May I start by not only giving our sympathy to the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) for losing his assistant, but sending our huge thanks to him and the many others who have helped us in Northern Ireland, be it through the British-Irish Parliamentary Association, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee or in other ways? A mass of people are always trying to help us get somewhere.
I welcome the Bill, although I still have doubts about various parts of it. We felt when we saw it that it was a bit of a sticking plaster, rather than a chance to have a rebirth of Stormont. I welcome the many changes that are being made, but we wait to see whether they really get there. Today, I wish to touch on a few changes that we want to see to the Bill and on some of our concerns.
When the independent reporting commission is appointed, we would like to see more people involved than just the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister.
Too much of what happens in Northern Ireland tends to be done by the two main parties in the Executive. We must find a different way. We could go through the Northern Ireland Judicial Appointments Commission. Whatever way we choose, we should move away from just involving the two main parties.
I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State will put the guidance in place. It is certainly necessary to have somebody outside of ourselves to help move us along, although I realise that such a task is a poisoned chalice at times and may well require the wisdom of Solomon. None the less, we do need guidance. I know that it falls on our shoulders most of the time, but, as I have long been saying, we should not leave it all to the devolved Assembly. We must have Westminster working with Stormont. We should all pull together and work together instead of things being left to Stormont when everything gets stuck.
I am really happy to see in the Bill the change from seven to 14 days to try to get a programme for government in place. We must remember that it was my hon. Friend the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Tom Elliott) who put that idea forward when he was leader of our party. He wanted a longer period of time to be available to get Ministers chosen, but in line with an overall programme for Government, which I hope will be achieved within 14 days. If there is any doubt in that regard, will the Secretary of State look at how we can get something in place to ensure that it happens? We want not Ministers working in silos but a joint programme for government well into the future.
I very much welcome everything in the Bill to do with trying to remove paramilitaries from Northern Ireland. The Ulster Unionist party was very much behind raising that matter to the top of the agenda during the talks. I would like the Secretary of State and the Minister to make it clear exactly what is meant by the word “paramilitary”. As we take the Bill forward, I am sure that that is where we will find many of our difficulties. There are many grey areas that need to be clarified. For example, will someone who knocks on doors asking for funding to help pay for the bonfires be called a paramilitary? Will someone who raises the Union flag be deemed a paramilitary? Over many years, the Union flag, which should be the flag of all of us and not offensive to anyone, has been turned by some members of the community into a sectarian flag, which it should not be. Will someone who puts up that flag be treated as a paramilitary? We need clarity, and we need to talk our way through this. One story from my patch is that members of the Boys Brigade were going to take their standards into the local church. They were prevented from taking in the Union flag by one party, which said that such action was sectarian. We need to stop that happening.
There are other matters that need clarifying. When I started off in the council, I was lucky to go to France with a group that would have been known as one of the bonfire groups from Antrim. In those days, it cost us £120,000 to clear up after the bonfires. We had 11 different community groups—others would have given them stronger titles than that—that did not talk to each other. Going away together allowed us to get everyone to work together to find ways forward and find the commonalities that existed. In time, we reduced the number of bonfires and improved most of them—not all. The next time we had
the bonfires, it cost only £40,000 to clear up. We must be absolutely clear—will such groups be deemed paramilitaries? If Members of the Legislative Assembly and others talk to such groups, will they be seen to be dealing with paramilitaries when they take the oath? We need clarity on the whole issue.
As the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) said, we need an organisation with teeth to allow us to ensure that MLAs, Ministers and others are abiding by their oaths. It is essential that we find a way of enforcing that in the future, but we must all do it together. I agree with what has been said about IPSA. We have discussed whether we should try to get IPSA into the Bill, because it is essential that we get something that works much better in Northern Ireland. Most people in Northern Ireland do not think that expenses are under control. They do not think that anyone accepts any responsibility when they have done something wrong. There is such a whiff of corruption, or of things not being right, that we must have an organisation with some sort of teeth, and IPSA seems to carry out such duties extremely well, so let us try to bring it in.
It is great to hear that there are moves for an Opposition in Northern Ireland, but we need to put one or two things into the Bill to allow us to improve how that operates —whether it is on the finance or how Committees are manned—so that we really have a proper Opposition. We must be careful about how we deal with that, but we need to work together.
I long to see things happening when it comes to legacy. I know that we all had differences, and the issues need to be dealt with quickly, but not so fast that we do not all get the chance to talk and have our say. It is vital that Northern Ireland finds a way forward that moves us away from all the legacy issues, so that we can begin to thrive and build our future together.
We have had much mention of corporation tax, but it is not the silver bullet. We must do a whole mass of other things together. As a party, we wanted the devolution of corporation tax years ago, but there were differences between the parties on how it would work, which really slowed things up. Let us get everything in place—the infrastructure, air passenger duty and rates changes—and let us work on all those issues together. I see the Bill as a start to the improvements in Northern Ireland.
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