I beg to move, That the Bill be read a Second time.

The Bill is potentially the most significant for generations. It gives effect to the St. Andrews agreement with its twin pillars of power sharing on a fair and equitable basis and support for policing and the rule of law across the whole community. Those twin pillars stand or fall together. The Bill means that the vision set out in the Good Friday agreement can at last be fully realised: a Northern Ireland of equals where political difference can be accommodated, cultural diversity celebrated, division healed, and where young people can look forward to a safe, secure and peaceful future.

Since April 1998, Northern Ireland has been in transition: from conflict to peace, from instability to stability, from economic stagnation to increasing prosperity, from a divided past into a shared future. The time is now right to complete the transition, with the local parties delivering on a stable and lasting political settlement.

In Armagh last April, the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach made it clear that 2006 was the year of decision for the political parties in Northern Ireland. I have made it clear both in this House and outside that the political process could not be allowed to become an end in itself, and that politicians could not and would not continue to be paid—now, for over four years—without doing their jobs, as if there was no tomorrow. Northern Ireland’s public will not tolerate that.

The time has come for action on restoring devolution, ending the democratic deficit and closing down direct rule. The people of Northern Ireland have waited long enough for locally accountable, democratic government. The politicians of Northern Ireland have waited long enough to take their proper place, with responsibility for the government of Northern Ireland, and to be answerable to the electorate for their decisions. With this Bill, the Government are delivering on our commitment to bring that about. It is now up to the parties to deliver on their obligations, too.

My right hon. Friend will be aware that tomorrow, the Scottish Parliament will discuss the collapse of Farepak, which effectively robbed hundreds of thousands of decent, hard-working families— many of whom come from Northern Ireland—of Christmas. Surely the Northern Ireland Assembly should discuss this issue, and particularly the fact that letters were sent out on 12 September telling people that they had to pay their bills by 6 October—the week before the company went into liquidation.

I pay tribute to the fearless way in which my hon. Friend has exposed the Farepak scandal. He is absolutely right—if a Northern Ireland Assembly were up and running, that issue could be raised on the Floor of that Assembly, and Back Benchers could press Ministers for action to ensure that the families in Northern Ireland who have suffered so badly as a result of the Farepak scandal could get justice.

Given that we did not have a particularly lengthy debate—in fact, none at all—on the allocation of time motion, can the Secretary of State explain for the benefit of the House, and particularly of those in Northern Ireland, what justification there is for bulldozing through this House today in six and a half hours a Bill that changes the constitution of Northern Ireland?

I point out to the hon. Lady, whom I respect greatly, that the reason is to make progress, so that we can meet the deadline of the end of the week. The House has just nodded through the motion, thereby giving its assent to this timetable. I am sure that the hon. Lady will have a chance to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, and I shall be happy to take any interventions from her.

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

I will.

I thought that he might. He moved the motion formally, without making a speech, which I was very appreciative of. The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) and I, and a few others, have a dilemma, however. We want to get to the guts of this legislation, which is extremely important, but that does not excuse the Government from not allowing two days for debate—one for Second Reading and the second for consideration in Committee. The matter is urgent, but it is not that urgent. This happens time and again with Northern Ireland legislation. What is the justification for going through all the stages in one day?

My hon. Friend is a very diligent parliamentarian—there are few more diligent—but I have already answered the point and the House has accepted the programme motion. We need to get on with devolution in Northern Ireland and to make progress, which is why we are bringing the Bill before the House in this form.

I want to take the Secretary of State back to his comment about Members of the Assembly no longer being paid after a certain date if progress is not made. Does he not think it time that we looked again at the fact that Sinn Fein Members of this House get huge sums of money? Although three quarters of their duties should be carried out in this House, they are never here to carry them out. Why are we justifying all that money, when we are blackmailing Assembly Members to get back to holding discussions in order to avoid not being paid?

There has been no blackmail at all. The people of Northern Ireland have demanded that this happen. They have demanded that, after four years of the politicians not fulfilling their obligations in an Assembly, they get the show on the road, or that Stormont shut down. The question of Sinn Fein’s allowances was decided by the House following a recommendation by the Independent Monitoring Commission. That was after the House had withdrawn those allowances—in fact, I think that I moved the motion myself—following another, earlier recommendation from the IMC.

Will the right hon. Gentleman make it clear to the House that it was because of something that Sinn Fein did that all the Assembly Members were put out of their offices and were unable to do the work, and that no Member of this House has any right to indict them? They did nothing, but they had to take the scourge that should have been put on the back of Sinn Fein only.

The right hon. Gentleman accurately describes the circumstances of suspension. What we are concerned with now—I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman on his own role in it—is getting devolution up and running, which his party has long supported.

The explanatory notes refer to the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, but as far as I can tell, the Bill is silent on that point. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House when the regulations flowing from the Equality Act 2006 will take effect in Ulster?

It depends on which regulations the hon. Gentleman is referring to, but in respect of the Human Rights Commission, legislation will be introduced next week, which will cover the relevant reforms for Northern Ireland, so the hon. Gentleman will be able to inspect it then.

As has been the case throughout the process, little is ever easy or straightforward.

I can well understand why the parties are edging forward with considerable caution and I can quite see why feelings are fragile, why anxious party members worry about what their leaders may have accepted and why a marauding media picks away at the fragilities. The easy option—for politicians and, of course, for journalists, too—is to prise open the detail of understandings and to unnerve either or both sides with negatives. The harder option is to stick with it, to show courage and fortitude, and say that the positives outweigh the negatives by a million miles. In Northern Ireland’s politics, it has always been easier to say no, always harder to say yes.

I know that there are issues on which all sides want reassurance. Where the Government can give that reassurance, we will. Where the parties must give reassurance to each other, they should. But there is nothing—given the will to do it—that cannot be resolved within the time frame set out in the St. Andrews agreement. I believe that the will is there, but that the St. Andrews momentum must be maintained to achieve the end.

I am not convinced by arguments that say, “We cannot do a deal at 5 to midnight, but we might do at 5 past—or with another day here, or another week there, or six months more, but let’s get Christmas out of the way first”. No. The timetable to devolution is clear.

I would like to take up the Secretary of State’s offer of providing reassurance. Will he reassure me, on behalf of my constituents and many others across Northern Ireland, that what we are driving through here today at top speed will, in fact, bring about nominations by the Democratic Unionist party and Sinn Fein by Friday? Can I have that reassurance?

If I may say so, I fully intend to deal with that matter in just a second—in fact, precisely this second, so the hon. Lady intervened at a very timely point.

On 24 November—this Friday—the Assembly will convene and the DUP and Sinn Fein, as the two largest parties, will indicate who the First Minister and Deputy First Minister will be, come the restoration on 26 March. That indication will trigger the transitional Assembly, which can get down to the real work of preparing a programme for Government. In January 2007, we will have the 13th report of the Independent Monitoring Commission and the seventh report since the IRA declared that it would end its illegal activity. On 7 March, there will be an election in which the people will speak and on 14 March, members of the Executive will be nominated by party leaders. On 26 March, power will be devolved and the d’Hondt process of choosing an Executive will run, with Ministers assuming office taking the pledge of office. That Monday will be “democracy day” for Northern Ireland.

