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Mr. William Ross: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that, although there might be a number of acts of decommissioning, decommissioning is supposed to be complete by May this year.
Mr. Fallon: I am well aware that the timetable has been set out and that it now presses. That timetable could easily have been complied with. Although decommissioning is a complicated act that involves a certain amount of good faith and a leap being made by several parties in Northern Ireland, it does not have to be drawn out over a couple of years.
I have reservations about the Bill, which were set out yesterday far more eloquently than I could have done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe). the shadow Home Secretary, and by the former Home Secretary, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard). The Bill does not exclude Ministers in the Irish Government from being Members of the House of Commons, and does not guarantee the continuance of the Oath that we have all sworn or affirmed.
If we are to concede that the Bill might somehow become acceptable if there is some progress towards decommissioning, I fear that we are falling into that classic Northern Ireland trap of compromising our principles in return for what at best are promises. I look to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench to reassure me.
Mr. Jeffrey Donaldson (Lagan Valley):
My name is associated with new clause 1. Last night I voted with colleagues against the Bill in principle because I believe that it is unnecessary legislation. There is no demand for the Bill among the wider population in Northern Ireland. I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for West Tyrone (Mr. Thompson) that the Bill has only one purpose--to provide a further concession to Sinn Fein-IRA. It is to facilitate that party. Incidentally, that party has returned to the House of Commons two Members, who refuse to take their seats in the Chamber. Yet we are taking up the valuable time of this place to facilitate those two same Members to take seats in a
With other hon. Members, I look to the Government to explain why we need the proposed legislation that is before us. At present, the provision within it is available only to members of legislatures within the Commonwealth. I accept that that is a general point, but it relates to the amendment. The Irish Republic has not rejoined the Commonwealth, so why do we need to provide legislation specifically to facilitate the Irish Republic? I am not aware that the Irish Government have been calling for the Bill, so it must be Sinn Fein-IRA that is involved.
There has been reference to the Good Friday agreement. Perhaps I am unique in this debate because I was involved in the negotiations in that agreement until the end. That being so, I have some knowledge of the agreement. I know that the provisions that are contained in the Bill were never discussed during the negotiations. We are told by my right hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble), the leader of my party, that they were not part of the recent review that was carried our under the chairmanship of Senator Mitchell. Therefore, we must conclude that the Bill is coming forward because the Government have done a back-door deal with Sinn Fein-IRA. That is why it is important to provide linkage between the proposed legislation--
Mr. Gerald Howarth:
The House of Commons will acknowledge that the hon. Gentleman was deeply involved in the Belfast agreement negotiations. Perhaps he will try to enlighten us by explaining why in yesterday's proceedings the Minister said:
Mr. Donaldson:
There are linkages proposed within the Belfast Agreement, not least with the British-Irish Council, which brings together not only the Westminster Parliament but various legislatures and assemblies throughout the United Kingdom, together with the legislature within the Irish Republic. There were discussions about linkages at that level. I think that the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary group was discussed also. However, as far as I am aware, there was no mention and discussion of the specific legislation that is before us, and it is not part of the agreement. Therefore, we must consider where it fits into the political process in Northern Ireland, and the timing. Why, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Tyrone asked, are the Government in such haste to bring forward the Bill and to get it through Parliament? The Committee is entitled to an answer to these reasonable questions.
I appreciate the comments that the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon) has made about decommissioning, but I refer him to the Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning Act 1997, which includes provisions about a process of decommissioning and defines decommissioning in those terms. I agree with the
hon. Gentleman that decommissioning is in itself an act. Unfortunately, under the Belfast agreement it became a process, which is set out in the Arms Decommissioning Act. We are told that the process begins with the appointment of an interlocutor by the various terrorist organisations. It may interest the hon. Gentleman to know that that step was taken as recently as December 1999, a year and a half after the Belfast agreement was signed. So it is a process, whether we like it or not. I would much rather it were more narrowly defined in terms of an act.
