Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill
Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield, Conservative)
I welcome all Members to the first sitting of the Committee on what is clearly an important, sensitive and, I can say from the Chair, controversial Bill.
I do not take kindly to mobile phones going off during our deliberations, so I ask that they be switched off or set to vibrate. If their phone vibrates, hon. Members can go and deal with the matter if they so wish, but I do not want our deliberations to be disturbed.
If the Committee wished to extend an afternoon sitting into the evening, it would be my intention if I were in the Chair at the time to break for a dinner or supper period. We could then return if it was clear that there was a wish to continue the debate.
The Programming Sub-Committee met just before this first sitting of the Committee commenced. It was an agreeable meeting. The Minister showed flexibility when describing the position that he would take on behalf of the Government. That is a satisfactory way in which to begin. Copies of the resolution of the Programming Sub-Committee are available in the Room.
My co-Chairman is Mr. David Taylor. He will chair a number of sittings.
David Hanson (Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office; Delyn, Labour)
I beg to move,
That—
(1)during proceedings on the Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill, in addition to its first meeting at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday 6th December, the Standing Committee shall meet—
(a)at 4.30 p.m. on Tuesday 6th December;
(b)at 9.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 8th December;
(c)at 10.30 a.m. and 4.30 p.m. on Tuesday 13th December;
(d)at 9.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 15th December;
(2)the proceedings shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 and 2; Schedule 1; Clauses 3 to 8; Schedule 2; Clauses 9 to 13; Schedule 3; Clauses 14 and 15; Schedule 4; Clauses 16 and 17; Schedule 5; Clause 18; Schedule 6; Clauses 19 to 27; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
(3)the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 4.00 p.m. on Thursday 15th December.
Sir Nicholas, on behalf of the Committee I welcome you to the Chair, as I will your co-Chairman, Mr. Taylor. I know that you will both serve the Committee well. I welcome the comments that you made at the start of our proceedings. I also welcome all members of the Committee. The Bill deals with extremely difficult and controversial matters and I hope that the Committee can discuss it in a civilised way—I am sure that, under your chairmanship, we will do so.
The programme motion has been agreed by the Programming Sub-Committee. I say to those who were not members of that Committee that, as ever, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker) and his colleagues have, with the usual channels, done a superlative job of assuring Opposition Members that there will be ample opportunity for the Committee to consider the Bill.
The motion allows morning and afternoon sittings on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I am content for sittings to continue into the evening if hon. Members feel that there is not sufficient time to deal with the matters. I am relatively flexible, if hon. Members wish to do that. I am in the hands of the Opposition in respect of the Bill’s progress. The Government and my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling have deliberately not put knives in the programme; we are content to progress at the speed at which the Opposition wish to take the Bill and the amendments. Again, I am flexible to the extent that our completion date according to the programme order already agreed by the House of Commons’ is 4 pm on 15 December. Within that time frame, I am content to accept the pace at which at which members of the Committee wish to progress.
With those remarks, I commend the programme motion to the Committee. I wish you well in the Chair, Sir Nicholas, as I do members of the Committee in our deliberations during the next two weeks.
Laurence Robertson (Shadow Minister, Northern Ireland; Tewkesbury, Conservative)
I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Sir Nicholas. I have had the privilege of serving under your chairmanship before. It was an agreeable experience and I am sure that today will be similar.
I thank the Minister for his accommodating approach. He understands that this is a difficult Bill and he is being as flexible as possible within the constraints placed on us by the House of Commons. As I have said privately to him, we are about to discuss an emotional and difficult subject, and any comments that I make will be about the Bill itself and are not intended to be personal remarks about him or anyone else.
It is good to see that the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit öpik) is serving on the Committee. He has shown remarkable courage and dedication to duty in the past couple of weeks. I pay tribute to him. I know that he will contribute greatly to the debate. I also welcome my party colleagues to the Committee. Debating the Bill will be a harrowing experience, but an experience none the less. I also thank the Clerk, Mr. Sandell, for his help in respect of tabling amendments.
We are generally opposed in principle to the concept of programming and we frequently vote against programme motions in the House, but in this instance the motion has already been agreed and we feel that there will be adequate time to consider the Bill in its entirety. Given that and the Minister’s flexible approach, I have no objection to the programme motion.
Lembit Öpik (Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Affairs; Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)
I also welcome you to the Chair of our Committee, Sir Nicholas, on an exciting day for your party. May I be so bold as to say that perhaps you will prove once again that you are the finest leader that the Conservatives have never had? Of course, there may be time for that to happen in future.
I also thank the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) for his comments. As hon. Members know my brother passed away two weeks ago, and we buried him on Friday. The past few weeks have been very emotional. I know that I am not unique in experiencing such a tragedy; other hon. Members have suffered similar tragic experiences in their families. Nevertheless, I am extremely grateful to hon. Members, particularly Northern Ireland politicians, for their generosity of spirit. I hope that I can live up to the professional expectations of this Committee, notwithstanding my loss.
On the programme motion, let me say that the hon. Member for Gedling in his capacity as Whip has proved once again that we are well served by him in the context of organising Northern Ireland business. I would go so far as to say that in my eight and a half years’ experience in Northern Ireland matters, the programming of business has never been so effectively handled. That is because when he is drawing up programming proposals, he listens, negotiates and makes sure that all views from all parts of the House are taken into account. I thank him for that; it takes away one of the sources of friction that used to detain us.
