UK Parliament / Open data

Northern Ireland Bill (Allocation of Time)

Proceeding contribution from Lord Hain (Labour) in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 4 March 2009. It occurred during Debate on bills and Committee of the Whole House (HC) on Northern Ireland Bill.

I do not agree with my hon. Friend on this matter. I am not going to repeat the points that I made, but I remind the House that it is for the Assembly to decide exactly the format of the new justice Department. We are facilitating a process, and unless we keep momentum in it, it could fall over. The need to keep momentum has been the lesson over the years in Northern Ireland. We were able to get momentum in the critical period in 2006 to 2007, which has brought us up to the point where the last bit of devolution now needs to be accomplished.