The right hon. Gentleman has told us the date of the election, which is in the Bill, but will he confirm that whatever is decided on Friday this week could well be changed by the electorate of Northern Ireland on 7 March?

The electorate will speak and give a mandate to their parties to support the St. Andrews agreement. That is the purpose of the election and it is why the largest two parties requested that if there were to be any consultation, it should happen through an election. There is now cross-party support for pursuing the St. Andrews agreement, which is why we intend to move forward on that basis.

The Secretary of State mentioned Friday 24 November and said that the DUP and Sinn Fein would have to indicate who their nominees would be. What form is that indication to take? What happens if either party does not make that indication?

I have given an outline of what will happen on 24 November. I am currently in discussion with the Speaker and the parties. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the chance to make it clear that it is important that Friday is successful. Friday 24 November was part of the St. Andrews architecture, to which all the parties, including his, signed up—I accept that they did so in broad terms. If Friday 24 November is not successful, the door to a transitional Assembly and everything that follows will not be unlocked. That is the clear position that everybody faces.

As I interpreted it, the Secretary of State stated categorically that, on Friday, the DUP and Sinn Fein will nominate First Minister and Deputy First Minister. Is that a categorical assurance, without qualification? If that is not fulfilled, what would constitute a failure of the rubric on Friday that, in his view, would inhibit further progress in the restoration process?

As I said, the two largest parties will indicate who the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister will be, come restoration on 26 March. I do not anticipate failure at any point in the process. I anticipate success because the people of Northern Ireland want success and all the parties who came to St. Andrews and left endorsing the broad terms of the St. Andrews agreement want that success, too. We are working for success. However, let us be clear: if there is failure at any time, Stormont dissolves and everybody packs up and goes home. That has been clear for a long time and it is clear in the Bill.

Like the Secretary of State, I am planning and hoping for success, but I am not optimistic that the deadlines that he describes are genuine. Why, when 24 November was a cast-iron deadline set in statute, which we are changing, should any Northern Ireland party be confident that the other three deadlines that he outlined in March are any more solid and unchangeable than 24 November? I accept that he needs wriggle room to make it work but, at the moment, we are discussing not wriggle room but completely flexible deadline room.

I have been grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support and that of his party throughout the process, although he has asked legitimate questions, as he is doing now.

In May, when we passed the emergency Bill to set up the transitional Assembly—the Northern Ireland Act 2006—I said that agreement had to be reached by 24 November. That has happened. We had St. Andrews and the parties’ indication that we should introduce the Bill. If there had been no agreement, we would have closed Stormont down. The hon. Gentleman supported that strategy and it remains. There is no wriggle room in the Bill. If any of the dates are not met, and especially if the Assembly and the Executive are not fully restored on 26 March, it will all close down and dissolution takes place. There is no wriggle room in that, and there will not be any.

The Secretary of State made a similar statement about 24 November. He said that there would be no negotiation, no change and no movement beyond that. Now he has reached a stage whereby the two parties, in some vague way, must “indicate” who the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister are likely to be. What confidence can any of us have that the Government will be any more robust about the March deadlines given that, in my judgment, the commonly received view is that all the deadlines up to now have been subject to change?

I am obviously happy to answer the hon. Gentleman’s questions, as I always do. However, I am not sure where his last question is leading him. I made it clear throughout to the House and in other public pronouncements, as did my ministerial team, that agreement had to be reached by 24 November. A deal had to be done by then. That has been achieved and it is why we are introducing the Bill. If there had been no agreement at St. Andrews and the parties had not subsequently given it a fair wind, we would not be introducing the Bill today.

Assuming that this legislation goes through the House and the other place and that it receives Royal Assent on Thursday morning, it will then set in statute the date for the election and the date for restoration, and the powers contained in clause 2 make it clear that, if it is apparent to me at any time that there will not be restoration at the end of the process, I can move to dissolution immediately.

I do not suppose that many people will want to vote against the St. Andrews agreement in March, but will the Secretary of State indicate which political parties opposed it?

Only one party has been absolutely clear: the UK Unionist party of Bob McCartney. He has made it absolutely crystal clear that he is opposed to this entire project—always was and always will be.

I am under no illusions about the process. There is still work to be done. No one can be forced into government, and no one will be forced into government. If at any stage between now and 26 March—this repeats the point that I was making earlier—we run out of track, devolution becomes dissolution: the clock is stopped, the election scrapped. That is the reality. In that event, direct rule and plan B, with even closer co-operation with the Irish Government, will stretch into the foreseeable future. The Governments will not be chasing after the parties. We will have done as much as we humanly can. It would be for the parties to come to the Governments to tell us when they would be ready to do the deal that would restore devolution. I leave it to Members to state how likely they believe a deal would be done by the parties on their own when they could not accept the deal facilitated by the Government.

The Secretary of State talks about the process running out of track. Could he give an indication to the House about when he will make a judgment if Sinn Fein fails to hold its special party meeting to endorse the police and the rule of law in Northern Ireland? At which point does he determine in this process that we run out of track on that issue?

Sinn Fein needs to call an ard fheis—and before it, I guess, an ard chomhairle—to make it crystal clear that it is signing up to the pledge of office and that it is endorsing the terms of this legislation and the pillar that I mentioned at the beginning about the support for the rule of law and policing. It is absolutely crucial that Sinn Fein has to call that conference, and I expect it to do so.

There is a choice to be made by the parties and the people—not next week, not next month, not next year, not the year after that, but now. Choices do not get easier if they are postponed; mostly they get harder.

Has the Secretary of State seen the recent statement by Sinn Fein saying that it will not call an ard fheis, or whatever it is called? Excuse me, I cannot pronounce these so-called Irish words; I am an Ulsterman. Has he seen the statement by Sinn Fein—not by the leader of Sinn Fein, but by Sinn Fein, as the newspapers have pointed out—saying that it will not call that meeting of the ard fheis?

I have not, but it is absolutely apparent and crystal clear to me that, to fulfil the terms of this legislation and to fulfil the implementation of the St. Andrews agreement, Sinn Fein has made it clear that it needs an ard fheis to support it in the way forward. That ard fheis will need to be called at the appropriate time.

When?

It is a matter for Sinn Fein; but of course, it is important that Sinn Fein make its position clear.

This legislation provides the mechanism to go forward. The twin pillars of power sharing and the rule of law are enshrined in the pledge of office that all Ministers must take on 26 March, to take office. The pledge of office requires all Ministers to

“promote the interests of the whole community represented in the Northern Ireland Assembly towards the goal of a shared future”.

Politicians everywhere, particularly those who aspire to govern, are there not just to represent and work for those who voted for them and loaned them their mandate but for those who did not.

