NORTHERN IRELAND (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) BILL

HC Deb 29 March 1972 vol 834 cc563-625

Again considered in Committee.

Question again proposed, That the Amendment be made.

Mr. Rees

I was putting to the Leader of the House that certain aspects of the special powers for which he will be responsible might be amended, and I mentioned marches on which there was some agreement.

I see clearly that new Clause 1 and Amendment No. 13, if accepted, would leave a gap. There are strong feelings on the principle of the Special Powers Act but, given that the two sides of the Committee are much closer together than was revealed during the discussion, it would be much better to avoid taking a vote. What is at issue on the special powers is the symbol of the Special Powers Act. We are not arguing that the United Kingdom should not have powers to deal with security.

[Mr. E. L. MALLALIEU in the Chair]

Mr. Whitelaw

The debate has been going for a considerable time and I think it is reasonable for me to speak now. If one or two of my hon. Friends feel that they still have something to tell me afterwards I shall quite understand that, but I hope that we shall be able to get on.

This is an extremely important debate. The powers that the Bill gives to me on legislation by Order in Council, to which Amendment No. 10 refers, and in relation to the Special Powers Act, to which new Clause 1 and Amendment No. 13 refer, are extremely important. The debate has fallen into two channels and I will deal first with one and then the other.

I have very much appreciated the immense importance of this debate in the House of Commons. I say quite sincerely that it has enabled me to learn a great deal. It would be wrong to imagine that I have learnt exactly the same story on any particular issue, but I have learned, if I did not know it before, that my task is extremely difficult. That is good for me to know. I have also learned that there are areas of agreement and have heard the views of people on the spot about the various aspects of responsibilities which I shall be assuming. That again is immensely important.

I start by replying to my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh (Mr. Maginnis), who made an important point about serving the interests of the people of Northern Ireland. I have said constantly since I was given my responsibilities that, of course, that will be my task and that I will do everything in my power to carry it through. I have been given very excellent Ministers to assist me, and I shall pay due attention to all the correspondence which I receive from Northern Ireland Members in the House of Commons. I also gave an assurance in an earlier discussion that I will write to all the Members at Stormont expressing our willingness to consider any constituency points on matters which were formerly within the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Government. I think that is right and I hope that will reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh.

I turn to Amendment No. 10. I fully realise the considerable powers I shall be given if this part of the legislation goes through. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Capt. Orr) dislikes this situation and I well understand his feelings. My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) is worried about the prospects, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Evelyn King). The hon. and learned Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard) feels that it is reasonable I should have these powers, but also feels that I must show cause, as I shall attempt to do. This point was also mentioned by the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees).

In regard to the basic powers, nobody who had assumed responsibility could be anything but a little worried about having such powers if they were not purely to be assumed on a temporary basis. And it must be said that they are on a temporary basis. This Bill is a temporary Bill. It is important that they must be looked at in the context of temporary powers.

I have to satisfy the Committee as to how we should properly deal with them. I wish carefully to consider what sort of Committee procedure might be suitable for dealing with the Stormont legislation which will eventually have to come here. I should like to consider how best this should be done, and should like to have discussions through the usual channels and also discussions with Northern Ireland Members.

I also wish to make the important point that, while this procedure would be used for some of the legislation which has been part discussed at Stormont, and although it might be used for some of the legislation which is before Stormont and which is part of reforms in which many hon. Members in this House have been interested in the past, I should be very chary of introducing by this method anything in the nature of the fresh legislation unless I were forced to do so for some very special reason.

Captain Orr

Will that include anything as large as a Local Government Bill?

Mr. Whitelaw

One Local Government Bill is through Stormont, but there are consequential parts of it still before Stormont. As those are very much part of some of the reforms which have been discussed in this House, I shall seek to bring those forward. Those are the ones that I wish to discuss. But I should be very chary of initiating new legislation under this procedure unless I was driven to it for some very special reason. I hope that those are reasonable assurances for what I accept are considerable powers to have in the House of Commons.

Perhaps I might turn now to the Special Powers Act—

Mr. Fitt

Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that he will be able to recruit an adequate staff of civil servants to help him in his Herculean task?

Mr. Whitelaw

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and I shall see that his views are well noted. In fact, I will be glad to have them noted. I am being extremely well treated in this matter. Naturally, the staff is being recruited. In my contacts with the Northern Irish Permanent Secretaries last Saturday, I was anxious to make it clear that naturally I shall have all the Northern Irish civil servants as well, and that I shall do everything possible to weld them into one team. I realise the problems involved in that, but I shall do all that I can to ensure that that is done. Already I have some very able people in my staff at this end. I shall of course have more. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman need have any fears on that score. Indeed, it may be that before long other hon. Members will accuse me of having built a great empire for myself. I have no intention of doing that.

Mr. Rafton Pounder (Belfast, South)

Did I understand my right hon. Friend to say earlier that Questions which would normally have been accepted and dealt with at Stormont could be taken here? If that is so, bearing in mind that local government was being taken over by Stormont, does this mean that a new procedure will be set up here whereby local government matters, which formerly were out of order, might be discussed here?

Mr. Whitelaw

I do not think that I said that. If I were to say that, I should be going further than I have been able to do in my researches to date. I said that I would see how to deal by way of a Committee procedure with any legislation from Stormont that I had to take through the House on the basis of the affirmative Resolution procedure. As for what is in order by way of Questions to me in the House, I think that it would be dangerous to stray into those matters. But I shall have no desire to hide behind anything because I am only too anxious to be answerable in the House.

Rev. Ian Paisley

It has been the normal procedure in Stormont for hon. Members to contact the private secretaries of the various Ministers with their personal constituency complaints. Will that still be in order, rather than hon. Members having to send all their correspondence on intricate matters concerning housing, water supplies and electricity supplies to the right hon. Gentleman? Thousands of houses in Ulster have no water or electricity. My correspondence sometimes consists of more than 300 complaints in a week. I should not like to have to place that on the right hon. Gentleman's table. Shall we be able to go direct to the Departments concerned in order to get these jobs done?

Mr. Whitelaw

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I shall look into what he has said. Since he has made the suggestion of saving me correspondence, I must not look a gift horse in the mouth. I shall look into this procedure. As all hon. Members of the House of Commons know, there is the usual procedure whereby the private offices of Ministers may be contacted. That procedure will continue in respect of my own Ministers. We shall all have private offices in both London and Belfast. We shall be available at both ends, and so will our private offices.

Captain Orr

Before my right hon. Friend leaves the question of legislation, perhaps I might put one point to him. The electorate in Ulster is now deprived of the right of private Members legislation. Stormont Members have a very good record of private Members legislation. Problems about divorce law, and so on, should be dealt with without too much delay. Will my right hon. Friend look at the possibility of how we get around that one?

Mr. Whitelaw

Certainly I will. I am beginning to get into an area where, while I am at the moment the Lord President, I have to remember that basically I am no longer the Leader of the House. Therefore, I must not in any way start to give hostages to fortune for my successor. Nevertheless, I note what my hon. and gallant Friend has said. I do not think that I should go further.

Perhaps I might now turn to the Special Powers Act which basically comes up on new Clause 1. I accept at once that this is a very important matter, which arouses very strong emotions. It is also a matter which no Government and no Parliament likes. Therefore, it is something which has to be very carefully looked at.

The hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) made the very helpful point, with which I hope the Committee will agree, that new Clause 1 raises the major principle. I accept that it was helpful to have the debate iniated in this way. However, there is the problem of the gap in time on technical grounds.

As the Committee knows, I have to take some extremely urgent decisions in Northern Ireland as soon as this place and another place decide to give me—if they do—the power to take those decisions. It would be wrong for me to make too many commitments in advance of having had a chance at least to look at what is happening and to study the position on the ground.

In present circumstances, with British troops deployed there, I fear that it would be gravely irresponsible and quite wrong simply to remove the Special Powers Act just like that. Therefore, I could not agree to do so, though I do not think that those who spoke on those lines really want me to do that, considering the technical position in which I find myself. Hon. Members realise that I have this problem. Therefore, it would be wrong to repeal the Special Powers Act on those grounds.

Mr. McNamara

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that many of us who object to this Act on principle appreciate the technical difficulty in which he finds himself. However, is he able to give us a categorical assurance that if the Amendment is not pressed to a Division he will be in a position within, say, a month after the Easter Recess to present to the House his reasoned case and a new Bill on the emergency and special powers?

Mr. Whitelaw

Last night my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General said that I would review the Special Powers Act and the regulations made under it. That is the promise that I have made. However, I could not tie myself down to a specific time when I should be ready to report to the House, because, as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, once I had done that I should be honour bound to produce it within that time. Again, having no powers at the moment and not having had any opportunity in the last five days to do so, it would be wrong to make a promise unless I was absolutely certain that I could fulfil it in time. Therefore, I cannot go as far as that. I will review the Act and, when I have done so, I will report to the House. There are some regulations which I might find it possible to modify, change or repeal. I do not say that I will, but I might. If I did, I could bring such regulations before the House and carry them through by the normal procedure for regulations. That I can do and if I find it right to do so, that I will do. I hope that those are reasonable assurances on the working of an Act which I think it proper to give me time to study.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe (Devon, North)

For those of us interested in this new Clause this part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech is particularly interesting and significant. Is he aware that we do not want to tie him down on the question of time, but we hope that he will work on this with as much speed as possible? Is the position that he will come to the House at the earliest possible moment to indicate which particular special powers he regards in the future context as no longer necessary and that the powers which he wishes to retain will be specifically put before the House in the form of new regulations, so that they will be subject to vote and debate?

