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Mr. Mallon: The Minister is effectively answering a question that I did not ask. I gave the column number and date of the debate in which the Government Minister in the other place was talking not about article 1 but about article 4. That was specific in terms of the wording of his reply. The Minister should again clarify the situation accurately.

Jane Kennedy: I was referring to clause 1 of the Bill rather than article 1. I thought that I had answered my hon. Friend's question, but I shall read his comments carefully just as I have the comments of Lord Williams. I might need to clarify the point further as we approach the Committee stage.

Mr. Mallon: I thank the Minister for giving way again, but the reality is that clause 1 does not refer to the functions in any way.

Jane Kennedy: That is precisely my point. Clearly, we shall not get to the bottom of this confusion and I shall need to re-read the Hansard report that we have received and examine the response that I have given to determine whether I can provide greater clarity. If necessary, I shall write to my hon. Friend and place a copy of the letter in the Library for the benefit of all hon. Members who have an interest in the issue.

My hon. Friend asked about article 4 of the international agreement to establish the monitoring commission by querying whether the commission would be fettered in presenting reports to which organised crime was relevant. However, article 4 includes other criminal offences and the list of activities that it defines is not exhaustive. Organised crime is caught by article 4 of the agreement if it is carried out by paramilitaries. We

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know that there is significant involvement of paramilitary organisations in organised crime in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Mallon rose—

Jane Kennedy: I shall give way to my hon. Friend for a final time.

Mr. Mallon: The Minister is very kind. Will she confirm that in terms of investigations into organised crime, 14 files exist now, but not one refers to the provisional IRA or those associated with it? Will she put on record her confirmation that that information is correct?

Jane Kennedy: I am afraid that I cannot confirm that at the moment. I am not aware of the detail to which my hon. Friend referred, so I shall have to examine the matter again. Given that we are under time constraints, I shall try not to be provocative and I hope that there will be few occasions when hon. Members will feel goaded to ask for further clarification of my points.

My hon. Friend and other hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), who is not in the Chamber, asked about the duty of office. I am not sure whether I understood fully the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newry and Armagh, but I confirm that the pledge of office in the Good Friday agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998 contains a requirement to discharge in good faith all duties of office. I hope that that addresses his point but I am happy to respond to his worries further, perhaps after considering them more carefully.

I hesitate to be provocative but every time I hear the hon. Member for Belfast, East speak, it occurs to me that he would do well to listen to a song called "Paint It Black", which was written by some of my favourite musicians. He does not want colours anywhere and where there are colours, he wants them painted black. He describes a world that I simply do not see. The song is by the Rolling Stones and I invite him to listen to it if he would like to hear not only a good song, but something that describes the way in which we in the Chamber hear his outlook.

The hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) suggested that the Government equate normalisation and paramilitary activities but that is not the case. The timetable for security normalisation set out in the joint declaration was illustrative, and it was set out on the basis that appropriate acts of completion occurred at the time of its publication. Article 15 of the agreement makes it clear that the programme of security normalisation and the timetable associated with it will be determined once the British Government are satisfied that appropriate commitments have been given on an end to paramilitary activity.

The hon. Member for Belfast, East talked about withholding the salaries of all members of a party and suggested that that might be likely to breach the European convention on human rights. I do not believe that that is the case. We do not believe that withholding, or reducing future income would be a breach of the European convention. However, European case law

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draws a distinction between rights to future salary that is not protected under the law and pension rights, which are protected under the law. That brings me to one of the points raised by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) in a characteristically good-humoured contribution.

Lady Hermon (North Down): On the human rights point, I am intrigued by the fact that this Bill does not carry a statement of compatibility with the European convention on human rights. [Hon. Members: "It does."] I stand to be corrected. Perhaps the Minister can explain why it does not appear on the front page. If the Minister could deal with that, I would be grateful.

Jane Kennedy: It may not be on the front page but it is definitely in the Bill; perhaps it is on the back page.

My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire, if I may call him that, raised the question of pensions. This is a complicated area. Whenever I engage in debate about the European convention on human rights, I do so hesitantly and I accept the charge of hesitancy that the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) laid against us in this context. It may assist if I explain why the Government consider that new section 48(2A) is necessary.

Pension contributions are assessed as a fixed percentage of a Member's salary and pension entitlement is calculated on the basis of a Member's final salary. That provision ensures that any reduction in salary will be disregarded for the purposes of the pension scheme—that is, it will not affect a Member's rights or his obligations. For example, if salary is reduced by half, a member will remain liable for pension contributions calculated as a percentage of his full salary. Similarly, a 50 per cent. reduction in salary will not affect pension entitlement, which will still be based on full salary should a Member decide to stand down while the reduction is in place. [Interruption.] I sense that that has provoked a series of questions. I ask hon. Members to resist the urge to intervene.

Lembit Öpik: I am sorry but I cannot resist it. Just for clarification, is the Minister saying that the pension contribution is calculated on the basis of the full salary even when that salary has been reduced—in other words, that the reason that the final pension is consummate with the full salary is that the actual payments into the scheme do not alter with variation in the amount that the individual pays?

Jane Kennedy: The pensions of Members of the Legislative Assembly are contributory, so a Member's share in the pension fund is likely to be protected from interference under article 1 of the first protocol of the ECHR, the protection of property protocol. If a Member's salary was reduced and he retired while a reduction was in place, the value of his pension could be substantially reduced. Therefore, there is, we fear, a serious risk that that would breach the ECHR.

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The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) is right: the statement is not in the Bill. However, it is separately stated that the Bill is compliant.

Mr. Peter Robinson: Just to be accurate, it was in the original Bill that went to the House of Lords. It was not in the reprinted one.

Jane Kennedy: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for clarifying that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock asked whether the commissioners can deliberate by correspondence. The commissioners' working methods will be a matter for them to determine. For myself, I can see no reason why they should not maintain contact by a range of methods. That may be particularly appropriate if a commissioner were sick but I imagine that they would also regularly deliberate in person. If a commissioner is incapacitated, it is open to the two Governments to replace him, although obviously I hope that that would not be the case.

Andrew Mackinlay: It seems to me that if the commissioners are to have any function at all, they have to be inquisitorial. While they may not hold full hearings, dare I say it, like a Select Committee, presumably, they would have to take evidence and to hear from people at some stage. Is the Minister saying that the rubrics of how they work have not yet been thought through? I find that surprising because it seems vital that that should be defined and understood.

Jane Kennedy: It is not that it has not been thought through. It is something that we are saying to the commissioners. We expect that they will wish to meet as a group not only to discuss and to deliberate on information that they have received but to meet those from whom they wish to receive information, so there is no impediment to that, but I expect that their working practices will evolve.

The hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) asked what the cross-community voting requirements are. Although it is not in the Bill, it is in the explanatory notes on page 4. That may be of benefit to the whole House.

A number of hon. Members raised the question of retrospectivity, particularly the hon. Member for South Antrim (David Burnside), who raised it initially in an intervention and was supported by other hon. Members. The commission will be established by the agreement and we intend that its first report on paramilitary activity will for the most part cover matters since its establishment. The commission may wish to include in its first report some recent contextual material but I do not expect that it will spend its time looking backwards. That will not be the answer that he wanted but it is the only answer that he will get today.


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