Northern Ireland Bill (Allocation of Time)

I will of course use this opportunity to endorse what the right hon. Gentleman says about the work and the extraordinary bravery of those people. However, as he also rightly said, my hon. Friend the Minister of State is looking at those matters. Tempted though I might be to answer the right hon. Gentleman’s question directly, it is precisely right that my hon. Friend does the work with his review. Just as the right hon. Gentleman and the First Minister have pressed their case previously, I am sure that they will continue to press it. Indeed, it concerns one of a number of issues that I am sure we will need to work through together in the coming months. I said that it was important to be clear about what the Bill is not. Crucially, it will not decide the model for the new Department of Justice; rather, it adds one more model to the menu. It remains for the Assembly to choose which model it wants to pursue. What the Bill does is give legal expression to the work of elected politicians in Northern Ireland. In considering the Bill, we should have due regard to the work and wishes of the majority in Northern Ireland and those who produced the Assembly and Executive Review Committee report. In addition to enabling the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland to be realised, we should also send a clear political message today to the small numbers of criminals in Northern Ireland who do not want to see peace and stability on the streets. There are criminal groups styling themselves as republicans for whom the idea of political progress, shared power and fully devolved institutions is abhorrent; they do not want to see that. Regrettably, we always feared that this would be the case. We also feared that, at the moment at which great political progress was being made in Northern Ireland, they would try to seize such an opportunity. Regrettably, we have seen increased activity by this very small number of dissidents in the past few months, and it has been targeted particularly, but not only, at police officers. The PSNI will need to work incredibly closely with the community to ensure that the response to this activity, while increased, is also proportionate. This is not like the old days. This involves a group of people who have absolutely no support and who are condemned by everyone across the board. They thrive in an atmosphere of fear and in the vacuum that they hope to create if the political process can be stalled. Today in this House, the Bill provides an opportunity yet again to send a clear message to those who do not want political progress, who wish to stall the work of the people and the political parties of Northern Ireland, and who wish to frustrate and challenge the courage of those who are leading their political parties and Northern Ireland to a different place. The message that this House sends, in supporting the Bill, is that the political process is winning, that it has transformed Northern Ireland, and that if we allow this transformation to continue to its logical conclusion, so that those elected in Northern Ireland become responsible for policing and justice in the months ahead, there will be no clearer signal to these people that, while they might try hard and while they might pose a threat to some, we hope that they will never have the chance to succeed, and we will never let them succeed. They are criminals, and criminal threats will never be allowed to halt legitimate processes. This House, in supporting the Bill, will send an unequivocal message that politics in Northern Ireland is winning.