Mr. Whitelaw

I was not going so far as the second proposition, because I do not want to commit myself on that. Certainly I think it would be right to review and to report and if I came to the conclusion that there were some particular regulations which without prejudice to the rest of the review I could change, modify or repeal, I would not wait for the final review to bring those particular ones forward. I could not go further on that at this stage.

It is important to remember that certain of these powers are alas in present circumstances clearly necessary if the campaign against terrorism and against violence is to be prosecuted with the vigour which I am absolutely sure it must be. I am afraid that I cannot accept what was said by the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. McManus) about there being no connection between violence and internment, because of course there is and must be a connection. If the violence really were to end and if there were a substantial reduction in tension, that must affect one's whole attitude to internment.

Miss Devlin

As I understand the right hon. Gentleman's position in relating violence to the present conditions of internment, surely on purely logical grounds he must understand that some 700 or 800, possibly 900—we do not know the number, ranging somewhere between 700 and 900—currently held in concentration camps—[Hon. Members: "Oh."] Hon. Members may not like that term, but if we are sure of nothing else, one thing which we must be sure of is that not one of the persons held in the camps can be responsible since they are in internment or concentration camps, have it as hon. Members wish.

Therefore there is a valid point that the violence may well continue, but the question of hostages is raised. If violence continues such as it is, whatever its political motivation, it is continued by people not in the internment camps but by people outside them. It is totally unfair and illogical and unreasonable that people inside internment camps should be held as hostages for actions of people outside.

Mr. Whitelaw

I shall be very careful what I say because my words in the current circumstances are very important and I do not wish to inflame anything. I hope that on reflection the hon. Lady will think that the phrase she used at the beginning of her intervention was unfortunate. I think that it must weigh with her as it weighs with me and must weigh with everyone in the Committee that conditions under which people are released who it is believed it was right to intern must be relevant to what happens. A very large number in the House of Commons would say that there are interned people who are definitely known terrorists and gunmen. If they were released at a time of continued violence, that would be irresponsible. Therefore, the question of violence must enter into it.

Mr. Fitt

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that rumours have been circulating in Northern Ireland over the past fortnight, particularly since the announcement of the Government's initiative, that 100, 150 or 200 internees are to be released? I have asked repeatedly in the House of Commons that some Minister—I thought that it would have been the Home Secretary, but it may now be the Secretary of State of Northern Ireland designate—should go into every case on the files. I ask this question of the whole Committee. Why is it that the idea can be promulgated that 150 people are to be released this week or next week? Is it that they were not guilty and should not have been interned? These rumours were circulating before the Secretary of State designate had an opportunity to study the cases.

This question is very important to the whole situation in Northern Ireland. I recognise that the right hon. Gentleman is to give the matter a great deal of his personal time and that he is leaving for Northern Ireland tomorrow and will be trying to evaluate the whole situation there. Can he give us any indication of when a move is to be made on internment, whether it is to be this week, next week, or the week after?

Mr. Whitelaw

As regards the figures which have been circulating, I, too, have read the rumours in the Press, but I have no responsibility for rumours. I have no responsibility for the situation until the House of Commons gives me that responsibility. I cannot be in any way responsible for this and I would not wish to be.

Mr. McManus

The Secretary of State designate may think that we should not be interrupting him so often, but we are dealing with the freedom of 900 men and an extra few moments of his precious time will not be badly spent. There are at least four internees at the moment who have been recommended for release but who, because they would not sign on oath an undertaking to be of good behaviour for ever more and obey every law that might be passed in the future, have not been released. Is it the right hon. Gentleman's intention to continue such a barbaric and ludicrous practice as to ask a man to undertake to keep whatever law might be passed in future?

Mr. Whitelaw

I accept at once that we are dealing with an extremely important matter of people's lives, freedom and liberty. That is why I have given way on many occasions. However, that is the sort of question which I insist that I should not be asked to answer until I have considered the whole case very clearly with my advisers here and in Northern Ireland. I have many people to discuss these matters with.

Mr. Kilfedder

rose—

Mr. Whitelaw

Is it very important?

Mr. Kilfedder

It is relevant. I do not wish to waste time. I wish to take up the point raised by the hon. Member for Fermanagh and, South Tyrone (Mr. McManus)about internees being asked to give an assurance that they would not get involved in criminal activities. Is it not right that in the courts in this country a person who has not been found guilty of any offence can be bound over to keep the peace for a certain period?

Mr. Whitelaw

On the whole, this shows how wise I was in the first instance to say that I wanted to look into all this. If there is one person who should not be asked to give an answer about the English legal system, in the presence of a good many experts sitting around me, that person is me. It is very important that I should not seek to get drawn into that.

I made clear in my speech yesterday the position I would adopt towards internment. I have answered as many questions as I reasonably should be asked to answer tonight about how I thought I would operate the special powers and the difficult position over internment. I hope I have given the best indication I can on these matters and have tried to be as helpful as possible about the handling of legislation which I will have to bring before the House under the affirmative Resolution procedure.

I cannot give a time for the completion of the review of the Special Powers Act, but I shall do it urgently. If there are regulations which I can modify or remove before the review is complete I shall do it. I hope that on these considerable assurances—I accept they do not acquire the precision which the Committee might wish but they do acquire considerable precision in view of the limited time I have had to look into these matters—the Committee will feel it possible not to press either of the Amendments.

Mr. Raison

Can my right hon. Friend set out clearly why it would be impossible for the House of Commons to legislate over this period of a year for Northern Ireland?

Mr. Whitelaw

It would not be impossible. I have made clear that I would hope not to introduce any fresh legislation unless it was for some very specific pur- pose. I must be very careful here, because I would be the last person to give hostages which would not be satisfactory to my successor as Leader of the House or to the Government Chief Whip. I have said that if I had to introduce legislation on some emergency I would come to the House and seek to do it in the proper manner. But the procedure under the Order in Council is necessary, because there is some legislation which is part-discussed in Stormont and there is some which is very urgent and consequential upon reforms which the House as a whole wants. Therefore, it would be right to get that legislation through, and I wish to try to do it on this procedure but to devise some form of discussion which will be helpful and make the arrangement as best it can be in obviously difficult circumstances.

Sir Elwyn Jones

May I take it that the generality of the right hon. Gentleman's observations about what he claims to be the association between violence and internment in no way qualifies his undertaking to review the case of each and every person who is now interned under the Special Powers Act?

Mr. Whitelaw

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, because I referred to what I said yesterday. The Committee would not wish to hear me read out what I have said in the past, but this gives me the chance to say absolutely that, yes, I will review each particular case personally.

I do not wholly accept in this regard what was said by the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone and others. I am taking responsibility for the matter and I am answerable to the House. Surely that is something I should take personal responsibility for as far as I have the power. I should have thought that was the proper thing for me to do and what the House would expect me to do. As for the hours it will take me, I can deal with that. It is my duty and I will do it.

Mr. Thorpe

The Committee is extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the way in which he has tried to meet the points that have been made. We thank him for giving as many undertakings as he could in a very difficult situation.

On Amendment No. 10, I am not personally convinced that all the legislative proposals, however restrictive, cannot be dealt with by the House of Commons in the normal way. It may be that an Ulster Grand Committee could be the forum in which there should be discussion.

Hon. Members

No.

Mr. Thorpe

If 11 hon. Gentlemen and one hon. Lady would find that impossible, that merely proves how difficult is the right hon. Gentleman's task. I shall not pursue that suggestion further.

The Ulster Members have not only a right to be consulted but also a right to play a greater legislative part in the proceedings which affect Northern Ireland than they would have in a 1½ hour Prayer.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. Whitelaw

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman has now seen the wisdom I had in saying that I would seek to devise a Committee procedure to this end and would have discussions with the Northern Ireland Members and others as to what the best procedure should be. I am very anxious to find such a procedure and, therefore, to give them considerably more than the 1½ hours under the Resolution procedure. I hope that that helps the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Thorpe

On that matter, I wish the right hon. Gentleman good luck. If I may be forgiven for putting it for a moment in a Papal context, I may find out where the chimney of his Ministry is and watch for the white smoke.

Regarding the special powers, the right hon. Gentleman has conceded that no one wishes to leave the troops without protection. That is why the House of Commons was prepared to vote for the previous legislation, but why my hon. Friends and I wished to make it an Act of only one year's duration. But that was about a fortnight ago and that procedure was not then fashionable.

However, what we had hoped that the right hon. Gentleman might be able to say was that not only would he come before the House of Commons and say which parts of the Special Powers Acts he no longer required, but also that he would, in effect—this is the value of Amendment No. 13—say specifically what special powers he required and that they would be subject to parliamentary debate. We do not merely want to know what dead branches have been pruned from the special powers tree. If there are to be special powers in any part of the United Kingdom, we want to ensure on the same basis as the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) full parliamentary discussion of legislation. If the House of Commons is to have responsibility for Northern Ireland, any special powers must also be subject to the fullest discussion in the House of Commons. It must be the House of Commons which probes, checks, challenges and debates each of these matters. Therefore, I am at last beginning to see why there is some logic between new Clause 1 and Amendment No. 10, although initially I thought that they had no connection with each other.

