Northern Ireland Bill (Allocation of Time)

The hon. Gentleman has provided the emphasis on which I was going to build up to a conclusion. He is absolutely right. There is no opposition to the substance of the measure before us. As the former Secretary of State said, it is a largely technical matter involving some very important issues that need consideration. It is fairly safe to say that most English and Scottish Members will wish it good will and let the debate take its form, for this is the Parliament of us all. I was hoping not to abuse anyone in this, but simply to ask the Secretary of State to have an urgent word with the business managers. We did not need this motion; it is not necessary. He did not make a case for it, in all fairness, and he knows it. The only person who tried to argue for it was the former Secretary of State, who elided the concepts of technicality, process and emergency in such a way as to try to give a certain sense of urgency. As has been said in this Chamber before, anyone who studied law, as quite a few of us did, will remember from Maine’s "Ancient Law" that justice lies in the interstices of procedure. Nothing is a merely procedural matter. It is very important to justify this to those whom we represent, and especially to those who represent the Province that will have to bear this legislation. I implore the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to withdraw this motion or, if he cannot do that, to take the de minimis approach proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough.