Northern Ireland Act 2000 (Modification) (No 2) Order 2005

This is the sixth renewal of this wretched piece of legislation. I deplore it. We all seek a swift return to devolution. I do not think that that is on the cards although I hope that I am proved wrong. We must ensure that it is made absolutely clear that all illegal activity by paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland must come to an end. We look not just at the criteria established in paragraph 13 of the Joint Declaration but also at any role that the paramilitaries have in criminal activity in Northern Ireland. We believe that our colleagues in the Alliance Party provided a very useful set of benchmarks by which the two governments, the political parties and indeed the people of Northern Ireland can use to assess any IRA statement. These benchmarks are based on the premise that all who engage in politics should clearly demonstrate that they have no connection with ongoing paramilitary or criminal activity and that they have put the past behind them. It is now absolutely crucial that the Government commit to their own series of benchmarks for assessing any new commitments from the IRA if the wider community is to have any confidence that any future political process is based on integrity and is sustainable. The specifics of what is required need to be spelled out, as there should not be any misunderstanding of what is now required. Seven years on from the Good Friday agreement, the time for any turning of blind eyes or constructive ambiguity has long since passed. If any meaningful progress is to be achieved, it must be on the solid foundation of a shared respect for democracy, human rights and the rule of law. I shall turn to the order more specifically. As the Minister said, there is currently an extreme democratic deficit in Northern Ireland. Elections to the Assembly occurred in November 2003, and since then no local politician from Northern Ireland has taken responsibility for the day-to-day, bread-and-butter issues that affect the people by whom they were elected. The current situation of legislating for Northern Ireland by order, covering significant and substantial pieces of legislation that are passed in a couple of hours or less, is not sustainable, as the Minister acknowledges. When might we expect his proposals for improving the situation, because there is a lot of manana? The Government have been looking at the matter for some time, but he has offered us only hints. I accept that they were better than the manana statements of his predecessors, but we would like to know when we will have new procedures for dealing with orders. More frustrating is that there is no comprehensive way of gauging the views of people in Northern Ireland before we debate legislation. We may be told in the Explanatory Notes that there were 15 or so responses to a consultation, but those responses are not published on any of the departmental websites. Occasionally the Government might publish a summary of the responses, along the lines of ““Three responses agreed with this proposal and one did not””, but there is no opportunity to see who agreed and disagreed and the reasons for their positions. Seemingly, there is also no obligation on political parties in Northern Ireland to respond to such consultations. Again, we have no way of knowing what the political class thinks on a particular issue. I shall return to a familiar theme of mine. We are paying Members of the legislative Assembly, and they should be more attentive and respond to consultations at the very minimum. For how much longer will we pay MLAs? It is always another six months. The Prime Minister and the former Secretary of State came round to my way of thinking and said that they could not go on paying the salaries. However, I have heard a deafening silence since those utterances, and it seems that we are to continue to pay a considerable sum to keep those politicians in the way to which they have grown accustomed, and they cannot even respond to consultation on orders. It is difficult that the Government do not provide more notice for such orders. We have had very brief notice of these three orders, and it is extremely difficult to apply one’s mind to them in any satisfactory or profound way. We discussed the Budget earlier in the week; many matters such as that should be primary legislation but are being treated through secondary legislation. We look forward not only to tinkering with the procedures, but perhaps to having an ad hoc committee. The noble Lord referred to the Northern Ireland Committee in another place, but it does not perform the function that we have to perform here. Hastily calling Grand Committees in this House is not the systematic way in which we should go about matters. I therefore hope that I can get some comfort from the Minister that we shall not only tinker with the present procedure, but justifiably work it out in a proper way so that we can take account of what we are dealing with. I also hope that he will encourage the political parties to respond to consultations when they occur. Other than that, we support the order, rather reluctantly.