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Mr. Murphy: I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman found some of my comments confusing. It may be due to the lateness of the hour.
On suspension, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman agrees that one could not restore the Assembly without restoring the Executive. As soon as the Assembly is restored, the mechanisms that the agreement created mean that the Assembly would immediately have to select a First Minister, a Deputy First Minister and other Ministers. Consequently, if the Assembly is unsuspended, forming a Government is automatic.
I agree that the IRA's statement did not present a clear and unambiguous picture of the end of paramilitary activity. That is why we are in the current position. The IRA has not expressed with sufficient clarity its intentions on continued paramilitary activity.
I shall discuss the continued implementation of the agreement with the right hon. Gentleman and other parties in the weeks ahead. However, the Government will appoint an independent oversight commissioner to provide independent scrutiny of the implementation of their decisions on the criminal justice review. By the end of 2003, we will publish statements of ethics for all criminal justice agencies that do not currently have them. We will look for further co-operation on criminal justice matters between the two jurisdictions when dealing with crime that is occurring right across the island. We will work with the parties' victims and survivors to seek to establish what further help we can give to them.
We will also look at broadcasting to see whether we could have a fund to give financial support for the Irish language, and take steps to encourage support to be made available for an Ulster Scots academy. We will look at the human rights situation in Northern Ireland and at the work of the Human Rights Commission, and at other matters, too. I will not burden the House with further details, but we will be discussing all these matters with the parties in Northern Ireland in the weeks ahead. On future legislation, I take note of what the right hon. Gentleman has said. I am sure that he and I, and others, will have discussions about the nature of that legislation as we move forward.
Mr. Kevin McNamara (Hull, North): My right hon. Friend will be aware that I wrote to the Prime Minister before this announcement was made, expressing my concern that the elections might be postponed because I thought that that would undermine the democratic nature of the Good Friday agreement, and because I believe that it will leave a dangerous vacuum during the
summer that people of ill will might seek to fill. Does my right hon. Friend not see that, while one accepts his argument that an Administration must follow from elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, he seems to be deciding what the results of the elections are going to be? That sets a very bad precedent. What will happen in the autumn if we are unable to get agreement between the parties? Will the elections again be postponed because we do not like the prospect of a particular result? My right hon. Friend and the Prime Minister have set themselves on a difficult, dangerous and embarrassing course.There were some crumbs of comfort in the Secretary of State's statement, however. It is good to know that the two Governments are continuing their close co-operation, and we would like to know what steps they are going to take to try to prevent that vacuum from occurring in the summer. Will my right hon. Friend also tell us what will happen to the review of reserved and excepted matters? Does he agree that one of the problems of the IRA's not giving the specific and direct reply that was properly asked of it is that it let some parties off the hook, as they have yet to say unreservedly and completely that they would accept service in a joint Administration?
Mr. Murphy: I do not think that this is a question of the result of the elections. Whenever those elections are held, who knows what will happen? Obviously, people will vote in the way that they will vote in Northern Ireland, and that will be the democratic test. I have been trying to explain to the House for the last half hour or so, however, that this was not simply a test of the democratic process. It was also a test of the agreement itself. In my view, the agreement and the process would have been put in considerable jeopardy if the elections had gone ahead and we could not have seen the restoration of the institutions and had remained with a suspended Assembly. I saw no point in that.
Mr. McNamara: What happens in the autumn?
Mr. Murphy: I sincerely hope that there will come a time in the autumn when we will be able to resolve the difficulties that we currently face. If we cannot, we will have to see what happens then, but we must try again to ensure that we can get agreement and clarity from the IRA. As the agreement now stands, Sinn Fein, with the number of Members that it possesses in the Assembly, is able to form part of the Government and the Administration. Clearly, if there is an unwillingness on the part of certain parties to share government with a party that has not made its position clear on paramilitary activity, we will get nowhere as a consequence. The first thing we must try to ensure is that we obtain clarity about these issues from the IRA.
There are those who regard the agreement and the process as flawed. They are entitled to that view, but I do not share it. The Government do not believe that there is an alternative to the Good Friday agreement. We
consequently believe that we should do our best to sustain it and protect it, and to protect the process. We think that this was the best way of doing that.
Rev. Ian Paisley (North Antrim): The Secretary of State will recall that on 27 November I asked the Prime Minister what completion meant. I asked whether it meant a statement. The Prime Minister replied
- "It is not merely a statement, a declaration or words. It means giving up violence completely in a way that satisfies everyone and gives them confidence that the IRA has ceased its campaign, and enables us to move the democratic process forward, with every party that wants to be in government abiding by the same democratic rules."—[Official Report, 27 November 2002; Vol. 395, c. 309.]
Why have the Government changed? Why have they said in tonight's statement that the critical issues of trust, over commitment to exclusively peaceful means and the stability of the institutions, can be addressed with a clear statement of intent? It was not a clear statement of intent that the Prime Minister issued to me in November; he said that that commitment had to be seen, and that there must be action. It is action that the people of Northern Ireland want to see. Why the sudden change? I think that the Secretary of State has changed because of the pressures placed on him, and I think that he and the Prime Minister should stand up to these people and say "We want a change".
I do not often agree with the hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), and he does not often agree with me. He said tonight that the next election might not take place in the autumn. What will decide the date? Will it be arranged as soon as it is clear that the necessary trust between the parties has been re-established? I never had any trust in the IRA, so it cannot be re-established. The vast majority of Unionists have no trust in the IRA. For the Secretary of State to tell us that he will look for a day when the sun will shine and the IRA will come out and say something, and everyone will be satisfied, is a recipe for more disaster, not for bringing peace to a troubled country.
The Secretary of State cannot get away with what he said about the towers. He cannot get away with dismantling the only security that hundreds of Protestants have in those peripheral areas. I have been there, as a public representative and as MEP for the area. I have been at the towers, and I have been with the police. The police inform me that if the military are pulled out, they will be sitting on a little island, and will not be able to move out of their police stations. They need the military to help them to police the area.
A calendar has been set out. What is this calendar? It is a calendar that hangs, draws and quarters Northern Ireland. We need to recognise the seriousness of the situation. No one will be deceived in Northern Ireland. The Government and their spokesmen talk to people. We hear of Northern Ireland's bravery—of a parochial little place. I know what my next-door neighbour is thinking about me, and he knows what I am thinking about him. But why are the Government so keen on investigations, with bodies finding out how the people are likely to vote? According to the last report they received, there would be too many—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have given the hon. Gentleman some leeway. Perhaps the Secretary of State can reply.
Mr. Murphy: As I said in my earlier answer, people will vote as they vote, and what will happen will happen, but let me deal with the first point that the hon. Gentleman made in referring to what the Prime Minister said in November. It is very rare that I quote myself in the House of Commons, and even rarer that I quote something that I said an hour ago or less; nevertheless, I will. I finished my statement by saying: "We call on the IRA to find the clarity, in both words and deeds, to convince the people of Northern Ireland that they are ready to fulfil theirs." The reason we are debating this statement and these matters in the House this evening is precisely because we did not get sufficient clarity and unambiguity from the IRA about its intentions so far as continued paramilitary activity is concerned. That is central to re-establishing that trust and to ensuring that the process moves forward.
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