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Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, for repeating the Statement made by the Secretary of State in another place. We welcome, completely and wholeheartedly, the withdrawal of this Bill. In response to the Secretary of State's plea for help from the Opposition on Northern Ireland affairs during the Christmas Recess, I can assure the noble Lord that normal service will be returned.
Her Majesty's Government succeeded in creating an all-party consensus against the Bill. According to today's Belfast Telegraph, 63 per cent of the Northern Ireland public considered it unacceptable. We congratulate Her Majesty's Government on joining that consensus.
The Secretary of State is asking all parties to substantial discussions about a way forward. I suggest that progress for a successful outcome depends on a few key issues. The first is the rebuilding of a very fractured trust among all parties. Having heard the debate in the other place, I know that my honourable friend David Lidington and the Secretary of State are in agreement over most of that. It has to be remembered that this will not happen overnight.
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Secondly, an end to all violence and criminality is vital. Again, that cannot be judged by one, or even two, reports from the IMC. The monitoring process has to be continuous.
The issues that the Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill sought to address still need resolving, as the Secretary of State has said. Does the noble Lord accept, on behalf of the Secretary of State, that one of the most serious criticisms of this Bill is the lack of sensitivity towards the victims and their families? Will the noble Lord assure the House that, when Her Majesty's Government return to this issue in the future, the interests of victims will be paramount?
The third issue is that full support for the PSNI and the criminal justice processes from all parties is absolutely vital.
Reflecting forward, we have consistently supported devolution. We support the Secretary of State's desire to see all institutions up and running before the 2007 elections. We do not wish to continue governing Northern Ireland by statutory instruments from your Lordships' House and the other place which, to all of us, is foreign and we feel that we are unable to fulfil the true democratic role. However, as per the Good Friday agreement, we must be certain that the commitment to peaceful and democratic means is permanent and irreversible before the final endgame, referred to by the Secretary of State, can be played.
3.24 pm
Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. We welcome both parts of the Statement: the first, slightly less important but nevertheless significant part concerns the continuing payment of the Members of the Assembly. Since the Assembly was suspended in 2002, your Lordships will know that I have regularly raised the question of continuing to pay salaries to MLAs. The Government were very reluctant to contemplate that, even arguing that they were still carrying out constituency duties and, even more questionable, that there was a need to sustain a political elite. Later, there was a token deduction and Mr Paul Murphy, the then Secretary of State, muttered about the problem of payment, which was echoed by the Prime Minister.
I very much hope that the Statement today means that there will be no more prevarication or procrastination, no more huffing and puffing. If the devolved institutions are not up and running soon, MLA salaries should be stopped. That is explicit in the Statement, although it is too vague in saying that payment should continue for "not many more months". That is far too imprecise. Does the Minister agree that it would be better to set a specific date, say 31 May, after which remuneration will cease? Later than that, the marching season will be looming and that is always used as an excuse for a delay. Will the Government consider a specific date?
As I remarked the last time that MLA payment was raised in your Lordships' House, the prospect of its withdrawal may well be a spur to interparty agreement to collaborate. The fear of such loss is one of the many
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things that unites Northern Ireland political parties across the community divide. We all wish for a quick restoration of the devolutionary settlement.
We on these Benches—and I would guess, the whole House—are mightily relieved that the Secretary of State has decided to withdraw the Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill. It was welcomed by none. It solved nothing and antagonised most public opinion for one reason or another across the political spectrum in Northern Ireland. The idea that a superannuated judge should preside over some sort of process, in which alleged suspects, or those actually charged but on the run, or those convicted but who had escaped, who did not even have to appear before him or her, was a parody. It was an attempt to put some kind of figleaf legitimacy on what for all intents and purposes was a pardon by executive action. Such a notion was doomed to failure from the very start, but it could form the basis of a modern-day Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. We are pleased that the Government have withdrawn the Bill and congratulate them on bowing to the inevitable.
In conclusion, I have two other questions for the Minister. Will he undertake that, in any future discussions on solving the problem of "on the runs", both Governments will have all-inclusive talks with all the Northern Ireland political parties and not just do a side deal with Sinn Fein? This matter will only be resolved by an open "treaty" openly arrived that.
Secondly, will the Secretary of State consider that a fundamental part of moving Northern Ireland forwards is the shared future agenda? Last February, the then Secretary of State made a commitment to the other place to publish the first of the triennial action plans for a shared future in the autumn of 2005. When can we expect the plan to be published? Why are the Government failing to make improved community relations a priority?
3.27 pm
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am extremely grateful for the responses of both noble Lords, as indeed I was, on behalf of the Secretary of State, for the responses of the parties in the other place. There is not much more that I can say in addition to the Statement. Let us be clear: the Bill is dead. It will not be coming back. That does not mean that the issue goes away, which was recognised in both comments. This issue will have to be dealt with at some point in a legislative form. It is not something that can be done behind closed doors or by executive action, but the Bill is effectively dead.
On the issue of victims' needs being paramount, as the Secretary of State said in the Statement, we knew that this would cause great upset to the victims and they made that abundantly clear, both to the Secretary of State and other Ministers. Therefore, we want to give careful thought to the issue. There is no deadline. The Secretary of State said that he would take stock in the autumn. Although there is no deadline, the issue will not go away and we want to make that absolutely clear. There needs to be a wider consensus and there must be a rebuilding of trust, which is implicit in the Statement, from both sides of the community.
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There must also be the acceptance by Assembly Members and putative Ministers of support for the police and the rule of law. This is a black-and-white issue: if you do not support the police and the rule of law, you are actually supporting criminals, rapists, muggers, thieves and embezzlers—that is the implication. You cannot expect to be in Government in that situation, so that is implicit. There are other parts of the process to be carried through, and we understand that there are further devolutionary moves ahead. We want to make it absolutely clear that there is no walking back from them.
In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, there are no dates. To be honest, it would not have been helpful if the Secretary of State or the Government had said today that we will need to get an agreement, or that MLAs will lose their salaries, or that we will need the Assembly up and running, all by a certain date. We have made it clear about 2006; we have also made it clear—I think the consensus among all the party leaders is—that the elections that would normally take place in 2007 will not take place if the Assembly is not up and running in 2006. There must be a process for stopping those elections and that, as has been made clear, cannot be left until the last minute. So putting in a date of any kind at present would not act as a spur; in fact, it could have almost the opposite effect.
The issue of the on-the-runs is, as I have said, one that we will have to think about and take stock of in the autumn. It is not a question of having no discussions, but there cannot be any side deals. The deal which was already done was reneged on by the one political party that had asked for the legislation. It wanted it and supported it, but it has reneged on it because it did not like it being double-sided; that is the bottom line here. It wanted one-sided treatment, which we are not prepared to accept. We have made that absolutely clear in the Statement.
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