Clause 66 - Display of Royal Arms at courts
Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill
4:30 pm
I take the hon. Lady's point. She raises the other crucial issue, which is probably at the back of everyone's mind, not least the Minister's, as we debate the clause. I have a high regard for the Standing Committee system. I think that this is the eleventh Standing Committee on which I have had the honour to serve. The other Committees of which I was a member considered a broad range of emergency and other legislation.
I do not like to see the Committee system abused—I have some experience of that. We expend a great deal of effort, time and energy on the Bill, knowing full well that parts of it were not decided on in Standing Committee, nor on the Floor of the House, but elsewhere. We might well say that that is the nature of politics. Maybe it is, but it does not add to the credibility of our debates or of a Committee such as this.
As the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) said, time might help to solve this problem. Time might heal it or produce a road to Damascus
change of view that many people hope for. However, minor miracles are not the basis on which to append clauses to a Bill. Having said that, I hope that the issue will not be used as a bargaining counter. I am not suggesting that the Minister would use it in such a way, but I am adamant that if this part of the Bill were to become a bargaining counter against other parts of it, the process of justice would be devalued, as would the political process.
It is right to take the earliest opportunity to show the fundamental changes that are taking place. Anybody who knows Northern Ireland knows that at present there is an unseemly rush to ensure that edifices—or an edifice—are finished in time so that they will not be subject to this measure. We all know that that is happening—let us not make a secret of it. I am not in an unseemly rush, because the more we get the newness into this, the more the oldness will start to disappear of itself.