Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill
10:30 am
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.