Speaking on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I am afraid that we feel that it is necessary to divide the Committee on new Clause 1, because we want to put on record our abhorrence for the Draconian powers which are retained in the Special Powers Act and which are still, therefore, powers which the House of Commons is operating in part of the United Kingdom. It is an appalling Act. By putting on record our abhorrence of it, we shall strengthen the right hon. Gentleman's position in saying, "I shall not merely say what we do not need but I shall say which are the specific powers I shall ask the House of Commons to allow me to continue." That is a slightly different approach. If the right hon. Gentleman did that, he would return with the knowledge that they had the support of the whole House of Commons. This would be of much greater value and not something which he inherited from Stormont. It would be something which had been debated, agreed, disagreed or amended by the House of Commons.

Mr. Winterton

I rise to make a brief contribution to this debate because it is important the Loyalist majority in Northern Ireland should be clear that there are certain Conservative Members who are prepared to believe in the case of Northern Ireland and in Stormont and who are actively willing to support it in this House.

I support Amendment No. 10 and at the same time strongly oppose new Clause 1. It is wrong for the 1,500,000 people in Northern Ireland that legislation which affects their everyday lives should be passed in this House—a House in which those people are inadequately represented now that Stormont has been prorogued.

We have heard much criticism from the Opposition benches about Stormont. It should be clearly established and put on record that election to Stormont is based on a one-man one-vote system. This is important since, judging by some of the criticism which has been levelled at Stormont today, it would seem that this is not the case. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give an assurance that Northern Irish representation, from whatever party or sector, will be increased, because I believe Stormont, having been prorogued for a year, will never form part of a legislature again in the history of this country.

I oppose new Clause 1 which seeks to put the Special Powers Act into limbo, just as the Bill as a whole puts Stormont into limbo. Although I am an active Member on the Government side of the House, I strongly oppose the Bill, and indeed I voted accordingly last night. I cannot bring myself to vote for something which, unfortunately, will only worsen a tragic situation. I wish my right hon. Friend all the luck in the world in his new position—[Interruption.] And I only hope that miracles can be worked because, if anyone in the present circumstances can work miracles, I believe it is the Secretary of State designate.

Criticism has been levelled at the Special Powers Act, but I believe unpleasant and unpalatable measures are necessary and need to be available if freedom and decency are threatened.

It has been said by the Opposition that internment is wrong and that many people who have no case to answer have been interned. I stand to be corrected on this, but I believe that during the last war peaceful civilians, because of their tenuous connections with people in Germany, were interned here for their own protection and to prevent their carrying out any activities against this country. For these reasons I strongly support my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) on Amendment No. 10, and I strongly oppose new Clause 1.

Rev. Ian Paisley

I want to make my position clear on the vote which is to be taken shortly. Every Member of the House is aware that the situation in Northern Ireland is not a normal one. I go a long way with other Members of this House who stand for the absolute freedom of the individual under the law. If in Northern Ireland we could establish a society where everyone was equal under the law and everyone was equally subject to the law, we would be in a state of peace. But let no one in this House think we are in normal circumstances in Northern Ireland.

It would be absolutely wrong to take away powers that have been put on the Statute Book at Stormont to deal with terrorism and leave the Secretary of State designate with no power until he has had time to review the law, present a White Paper and perhaps bring forward consequent legislation. The Special Powers Act was brought into operation in 1922. If hon. Members cast their minds back they will know that in 1922 a deliberate attempt was made by terrorists to strangle the State of Northern Ireland at birth. At that time there was civil war in the South. Irishmen were fighting Irishmen to settle a power struggle in favour of one personality. We all know about the murder of Michael Collins, about the rise of the various factions in the South.

It is right to say that for many years this Act was held in abeyance but it was never rescinded. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman could tell us how many people have been whipped under the Act since 1922 or how many coroner's courts were not allowed to carry out their duties. I would say that it would be a small number. This is not the time to completely sweep from the Statute Book the powers given to the right hon. Gentleman to fight subversive elements in the community.

My hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) underlined the fact that the Special Powers Act has been used against both sections of the community. In all these powers given to the right hon. Gentleman what about accountability? What about the Public Accounts Committee at Stormont, now abolished? What about Estimates. Will there be some way whereby Northern Ireland Members can look at the Estimates of money to be spent in Northern Ireland and some way of looking at the accounts to see how that money has been spent? Will there be some way whereby we can review this matter? It is all very well for the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) to throw up his hands in horror about a Grand Committee. I know he detests committees. During all his time at Stormont I do not think he sat on any Committee. It is not in keeping with the responsibilities of all of us to say that the House will have to spend more time on Northern Ireland if Northern Ireland Members are not prepared to spend more time. We will all have to give time to this. This Committee is learning tonight what is on its plate. This is only the first night. We can look forward to many more.

Mr. Kilfedder

Although I am fervently opposed to the Bill I wish the Secretary of State designate well in his task. I do not agree with a policy of non-co-operation because it would be against the best interests of Ulster and we must deplore it. I want Ulster to survive and I sincerely hope that the law-abiding majority who have suffered so much and shown such forbearance will continue to be patient and wait to see the outcome of the work of my right hon. Friend.

Many allegations have been put forward tonight about Northern Ireland, about the way in which the Unionist Party has used its power, as if the Unionist Party had created Ulster and the Stormont Parliament, and as though the Stormont Government carried out a policy of repression of the minority.

11.0 p.m.

It should be remembered that the leaders of that day of the Unionist Party, Sir Edward Carson and others, fought against the creation of the Stormont Parliament, and this indicates, if nothing else will indicate to hon. Members opposite, that if all the Unionists of Ulster were interested and still are interested in maintaining the union between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, it is not the case that we wish to repress—

Miss Devlin

Surely the hon. Member cannot forget his great hero, Mr. Carson, long since deceased? He said "We will build a Protestant state and a Protestant Parliament for a Protestant people". What on earth is the hon. Gentleman talking about? He is talking about being British, but—

The Second Deputy Chairman

Order. Would the hon. Lady kindly come back to the Amendment?

Miss Devlin

On a point of order I was referring, without casting reflections on the Chair, to—

The Second Deputy Chairman

Order. That is not a point of order.

Mr. Maude

On a point of order, Mr. Mallalieu. The Committee would be grateful for your guidance. I yield to no one in my admiration of the ability of Irish hon. Members to make speeches in interventions in other people's speeches, and I make no complaint about that.

Mr. Orme

This is not a point of order either.

Mr. Maude

Yes, it is. If the hon. Member would listen instead of interrupting, I was going on to ask whether during a long intervention in a speech an hon. Member is entitled under the rules of order to make an intervention in that intervention? It would be helpful to know.

The Second Deputy Chairman

The course the hon. Gentleman has referred to is to be deprecated.

Mr. Kilfedder

In reply to the hon. Lady.

Hon. Members

No.

Mr. Kilfedder

It was not Lord Carson who made the remark quoted in this Committee.

The Second Deputy Chairman

Order. The hon. Member must keep to the Amendment.

Mr. Kilfedder

I find myself in very difficult circumstances, because I raised a point of order earlier, when the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) was speaking, because during the debate on this Clause many allegations and false slanders have been made about the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.

The Second Deputy Chairman

Order. The hon. Member will be much more free of difficulty if he keeps to the Amendment.

Rev. Ian Paisley

On a point of order. Is it in order for an hon. Member to answer arguments contrary to his view? Hon. Gentlemen and the hon. Lady opposite have made accusations and have stated their views forthrightly and are entitled to do so, but surely an hon. Member of this side of the Committee equally has the right to answer?

The Second Deputy Chairman

Hon. Members must stay in order, whatever points of view they hold.

Mr. Kilfedder

I will continue on the Amendment ably moved by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr), and perhaps I could refer back to the origin of Northern Ireland which is relevant to this question. What Lord Carson stated was that there can be no permanent resting place between complete union and total separation, and this is where I disagree with my hon. Friends on this side, because I believe that total integration is what is needed.

I support Amendment No. 10 because I deplore, as, I think, all people who are interested in democracy and in the rights of the individual must deplore, a procedure by which legislation by Order in Council is permitted in this Parliament. I putdown an Amendment, which, unfortunately, will not be called, to provide for a Northern Ireland Grand Committee, because the Government will have to provide some system by which hon. Members can discuss legislation which at the moment is in the pipeline at Stormont and which will have to be discussed in detail before it can become law.

What also worries me is the statement which my right hon. Friend made a few moments ago about the tabling of Ques- tions. As I understood it originally, anyone here could put down a Question on matters which at thmoment are within the jurisdiction solely of the Northern Ireland Parliament. From what my right hon. Friend has just said it would seem that a dividing line is to be drawn, and I think we ought to have some clarification of that point.

Mr. Whitelaw

It may help my hon. Friend not to continue his speech too long if I intervene simply to say that I never said any such thing. I said I was perfectly prepared to look into the position about Questions, and that decisions on what Questions would be in order were not a matter for me but for the Chair, but that I would do everything I could to answer as many Questions as possible, because that is what I want to do. That is not what my hon. Friend said I said.

