The shadow Secretary of State put his finger on it when he said that this is not a satisfactory process by which to scrutinise legislation. We have kicked that one around a lot today, and there is general agreement that the process could be better, whether through a functioning Assembly or through Northern Ireland business not being conducted in this truncated manner—either would be very beneficial.
It would, however, be remiss of me not to thank the Secretary of State, the Minister of State and their officials for helping us in recent days, especially on the non-controversial aspects of what we have debated today, namely the rates bill. Of course, we would like to see some elements tweaked further but, by and large, it has been a success story. It could have been a very different story. We could have been looking at a 12-point rate hike, which was averted largely down to the hard work of officials and Members of this House. We welcome that, and it would be remiss of me not to put that word of thanks on the record.
I agree with the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), the Chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, that we look forward to scrutinising this matter further. I hope the Secretary of State will make herself, the Minister or, indeed, senior officials available to whatever Committee ultimately considers the Bill so that the probing questions asked here today can be properly scrutinised. We look forward to
hopefully finding something that allows us to go back and give some hope and satisfaction to genuinely needy people in Northern Ireland.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.