Programme for Government

Part of Private Members’ Business – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 11:45 am on 20 September 2011.

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Photo of Gregory Campbell Gregory Campbell Shadow Minister (International Development), Shadow Minister (Transport) 11:45, 20 September 2011

Sometimes, I despair. If I had been in favour of direct rule, I would not have voted for the system that we have now. I did. With all its faults, it is better than direct rule. The point I was making was that, in all of the years of direct rule, there was neither the need, the desire nor the demand for Programmes for Government, and they got by. It was not great and it was not ideal. What we now have is better, but they got by, thus proving that you do not absolutely have to have a Programme for Government to get government working. That is the point.

I think it was Mr McCallister, when talking about the difficulty that the DUP and Sinn Féin had in getting a Programme for Government, who used the phrase “their friends in Sinn Féin”, and I have heard the honourable Member for Lagan Valley talk about our “bedfellows” in Sinn Féin. I have heard that mentioned on a couple of occasions by Ulster Unionists, and it keeps coming up. There must be some clarity. Those critics who lambaste us either say that we are friends and bedfellows with Sinn Féin or that we cannot get agreement with them, but it cannot be both. I am afraid that people will have to come to some sort of outcome on those criticisms.