Northern Ireland Act 1974

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 11:07 pm on 29 June 1988.

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Photo of Dr Brian Mawhinney Dr Brian Mawhinney Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Northern Ireland Office) 11:07, 29 June 1988

I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says. All that was reflected in the conference meeting was what had already been reflected to me by a representative group of the SDLP who came to see me about the education proposals. I am sorry, given what the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) said, that he could not be part of that group, for reasons I quite understand.

The SDLP, the Catholic Church and others have a legitimate point of view to make about the consultative document, just as the education and library boards and Protestant Church leaders do. All are being invited to discuss the representations that they made. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley has prejudged the draft legislation. I regret that—all the more so as we have hardly concluded the first part of what will be an extended consultation procedure on the education proposals. I regret it all the more because there was no response from the right hon. Gentleman's party to the consultation proposals. I find that sad. It is sad that neither the right hon. Gentleman nor any of his colleagues on the same Bench, with the honourable exception of the hon. Member for Antrim, East (Mr. Beggs), who was at one time a distinguished chairman of an education and library board, thought to respond to those proposals. I accept that the right hon. Gentleman attaches importance to these proposals and to the system out of which they flow. I hope that during the rest of the consultation process we can look forward to his contribution.