In a society that has been as bitterly divided as Northern Ireland, politicians who have been entrusted with a mandate that will give them access to power have an even greater obligation to govern for all and not just for their own. The pledge requires all Ministers to

“participate fully in the Executive Committee, the North-South Ministerial Council and the British-Irish Council”.

If devolution is to deliver good government, all the institutions of government must function effectively. Anything less than a full commitment to that will sell everyone in Northern Ireland short. The pledge of office also requires Ministers to

“observe the joint nature of the offices of First Minister and deputy First Minister”.

Those are fundamental tenets of power sharing, which go well beyond the symbolism—important as that is—of two different political traditions working together in equality without sacrificing either principle or integrity.

On support for the rule of law, the pledge of office, as enshrined in the Bill, could not be clearer. All Ministers will

“uphold the rule of law based as it is on the fundamental principles of fairness, impartiality and democratic accountability, including support for policing and the courts as set out in paragraph 6 of the St. Andrews Agreement”.

Let me remind the House of what paragraph 6, and clause 7(2) of the Bill, says about support for law and order:

“We believe that the essential elements of support for law and order include endorsing fully the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the criminal justice system, actively encouraging everyone in the community to co-operate fully with the PSNI in tackling crime in all areas and actively supporting all the policing and criminal justice institutions, including the Policing Board”.

I recognise that the issue of policing has been contentious ever since Northern Ireland came into being, and still more so during the conflict, but we are in a very different and much better place now.

Does the Secretary of State recognise that, as far as the Unionist population is concerned, rhetoric—words—from Sinn Fein is not sufficient? There must be the proof of action—a credible period in which their action proves that they support the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Certainly, one of the tests would be handing over those in their membership who were responsible for the murder of Mr. McCartney.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that all parties, especially those aspiring to ministerial office, must support the police. Their councillors and representatives, whether MLAs or MPs, should co-operate with the police as everyone else does. That is an essential foundation for a democratic society.

Will the Secretary of State indicate whether he believes that pledging to uphold the rule of law would also include upholding and accepting the authority of, for instance, the Parades Commission? In terms of upholding the rule of law and supporting policing and the courts, will he also indicate whether the pledge of office would have any implications for a devolved Minister who might find himself the subject of grave judgment by a court after a judicial review?

In respect of the earlier point, it is absolutely essential that the Parades Commission—which is the statutorily based body responsible for the marching season, legislated for and part of the law of Northern Ireland—is respected as an institution. That does not mean that people cannot argue that it should be reformed, or that it should not change its methodology. A review of the Parades Commission is going to be undertaken. I should add—and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would have made this point—that the Parades Commission has done an excellent job this year. The marching season was the most peaceful on record—[Interruption.] I accept that that was not just because of the way in which the Parades Commission behaved, but because of the hard work done at local level by Unionists and nationalists, loyalists and republicans.

There has been no greater example of transformation in Northern Ireland than in policing, led by Sir Hugh Orde, who is recognised and admired the world over for his integrity, toughness, plain speaking and professionalism, deserving the support of the whole community, of every party and of everyone. There is increasing evidence that that is happening, shown by the rising numbers of applicants to join the Police Service of Northern Ireland from the nationalist and republican communities.

The St. Andrews agreement also included a clear commitment, and a target of May 2008, for the devolution of policing and justice powers to the restored Executive. We expect all concerned to take that target seriously. Indeed, the Bill requires the Assembly to report to the Secretary of State before 27 March 2008 on progress towards the devolution of policing and justice powers. I want to make it clear that, once policing and justice is devolved, there is nothing in the pledge that would remove or unreasonably constrain any future Minister of policing and justice from making legitimate criticism of the police. After all, proper accountability was central to the Good Friday agreement’s vision for new policing arrangements in Northern Ireland and was a core element of the Patten report’s recommendations. Proper accountability, which can sometimes include constructive criticism, is essential in delivering the police service that Northern Ireland deserves. There is a world of difference between that and a failure to support Northern Ireland policing and justice institutions.

I remind the House that, this summer, Parliament legislated for devolution of policing and justice. We want to see that delivered so that the whole of Northern Ireland can better have ownership of the rule of law and policing. That is in the interest of everyone: the old lady who is reluctant to go out at night for fear of intimidation from drunken yobs; the woman, her life shattered, who demands that her rapist be apprehended; the victim of murder; the victim of mugging; and the victim of burglary. It is one thing for republicans to explain why, for historic and political reasons, policing has been so neuralgic for them. It is quite another to turn their back on constituents who, as Northern Ireland has normalised, demand safety and security in their lives and demand that it is provided by the police.

Of course, much of policing has already been devolved and I want to pay tribute to the work of the Policing Board, the police ombudsman and the district policing partnerships for the role that they play in making the Police Service of Northern Ireland more accountable than perhaps any other force anywhere else in the world.

The Secretary of State quite rightly points out the magnificent role that those who are on the Policing Board and involved in district policing partnerships have played. Will he give an assurance that, if Sinn Fein is to come on to the Policing Board or the district policing partnerships, the independents who took great risks to serve in those institutions will not be taken off them in order to facilitate places for Sinn Fein members?

First, it is important that Sinn Fein support all the institutions of policing, including the Policing Board and the DPPs. There is no question about that. The point that the hon. Gentleman raises is one that the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and his party have raised with me, too. His party, especially, has supported independent candidates. Some of them have been from his party. Those candidates have taken a principled stand in moving forward in the new era of the PSNI and have often had a rough time in their communities. There has been a great deal of intimidation—sometimes threats and sometimes actual violence. The vice-chairman of the Policing Board, Denis Bradley, was attacked in a pub in Derry simply because he had been courageous and had done an excellent job on the Policing Board. I absolutely agree with the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) that those members who stood by the policing institutions deserve support and recognition.

The future of devolution for Northern Ireland rests on twin pillars: if either one collapses, the whole edifice collapses. We must know that the parties want to move forward to 26 March on that basis. That is why 24 November—this Friday—is important. When that deadline was set, well before St. Andrews, I said that we needed to know by then that a deal was on and that we were on track for a lasting political settlement—devolution. That is still the case. Without knowing that, there cannot be a transitional Assembly. Without knowing that, there cannot be an election. Without knowing that, there cannot be devolution. The sequence set out at St. Andrews will not be set aside. No one should see this as some kind of virility test to see who will blink first. If the Assembly has to be dissolved because we cannot move forward, it will be. I sincerely hope that it will not come to that.

As the Preparation for Government Committee showed over the summer, meeting with all parties present for 43 sessions between 5 June and 30 October, the parties can work constructively together when they choose to. Indeed they did so yesterday in the first meeting of the Programme for Government Committee. That was the first of what I am sure will be many meetings, because it is clear that there is considerable work to be done as we move to the point where the people can give their verdict in the election to be held 7 March 2007. There is work to be done on education reform, rates, water charges and rural homes planning; work to be done on the ministerial code; and work to be done on preparing for devolution of policing and justice—work to be done not, as now, by direct rule Ministers, but by locally accountable politicians.

