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David Burnside: On the subject of the Liberal Democrats' contribution to new ideas, will the hon. Gentleman confirm that one of the more constructive ideas in recent years from their sister party, the Alliance party, was the contribution from Seamus Close, who suggested that if Sinn Fein cannot turn into a democratic party, we might have to move towards a weighted majority representing both the Unionist and the nationalist community? Perhaps that is the position to which we are now moving.
Lembit Öpik: The hon. Gentleman raises the issue of cross-community support for legislation, which touches on the present debate. Seamus Close was right to raise that for consideration. We are acutely aware of the sensitivities involved, and the SDLP would no doubt have much to say about the abandonment of that principle. My personal feeling and the view of the Liberal Democrats is that at this point it would be premature to abandon the principle on a wholesale basis, because it underpins a large part of what has been shown to be successful in forcing the many different parties in Northern Ireland to work together.
I am sympathetic to the hon. Gentleman's concern, and I am sure that he could give examples of business being held up by the need for cross-community support, but it is probably more necessary to have that brake in
the system than expedient to remove it at this stage. If one considers the history of the Good Friday agreement and the Assembly, one realises that a great deal has been achieved through consensus, but of course that is not reported in the news so much because it is not controversial. In domestic and social policy, the cross-community requirement has served to improve the quality of the legislation passed, and has certainly improved the prospects of ensuring that decisions made in the Assembly have cross-community applicability. For those reasons, I would resist such change.It is necessary for the Assembly and all of us to allow space for blue-sky thinking so that more controversial and creative thoughts can come forward. In such a debate, we may come across third alternatives that win on all sides.
I remind the House what the Alliance party was suggesting—that the two Governments appoint an independent person of domestic and international standing to monitor paramilitary activities in Northern Ireland. That was originally conceived as a means whereby domestic and political pressure could be brought to bear on those engaged in sinister deeds and deeds detrimental to the normalisation of the Province. It was not so much about catching people out in order to impose sanctions as about embarrassing groups into changing their undesirable actions. Sanctions are only a backstop in the event that people do not change their behaviour, and with sanctions come all the dangers about which we have heard from the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon).
I welcome the recent announcement of the four commissioners. The Secretary of State went into some detail about Commander Grieve, Mr. Brosnan, Mr. Kerr and my noble Friend Lord Alderdice. In my judgment, they have the background, the experience and the authority and respect to ensure that the commission undertakes its role efficiently and effectively. I congratulate the Government on convincing them to take on the role, which was probably more difficult than deciding who would perform it. It is reassuring to know that the tasks of the monitoring commission in investigating paramilitary activity, security normalisation and parties' political commitments will be undertaken by such distinguished persons. I was slightly concerned that we were heading down the path of becoming the appointments panel en masse. Giving 659 politicians the potential to make such appointments will guarantee that we never achieve consensus. To that extent, I am willing to tolerate the concession to the political hierarchy of accepting that the decisions will be made by a small number of individuals connected with the Northern Ireland Office.
In another place, concerns were expressed about the powers of the Secretary of State. Given the Liberal Democrats' involvement in tabling an amendment on that matter, I feel that it is appropriate to raise it now, not least because the Secretary of State himself was silent about it. There was unease about the feeling that the Bill as it stood did not give the Secretary of State the freedom to work positively, ahead of the monitoring commission, if he or she felt that some people or parties in the Assembly were not committed to non-violence and exclusively peaceful and democratic means. While we appreciated those concerns, my noble Friends in the
other place were especially concerned that the commission and Assembly should not be sidelined by any remedy in that regard.As I said, we support the commission, and we are firm supporters of devolution. As such, we believe that it is vital to tie the Assembly into the process of any exclusion or strategically important decision that is made, for example, by the Secretary of State. In essence, we are saying that it is essential that the democratically elected body in Northern Ireland has the opportunity to discuss the exclusion of a Minister from its own Executive.
A range of amendments was tabled in an attempt to address that concern. My noble Friends did not feel able to support the amendments tabled by the Conservatives or Ulster Unionists as they thought that they were too wide, strong and exclusive of the Assembly and the independent monitoring commission to be acceptable. As I said, we believe that it is crucial that both those bodies are involved in any sanctions. That is why my noble Friends tabled an amendment attempting to do two things—address the concerns expressed about the Secretary of State's ability to act, and ensure the integrity of the monitoring commission and the Assembly in any decision that is made. The amendment was agreed and is now part of clause 6.
With the amendment in place, the Secretary of State would indeed be able to exclude Ministers or junior Ministers from office if he felt that there were exceptional circumstances. That would include a situation in which something happened and he felt it prudent to act immediately without waiting for a report from the commission or for the Assembly to discuss the exclusion. There could subsequently be a space of 24 hours before the Assembly could discuss a motion seeking to exclude Ministers, or perhaps a few days. Let us remember that a week is a very long time in politics. We have seen many times in Northern Ireland a situation that began in tension ending in crisis within hours or days.