Mr. Kilfedder

I am finishing my remarks and I do not wish to delay the Committee. We have many other important Amendments to discuss and I know that hon. Members, certainly on this side, are anxious to see them discussed in detail. All, therefore, that I would do is ask my hon. Friends to support this Amendment and to go with us into the Division Lobby.

Captain Orr

I think one detects what often happens in the Chamber at this time of night—a certain degree of irritability with the parliamentary process. Accordingly, I do not intend to delay the Committee very long. I would simply like to thank my right hon. Friend, first of all for his patience; he has been extremely patient, and has sought to help the Committee as best he could. I should also like to thank him for what he said about the Committee procedure, to the effect that he is going to look at that possibility.

It is extraordinarily difficult. What we have to try to find is not simply an extension of the ordinary procedure of making a Prayer against a fait accompli in the form of legislation. What we would like, if my right hon. Friend, with all his ingenuity, can devise it, is a procedure by which legislation embodied in an Order in Council can be discussed in a proper way and with possibility of amendment.

I hope he will bear that in mind. We will try to help him devise such a procedure, because that is the only way in which one can have meaningful discussion of such legislation. The importance of that is illustrated by the fact that he said that one of the measures he might have to produce by the Order in Council procedure would be a Local Government Bill, very large, highly comprehensive, with all kinds of local matters involved in it. It could not be adequately discussed by a Prayer against an Order in Council. It really ought to be considered in greater detail than would be possible by that procedure.

We are grateful to my right hon. Friend for what he has said, and we shall try to help him in so far as he can devise a new procedure. But this is all ministerial assurance for the future; it is not in the Statute. The Bill still takes away parliamentary government from Northern Ireland. It does not substitute parliamentary government by this House.

Therefore, I cannot accede to my right hon. Friend's request to withdraw the Amendment, and I must ask my hon. Friends to press it to a Division.

Question put, That the Amendment be made: —

The Committee divided: Ayes 17, Noes 186.

Division No. 107.]	AYES	[11.10 p.m.
Biggs-Davison, John	Maude, Angus	Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy
Chichester-Clark, R.	Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)	Winterton, Nicholas
James, David	Molyneaux, James	Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)	Paisley, Rev. Ian
Kilfedder, James	Pardoe, John	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
McMaster, Stanley	Soref, Harold	Captain L.P.S. Orr and
Maginnis, John E.	Steel, David	Mr. Rafton Pounder.
NOES
Adley, Robert	Duffy, A. E. P.	James, David
Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)	Dykes, Hugh	Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Archer, Jeffrey (Louth	Eden, Sir John	Jessel, Toby
Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)	Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,N.)	Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)
Astor, John	English, Michael	Jones, Rt.Hn.SirElwyn(W.Ham,S.)
Atkins, Humphrey	Eyre, Reginald	Jopling, Michael
Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)	Farr, John	Judd, Frank
Balniel, Lord	Fenner, Mrs. Peggy	Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine
Benyon, W.	Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)	Kinsey, J. R.
Biffen, John	Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)	Kitson, Timothy
Booth, Albert	Fookes, Miss Janet	Knox, David
Boscawen, Robert	Fortescue, Tim	Lane, David
Bowden, Andrew	Fowler, Norman	Langford-Holt, Sir John
Braine, Bernard	Fox, Marcus	Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Bray, Ronald	Gibson-Watt, David	Le Marchant, Spencer
Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)	Goodhew, Victor	Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Buck, Antony	Grant, George (Morpeth)	Lomas, Kenneth
Butler, Adam (Bosworth)	Green, Alan	Loveridge, John
Campbell, Rt.Hn.G.(Moray&Nairn)	Grieve, Percy	Luce, R. N.
Carlisle, Mark	Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)	MacArthur, Ian
Channon, Paul	Griffiths, Will (Exchange)	McCrindle, R. A.
Chapman, Sydney	Gummer, Selwyn	McGuire, Michael
Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher	Gurden, Harold	Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)
Churchill, W. S.	Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)	McNamara. J. Kevin
Clark, William (Surrey, E.)	Hannam, John (Exeter)	Maddan, Martin
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)	Harper, Joseph	Marsden, F.
Clegg, Walter	Harrison, Brian (Maldon)	Mather, Carol
Cockeram, Eric	Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)	Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald
Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)	Haselhurst, Alan	Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Cohen, Stanley	Hattersley, Roy	Meyer, Sir Anthony
Coleman, Donald	Havers, Michael	Millan, Bruce
Concannon, J. D.	Hawkins, Paul	Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Cooke, Robert	Hayhoe, Barney	Money, Ernle
Coombs, Derek	Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)	Monks, Mrs. Connie
Cooper, A. E.	Horam, John	Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Cormack, Patrick	Hornby, Richard	Morrison, Charles
Dalyell, Tam	Hornsby-Smith,Rt.Hn.DamePatricia	Murton, Oscar
Davies, Ifor (Gower)	Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas	Neave, Airey
Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)	Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)	Normanton, Tom
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.	Howell, David (Guildford)	O'Halloran, Michael
Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund	Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)	Orme, Stanley
Dixon, Piers	Hunt, John	Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)
Dodds-Parker, Douglas	Hutchison, Michael Clark	Page, Graham (Crosby)
Drayson, G. B.	Iremonger, T.L.	Parkinson, Cecil
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred	Shelton, William (Clapham)	Waddington, David
Peel, John	Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)	Wainwright, Edwin
Pendry, Tom	Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)	Walker, Harold (Doncaster)
Percival, Ian	Skinner, Dennis	Ward, Dame Irene
Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.	Spearing, Nigel	Weatherill, Bernard
Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis	Speed, Keith	Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Raison, Timothy	Spence, John	White, Roger (Gravesend)
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James	Sproat, Iain	Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William
Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter	Stanbrook, Ivor	Wiggin, Jerry
Redmond, Robert	Stuttaford, Dr. Tom	Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)
Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)	Sutcliffe, John	Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)
Pees, Merlyn (Leeds, E.)	Tebbit, Norman	Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas	Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs Margaret	Woof, Robert
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)	Tilney, John	Worsley, Marcus
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)	Torney, Tom	Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.
Rost, Peter	Trew, Peter
Russell, Sir Ronald	Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
St. John-Stevas, Norman	Urwin, T. W.	Mr. John Stradling Thomas and
Scott-Hopkins, James	Vaughan, Dr. Gerard	Mr. Hamish Grey.
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)

Question accordingly negatived.

The Second Deputy Chairman (Mr. E. L. Mallalien)

The next Amendment to be called is No. 15 standing in the name of the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr), and it will be for the convenience of the Committee if the following Amendments are considered with it:

No. 1, in page 1, line 5, leave out 'So long as this section has effect' and insert: 'For a period of not longer than three months'.

No. 5, in page 2, line 1, leave out 'So long as this section has effect' and insert: 'For a period of not longer than three months'.

No. 7, in line 7, leave out 'So long as this section has effect' and insert: 'For a period of not longer than three months'. standing in the name of the hon. Member for Belfast. East (Mr. McMaster),

No. 16, in line 32, leave out 'one year' and insert 'three months' standing in the name of the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills).

No. 17, in page 2, leave out lines 34 to 40 and insert: 'unless a resolution to continue it shall have been passed by both Houses of Parliament'. standing in the name of the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley).

No. 18, in page 2, leave out lines 34 to 40, standing in the name of the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South, and No. 19, in page 2, leave out lines 34 to 37, standing in the name of the hon. Member for Belfast, East.

Mr. Maude

On a point of order, Mr Mallalieu. A rather difficult point arises on this grouping of Amendments. You will notice that No. 15, No. 1, No. 5, No. 7 and No. 16 all refer collectively to the length of time during which the temporary powers should last. But I call your attention to the fact that No. 17, No. 18 and No. 19 refer to a quite different question, which is whether or not the Government should be able to extend the duration of the year's suspension by Order in Council or whether they should have to bring it to the House by an amendable piece of legislation. I think that these are two quite different questions of principle. Whether they should be debated together is arguable, but I think that at least they should have separate Divisions.

The Second Deputy Chairman

These matters were considered by the Chairman of Ways and Means, who considered that they are sufficiently related to be capable of profitable discussion together. The other Amendments were unfortunately not selected for Division.

Mr. Maude

Further to that point of order, Mr. Mallalieu. It cannot be right, surely, that we should have a debate and a Division on how long these powers should last and should be prevented from dividing on what must obviously be perhaps the most important point which a Parliament can decide—whether the Government should extend powers they have taken without Parliament being able to debate and amend them. This is a different point and we must surely be allowed a Division on it.

The Second Deputy Chairman

If the hon. Gentleman will state precisely what Amendments he wishes to divide on, I have no doubt that the Chairman will consider the matter. It is for the Chairman to decide.

Mr. Maude

I can do that right away. We could have a Division, if the Chair were willing, on No. 17, No. 18 or No. 19. They all refer to approximately the same point, and I think that a Division on one of them would meet my case.

The Second Deputy Chairman

That will certainly be put to the Chairman.

Mr. Whitelaw

Further to that point of order, Mr. Mallalieu. Since they are separate Amendments I accept what my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) says. I hope that my support for it might also be indicated to the Chairman. It is fair that two Divisions should be allowed.

The Second Deputy Chairman

I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman.

Captain Orr

I beg to move Amendment No. 15, in page 2, line 32, leave out 'one year' and insert 'six months'.