I am conscious that there was a range of views on how the commitment at St. Andrews to consult the people should be met. There is a case for a referendum, which does have the attraction of being a single issue question, but if a referendum were to be held, an election would follow within a year of the new Executive getting down to work. What the newly devolved institutions will need is a prolonged period of stability in the four years before the next election is due, in May 2011. For the parties to go into election mode almost from day one would inevitably get in the way of MLAs getting on with the business of government on the wide range of challenges that will face them—education, rates, rural planning, water charges and so on. That is what the people want to see them taking charge of. Of course, the fact that the two main parties indicated that, if there was to be a reference to the people, it should be through an election, was another factor to be considered.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for being so generous in taking interventions from both sides of the House. Does he accept that, by the time the DUP and Sinn Fein have written their manifestos and promised the sun, the moon, the stars and goodness knows what else, the people of Northern Ireland will be being asked to vote in an election to a deadlocked Assembly, not the Assembly that he has just described to the House?

With all due respect, I do not see why that should be the case. The parties will be elected to a new Assembly. Their Members, as nominated, will take their place in the Executive in ministerial posts only after taking the pledge of office. Then, they will be able to move forward and govern together. When one looks at the challenges facing Northern Ireland and some of the thorny issues with which we as direct rule Ministers have had to grapple, one sees that it is imperative that responsibilities are exercised, decisions are made quickly and progress is made. That is why the work of the Programme for Government Committee, which met successfully yesterday and will, I am sure, have a programme of regular meetings in the coming days and weeks, is crucial to enabling the incoming Executive to get off to a flying start and, far from remaining deadlocked, to be very dynamic.

The Secretary of State has said several times in the course of his speech that both my party and Sinn Fein have requested an election rather than a referendum. It is, of course, true that we want an election, but Sinn Fein has specifically denied saying that it wants an election. Will the Secretary of State be crystal clear about when Sinn Fein has said that it is against a referendum and for an election?

All I can go by is what Sinn Fein told me. Its representatives told me that they would prefer no consultation prior to restoration—that was their preferred option by a long way, to be fair to them—but if there had to be consultation, as I believe there must be if we are to move forward, they preferred an election to a referendum. That was their clear choice. They would have preferred there to be no form of consultation, but I pointed out that there would be consultation, so they joined the DUP in preferring an election.

Following the election, when Ministers take the pledge of office and assume responsibility for government, Northern Ireland will have entered a new era. Between now and March—and well beyond, I have no doubt—there will be difficulties that some will call crises and some will try to make into crises, but those can be overcome if everyone delivers on their commitments. That is what this is all about—not saying it, but doing it, and finding a way to work together so that future generations are not shackled by the past.

Just last week the cutting edge travel guide, “Lonely Planet”, said that Northern Ireland is one of the must-see destinations for tourists. It stated that Northern Ireland was

“abuzz with life: the cities are pulsating, the economy is thriving and the people, the lifeblood that courses through the country, are in good spirits”.

There could be no greater incentive for the parties in Northern Ireland to be an active part of that. They can be, and this House trusts that they will be. I commend the Bill to the House.

It is never satisfactory when we are invited to bypass the normal procedures of the House for debate and detailed scrutiny, but this is one of those occasions when I believe that it is right for the House to give the Government the benefit of the doubt and to co-operate in seeing the Bill through all its stages today. It is somewhat ironic that we are being invited to repeal the Northern Ireland Act 2006, which we solemnly debated and passed as recently as July. However, as the Secretary of State hinted, the Government are in a tight spot as regards this Friday’s deadline, whereby the current statutory position is that on Friday he must either restore the devolved institutions or dissolve the Assembly and cease the payment of salaries and allowances altogether. I argued consistently that the November deadline was over-optimistic; the Secretary of State will probably riposte that had he not set the November deadline we might not have moved as far forward as was achieved at St. Andrews.

One thing that is clear is that over the past few months we have at least inched closer to an agreement. We are closer now than we were back in July. The Independent Monitoring Commission has reported that the provisionals have dismantled key departments of their paramilitary organisation and the IRA leadership is working to stop the involvement of its members in crime.

St. Andrews was a step forward. I welcome the clear statements from the Democratic Unionist party, particularly from the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley), that it is willing to take part in a power-sharing Executive that includes Sinn Fein, provided that the basic democratic ground rules are accepted and observed by all parties. It is important that we all acknowledge that that commitment from the Unionists is a remarkable and generous step for them to take, given the bloody history of the Provisional IRA and the personal bereavements that so many people in the Unionist parties and the democratic nationalist tradition have had to bear.

However, one key element is missing. There is a gap in the framework of arrangements that would allow devolution to proceed. If Sinn Fein is to be accepted, as it claims, as a normal democratic political party, and if its leaders are to serve as Ministers in Northern Ireland, it must say and show by its actions that it supports the police and the courts of the place that it will be helping to govern. Doing so does not mean that Sinn Fein, or anyone else for that matter, needs to stop campaigning for votes on a manifesto that seeks further reforms to the police service or the criminal justice system—we frequently have such debates in this Chamber and campaign on those issues out in the country—but it does mean requiring that the republican movement accept that the authority exercised by the Police Service of Northern Ireland and by the courts is legitimate. It means people showing its practical support by reporting crimes to the police, by giving evidence to police inquiries, and by acting as witnesses in court cases—in other words, it means accepting the basic responsibilities held not only by Ministers, but by all citizens in any normal democracy. Those are responsibilities that all Members of the House of all parties, and every mainstream political party in the Republic of Ireland, take for granted.

The hon. Gentleman outlined the bloody history to which the IRA has subjected the people of Northern Ireland, and he is graphically illustrating the move that Sinn Fein must make towards giving support to the rule of law and the police. Does he understand that, given that background, we need to set a credible period of time in which Sinn Fein must go further than just saying that it supports the rule of law? We need to see practical examples of that support on the ground, once it has given that commitment, before we can move forward.

There must be both a clear statement of commitment and evidence on the ground, and I look to bodies such as the Independent Monitoring Commission and the Police Service of Northern Ireland itself to provide evidence of that change on the ground. If it is possible to achieve devolution by next March, that sort of regular co-operation with the police, constructive participation in district policing partnerships and co-operation with the Policing Board will be very important, especially if the Assembly is to be persuaded to ask the Secretary of State and the House to devolve policing and criminal justice to the institutions in Stormont.

I almost apologise for asking this question, because it is an awkward one to bowl towards the shadow Secretary of State. He has heard the Secretary of State avoiding answering, and cringing under, sedentary comments from colleagues asking him the “when” question. Clearly, if a date of 26 March is set, there must be a point along the road from the St. Andrews agreement to that date at which it becomes ludicrous to ask people to accept the bona fides of Sinn Fein. Does that point come at 7 March, in February, or in January? At what point along that line must Sinn Fein make that statement and that commitment?

