Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

I, too, welcome the fact that the Minister has reflected further on the provisions to make permanent the option of non-jury trials in Northern Ireland. When the Government introduced the Bill, they said that those provisions were all about normalisation but, in trying to make permanent the temporary, annually renewable provisions relating to the Diplock courts, they were attempting to normalise the abnormal. I welcome the fact that the Government have thought better of permanently providing for a non-jury court option subject to a review by the Secretary of State, and that they have restored the principle that, if this provision is to be extended, it must be renewed by Parliament. In the present context, I, like the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson), find it hard to accept the justification for continuing the provision at all. We had that debate on Second Reading and elsewhere. The Government’s move from introducing legislation last year to end Diplock courts in July this year—or July next year at the latest—to providing permanently for the non-jury option did not seem to rhyme either with the Government’s judgment of the more benign circumstances or with the very positive prospects that we see now. I was always at a loss to understand how special, annually renewable, temporary provisions that were introduced in the vicious heat of the worst violence of the troubles would be necessary as a permanent feature in the cool calm of the current circumstances. I welcome the fact that the Government have reflected further on this matter. I hope that the Minister will clarify the point raised by the hon. Member for Tewkesbury about whether the Government intend the renewal of the legislation to be devolved to the Assembly. Do they intend the power to continue to reside with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and this House, rather than being transferred to a Minister for Justice in the Northern Ireland Assembly?