The purpose of the Amendment is to examine the length of time during which the interregnum is to take place, because interregnum is what it is. We are depriving the people of Northern Ireland of parliamentary government and we are substituting government by decree on a temporary basis.

The purpose is to determine what is in the Government's mind about the length of the interregnum. My right hon. Friend has been at pains to emphasise the temporary nature of the provisions of this Bill. We want to know roughly how temporary is "temporary".

Leading up to this Bill, we have had a very long period of uncertainty in Ulster. After the general talk about Government initiatives, a period of doubt was created, during which the forces of violence went to work in an ever-increasing way in order to influence the decision which might come out of any initiative. This Bill is almost enshrining the period of doubt and solidifying it into one year, unless we have an indication from the Government that one year is really the maximum and that there is hope for speedy action to remove the doubt.

There will be two results so long as this legislation remains on the Statute Book. The first is that there will be appalling doubt and uncertainty in the minds of the majority and in the minds of all law-abiding people about what is to be the ultimate constitution. Is there likely to be any industrial investment, for example, while the system of Government is in doubt and while there is Government by decree under a temporary constitution?

The second result is that, during the period of the interregnum there will be every incentive to the practices of violence, in order to influence the ultimate decision.

I am sorry that the Secretary of State designate has had to leave us, though I understand why. But I wish to impress upon the Government the need for speed to bring this legislation to an end as soon as possible. Obviously the Government need time to get the solution right. However, I have described the Bill as a recipe for disaster: the longer that this legislation remains on the Statute Book, the more likely is the disaster to occur. Therefore, I suggest that the Government's first objective should be to get this legislation off the Statute Book and to get back to permanent legislation, whatever it be.

Mr. S. C. Silkin (Dulwich)

Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman agree that the sooner that all parties in Northern Ireland join the right hon. Gentleman on the Commission, the sooner it will be possible to get rid of this legislation?

Captain Orr

I am afraid that I do not agree at all. When we come to a later Amendment, I shall discuss the vice of setting up the Commission. We want to get back to parliamentary government. To give encouragement to the creature of the Minister, appointed and paid by the Minister, is to pay lip service to something that is not parliamentary government. Therefore, I do not concede the point.

If by co-operation we mean finding ways of giving the Secretary of State designate advice, that is a different matter. We would seek every possible way or channel open to us to give advice to the Minister. I hope that everybody of good will will give the Minister the maximum advice possible. He has had a fair amount of advice already tonight, and I have no doubt that the Bill will bring upon him an absolute plethora of advice.

[Sir STEPHEN MCADDEN in the Chair]

11.30 p.m.

I suggest that the Government should not go on listening to advice for too long. Advice moves rapidly from reason to violence, and the longer the period the more and greater will be the danger of the escalation and the bidding and overbidding through violent methods, through demonstrations of force, and ultimately through the use of force.

I will content myself at this stage with introducing the subject simply so that we can get some inkling of what is in the Government's mind about the period and whether they are obsessed with a sense of urgency, because urgency there must be. I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends will have various views on the matter. I am therefore content to leave the matter there.

The Temporary Chairman

I should mention at this stage, concerning a query raised by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude), that I propose to call a Division, if necessary, on Amendment No. 17.

Mr. McMaster

I support the argument advanced by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr). However, I want to direct the attention of the Committee to Amendment No. 1, standing in my name, which seeks to insert, instead of a period of six months, a period of three months.

If the Bill is to produce any result at all in Northern Ireland it must be immediate. I feel that one of the saddest factors which has emerged in the last three or four days is that the violence, instead of coming to an end, as some who have been reading the popular Press on this side of the Irish Sea might think, has continued almost unabated.

Yesterday in Belfast there was a large explosion killing two people. On Saturday there were two heavy explosions in the centre of Bangor doing tremendous damage to the main street. Just over 24 hours ago there was an explosion on the Albert Bridge Road, in my constituency, blowing up a small draper's shop. Several people have been killed over the past weekend. It appears clear that the hopes of those who welcome the Bill and the announcement of the new initiative last Friday are not being met.

It is clear from the speech by the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) that, while he is prepared to welcome the announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, he still is not willing to give any assurance that he will sit down round a table and discuss the political initiatives which the Prime Minister mentioned in his statement and which were mentioned on Second Reading yesterday. I suggest that if there is no immediate result from the initiative which has been taken, as time passes a positive result will become less likely. If we are not going to have a successful result to this gamble—as many people call it—why prolong the agony for 12 months?

One of the most amazing features of this debate is the way in which more than 400 of my colleagues rushed through the Lobby to enable us to bring forward this legislation. There seems to have been a kind of mass hysteria. Do we want all the business to be bogged down, with endless debates on Ulster?

Sir H. Legge-Bourke

Far from rushing, it was with heavy hearts that all of us were obliged to go through the Lobby last night.

Mr. McMaster

I accept the point made by my hon. Friend. I do not pretend that hon. Members on either side of the Committee are treating this matter lightly but, considering the amount of business that we are transferring to the House, it is somewhat surprising that we should appear so anxious to give effect to the proposals contained in the Bill.

I therefore suggest that instead of having a mandatory period of 12 months we should provide for a shorter period, so that we can judge for ourselves. I suggest that it should not be even six months, as suggested by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South, but three months. That would be more realistic.

If there is no success; if the violence continues and, as some fear, escalates, if the S.D.L.P. and other members of the Opposition in Stormont do not show themselves prepared after three months to sit round a table to discuss political initiatives, are they more likely to do so at the end of six months? I suggest that they are not. For those reasons I suggest that the Government should consider the Amendment seriously and see whether a shorter period would not be more appropriate.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe)

I agree that these Amendments raise one of the most important questions about the Bill, namely, precisely how temporary will this legislation be? I agree with my two hon. Friends about that, but in other respects I take an opposite view to theirs. In opposing the Amendment I say that my right hon. Friend will be extremely lucky to get away with this initiative in as short a time as 12 months. I accept his bona fides in bring forward this temporary legislation, providing for a period of 12 months, but I take a pessimistic view of the situation and foresee that the House is likely to find itself following the unfortunate precedent of other legislation of this kind in the past in that for periods of 12 months after 12 months, for some time to come, we shall be renewing these powers and considering possible solutions to the Irish problem, and how to advance from our present position. My Ulster Unionist Friends may assure me that I am being unduly pessimistic, but I take the view that in considering how long the present situation will continue the important factor is that if the Committee is to decide when the present position will end it must examine generally how it sees the position coming to an end. At what destination shall we aim, once we have set forth on this line of action?

I have the feeling that when we took the decision yesterday we were to some extent going into a tunnel. Having listened to most of the debates that have taken place since we started considering this legislation yesterday, I am driven to the conclusion that so far we have not seen the light at the other end of the tunnel.

I agree with one point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster). Yesterday 483 hon. Members voted for the Bill in the hope, a hope and optimism which I share, that this initiative might produce some break through from the appalling position we are in. I doubt very much whether that 483 had any common idea of the purposes and aim of what they were voting for. I agree that we must not speculate about the future too closely or go in for fanciful forecasting in a field where forecasting of any kind is silly. I accept that the purpose is to create a new situation, to "break the mould" as was said, in the hope that in the next few months we can see a solution.

Nevertheless, many of my hon. Friends have coupled with what we are doing the need for rapid progress and for the Government to take advantage of the initiative which they have won to take radical measures in Northern Ireland. In which direction is it intended that the Government should act speedily? If the present legislation cannot produce a permanent solution, the Committee has to consider what is being aimed at, even if they do not set too hard and fast a deadline to aim at. Practically every solution suggested by Ulster hon. Members on both sides is unthinkable in the short term. That is depressing. The view expressed in this House probably reflects the position in Ulster that the mood of reconciliation and compromise is completely—

The Temporary Chairman (Sir Stephen McAdden)

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but I think that he is getting wide of the Amendment, which is strictly related to a period of time.

Mr. Clarke

I accept what you say, Sir Stephen, and I shall relate what I am saying to considering how long this legislation is to go on and how it should come to an end. Every destination indicated by Ulster hon. Members and the conclusions which they have envisaged in speeches so far will certainly not be achieved in the next six or 12 months. There has been no indication from Unionists or Opposition hon. Members of any solution to the present impasse which could be achieved in anything under 12 months.

I do not want to be critical of them because I realise the very grave feelings of Unionist hon. Members and sympathise with the unfortunate position they are in, but I regret that in the short term after the initiative which has been taken so far as their position can be understood, they are envisaging a return to the Stormont position. If I understand the position of Mr. Faulkner and certainly of my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East, they envisage a sort of committee as a short-term solution with a fairly rapid return to the kind of representative government which they had in the past.

Captain Orr

rose—

The Temporary Chairman

Interesting as this speculation may be, it is not related strictly to this Amendment, which is how long this position should go on, for one year or six months.

Mr. Clarke

I shall get back in order, if I may, before giving way to my hon. and gallant Friend. With great respect, if the Committee is being asked to consider the end of legislation in three or six months, the way in which an hon. Member envisages it coming to an end in six months is highly relevant.

Captain Orr

In which case my intervention, I hope, will also be relevant. I said nothing in introducing the Amendment about what might be put in place of this Bill. All I said was that it is extraordinarily dangerous to leave any community without parliamentary government whether it be parliamentary government from this House or in a local parliament at Stormont.