I see no reason why Sinn Fein should not make it tomorrow, but I preface my answer by remarking that I genuinely do not want to say anything that will hem in the Secretary of State when he comes to make that difficult judgment. However, looking at the evolving political situation in Northern Ireland, it seems that if the transitional Assembly is to be dissolved on 30 January, and if parties are then to go to the electorate and ask people to vote for their candidates, there must, by then, be certainty about Sinn Fein endorsing policing. In practice, it will be very difficult to persuade voters to support at the ballot box a package based on St. Andrews in the absence of such a commitment. To ask people to seek election on the basis of a “perhaps” or a conditional promise is asking a lot. The electoral process will start to impose its own pressures on the timetable.

Does my hon. Friend, who is making an excellent speech, agree that unless an assurance is given by the turn of the year at the very latest, it will lack all credibility?

As I said, I do not want to impose arbitrary dates, particularly because, as an Opposition spokesman, I am not party to the details of conversations between Ministers and the various political parties, but the thrust of what my hon. Friend says is correct. We are looking for some sign of clear movement within a period of weeks, rather than of several months.

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely important point, as he is dealing with the nub of the issue. For people in Northern Ireland it is vital that there be a credible period in which to test individuals who have engaged in the butchery that has been under way for 30 years. They need to move pretty soon—any time now, in fact—on policing, criminality and paramilitary structures in order to be credible. There is a 10-week period from today until an election is called, so most people think that that condition cannot be met.

The sooner that that happens, the better. In considering the points made by Northern Ireland Members, I am reminded of the draft comprehensive agreement of 2004. Both the British and Irish Governments expected that, within two months of that agreement becoming a firm one, Sinn Fein would take the necessary steps to endorse policing. In July this year, Members on both sides of the House took steps to make sure that the legislation to permit the devolution of criminal justice and policing completed its passage through Parliament and received Royal Assent before the summer recess, when we expected significant moves forward by the republican movement. I am dismayed that, so far, it has failed to take those steps.

From my perspective in Essex, there is an elephant trap for the constitutional parties—the Ulster Unionists, the Democratic Unionist party and colleagues in the Social Democratic and Labour party. If Sinn Fein does not deliver in a short time, surely it faces a dilemma. It may wish to maximise its strength, but it will go to the electorate without delivering or being prepared to play ball. There is a danger that ambiguous and confused signals will be sent to the various electorates. The parties want elections, and they want to maximise their seats to show their strength, but they will not enter a coalition with people who have not signed up to the police and court services.

I can only repeat that the electoral timetable will impose its own pressures on political developments, precisely because candidates at those elections must decide what to include in their election addresses, and what they will say on the doorstep to the people whose support they are trying to secure. They must answer the kind of questions from electors that the hon. Gentleman suggested. It is a shame, to put it mildly, that Sinn Fein failed to move over the summer.

The Secretary of State touched on the following point. When I talk to Sinn Fein politicians, I sometimes wonder whether they fully appreciate the nature of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. I believe that much of the criticism of the Royal Ulster Constabulary was based on an unfair caricature, so it is disappointing that, even today, Sinn Fein spokesmen appear to resort to that ancient caricature to describe the PSNI of the early 21st century.

A few weeks ago, with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, I visited Garnerville, where we met a number of police recruits. All the senior police officers left the room, leaving my right hon. Friend and me alone with those new recruits. We both left the meeting inspired by a group of young men and women from both traditions in Northern Ireland who were committed to delivering modern, effective community policing to the men and women of Northern Ireland, whatever their political or religious or cultural traditions. We heard young men and women from the Ardoyne and other nationalist and republican heartlands saying that whereas their parents’ generation would certainly have shunned the police and would never have contemplated a career in the police, they believed that they were helping to build something that was new, exciting and in the interests of everyone in the whole of Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein leaders need to wake up to the reality of what is going on. I also hear from police officers on the ground that ordinary men and women in republican heartlands increasingly want to see effective neighbourhood policing, and they want their political leaders in Sinn Fein to lift the ban on co-operation with the PSNI that I am afraid it still seeks to impose through the threat of intimidation.

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. He is describing accurately—and eloquently, if I may say so—the pressures on the ground. The paramilitary grip on many of the communities—involving punishment beatings for drug dealing and all that kind of thing—has receded and has, in many respects, been completely withdrawn by the Provisional IRA, although dissident republicans are acting in a different way. The people are now bringing pressure to bear, and they are saying to their Sinn Fein representatives, “I want this burglary dealt with. I want this rape dealt with. I want you to do your job and to co-operate with the police so that my safety can be protected in the absence of alternative forms of protection.” The fact that those changes are happening under the rule of law puts enormous pressure on Sinn Fein, which knows that it is moving in that direction in any case.

I completely agree with the Secretary of State. I hear those views expressed on the streets, even in west Belfast and south Armagh, and I believe that the time for Sinn Fein to act on that shift of mood is now overdue.

In the light of the severe criticism that the hon. Gentleman has rightly levelled at Sinn Fein for dragging out the period in which it is prepared to give its acceptance to policing and the criminal justice system, and of the Secretary of State’s assurances that there will be nominations this Friday, 24 November, does the hon. Gentleman believe that the DUP is jumping too soon by nominating by Friday?

We shall have to see what happens on Friday regarding any nomination process that takes place. It seems to me that the Democratic Unionist party is accepting its responsibilities as the largest political party in Northern Ireland and is seeking a way for devolution to be restored. It deserves credit for the moves that it has made, and I now want to see Sinn Fein live up to its frequent claim to have put the past behind it and to be a normal democratic political organisation. I understand the differences and the old battles between the established democratic political parties in Northern Ireland, but I really believe that everyone’s attention now needs to be focused on the need for the republicans to deliver on policing and on support for the criminal justice system. That is the essential ingredient of the enduring settlement that is still missing.

We are hoping to go into the Bill in greater detail during its subsequent stages this evening, and to raise various questions with the Minister. I want to highlight four areas of concern that I hope the Minister of State will be able to deal with in his response to this debate. If he cannot do so, perhaps he will be able to respond to them during subsequent proceedings.

The first concern relates to the accountability of Ministers in part 2 of the Bill. It is important that the Government should set out clearly how that is to work. It would appear from what the different Northern Ireland parties have said and from some of the press comment on the matter that there are contradictory claims about the extent to which an individual Minister will have autonomy and to which he or she will be subject to the collective will of the Executive. When it comes to matters such as sorting out the details of education—for instance, criteria for admission to post-primary schools—an answer to that question will be very important.

Secondly, I want the Government to spell out more fully what will happen if devolution is restored—if the deadline of 25 March is met—but the Provisional IRA then returns to crime. We do not want that to happen, but after the Northern bank robbery we must accept that it is a matter of more than just academic speculation. I do not think that in those circumstances it would be right for every other party to be penalised.

