Northern Ireland Bill (Allocation of Time)

I am delighted that the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) is learning so many lessons from the DUP about ingenuity and excellence in strategy. A colleague of his in another place suggested he would have to be up early in the morning and have his breakfast a lot earlier before he would ever be able to outwit the DUP, but if he remains a Member for a long time he may learn a lot more about how to progress on the political scene. I wish to talk about the SDLP’s new clause 1 and about d’Hondt being the fall-back position if there is no agreement by May 2012. Let us be quite frank about this: the intention of those who want a real democracy in Northern Ireland is to move away from d’Hondt. We do not want to replicate a situation in which we have mandatory coalitions. Some Labour Members mentioned that to have a good system of Government, we need a vibrant Opposition, and I agree. Therefore, having everyone go into a mandatory Opposition and all the major parties are in the Government is not the best way to govern people. A voluntary coalition is completely different: those in government could have policies that are in line with each other, and those with different policies could oppose them and present their views before the people. That is a vibrant democracy, and although some might suggest that we keep on with and replicate the d’Hondt system, I believe the people of Northern Ireland want to move away from that. Let me make it abundantly clear to the hon. Member for Foyle that the November agreement was predicated on there being no fall-back provisions in place after 2012, because in reality the fall-back is this House. Why, as an honourable Member of this House, would he not want that to be the fall-back position? Why would he not wish to rely on the sovereignty of this Parliament? I cannot understand why he is afraid of that situation. In the current circumstances, we do not want the Justice Minister to be selected by the d’Hondt system and that is why these arrangements are being put in place. Let us be frank about this; we must make things abundantly clear. The Democratic Unionist party does not want, and promised the people that there would not be, a Sinn Fein Member as the Justice and Policing Minister. We will not allow such a situation to develop—that was part of our election manifesto and promise to the people. The process that has been spoken about will ensure that, as the DUP has a veto on that part. Without apology we have a veto on that part, in the same way as the Government ensured that there would be the triple lock veto over the timing of moving forward on the final process to the devolution of policing and justice. This House ensured that that would be put in place. We will hold this House to it and, thus, my colleagues and I shall be totally opposing new clause 1.