Having praised the hon. Gentleman’s political agility—he is like a nimble gazelle, seeking accord—I turn briefly to put a question to the Minister about the programming. I have to ask him why we are here at all this morning. We are all aware that the legislation is a result of a promise made by the Government to Sinn Fein at Weston Park in 2001. [Interruption.] Indeed, that might be Gerry Adams on the phone right now, passing instructions to Government Members. However, there were reports over the weekend that even Sinn Fein is now criticising the Bill. If the one party that wanted the legislation is now saying that it does not like it, I ask this question of the Minister: would it not be better for everyone if he simply withdrew the Bill and thereby saved us a great deal of time?
Peter Robinson (Belfast East, DUP)
Sir Nicholas, I join others in welcoming you to the Chair. I am delighted that we have someone of your experience and skill in the Chair for what will be a difficult Bill.
I note that the Minister has shown some flexibility in terms of the programming. I and others hope that that is not the end of his flexibility; I hope that he shows it throughout our proceedings. It would be more than a shame if the Bill were to return to the House in its present shape. I do not believe that the Minister can make concessions in respect of any the amendments that will make the Bill acceptable, but doing so might make it less unacceptable, so I hope that he will seriously consider the amendments. If he does not listen here, the Government will have to listen elsewhere.
On the potential for the Committee to sit outside the normal hours, my colleagues and I are willing to have a few all-night sittings. I am sure that the Government Whip would be pleased to facilitate that to ensure that everybody gets the opportunity to speak to the amendments that they have tabled.
I am somewhat concerned that many very important amendments have been stuck in the middle of groupings. If the Minister does not accept those amendments, we feel that it would be important to press them to a Division. I hope that the fact that they are stuffed in the middle will not make their being called less likely—it is clear that the people who grouped them do not have the same recognition of how that would be taken back in Northern Ireland. It would be a shame if key issues were not put to the Committee for a decision.
My colleagues and I look forward to the sittings ahead, but to us the Bill is profane and unacceptable in every aspect. The Minister carries some shame into the Committee, having conceded to the Provisional IRA, by way of a shabby deal, the concept embodied in this legislation, which goes far beyond any other concession that the Government have made to the Provisional IRA.
Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield, Conservative)
Before I call the next speaker, I must say in response to the hon. Gentleman’s comments that it is within the Chair’s discretion to allow a Division on amendments that are not lead amendments. If he wishes to have a Division on any amendment other than the lead one in a group and advises the Chair of that, I would be happy to consider it.
I join others in welcoming you to the Chair, Sir Nicholas. You have already welcomed all Members to this Committee. In terms of the business before us, I do not believe that many of us feel welcome. It is about the most awful bit of legislation—certainly legislation to do with Ireland—that this House has ever had before it. I welcome your clarification on dealing with amendments, because some amendments would otherwise be buried in the groupings in which they find themselves. It is clear that a range of amendments have already been tabled—there are probably more to come—that will test the Bill, hopefully to its moral and logical destruction. The Bill is immoral and illogical and it should be tested to its destruction. It is the product of a fairly seedy compact. People told us that it came from the Good Friday agreement, but it clearly does not; the Government abandoned that pretence on Second Reading and that fact will be further exposed as this Committee deliberates.
I welcome the Minister’s comments on the programme and the fact that the Government are at least relaxed and flexible about it. Along with the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire, I acknowledge the work of the hon. Member for Gedling in that regard. It is unusual for the Minister and the Government Whip to hear me express satisfaction about anything that they have done in recent days or express any sense of reassurance about anything that they are offering, but this is one area in which I can do so. Those might be the last kind words that we have to say about them during our consideration.
Lady Hermon (North Down, UUP)
Sir Nicholas, I, too, am delighted to sit under your chairmanship and that of Mr. David Taylor, whom you kindly indicated will be sharing the burden with you during this and other sittings—and there will be a burden.
There was general recognition among those who took part in Second Reading—not, unfortunately, including many Members of the Government party—that we are discussing an obnoxious piece of legislation. Although the Minister has in his usual, gentlemanly way indicated that there may be flexibility in discussing the amendments, it is a fact that this obnoxious piece of legislation will never make it through the House of Lords, because the Government have no majority there. It is also a fact that amendments will have to be accepted to change the Bill radically before there will be any acceptance in another place. Personally, I will not vote at all for this Bill, whether it is amended heavily or otherwise.
I am amazed that, on the first day of consideration, roughly 250 amendments have been tabled to a Bill that has only 27 clauses and five schedules. Although I have been in Parliament only a short time—since 2001—I have been a member of many Committees dealing with Northern Ireland legislation, particularly Orders in Council, but mainstream, primary legislation as well. However, I have never faced so many amendments.
I want all aspects of the Bill to be examined and scrutinised line by line, and if that means that the Committee comes back and sits long into the evening, I certainly intend to be here.
Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield, Conservative)
There are one or two domestic matters to deal with. I remind all Committee members that there is a money resolution in connection with the Bill and copies are available in the Room. I also remind hon. Members that adequate notice of amendments should—in fact, I am going to say must—be given. As a general rule, my fellow Chairman and I do not intend to call starred amendments, including any that may be reached during an afternoon sitting. I hope that all Committee members will note that remark; it is important.