Thirdly, clause 9 and schedule 6 provide for the establishment of a department for policing and justice. I have no quarrel with that, but I hope the Government will assure us that it would be accompanied by a reduction in the number of other departments at Stormont. I do not think that we need yet another hierarchy of officials and team of Ministers to add to the large number that Northern Ireland would already have under devolution.

I also hope that the Government will look afresh at the possibility of district policing partnerships sub-groups outside Belfast. It seems to me that in limiting the number of DPPs to the number of councils, we risk making DPPs remote from local communities. We are approaching a time when there will be just seven local authorities in Northern Ireland, and those outside Belfast will cover very large areas of land and very diverse populations. Might not having just one DPP to cover the whole of such a local authority area remove effective neighbourhood participation in policing?

Fourthly, I want to question the Government on their time scale for moving towards what I would term normal politics. I accept that in the circumstances of Northern Ireland the system of designating Assembly Members Unionist or nationalist, and the complex rules for cross-community voting, are necessary; but I hope that that will not always be the case.

When I have talked to politicians in Northern Ireland, I have met members of both the Democratic Unionist party and the Ulster Unionist party whose views on questions of economic policy and general political philosophy would be pretty close to mine, and others whose outlook would be much closer to that of the Secretary of State and the Labour party. I expect the Secretary of State has found the same. At the risk of horrifying the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), I will add that I have met members of the SDLP whom in England I would welcome to the Conservative party, and who I think would feel very much at home there. I hope, however, that in a stable, devolved settlement in Northern Ireland, politics will be about health, jobs, schools and the environment, and no longer about deadlines, the operation of committees and the internal rules of devolved institutions. Do we really have to wait until 2015 for any review of the current arrangements, as clause 11 envisages? Should it not be possible to bring the date forward if devolution is clearly settled, enduring and working well?

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I hope my hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not; I am coming to the end of my speech.

Whatever the time scale for moving beyond the terms of the settlement envisaged at St Andrews, it is time for us to make a start on getting devolution up and running. I agree with the Secretary of State that Northern Ireland needs devolved democracy that is accountable to the local electorate. I agree with him that the people of Northern Ireland, from both traditions, want decisions about their public services and environment to be made by politicians who are accountable to them, the people, and who are accessible in a way that even the best-intentioned politician representing an English or Welsh constituency cannot be. But such devolution, if it is to work, has to proceed on the basis that the same democratic rules apply to every political party and, in particular, to every Minister. Above all, it must rest on every Minister and their parties wholeheartedly accepting the rule of law and the legitimacy of the authority of the courts and of the police.

I very much welcome the Bill and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his ministerial team and, of course, the parties in Northern Ireland on the progress that they have made so far on the St. Andrews agreement. My right hon. Friend will recall that one of our predecessors as Secretary of State for Wales referred to devolution as a process, not an event. I did not share that view with regard to Welsh devolution, but I certainly share it with regard to Northern Ireland.

The Bill will alter the Northern Ireland Act 1998 in many instances. I had the privilege of steering that Act through the House because it was based on the Belfast—or Good Friday—agreement. There are occasions when it is necessary to change the way in which arrangements for governance in Northern Ireland are dealt with, and I welcome the changes in the Bill on consultation.

When we had the privilege of hearing my right hon. Friend’s statement on the St. Andrews agreement, one of the sketchwriters said that he was good cop and bad cop combined. I suppose that if I were in his place, I would have to do more or less the same thing. However, we have to be a little careful about deadlines and closing down things, or other draconian measures that might arise from the way in which we deal with matters over the weeks and months ahead. I know what the reasoning is—that we cannot go on as we are for ever—but the political and peace process in Northern Ireland has been going on for a long time and will continue for a long time—longer than any of us are in the House of Commons.

We have to be very careful not to be patronising to the local political parties in Northern Ireland and the way in which they deal with these matters. I do not suggest for one second that my right hon. Friend is patronising, but it is a danger for all Governments. After all, the Belfast agreement was not made by the British or Irish Governments, although technically in law it was. It was facilitated and driven by the Governments, but in reality it would have been a complete failure if it had not been based on the work of the local parties. Any agreement in Northern Ireland will fail unless it is based on that. It is the ownership of any agreement or negotiations that makes them successful. The two Governments could have sat down and written the Belfast agreement in a couple of weeks and it would not have been a million miles away from what eventually emerged, but it would not have worked. The two and a half years it took to create were necessary because they involved the parties talking about the issues and, above all, reaching agreement on them. In paying tribute to the local parties in Northern Ireland for doing what they have to do, we have to bear that in mind in the weeks and months ahead.

I thought that the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) gave an exemplary description of where Northern Ireland is now in respect of policing, and I agree with every word he said. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made similar statements. Sinn Fein and the republican movement have come a long way and we have the Independent Monitoring Commission to monitor developments. However, it is complete nonsense for any agreement to go ahead without the realisation that every party in Northern Ireland has to sign up to the rule of law and the new policing arrangements. People sometimes forget that it was very difficult for the Unionist community to accept the changes that the Patten report brought about, as it also was for the Social Democratic and Labour party and the Catholic Church in Northern Ireland—but accept them everybody did. Of course, some people would like changes to be made, and we will consider some amendments to the Bill later this afternoon. Nevertheless, people made sacrifices for the new policing arrangement—the Police Service of Northern Ireland—to work as well as it does.

I also agree with the hon. Member for Aylesbury that elections are an issue—that the closer we get to the elections in Northern Ireland, the more difficult it will be to get away from electioneering. It is true that when the comprehensive agreement was almost agreed in the winter of 2004, Sinn Fein would have signed up to the policing arrangements in Northern Ireland very quickly. I see no reason why that cannot happen again, and every reason why it should happen in order to develop the process.

There has to be a special arrangement for the restoration of devolution in Northern Ireland, because devolution there is not quite like Welsh or Scottish devolution. Those devolved systems are important, but devolution in Northern Ireland is about more than governance—it is about our ability to govern together. All the months and years spent establishing how the Assembly and other institutions were to be set up were based on the premise that we would govern together. As soon as that is achieved, the problem of devolution will be resolved, and we can get on with the business of governing the people for whom we have a mandate.

Another consequence will be that there will be an end to direct rule, which was brought in as an historical necessity 30 years ago and should long since have gone. I have said more than once in this House that I very much regretted having to deal with education, health and social services as part of my Northern Ireland portfolio, because it was not my business to do that, any more than it is the business of another Labour Member. Labour Members have no mandate in Northern Ireland: not one person there votes for the Labour party. It is important that people there should be governed by people with the proper mandate. The longer direct rule goes on, the more difficult it will be for devolution to be accepted and to become embedded into the constitutional system of Northern Ireland.

It is important that when my right hon. Friend and his ministerial colleagues deal with the issues that come before them between now and the end of March, they take serious account of the views of local politicians. I have said that before, but it is worth repeating. I do not express a view one way or the other, but the agreement states that it will be left to the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive to deal with education. I believe that other issues could be left to the Assembly. Of course, if no agreement is reached, the situation will be different, but we all agree that there should be an agreement. If there is, major decisions on how the people of Northern Ireland live their lives should be left until the new Assembly is up and running.

