My Lords, I must say, I take a similar view to the noble Lord, Lord Morrow. For three years, when the Assembly was closed following Sinn Féin’s withdrawal in 2017, the noble Viscount, when he was answering at the Dispatch Box, would say, “Well, because of the Sewel convention, we cannot do this; it is a devolved matter. The Northern Ireland Office cannot do that”. We now seem to have moved. We do not hear the Sewel convention mentioned very much around this place. We seem to have a situation now where, effectively, we are fireproofing bits of legislation against disagreements even though they may be legitimately expressed and exercised by Ministers in Northern Ireland.
The whole mechanism that was agreed in 1998 is not what many of us would ultimately like, but the concept of a mutual veto is there for a purpose. We would not have devolution, as the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, knows, if people did not feel a sense that they each had a hand on the steering wheel. As the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, mentioned, some of the people with whom we have shared power are not necessarily dinner companions. Once you take away the exercise of a veto, you take away a part of the settlement.
I know that colleagues here did not agree with it in 1998; I am well aware of that, and I understand the rationale for it, but perhaps they now understand our rationale for not agreeing with New Decade, New Approach. As far as I can see, all people would have to do is not agree, and all that those who would like to see a particular measure would have to do is sit on their hands and wait for the Secretary of State to overrule. If we get into that, Sewel is out the window and you start to decay the whole process; we need to take very great care that we do not undermine it. It is an awkward, difficult and complicated system because, if you know that you do not have to agree with the person across from you, the temptation is to wait it out until the Secretary of State intervenes and takes your side.
For a brief period, I held the office at the OFMDFM. I know how complicated this is. The first week I held the office, I and the Deputy First Minister could not agree on the notepaper; as a consequence, the department could not send a letter out for a week until we agreed. We agreed because we had to, and we got a compromise. However, if I had known that I could sit it out and that the Secretary of State would come over and take my side, I would have been under no obligation to agree.