11.45 p.m.

Mr. Clarke

I accept that only in the direst situation would any hon. Member support a Measure of this kind which suspends the only form of parliamentary democracy which Ulster has at present. If there is a demand from our Unionist colleagues that this suspension be brought to an end in as short a time as six months, the duty falls upon Mr. Faulkner and the Unionist Party to give some firm indication of how they expect this initiative to succeed and to give leadership to the people of Ulster with a view to bringing about an improvement in the situation.

I believe that at the end of six months or 12 months, whatever else we bring back we will not bring back Stormont as we have known it. Stormont as we knew it is dead. I say this without intending the slightest criticism of Unionist Members, who clearly greatly regret the passing of the system to which they have devoted so much attention and care, but hoping that the leadership that Ulster will get will be moderate Unionist leadership.

My hope is that the Unionist Party will rise to the occasion and be ready to act when this legislation is brought to an end, instead of leaving the initiative entirely to Mr. Craig, the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley), and the people on the other side who in the last few days, to my great concern, have seemed to an outside observer who has not been in Ulster to be taking the initiative from the Unionists, which I am sure was never the intention of my right hon. Friend, nor is it my intention in supporting the legislation.

Mr. Chichester-Clark

I am listening with great attention to what my hon. Friend is saying. He has said that he wishes to see moderate leadership in Ulster from the Unionist Party. If he wishes to see that, will he tell me what he thinks he has seen from the last three Prime Ministers of Northern Ireland?

Mr. Kenneth Clarke

We have seen moderate leadership from certainly some of the last three Prime Ministers of Northern Ireland—probably not so much from the last one as some of the others. [Interruption.] I have no intention of rousing the ire of my hon. Friends. [Interruption.]

The Temporary Chairman

Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman now realises how important it was when I urged him to keep to the strict question of time rather than to the question of leadership.

Several Hon. Members

rose—

Mr. Kenneth Clarke

As I have been called to order, I feel that I should not give way straight away. I will emphasise my point. If I spoke harshly and annoyed any of my Ulster hon. Friends about their present leadership, it was relevant in this way. I am sorry if my criticism of Mr. Faulkner was found offensive. If Mr. Faulkner is to win back my confidence, and if the Unionist Party is to persuade me in these Amendments that this situation can be brought to an end rapidly, Mr. Faulkner will not have to behave as he has behaved in the last two or three days. I make all concessions for the pressure of events over the last two or three days. It is my earnest wish that, if we are to have this present position and this initiative leading anywhere, Mr. Faulkner and the Unionist Party will give their attention to what they propose to bring back in replacement of Stormont within the period of time.

Mr. McMaster

I do not agree with what my hon. Friend has said about the last Prime Minister, but I suggest that that issue is irrelevant. If we were to back Stormont, all that we would be handing back would be to an elected legislative assembly. Even if Northern Ireland elected a Communist Government of whom we disapproved, we could not interfere with them on this ground. Surely we would have a democratically elected assembly on one man, one vote, and that is all we can do in the British House of Commons.

Mr. Clarke

I suspect that if I replied to that, as I should very much like to, I would be completely out of order as I was when I touched on the subject a moment ago and that, having provoked such reactions, my speech has been diverted into other points.

The timing of this initiative depends on the production by people from Northern Ireland of some replacement for the Bill, which we all regard as a temporary expedient. Until there is a replacement which will be acceptable to the people as a whole in Northern Ireland it is clear that these powers will have to be continued. Any suggestions therefore of the return of Stormont in its old form are unrealistic. To suggest as an alternative that a united Ireland will be some kind of alternative for the near future, let alone for the next six or 12 months, is to live in cloud cuckoo land. The idea that the Bill could be replaced by total integration with Britain in the next six or twelve months is fanciful. There is no way at the moment of taking integration within the United Kingdom further than is envisaged in the Bill. Almost certainly any steps in that direction would simply lose all the confidence of moderate Catholic opinion that we are so desperately trying "to win with the initiative.

I am trying to stimulate some indication from the Committee of how in the next 12 months a new form of devolved Government can be developed in Northern Ireland. There must be some idea at the back of the Government's mind towards which it is working. I am quite sure at this stage that the last thing the Government want is to be drawn on this kind of subject.

I hope we can consider for how long we are going to have these powers and that the Government and hon. Members will begin to concentrate their minds on precisely what should replace them in what we hope will be a comparatively short time.

I hope that at the back of our minds is the idea of some form of elected representative body. No one wants suspension of the Northern Ireland Parliament to last for a moment longer than necessary. But when it returns it will not be Stormont as we have known it. It will have to be based on some form of proportional representation to cover a wider range of opinion in Northern Ireland. These are matters that may be more properly discussed on other occasions rather than now when we are considering the timing of the Bill and the length of time the powers will last. We must consider what form of Government we should adopt to give the minority a wider expression of opinion and the opportunity to participate in the Government of the province.

In opposing the Amendments I am convinced that any reduction in the 12-month period is fanciful and unrealistic and the House of Commons must steel itself to what it has brought upon itself. We will have direct responsibility for Ulster affairs in this House for considerably longer than the next year.

Mr. Biggs-Davison

As seconder of Amendment No. 15, I need not speak for more than a few moments because my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) has admirably deployed the case.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Kenneth Clarke) used the phrase "breaking the mould" to describe the effect of the initiative taken by Her Majesty's Government. I only hope that the result of breaking the mould will not be to place our soldiers in Northern Ireland between two fires. My hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe rightly said that we should not look for a political solution within 12 months. But what concerns some of my hon. Friends and myself is that the Bill may be unlikely to produce a political solution and, indeed, may make a political solution more difficult.

My hon. Friend appealed for moderate leadership from the Unionists at this time. But the whole effect of this has been to drive people to extremes in Northern Ireland. That is why my hon. Friend has been disappointed in Mr. Faulkner in the last few days. What other attitude could Mr. Faulkner take in this situation, in which he has been placed by the action of Her Majesty's Government? How else can he hope to keep any control of the Unionist forces? How else can he hope to rally the moderate Unionist forces?

Mr. Kenneth Clarke

I fear that my hon. Friend has misunderstood my point. The point I should like him to deal with is why has not the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley)—I regret that he is not in the Chamber—taken the view which my hon. Friend was saying was forced upon the Unionists? When I listen to the hon. Member for Antrim, North denouncing Mr. Faulkner and Mr. Craig for their reaction to the Bill, how I wish that one of my Unionist colleagues in the Committee had been making a similar speech to him. The reaction of the hon. Member for Antrim, North in denouncing this Unionist reaction, which my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) says is inevitable, indicates that a bolder and less extreme reaction might have been possible.

Mr. Biggs-Davison

My impression has been that the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) is quite capable of looking after himself, and that it is not for me to answer for him. If my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe will look in Vacher's Parliamentary Companion, he will find against his own name the letter "U". He must not try to distinguish himself from the Unionists. He is, as I am, a member of the Conservative and Unionist Party. I do not know what is in his mind this evening. Perhaps it is because the hour is late. Anyway, it was deplorable to hear these sneers against Mr. Brian Faulkner. My hon. Friend said that he distinguished Mr. Faulkner from his two predecessors as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and suggested that whereas they were good reformers he is some kind of benighted reactionary. Has my hon. Friend read Mr. Faulkner's Green Paper? My hon. Friend rightly said that Stormont will not be restored as it was and that Mr. Faulkner did not want—

Mr. Phillip Whitehead (Derby, North)

rose—

Mr. Biggs-Davison

I am not giving way.

The Temporary Chairman (Sir Stephen McAdden)

Order. We cannot have two hon. Members on their feet at the same time.

Mr. Biggs-Davison

I may be deflected, and may stray far from the rules of order—[Interruption.] I am answering what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe. It is not the case that Mr. Faulkner, or, as far as I know, any hon. Member of the House of Commons, is calling for the restoration after six months or a year—dependent on whether one supports the Amendment—of Stormont exactly as it was. It was never Mr. Faulkner's intention that Stormont should go on as it was.

My hon. Friend mentioned proportional representation. That is in the Green Paper.

12 midnight.

Sir Elwyn Jones

On a point of order, Sir Stephen. I hesitate to intervene in the tête à tête between hon. Members opposite, but if the hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) would acknowledge the existence of the Opposition in this debate and would address the Chair instead of confining his confidential exchanges to his colleagues, we might get on much better.

The Temporary Chairman

It is true, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman says, that remarks in the Committee should be addressed to the Chair and not to anyone else. May I remind the hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) that I attempted to remind the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Kenneth Clarke) that he was getting out of order. I am afraid that in attempting to pursue the arguments of the hon. Member for Rushcliffe, the hon. Member for Chigwell is now getting himself out of order as well. I should be grateful if he would keep to the Amendment.

Mr. Biggs-Davison

I will cease to pursue my hon. Friend, but as I was chided by the right hon. and learned Gentleman for ignoring the existence of Her Majesty's Opposition, I will now give way to the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead).

Mr. Whitehead

I was about to ask the hon. Member whether he recollects the resignation of Mr. Faulkner from the O'Neill Cabinet and the reasons for it.

The Temporary Chairman

I am not sure that is relevant to the present discussion.

