My Lords, this amendment was moved in the other place. It is on the back of the fact that a series of pledges were included in the Stormont House agreement, to which people were asked to commit before they took office as Ministers and Assembly Members, relating to a series of things that I have no difficulty with, although I said at Second Reading that I had little faith in commitments because I thought some people would sign anything, and the history over the last 30 years was that they did so. We had issues at local government level where people had to sign, pledging to a peaceful way forward, when we knew that they had no intention of doing so. Still, the language in some of the pledges is quite positive and a step forward.
However, if there is a breach of those undertakings, no sanction whatever is provided for. The point was made repeatedly in the House of Commons from all parties, including the Labour Party, that there were gaps here that should be filled. I suggest that we make it clear that Standing Orders should be provided in the Assembly saying that if a person is clearly guilty of a breach of these undertakings, something happens. At present, nothing happens. What will happen in practice is what has happened before: even where someone is in breach or is challenged over their behaviour in the current Assembly, the party of which that person is a member puts down a petition of concern, if it is in a position to do so, which means that nothing happens. That means we can have the best form of commitments and statements of commitment to pursue peaceful means and all the rest of it, but at the end of the day nothing can be done in the Assembly to have any impact or effect any change. That point was made repeatedly in the other place. It makes sense if you have a series of commitments that people are being asked to make. What is the point of asking them to make those commitments if, when they breach them, absolutely nothing happens?
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The amendment is designed to put a sanction in place so that in the event that someone breaches the undertaking that they sign, whether as a Minister or as a Member of the Assembly, there will be a price to pay by that person, and they cannot be artificially protected by abuse of the “petition of concern” system that effectively means that the person’s own party could block any attempt to sanction that individual. If you are trying to build public confidence by getting people to make commitments—and I believe that many of the commitments are very positive—but there is no impact if you breach those conditions, they will lack credibility in the mind of the public. I beg to move.