Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill
10:30 am
Laurence Robertson (Shadow Minister, Northern Ireland; Tewkesbury, Conservative)
I join the Minister in welcoming you to the Committee, Mr. Taylor. I have also had the pleasure of serving under you and I am sure that this, too, will be a pleasurable experience.
The Minister is right in assuming that we have no objection to the programme motion, but I should make just one point, which I have raised before in Committee and in the House. We have rather a lot of Northern Ireland business to consider at the moment. We were due to sit today and on Thursday, but the introduction of another Bill means that we will now not sit on Thursday. In addition, we had a rather ridiculous situation on Tuesday or Wednesday last week, when an important statement was made in the Chamber at the same time as an important statutory instrument Committee was beginning—the two items of business overlapped, even though both were extremely important.
I therefore ask the Government to be a little sympathetic to Opposition parties, which do not have as many Front Benchers and officials as the Government. I also ask them to think about their timetabled legislation. The Bill deals with important issues, such as devolving policing and justice matters to the Assembly. The other Bill, which will be introduced tomorrow, deals with the important issue of setting up the Assembly. Such issues are not trivial, and I ask the Government to give a little more thought to the timetabling of Northern Ireland business. Having said that, I have no objection to the programme motion.