Some people believe that it would be better not to have devolution and to leave the governance of Northern Ireland to Members of Parliament here and the seven new super local authorities that will be formed by joining together existing local authorities. That is not the answer to the problems in Northern Ireland—there has to be proper devolution there in the same way as in Scotland and Wales. The Secretary of State knows my views about having seven local authorities, so I shall not rehearse them, but I do not believe that the way forward for the governance of Northern Ireland is through local government and Members of Parliament. The people of Northern Ireland should be governed by their political leaders and the parties that are represented in the Assembly. That is what we all hope and pray for.

I wish to say only one more thing, and it is in my capacity as co-chairman of the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body.

As the right hon. Gentleman was a key player at the time of the Belfast agreement and knows its detail like no one else in the House, will he give us his reaction to the Bill before us today? It will separate the joint election of the First and Deputy First Ministers, which was of course a cornerstone of the Belfast agreement in which he took particular interest.

I could, but I do not think that it would do any good if I went into considerable detail about what happened. When we looked at the comprehensive agreement, I spent a lot of time on changes to the way the Assembly worked, including the issue to which the hon. Lady refers. I know that people held strong views on that, for obvious reasons. The agreement was a long time in the making; it was the result of many late nights and through-the-nights, ending up in Good Friday 1998.

Although I have said that devolution is a process and not an event in Northern Ireland, we have to take great care in how we make changes. I would not want to exacerbate the situation by making a personal reference to the issue that the hon. Lady raises, but parts of the agreement could still be useful. I shall give one example. The agreement said—the people of Northern Ireland voted on this—that if there was disagreement on the newly formed Executive about how to govern Northern Ireland and how to produce a First and a Deputy First Minister, the Assembly should be dissolved and further elections should be held, and that that process should continue until such time as the issue was resolved by the people of Northern Ireland through the ballot box. That has never been tested or tried. It is what the people of Northern Ireland voted for.

In this House we have had Bill after Bill and Act after Act, but we still have not arrived at a solution. We have not tried the first one—but that is an aside. Today, we are dealing with another issue—the St. Andrews agreement, which we have to consider as it occurs in the Bill. I sometimes wonder and reflect on whether, if we had stuck by the Belfast agreement, we would have had a different outcome. I do not know; none of us does.

I return to strand 3 of the agreement on the east-west relations between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland and, indeed, the devolved institutions within them. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is aware that the parliamentary body to which I referred earlier brings together Members of this Parliament, the Irish Parliament and the Assemblies of Wales, Scotland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It seems to me that the St. Andrews agreement, which refers to the parliamentary aspect of strand 3—although there is no direct reference to it in the Bill—should reconstitute it in such a way that Members of Parliament from all parties in Northern Ireland are in a position to become members of the parliamentary body. I understand the problems of the past, as a result of the Anglo-Irish agreement and so on, but if the body was reconstituted and formed out of the legislation on which we vote today or in the future, that would be a good development.

I shall conclude because I know that other hon. Members want to speak. I wish my right hon. Friend and his team and all the parties in Northern Ireland well in seeking a successful outcome to the negotiations.

It may seem unusual to those who have been listening to the Queen’s Speech debates that we have interrupted them for this important debate, but as others, including the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, have said, we agree that the importance of what we are trying to do justifies the change in programming from what would be regular at this stage in our parliamentary proceedings.

Some may regard Northern Ireland politics as dreary, but I prefer to regard our machinations today as a light and refreshing sorbet between the heavy courses of the Queen’s Speech debates.

I start with the debate about deadlines, which is rather important. It is clear that once again the Secretary of State wants to underline the fact that the deadlines in the legislation are cast in stone. He also made it clear that Northern Ireland’s political parties should not assume that they can do a deal “five minutes after midnight”. However, everything that we have seen before suggests otherwise; almost every deadline in the Northern Ireland peace process has been broken, moved or abandoned.

I take the Secretary of State back to 26 April 2006 and the Second Reading of the Northern Ireland Act 2006—the measure that we are seeking to alter today. The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) said

“he is not telling the House that, were the parties in sight of an agreement on 24 November, he would bring down the guillotine, is he? Presumably we are considering not a final and ultimate but a flexible date.”

The Secretary of State responded:

“I am afraid that I cannot reassure the hon. Gentleman about that. The Bill sets the date in statute. As I said earlier, the Government will not blink. If eleventh-hour attempts are made on 24 November to force us to blink, people will be disappointed.”

I asked the Secretary of State:

“Will he assure us that they are genuinely not flexible? I ask that because, as he knows, my great anxiety is that the Government’s credibility has been somewhat tarnished by allowing deadlines to be flexible and, indeed, by occasionally ignoring them. If he wants the Bill to work, he must impress on everybody that the deadlines are not negotiable.”

The Secretary of State replied:

“I have already done that but I am happy to accept the hon. Gentleman’s invitation to emphasise and underline as much as necessary—in flashing neon lights, if he wishes and if that is not a mixed metaphor—that the deadline is for real. The salaries and allowances will stop at midnight on 24 November. The Assembly will no longer sit, which it will be entitled to do after 15 May, and that will be that.”—[Official Report, 26 April 2006; Vol. 445, c. 597-98.]

The truth tells a different story. With the best intentions, the Secretary of State has blinked and altered the goal posts yet again. I do not condemn the Government for that change, but in response to the question that the Secretary of State implicitly asked me, it matters because he has to recognise an alternative outcome from today’s legislation: a new precedent for peace in Northern Ireland, whereby we persistently re-establish deadlines—perhaps on a six-monthly or annual basis, as we do with the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005—so that we ensure a peace of sorts, but not the re-establishment of devolution.

What would I do if I were in the Secretary of State’s position? It is possible that I would find myself in the same situation, but the reason this point is salient to the debate is that for the Bill to have credibility the deadlines, too, must have credibility. When the Secretary of State—or the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson)—sums up the debate, I hope that we will be given some new assurance that the March deadlines are not as flexible as all the others.

The Secretary of State’s claims that the Government have not shifted the goal posts, or shifted the deadlines again, may seem credible to him, but everybody knows that the Government have renegotiated the deadlines because they think that is right for the peace process. I stress again that I do not condemn the Secretary of State for that decision—the shadow Secretary of State made the point that he, too, might have found himself in the same position—but the Government must have a strategy to ensure that the provisions we pass today will not be subject to further modification next year.

