My Lords, once again we are dealing with an issue that was the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Once again, the Government have taken it out of the hands of the Assembly. This has not just arrived since the last Assembly election; this was from before that. I remind some noble Lords that the history of this goes back to the previous three-year suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly by Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin would not come back into the Assembly but made certain demands before it would come back in. One of the demands was on the abortion legislation; it wanted abortion on demand. The second was an Irish language Act. It has to be admitted that it did not get an Irish language Act, because this is the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Bill, but nevertheless it was part of its demands.
The truth of the matter is that the Government yielded to the demands of Sinn Féin which is why we are having this debate here at Westminster. The new Assembly has certainly not been given the opportunity to debate it, because the Assembly election was just recently. With all the demands that are being made on public finances, I must say that, right across this legislation, I have deep concerns. When one bears in mind that people are fighting to pay their bills and all the demands on public finances at the present moment, I would certainly ask whether this is the best expenditure of public money at this particular time.