Mr. Biggs-Davison

Indeed, Sir Stephen, and it would be going too far to go back in time as far as that.

I will conclude with these brief remarks. Reference was made to the enormous majority on the Second Reading of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe said that many of his hon. Friends and mine did not know what they were in for when they voted on Second Reading. That may or may not be true. What is true is that these debates have been extremely instructive. Hon. Members are getting an inkling of the burden which will be thrust upon them if this Bill is enacted. The already congested parliamentary programme will be further choked. There is bound to be a burgeoning of bureaucracy. This is what will result from the Bill which, if enacted, should be brought to an end as quickly as possible. This is why the Amendment suggests halving the period from a year to six months. It is essential that regional self-government through a regional representative assembly should be restored in Northern Ireland at the earliest possible date.

Mr. Antony Buck (Colchester)

Whenever one begins to debate Irish affairs, one always seems to get bogged down in the past. I hope that this will not happen in the discussions on this Amendment. We are now considering what will happen in the next six months or so, and it does not help to have any form of recrimination about people's reputations in the past.

What has stunned me about the present initiative and the time span involved is that some of my hon. Friends have suggested that what has happened has meant the loss of some of the centre ground. My hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) for whom I have great admiration, has made this point in the past, and it is important that the centre ground should not be lost and that we should look to our hon. Friends from the Conservative and Unionist Party to help to win back that centre ground in the coming months. They will be very much assisted by Mr. Faulkner, for whom I have profound admiration.

I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Kenneth Clarke) on reflection perhaps will wish he had not cast a slight slur on the Prime Minister of Ulster, because Mr. Faulkner has exercised a moderating influence on the situation and will in the coming months be capable of playing a major part in the affairs of Ulster. So I hope and pray.

If my hon. Friends are right and part of the centre ground has been lost or could have been, it may take some time to win that back and it would be a mistake to suggest that this initiative must be confined to three or six months. Let us not shackle our new team, taking over responsibility in this difficult situation, to a time limit of months. Let us give them sufficient time. If anyone thinks that my right hon. Friend and his team are dragging their feet it will be open for them to raise the matter in the House. I hope it will be thought right to give the Secretary of State designate ample time to proceed with the initiative and ample time to win back the centre ground, if it has been lost.

Mr. Hugh Dykes (Harrow, East)

Both on Second Reading and today this Bill has been dealt with with a delicacy which is a tribute to the House and the Committee. That earnest desire for a delicacy of approach has been manifested tonight and that is why it would be unwise to accept these Amendments.

Mr. Maude

I hope my hon. Friend realises that we are dealing with two quite separate sets of Amendments. No doubt he is addressing himself to those dealing with the time-span of the present legislation. The method by which this can be extended is being debated in this and that is why it would be unwise to accept these Amendments.

Mr. Dykes

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I accept his argument and say that I wish to adhere to what has been so far dealt with, namely the time factor plus some related arguments. One point that has emerged in our discussion on the duration of these new powers is the point made by the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Kenneth Clarke) that we should have an open mind in approaching the implications of the legislation and the one-year period that is subsumed in this Clause. The vital key to all this is that both Members of the House and external opinion in Britain and Northern Ireland should approach the matter with an open mind. The hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Capt. Orr) referred to the symbolic importance of the period being a shorter one. It is important for us to accept the proposition with an open mind which would allow optimal political decisions to be reached at the end of this period. It is important too to relate the wish for objectivity which has been lacking in the Northern Ireland scenario to what my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe mentioned when he expressed the disappointment felt by the acceptance of the Government's radical and in some ways unwelcome proposals and the painful manner in which they have been accepted by the House.

Dealing with what my hon. Friend said about Mr. Brian Falkner, I thought that many hon. Members must have misunderstood what my hon. Friend was trying to get at, unless I have misheard him. That was, not that Mr. Faulkner himself, in any personal terms had proved to be deficient, but that he had proved to be deficient within the political context of what had happened in Northern Ireland. While his predecessors had appeared to be trying to make the necessary arrangements to achieve solutions to these problems, Mr. Faulkner because of the onrush of circumstances, had increasingly found himself personally tied to a more and more ossified situation.

That is why, coming back to the time period in the Amendment, one feels that if the Amendment were accepted, it would do damage to the concept subsumed in the original Clause. It would undermine the delicate and in many ways still feeble initiative which one hopes, with growing confidence, will be successful one way or another.

Whatever the structural outcome of the period of one year, and whether it will be successful, whatever one's view, we would not wish to undermine confidence in the difficult and delicate new task to be vested in the Secretary of State designate, by accepting a situation which would confuse the situation even more.

The Temporary Chairman (Sir Stephen McAdden)

Before calling the next hon. Member, I would remind hon. Members that we are discussing, as the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) has pointed out, not only the time schedule of six or 12 months, but the question of further continuance. No one has so far spoken much on the second group, but those are the two subjects, and I should not like the debate to be extended into other subjects.

Mr. Maude

On a point of order, Sir Stephen. I am grateful to you for that, but it would be for the convenience of the Committee if those who wish to speak on the second group would perhaps not seek to catch your eye until those hon. Members who wish to speak on the first group have deal with the question of time.

The Temporary Chairman

That is up to individual Members. I have no means of knowing on which section hon. Members wish to speak, but if they will take the hint given by the hon. Gentleman, and if hon. Members who wish to speak on timing, whether six or 12 months, will rise first, then we can call other Members.

Mr. Molyneaux

I shall stick closely to the problem of the time period and put forward a valid reason for the Amendment which hon. Members of the Committee could not be expected to be aware of.

The Measure which is completely to change the local government system in Northern Ireland had practically completed its course to the Statute Book in Stormont. It was not part of the reform package, although it has sometimes been regarded as such.

It started on its course early in 1967, long before we heard of civil rights and all the commotion which followed from that. Those changes are designed to remove from local councils practically all the important functions of local goveernment as we have known them and to transfer them to Stormont. Whether hon. Members here like it or not, all these vital details will come to the Floor of this House. There is no way of avoiding it because they were going to be dealt with by Stormont and, now that Stormont has gone, they have to be dealt with somewhere, by some legislative body and that has to be Westminster. So it is not a question of generally directing local government policy either by the Secretary of State designate and his colleagues or by anybody else in this Committee. It has to be dealt with in detail, in the detail with which it would be dealt with in the town halls.

12.15 a.m.

I am sorry to have to warn the Committee of it, but there is simply no escape from that. I have noticed a tendency here tonight to back away from this challenge. That simply will not do, because local government elections for the new councils will be held this autumn and arrangements for them are already in train. It is essential that there should be established the relationship between the new councils and some legislative body; that relationship cannot be left in mid air but must be brought into effect by October. That is why I feel very strongly that this period of uncertainty cannot be prolonged, and I feel that one year is far too long.

There is another intricate matter which I shall not enter upon at length now but which will cause some head scratching for the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley).

Mr. Frank Marsden (Liverpool, Scotland)

Naively, perhaps, I thought that, apart from the question of security, one of the purposes of this Bill was to give people in Northern Ireland a breathing space in which they could talk to one another and perhaps arrange a package deal acceptable to both sides. Is the hon. Member suggesting that that can be done in six months?

Mr. Molyneaux

I can well understand the hon. Member's feeling of innocence because I thought that that was the feeling generally last night among many Members who are now, I think, beginning to wake up to the consequences of last night's action. There is no question of our trying to suggest that a mistake has been made; it is not a question of arguing that point: I am simply trying to bring home to the Committee the serious complications which will ensue.

Rev. Ian Paisley

Would my hon. Friend not agree that in Northern Ireland housing is a very important factor which is of concern and has caused difficulty to all sections of the community and has been taken over entirely by a Government-sponsored body known as the Housing Executive; that all questions relating to housing in Northern Ireland now go to the Stormont Minister for Development, and that now, because of this Bill, this Parliament will have to deal with all those housing questions?

Mr. Molyneaux

Yes. I am obliged to my hon. Friend. In his Stormont constituency of Burnside he passed on to the Minister for Development complaints about housing; he will now have to bring those complaints here. There is no escaping that.

The other point I wanted to mention is an even more difficult one, that of the borrowing powers of local government authorities in Northern Ireland. Their borrowing powers are basedon their being rating authorities, but rating powers were to be taken over by Stormont. We here are taking over the functions of Stormont. Presumably we shall have to find the money and be concerned not only with providing for their borrowing in the future but with the liabilities for all the moneys borrowed in the past by all the authorities in Northern Ireland. Members of this Committee might possibly turn over in their minds the possibility of changing the local government system to that which, I understand, is to be foisted on the people of England. I would not admit that it would be superior to what we are to bring in in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Chichester-Clark

The Committee should be aware that there is a very large number of people in local government in Northern Ireland who feel very strongly about the system that was about to be introduced in Northern Ireland and who will now, as soon as the Secretary of State-designate has taken office, wish to see him with a view to bringing to his notice a system of local government far more akin to the English system than that which was about to be introduced in Stormont.

Mr. Molyneaux

I agree with my hon. Friend. Although I was losing my seat as a county councillor, I was forced to admit that we were achieving great improvements in the work we had been trying to do to change the system of local government. I hope that we shall sort something out, and that the people will not suffer as a result.