I do not want to keep labouring the point. The point about the previous phase of this process was that 24 November was a real deadline—it was a real deadline. If we had not had an agreement to move it forward, we would have closed it down; there is absolutely no question about that. As the hon. Gentleman very well knows—I make this point to emphasise the point that he is making—these deadlines are set in statute. The last legislation did not specify an election date; it did not specify the restoration of an Executive. It said that there had to be progress, there had to be an agreement, in order to get a deal by 24 November. That was very clear. This legislation says that it is devolution or dissolution by 26 March. In resisting amendments on clause 2, I shall make that absolutely clear again.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for making that clarification. Perhaps he might wish to give an assurance before the House that there will be no intention whatsoever of the Government coming back again with emergency legislation, fitted in in a rush, to make the March deadlines, which he outlined in his opening speech, into April or May or October deadlines.

I do not want to see failure—I do not want to see the collapse of the peace process—but I do feel that what we are almost planning for by default is a situation where those parties in Northern Ireland that are keen to resist setting up some sort of power-sharing arrangement—

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will in a moment.

I am thinking specifically of the DUP. We may end up giving those parties some reason to believe that they will be able to carry on playing this Government for new deadlines, for new extensions, in such a way that we end up living with the precedent of indefinite extensions to deadlines on a regular basis.

First, I hope that the hon. Gentleman appreciates, as I do, that the apparent slippage that he is talking about by the Government will actually be sourced in the slipperiness of some of the political parties involved in the process. Does he also recognise that there is slippage already on the St. Andrews agreement? The Programme for Government Committee was to meet on 17 October. It did not meet until yesterday, 20 November. The St. Andrews agreement said that legislation would be introduced here, in November,

“once parties have endorsed the agreement and agreed definitively to restore the power sharing institutions.”

We did not hear such an endorsement from parties. Instead, we got Vicky Pollard: “Yes but no, but—not our fault, see!” Also, we had an indication on Friday of who will be First Minister and Deputy First Minister, not nominations as set out in the St. Andrews agreement.

What we hear now is the frustration of other parties, who are not Sinn Fein or the DUP, but who feel that the change to deadlines is being made expediently and explicitly to accommodate the needs of those two parties. There is no need to be a psephologist to understand the play for political advantage that will necessarily be entailed by the announcement of another election. However, my worry is that while the Government are eager to accommodate the two large parties in Northern Ireland, they begin to cause resentment among the smaller ones, the overwhelming majority of whom have been both loyal and allied to the peace process. For that reason, I ask the Minister to consider the warning signs that we see already—for example, the credible period of testing that is being requested by the DUP in regard to Sinn Fein's genuine commitment to policing. It is very easy to envisage, in the run-up to March, a statement by the DUP, saying “Of course we want to see the restoration of the Assembly; we are even willing to work with Sinn Fein to achieve it, but you really must give us another six months to make sure that Sinn Fein is credible and serious about its commitment to policing.”

May I ask the hon. Gentleman why he was not so exercised at the time that Sinn Fein-IRA failed to make the deadline for decommissioning in 2001?

Well, I was not happy about that either. The fact of the matter is that, as I said before, in the real world of Northern Ireland politics, deadlines have shifted all the time. Let me stress again: I am not condemning either the DUP for maximising the opportunity for itself, or the Minister for trying to get the right answers. but I am suggesting that the Government need to have an alternative strategy that ensures either that these deadlines are genuinely binding—I doubt that they are—or, alternatively and more probably, that whatever they intend to do in March, if once again faced with an impasse, will lead to a genuine improvement in the chances of the restoration of the Assembly.

The Secretary of State said something today that concerned me, namely, that he wished to be given an indication of which individuals Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party would nominate, but he was not able to give us clarity about what form that indication might take. Will it be enough for a press release to be issued by the DUP and Sinn Fein? Will they just need to make a telephone call to the Northern Ireland Office? That is one of the reasons why I feel that slippage is being allowed to come into a process that cannot afford to have slippage. It is for such reasons that I believe that the Government must take much more seriously the danger in the precedent they have set by undermining the credibility of their own, apparently not so binding, deadlines.

The hon. Gentleman is right to be cynical about so-called unbreakable deadlines set by this Government. Last weekend, at least one DUP Member of Parliament was briefing the political correspondent of The Sunday Times. He was not named, so I will not risk attempting to guess who it was. [Hon. Members: “Go on. Go on.”] DUP Members can come out and canvass with me at any time. That DUP Member told The Sunday Times that the 26 March deadline “lacked credibility”, so the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) is spot-on about Government deadlines.

To sum up on the deadlines question, my concern is not so much that the deadlines lack credibility in the eyes of certain individuals and parties, but that moving the deadlines presents opportunity, and that that opportunity is in the interests of the parties rather than of the process. I would, of course, rather see the breaking of deadlines than the breaking of bodies in Northern Ireland, and to that extent there are expedient reasons for breaking deadlines, but I would like the Government to say in this debate why the deadlines now under discussion are more credible than previous ones.

The St. Andrews agreement has the potential to bind the DUP to a commitment to assume power alongside Sinn Fein, and also to bind all parties, including republican parties, to a commitment to policing and the rule of law. However, it is still far from clear to me that those parties are truly prepared to rise to that challenge.

There is significant popular demand for the restoration of the political institutions in Northern Ireland, especially because decisions made in Westminster on behalf of Northern Ireland have, on many occasions, been universally opposed on a cross-party basis in Northern Ireland. The agreement gives some hope that the demands for restoration will be met. A road map is now set out in respect of the institutions and how the Good Friday agreement can be restored. A series of small steps can now be taken, as opposed to one large leap—but for success to be achieved, the DUP and Sinn Fein must deliver.

Crucially, it has now been established that the institutions of the agreement can be modified provided that the modifications are consistent with the agreement’s underlying fundamental principles. Some of the institutional changes made to the Good Friday agreement are positive, as are some of the changes to public policy. Nevertheless, I have grave concern about some aspects of the St. Andrews agreement as they risk breaking some of the principles of the original agreement. In particular, I do not believe that we have yet had a process where mutual commitments are clear, ambiguities have been removed and shared understandings exist. There is a danger that a fragile process could easily be broken when difficulties arise as a result of intentional or unintentional misinterpretation of the contents of the agreement and its implementation.

The St. Andrews agreement addresses only issues and priorities placed on the table by the DUP and Sinn Fein. The wider range of changes to the institutions, public policy priorities and measures required to build a sound future have yet to be addressed. For example, why are some public policy issues listed in annexe B of the St. Andrews agreement, whereas others are not? Why does the Bill require any new Executive to address some policy issues but not others? What is the basis for requiring specific action on poverty and language issues but not on, for example, a shared future, equality or victims’ matters?

What was the rationale for these selections? Indeed, why are the Government imposing such statutory duties on the Executive at all? Should it not be up to the Executive to decide whether their priorities are promoting minority languages and equality, dealing with poverty or promoting the shared future agenda? It seems like a random list, or a list built out of expedience, following negotiations with a very limited number of parties and individuals.

Does the hon. Gentleman welcome the fact that one of the duties imposed on the institutional review committee is to look at mandatory coalition, which was the chief issue raised by his party’s sister party—the Alliance party in Northern Ireland—but not the chief issue raised by either Sinn Fein or the DUP?