Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) will forgive me if I do not follow him down the track of his latter remarks, which are, I am sure, the opening salvo of the election campaign in which he will show that the SDLP is more green and belligerent than Sinn Fein. However, I shall comment on some of his earlier remarks because he, at least, appears to have read and understood the Bill, which cannot be said for the Liberal Democrat spokesperson. If the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) has read the Bill, he has certainly not understood it, because had he done so he might have raised his voice on behalf of his sister party in Northern Ireland, which is unfairly treated by the measure. Later I shall point out to the hon. Gentleman how he was negligent, and at that stage he may want to set his position straight. First, however, I want to indicate the unsatisfactory manner in which the Government are approaching the issue. We are at the Report stage of an important piece of legislation, yet the Government are introducing a significant provision through a side door. As we can see by the confusion in various quarters of the House, their proposals required a proper Committee sitting so that they could be thoroughly scrutinised and perfectly understood—if, indeed, anything is perfectly understood at the end of a Committee stage. None the less, it is clear that the Government have introduced the new clause on a whim, to get the Bill through post-haste. But why? Why is there such a rush to pass the Bill? The Minister’s best hope is that it might be possible for the Assembly to address the issue by May 2008, so why is he introducing the legislation in 2007 and requiring it to be steamrollered through the House in such a manner? No one on this side of the House has asked for it to be done in that way—and I get the impression from the speech made by the hon. Member for Foyle that he has not exactly been pushing the Minister for this piece of legislation. I am not sure—perhaps the Minister will tell us—why there is a rush to get this piece of legislation on to the statute book when, as he says himself, it is clearly at least 14 or 16 months before what it contains could be imposed on us. Let us be clear: the Minister has a motive that he has not shared with the House. Perhaps when he responds to the debate he will share it with us.