The linkage between the Bill and its enactment and progress on decommissioning is important. Irrespective of whether the Government care to admit it, the Bill is linked to the political process in Northern Ireland. The problem with that process, if I may call it that, is that in terms of the so-called confidence-building measures that are an integral part of the agreement, it has been a one-way street of concession after concession to the republican movement without requiring something in return.
It has been said that it is time to draw the line. It is right for the Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen to press the amendment and to create a linkage between disarmament and the enactment of the Bill, even though I do not like the measure and do not accept the need for it.
Given the Government's majority in this place, I accept that the Bill's passage in inevitable. That being so, we must build in safeguards. Why is that? Is that just to be stubborn? No. We must protect the people of Northern Ireland by providing some leverage in the process so that we might achieve the disarmament that we have been seeking. The Government have been far too weak in pursuing the republican movement, and it is time that they started to get tough with the leaders of republicanism.
The people of Northern Ireland are dejected, depressed and demoralised, not least because of what the Government proposed last week for the Royal Ulster Constabulary. They feel that it is time that instead of pandering to the whim of the abstentionists in this place, they should listen to the voice of the democratic majority. We are saying that people need safeguards, and we believe that the new clause provides a reasonable one. We seek to extract from the republican movement something in return for a constitutional concession specifically for it. We are talking about a party that represents 18 per cent. of a small region of the United Kingdom.
Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West):
I congratulate my right hon. and hon. Friends on tabling new clause 1, which cuts to the heart of the Bill. The measure is being rushed through in an extraordinary manner for one reason: because Sinn Fein wants it. The new clause is important because it acknowledges that, and declares that, if Sinn Fein wants the Bill, it must pay a price--that of decommissioning. Without the new clause and the price it demands, the Bill will become what my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter)
Mr. Gerald Howarth:
Like several of my hon. Friends, I voted against the Bill last night. There were 19 of us, and I suspect that more hon. Members would have done that, had they realised the precise implications and potential consequences of the Bill.
I was joined in the Lobby by the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson), who also voted against the measure on principle. I was interested in his assertion that there was no public demand for the Bill. Not only is there no public demand for it, there is no demand for it among Labour Members. No Labour Member has spoken to support the measure. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) made an extremely valuable contribution, but not in support of the Bill. She acknowledges the effect of the amendments on a measure about which she feels unhappy. In such circumstances, it is astonishing that the Government attempt to drive the Bill through. One or two Labour Members have come to listen to the debate, but no Labour Member has sought to attract your attention, Mr. Lord, to speak in support of the Government.
I hope that, when the witching hour of 10 o'clock approaches, the Government will not try to move the 10 o'clock motion to enable further consideration of the Bill tonight. That would be inappropriate because the measure is not urgent. As we progress, more and more deficiencies are revealed. Yet the Government provide no adequate, convincing explanation of why the Bill should be passed, let alone why it should be rushed through.
If the Bill remains unamended, there will be suspicions throughout the country that the Government are involved in some sort of squalid deal. The hon. Member for Lagan Valley and others suggested that the Government have made a squalid deal to support some arrangement with Sinn Fein. In the light of the Minister's explanations, one can be driven to no other conclusion. My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Sir B. Mawhinney) hit the nail on the head when he said that there were only two explanations for the Government's behaviour: that the Government chanced on the measure to fill a bit of spare time; or that the Bill was part of a deal, which had to be made. Ministers deny that the Bill is part of a deal, but they are singularly ineffective at explaining why it has been brought before the House. They have failed to convince us and, I suspect, the only Labour Member who intervened in the debate.
"Separate development of direct interparliamentary links between the various legislatures was envisaged at the time of the Good Friday agreement"?--[Official Report, 24 January 2000; Vol. 343, c. 28.]
That suggests that there were discussions of some sort taking place, otherwise the Bill and the links to which we have referred would not have been envisaged. Can the hon. Gentleman help us?
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