That is why we felt that it was appropriate to table an amendment seeking to ensure that the Secretary of State could exclude a Minister from the Executive, but only for a period of two weeks. In that time, the commission would report. Frankly, if something so monumental had happened that the Secretary of State chose to act without reference to the commission, I have no doubt that it would certainly want to investigate and report on it. The Assembly would also debate it. If there is any concern that the Assembly would not discuss exclusion, the Secretary of State can serve a notice on the presiding officer requiring him to table an exclusion motion. There is no question but that a debate could be secured in the Assembly in that period.
Mr. Quentin Davies: Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that, because of an amendment to the Liberal Democrat amendment tabled by my noble Friend Lord Glentoran, which was agreed, the Secretary of State will have the power of exclusion for two weeks, and the two contingences to which he refers are included in the possibilities involved when the Secretary of State exercises his judgment, albeit that he can do so without those contingencies if he so wishes? That is a very important point.
On the hon. Gentleman's point about claiming credit for the idea of exclusion, before I brought the proposal to the House, over several weeks previously, I discussed the matter in detail, as I always would do, with parties in Northern Ireland, including the Alliance party, the SDLP and the Ulster Unionist party. If a member of the Alliance party made a statement about exclusion in the days before the debate, he might have been not uninfluenced by his discussion with me in the preceding period.
Lembit Öpik: I recall the occasion when the hon. Gentleman suggested that Sinn Fein, and perhaps the IRA, had crumbled from their stubborn position on a matter of important policy because—I do not quote him exactly, but this is close to what he said—the Conservatives had chosen to debate it on an Opposition day.
I applaud optimism. Indeed, as a Liberal Democrat I am a perpetual optimist, not least in regard to a by-election that will take place tomorrow. I will leave it not just to Members here but to the Alliance party, whose members assiduously read the Hansard reports of all our proceedings, to decide who is right and who is wrong; but if it can be shown that the hon. Gentleman was the architect of this inspirational idea, in a spirit of fairness I shall buy him a gin and tonic when we return from the recess, however damaging that may be to my social credibility.
The hon. Gentleman made a substantive point as well. It would, I think, be very undesirable for the Secretary of State to operate unilaterally, without respect for the commission or indeed the Assembly. As ever, there is a degree of interpretation—and there will always be a degree of precedent—governing how an amendment or legislation is established; but just as I have no doubt that the commission would report very shortly after any period of exclusion implemented by the Secretary of State, I consider it pretty much inconceivable that any Secretary of State could withstand the pressure to ensure that it did report, and that the Assembly—if it was sitting—had an opportunity to discuss the report. Failure to do so would not just be disrespectful to the democratically elected body in Northern Ireland; it would make a mockery of the Bill.
In the event of the Assembly's failure to achieve cross-community support for an exclusion motion, the decision would revert to the Secretary of State under clause 5. While giving the Secretary of State a certain amount of discretion, the clause ensures that both the commission and the Assembly are ultimately included in any decision about the exclusion of Ministers from office. The Liberal Democrats consider the involvement of those bodies to be critical.
I realise that there will be some discussion about the latitude within which we can operate. I am aware of the tensions and pressures affecting others involved in this debate, not least politicians in Dublin. I sincerely hope that Ministers will accept their responsibility to ensure that any dialogue with key decision makers, here and in Dublin, that is needed to bring about consensus in favour of the Bill will indeed take place.
It is here that the compressed time scale is perhaps most critical. The Government, having decided in their wisdom to compress the entire debate into nine
continuous hours, must also take responsibility for ensuring that our partners in the peace process are involved directly and expeditiously in the ironing out of any problems caused by pressures. Obviously, I hope that there will be no such pressures, but I do not think anyone other than the Government is responsible for disposing of them, given that the Government have chosen to truncate a process that was designed specifically to ensure that no such pressures would arise as a result of our decisions.Another key point relates to pensions. I have raised it before, and I hope that if we have an opportunity to discuss the amendments in detail the Minister will provide a plausible explanation for the fact that salaries can be curtailed while pensions are untouched. It massively reduces the credibility of the sanction to say "You will suffer in the present, but in the long term you need not worry, because on the day you retire you will receive everything that would have come to you if you had not been mucking about." Ministers should perhaps consider whether there are grounds for changing the relevant provision, perhaps today on Report. Indeed, if that is possible we need not hold up the very tight agenda that the Government have presented us with.
It is clear that the Bill's essential purpose is to act as a confidence-building measure for all in Northern Ireland. Matters of interest to everyone in the community will be investigated and reported. Paramilitary activity, security normalisation and any claims that a political party is not observing the pledge of office can come, as I understand it, under the commission's remit. I hope that, in considering the Bill's provisions so quickly, we have not missed some crucial points, thereby making it less effective.
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