Northern Ireland Bill (Allocation of Time)

I always follow, with great respect, the contributions made by the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack), because he is dedicated to making sure that this House’s proprieties and traditions are upheld, especially in its scrutiny of the Executive, and I salute him for that. However, I think it is important that this programme motion goes through—ideally, as the shadow Northern Ireland Secretary mentioned, there will not be a vote. I say that because, notwithstanding the understandable concern that there should be proper scrutiny—my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) always makes that point with great persuasiveness—we must look at the big picture. I think it is important that Parliament passes this motion and clears this Bill today. This whole story goes back to what happened at St. Andrews in October 2006, when I was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The commitment from the Government to try to achieve the devolution of policing and justice by May last year was in that agreement. I concede absolutely the fact that my friends in the Democratic Unionist party did not sign up to that. The St. Andrews agreement was, as it were, the Government’s best call of where the consensus lay. Subsequently, we got the historic breakthrough when, early in 2007, Sinn Fein signed up to supporting fully the rule of law, and policing and justice in Northern Ireland—it had never done that before. Part of that agreement, which is crucial to the peace process and was crucial to the eventual settlement that we achieved, was on the understanding that policing and justice would be fully devolved to Northern Ireland. It is very important that Parliament upholds the spirit of the St. Andrews agreement; after all, the St. Andrews legislation, which was introduced shortly afterwards, was passed by Parliament and the objective then was set for May 2008—that date has passed, but it is essential that the momentum is kept in this process. I say to the House that having been right in the thick of the negotiations with Sinn Fein and the then leader of the DUP, the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley), to try to get the agreement that produced the settlement and, ultimately, the devolution in May 2007, I know that the policing and justice issue was crucial, and the DUP was rightly insisting that Sinn Fein sign up to it.