To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when he plans to raise the issue of articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution with Irish Ministers; and if he will make a statement.

I met the new Irish Foreign Minister, Mr. Spring, on 22 January and also on 3 February. On both occasions, constitutional issues, including that issue, were among the subjects discussed.

I am glad that the Irish Government have said that they are willing to initiate and incorporate constitutional change in the context of an overall political settlement.

Dick Spring has said that it would be easier to define a nation if it were one community on two islands, rather than two communities on one island. Would not the removal of articles 2 and 3 from the Irish constitution assist greatly in discussions between the two communities and therefore assist further that possible definition?

The hon. Gentleman well knows the areas in which articles 2 and 3 present real difficulty to the constitutional parties and the Governments in reaching the objectives set out by my predecessor in March 1991. The talks, which continued during last year, achieved considerable success, but there is a long way to go. I believe that articles 2 and 3, among many other matters, call for very careful consideration in the future.

Will the Secretary of State tell the House in clear and simple terms: do he and the Government want Northern Ireland to remain an integral part of the United Kingdom?

I have made it clear, as have predecessor Administrations, that so long as the democratic will of the people living in Northern Ireland, clearly expressed, leads to their wishing to remain part of the United Kingdom, the Government wish them to remain part of the United Kingdom and, what is more, we shall honour the constitutional guarantee that has been given to them in that regard.

Does the Secretary of State agree that this is largely a propagandist issue and that the problem of Northern Ireland existed long before that constitution was introduced? Does he agree that it is normal that fundamental aspirations are included in the constitutions of most countries, but that there is no evidence of any description that articles 2 and 3 would be implemented by any form of coercion by any party in the south of Ireland? In your own constitution, the head of this state must be the head of a particular church, and bishops of that church have seats as of right in the House of Lords, but no one would argue, I think, in propaganda terms, that Britain is a sectarian society.

I shall not take up every facet of the hon. Gentleman's question. I agree with him that articles 2 and 3 in the Irish constitution have formed part of that constitution.only in relatively modern times—since 1937. I agree with him also that the problems of Northern Ireland have roots which go back a long way before that. That does not, however, deprive articles 2 and 3 of any substance or of any significance to the matters that all the main constitutional parties and the two Governments were addressing last year in the talks, which 1 hope will resume.