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Rev. Martin Smyth: Did not a former Secretary of State always hide behind the fact that when a Chief Constable gave such advice she would say "Why do you not charge these people and bring them before the courts?"? She failed to recognise the difference between intelligence and evidence that would stand up in court.
Mr. Robinson: There is indeed a distinction to be drawn between what might be of evidential quality and information that the intelligence services might have. There is another distinction, however: fulfilling the requirement in the legislation for the Government to present the Assembly with a resolution stating that the IRA has breached its ceasefire arrangements does not demand evidence of the kind required for a conviction in the court. A political rather than a legal decision is being required of the Secretary of State, and therefore an entirely different level of evidence can suffice.
The Secretary of State, of course, was never prepared to make that decision. The monitoring body is unnecessary, because the advice has always been there. At all stages, it has been possible to advise the Secretary of State to act. What we need is not more advice, but action by the Government.
The monitoring body is, in fact, a vehicle for delay and camouflage. Whenever an incident occurs, there is likely to be a cry for the monitoring body, and all the other cogs in the wheel, to take action against the IRA representatives in the Assembly and on the Executive. The process, however, could be dragged out for months, and indeed that is precisely what the Government want. They realise that, given enough time, they will be able to cobble together something that the right hon. Member for Upper Bann will swallow again, and back into Government those IRA representatives will go. All that is needed is delay.
Mr. Trimble: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Robinson: I should be delighted.
Mr. Trimble: I shall not refer to the pejorative language used by the hon. Gentleman, which I consider entirely inappropriate. Let me simply ask this question: if, in whatever circumstances, my party and I return to government, will he follow me?
Mr. Robinson: Things will have changed so much that—as the right hon. Gentleman will see if he looks at his end of the Bench—the following will be done by him and not by us. As members of the largest political party in Northern Ireland, we will take steps to ensure that very different structures exist in Northern Ireland from the ones that the right hon. Gentleman yielded to. We
have seen the mess that his party, which has held the reins of Unionism for so many years, has made of it. The electorate are looking for the opportunity to make changes, but I have no doubt that behind the scenes, the right hon. Gentleman will urge some caution before the Secretary of State moves towards elections.On the composition of the IMC, to listen to the Secretary of State and some others, one would think that we had produced four Solomons whom the community will immediately recognise as people who inspire confidence, and whose judgment can be respected. As with so much that the Government do, they have discriminated in terms of this body's membership, just as they discriminated in terms of the membership of the other place, and even of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, which includes not one anti-agreement Unionist, even though such Unionists represent a third of the community.
Someone asked earlier what urged the Government to start the legislation in the House of Lords. The answer is that they do not have to deal with the depth of argument from anti-agreement Unionists in the House of Lords because they have excluded them. Yet the patronage to the right hon. Member for Upper Bann ensures that a disproportionate share of the Lords has gone to his wing of the Ulster Unionist party.
So we have a four-man commission, none of whom is an Ulster Unionist. Indeed, there is a fervent Irish nationalist on the panel. One can be absolutely certain that the permanent secretary from the Irish Republic will speak the language of his Government and, through them, of the Social Democratic and Labour party and Sinn Fein. I liked the language that the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) used earlier. He said that he was a sturdy, independent Ulsterman standing on his own two feet. Well, that is not the way I see it. We are talking about a party that has been propped up by the Dublin Government for more than a quarter of a century. Whenever its members did not get their own way, they dug in their heels until Dublin got them out of the mess that they were in. They have refused to stand on their own two feet and deal with Unionism; indeed, doing so on an eye-to-eye basis might have been much better for Northern Ireland than their always getting their parent in Dublin to argue their case for them.
Two people from outside the United Kingdom have been inserted into this commission, and they will be part of the political decision-making process. Of course, the Government have gifted the Irish Republic's Government with a central role in the internal affairs of Northern Ireland. My colleagues and I are not fooled by the sleight of hand that places only two commissioners on the panel that considers Assembly matters. In addition to the rather evasive language used by the Secretary of State today when questioned on that issue, we have read what the Government spokesman in the other place had to say. As the Secretary of State is doubtless keen to have the reference, I can tell him that
the following quote is to be found at column 584 of the Official Report of the Lords. The Government spokesman said:
- "I should underline"—
- "that, as the Hillsborough text makes clear, we would of course consult the Irish Government, as co-guarantor of the Good Friday agreement, in considering the exercise of that power."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 September 2003; Vol. 652, c. 584.]
As reference was made to the text, I decided to consult it to see what it said. There are two relevant references, the first of which states:
- "Any motion put before the Assembly following the tabling of a report would be subject to decision on a cross-community basis. Where such a motion failed to attract cross-community support, or where the Implementation Group had failed to agree a course of action, it would be a matter for the British Government, in consultation with the Irish Government".
- "At the request of the Governments"—
- "the Independent Monitoring Body may be asked to consider claims by any party in the Assembly that another party is in breach of requirements in the Declaration of Support or elsewhere in the Agreement."
We were told in the other place that although we in this House may want to tinker as much as we like through amendments, we cannot make amendments because this is an international, binding agreement, entered into between the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of the Irish Republic. If the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh were here at the moment, he would doubtless applaud the fact that the Government spokesman in the Lords said that.
So it is clear that a direct role is given through the text of the joint declaration, and through the text dealing with the monitoring body at Hillsborough—a role confirmed by the Government spokesman in the Lords. The Secretary of State may attempt to side-step the issue by referring to formal consultation, but as everybody knows, the text of an international agreement is pretty formal. I suspect that the Secretary of State recognises that the Government of the Irish Republic have, as many others have been saying for several months, been given a right to interfere in Northern Ireland's internal affairs.
Of course, if, after consideration, there are those who believe that Sinn Fein-IRA is continuing to promote and support terrorism, no monitoring body and no Secretary of State who offers a contrary opinion will be heeded. What kind of politician would defer their judgment on such matters to any commission, or to any other Government or party? Let me offer an example from the real world of politics, and it is probably not an absurd one. Let us say that the Provisional IRA kills
half a dozen people, and that the Unionists in the new Assembly say, "This is absolutely disgraceful! We cannot be expected to sit in government with people who, by night, are plotting to murder and carrying out these activities." It would not be unnatural for Unionists to take that position. So off they go to the IMC—or to whatever Government structure may exist after the legislation completes its passage—which says, "Well, yes, but that was a bit of a maverick act—it wasn't really sanctioned by the leadership. Therefore, we are not going to take any action against them." Does anybody really believe that in those circumstances, the trust that is essential to the Belfast agreement's structure would exist, and that Unionists would be able to continue in government? They would not. Certainly as far as the decision that I have to take is concerned, nobody else's judgment will be able to supersede mine. It would be a very foolish politician who simply accepted another person's judgment on this issue.For years, the Government have stretched themselves to prop up this failed agreement. It cannot be propped up by this commission: what is needed is a completely new structure.
The Government can try to put Humpty Dumpty together again, but they will fail. Better by far that the Government exert themselves in holding an election, letting politicians get a new mandate and make a new start. They should start negotiations for a new agreement, seeking structures that can survive any election result and that IRA activity cannot collapse. They should get an agreement that Unionists as well as nationalists can endorse.
Hon. Members will have detected that my colleagues and I intend to oppose the Bill. The previous exclusion mechanism has for years been the subject of public ridicule, and this one is no less likely to become the subject of public contempt.
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