I thank the hon. Members for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), for Belfast South (Claire Hanna) and for North Down (Stephen Farry), my hon. Friends the Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) and for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), for their contributions this afternoon.
I will not rehearse the arguments that have been made very effectively by my colleagues, but I will touch on the politics of all this, which is very important and needs to be understood by those on the Government Front Bench. I was present during the negotiations on New Decade, New Approach, and the hon. Member for North Down is right that the negotiations on identity and language were tortuous, detailed and lengthy, because these issues are very sensitive in Northern Ireland. We know that, and we know some of the trouble we have had in Northern Ireland on issues arising from identity, culture and so on.
We want to get to a new place where we mark our diversity of culture, identity, language and so on through respect. That is the landing zone for us. When I look at this Bill, I recall clearly what was agreed in New Decade, New Approach, and I understand clearly, as a senior member of the DUP negotiating team, what we signed
up to. I remember the detailed arguments that took place within our party about NDNA and the detailed consideration we gave this aspect of that agreement, and I am clear that the Bill does not reflect what we agreed.
My colleagues have made reference to the other draft Bills that were published and the difference there is in respect of NDNA. I wrote to the Minister—I am not going to repeat what I said in a very lengthy letter to him—setting this out in detail. He asked us on Second Reading to explain where we were able to highlight a disparity between what was in NDNA and what is in the Bill, and we have done that in detail. I was disappointed with his response to that, because I do not think the Northern Ireland Office understands fully the strength of feeling on these Benches about this matter. That is important, because we cannot support the Bill in its current form, which means we cannot go out to promote it to the communities we represent. The Bill will therefore fail in its objective, which is to promote respect in Northern Ireland, because the Unionist community—those of us who come from an Ulster British, Ulster Scots background—do not feel that it adequately respects and protects our identity.
Our identity is much wider than just the question of language. I will not repeat what I said to the hon. Member for North Down, but let me say that if nationalist parties wanted to use this vehicle to achieve what they have sought to achieve on language, we were clear that our objectives and aspirations were much broader than the issue of language. My hon. Friend the Member for Strangford made that point clear. I therefore believe that the Bill fails adequately to offer the protection we wanted for our identity, culture and heritage, and so the Bill is not adequate.
I say to the Minister that we on this side of the House have watched closely the actions of the NIO in the past week. We are coming up to an Assembly election, we are told by the Secretary of State. The draft Order Paper for business for this week did not include this Bill. I was told by the then Government Chief Whip that the legislation would not come until after any Assembly election, in order to avoid any perception that there would be an attempt by the Government to influence the election. Yet here we are, with the Bill fast-tracked. All of a sudden it is on the Order Paper and we find that the Government are putting a tick in the Sinn Féin box. Sinn Féin can go out after today and say, “We achieved what we set out to achieve.”