members—only 10 Ministers—will go back into office. The two DUP Members who resigned four days before suspension cannot go back into office; they remain resigned. That will put huge pressure on the Ulster Unionist Ministers: do they stay in the Executive or do they not? My difficulty is that unfair pressure will be put on the Ulster Unionist party—a party that has carried this process and taken risks time and time again.

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