Terrorism (Northern Ireland) Bill

My Lords, I will transmit that request. The Government do not run the press. The press in Northern Ireland is fairly new to me, but I have gone into it in detail in the past seven months, and it has to be seen to be believed. You have to see it—that is the point. There is sometimes an obsession with the past, and with issues that people thought had been put to bed years ago; and a reluctance in some ways, even in the media, to debate normal society and normal issues. Led by the Secretary of State and the Northern Ireland team there, we are pushing on with a normal civic society reform programme. We are pushing on with the reform of local government with a new system of raising local government finance, the legislation for which will come to this House early in the new year, and water charges—all the normal things that happen. There is reform of the health service and the education service: all these transcend the issues around security and the constitution. We are going to get on with it. We hope that the penny will drop for the media in Northern Ireland that there are other things to report than the tittle-tattle from various street corners about which group is getting what over another, and that they can be debated in a more normal fashion. The Government do not own or run the press—heaven forbid that they did—but I will make sure that the ““spinmeisters”” in No. 10 are well aware of the noble Lord’s request.