Mr. McGuire

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman is not over-egging the pudding. In Derry—Londonderry to some, but Derry to me—the corporation was abolished and we had a commission carrying out the work of local government. Are we not to have a commission here, which will do something similar on a biggerbase—

The Temporary Chairman (Sir Stephen McAdden)

Order. I was about to tell the hon. Gentleman that he was going out of order. If he follows the path followed by the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux), I am sure he will be out of order.

Mr. Raison

I believe we need the Bill because we need time to build up a climate in which tensions can be dissolved and we can move forward. But it is vital that the words temporary provision in the Title should mean what they say. This is partly for the reason I advanced in an earlier debate that the prospect of suspending parliamentary powers in part of our nation is distasteful. But I believe it is also so for two other reasons. One is rather selfish. The prospect of taking direct control of Northern Ireland is full of hazards for us. It is a very heavy responsibility, and it will mean much hardship. But that is the minor reason, because there is obviously a much more important reason, that the Irish problem will be solved only by the Irish themselves. We have a rôle. The purpose of the Bill is to try to bring about a situation in which that can happen, in which the Irish can get into a better position to face up to the problems before them. But essentially it is they, the Northern Irish and the Southern Irish, who will decide whether or not they will live in peace or enmity.

If we take the view, if we accept that it is the Irish who will make the crucial decisions, who will achieve the sort of society we want, it must be the elected representatives of the Irish people, North as well as South, who play a major part.

Mr. McManus

Would not it appear to the hon. Gentleman that as a logical consequence of his remarks, which are tending to lead in a useful direction in my view, since he says that it is up to the Irish themselves to solve their own affairs, it is up to the British Government to facilitate that evolution by declaring that the Irish have a right to solve their own problems without interference from an outside power?

Mr. Raison

The complication is that within the Irish there are to be found two nations, separated by a divide which is not just a line on a map but a deep cultural divide as well. We cannot realistically say there is one nation. If we look at the matter realistically in terms of the culture, traditions and attitudes of the people of North and South, we are bound to acknowledge that there is a very big difference between the two.

If the essential decisions are to spring from the Irish people North and the Irish people South, there must be in being a Government that truly represents the people of the North. It is not within the power of the Westminster Government in the long term to make decisions on be-half of those people. There must be a deep sense of commitment on the part of the people of Northern Ireland to whatever outcome there may be to this question. I am not saying what the long-term outcome will be. I can conceive that there will one day be union with Ireland or a tighter union of Britain and Northern Ireland. I do not know what the ultimate answer will be. I stand by the position that nothing must happen to the North unless it is with the consent of the majority of its people.

It is vitally important to reconstitute a valid Northern Irish Government as soon as possible. Whether it can be exactly the Stormont model or whether there can be a new more deeply community based and more acceptable Northern Irish Government is the crux of this period of direct rule. The object of taking over the rule of Northern Ireland is to try to build up a valid, more acceptable, more community based Government than there has been in the past. I do not want to run down the achievements of Stormont; it has things to its credit; but we must be realistic and see that Stormont has not had the degree of acceptance within the community as a whole which would allow us to say that it should go on as it has in the past. We must build something new.

It is unrealistic to suppose that we can bring about this substantial achievement in three months or six months; therefore the Amendments which are designed to limit the period are unrealistic. On the other hand, 12 months represents a reasonable first stopping point to allow us to ask ourselves what has happened and whether we want the system to go on. I am wholly against what is described as a temporary provision becoming a permanent provision. After a period of 12 months we should give serious consideration to what happens next.

I cannot believe that 1½ hours' discussion, which is what is allowed under the Order in Council procedure, is right. At the very least I ask for an undertaking that when the 12 months elapses we shall have a much more prolonged and full examination than is embodied in the simple business of passing an order. We must have the right to look at the whole question in great depth.

I am initially attracted to Amendment No. 17, which provides that there must be a Resolution of both Houses of Parliament for these powers to be continued. I want to know what that means and whether such a Resolution gives the opportunity for a fuller debate than the Order-in-Council procedure postulated in the Bill.

It is important for us to have a clear undertaking that when the 12 months elapses there will be deep and full consideration of what should happen next, rather than a cursory 1½ hour debate of the kind we have when we are discussing quite important questions such as the renewal of Rhodesian sanctions.

Rev. Ian Paisley

I wish to speak to Amendment No. 17 standing in my name. The purpose of the Amendment is to take the initiative out of the hands of the Executive and leave it fairly and squarely on the Floor of the House of Commons. The Bill puts into the hands of the Executive a tremendous power. The trouble in parliamentary life today is that the Executive has too much power. I, as a Member of the House of Commons, would like to prune some of that power and get it back into the hands of ordinary Members of Parliament.

12.30 a.m.

But by this Bill we are giving to the Secretary of State tremendous powers. He will have power to bring in a provision whereby we will lengthen his period of office by one year. This will be done by Order in Council. The initiative will rest with him. He will decide when it shall be discussed. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) points out that there is a time limit of 1½ hours on debates on orders. So, at the end of the 12 months, instead of our being able to go over this Bill again, to discuss it thoroughly as it will need to be discussed if it is to be reintroduced, we shall have only 1½ hours in which to say "Yes". Bearing in mind that the Bill will have an even greater significance after we survey the year's legislation and Orders in Council under it, we will have only 1½ hours in which to say to the Government, "All right! You can carry on along the same lines."

Mr. McGuire

I am sure that the 1½ hours to which the hon. Gentleman refers is the time in which to discuss orders which the Secretary of State presumably will bring before the House. If the Bill is only for a period of 12 months, surely it must follow that if we are asked to extend it—that is, not resuscitate the Stormont Parliament but prolong the agony for another 12 months—we shall have another Bill by which to do it.

Rev. Ian Paisley

The hon. Gentleman has not read the Bill. If he had, he would be with me in my argument, for what he has just said is really the argument I am making. I say that at the end of the 12 months we should be able to have a new Bill or discuss this Bill again in full detail, going through the three usual stages. But according to Clause 1(5)— …at any time before the expiry of this section. Her Majesty may by Order in Council direct that it shall continue in force for a further period of one year…". That, in my opinion, is iniquitous. It would be iniquitous for the House to give any such power to the Executive on such an important Bill.

I think that hon. Members are beginning to learn what they are taking on, and when they see the first list of Questions which will go down on the Order Paper to the Secretary of State, they will learn even more. I think the ghosts of the old Irish Nationalist Members and the old Unionist Members are haunting this Chamber tonight. Instead of being ghosts, indeed, they will be reincarnated before this problem is off the hands of the House of Commons.

Sir Elwyn Jones

I hesitate to interfere in what has become a family dispute among hon. Members opposite, but in considering these time Amendments I am bound to say that I am personally more in sympathy with what has been said by the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Kenneth Clarke) than with any other hon. Member who has spoken in this debate. That is not merely a reflection on our professional link which apparently exists.

It seems to me that one year is a reasonable period in the circumstances with which we are dealing. Indeed, so far from thinking that the period of time contemplated in the Bill, on one view of Clause 1(5), is too long, I think it may well prove to be too short a time for unravelling the web of the Irish problem.

The suggestions that a six-month period or a three-month period is adequate is totally unrealistic, in view of the situation in Northern Ireland. I cannot claim any expertise about Northern Ireland, save that I have the privilege of being a member of the Bar of Northern Ireland. But it is painfully clear that the situation there has not been susceptible of easy solution for three centuries past. The task of reconciliation is as difficult now as it has ever been, if not more so. Accordingly, the time contemplated for the immediate grant of these powers seems a reasonable one in the circumstances.

However, I come to Amendment No. 17. A question appears to arise on the meaning and construction of subsection (5) and the words: …but, at any time before the expiry of this section, Her Majesty may by Order in Council direct that it shall continue in force for a further period of one year… Do those words set a limit of two years on the operation of this legislation, namely, the one year in the first instance with which we are dealing immediately, and then one year in addition? Alternatively, is the formula one Act for an extension of the power each year for a term of 12 months? Perhaps we may have some guidance on that.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell (Wolverhampton, South-West)

Cognate with the important question that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has just put about the interpretation of subsection (5), does he also agree that whichever may be the correct interpretation, namely, whether this is a once-for-all renewal or a renewable one, it is questionable whether it is wise that the renewal can be only for one year, no less and no more, and that it might in the circumstances appear desirable that the renewal should be for either a less or a longer period? Therefore, is not it foolish for us to prescribe the renewal period?

Sir Elwyn Jones

That is a very interesting suggestion. I conceive of a situation arising that if in the course of a given year when these powers are being exercised the Government of the day decide that they want the powers no longer and make new arrangements, then by fresh legislation it will be open to them to terminate the period of the exercise of the powers. But these are questions to be answered by the Treasury Bench and not me. But it is an interesting point of some importance.

The consequence of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) would be one that he would not welcome. If his Amendment were accepted and there was a Resolution to continue the Act passed by both Houses of Parliament, he sets no time limit on it at all—

Rev. Ian Paisley

Surely it could be rescinded at any time.

Sir Elwyn Jones

It does not provide for that in the Amendment. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not contemplate that. But this may be a lawyer's point, and I shall not dwell upon it. At any rate, that would be the effect of his Amendment.

There has been a little misconception in the debate about the procedure which is contemplated in the event of a renewal of the powers being sought by the Government by Order in Council.

It is clear from the proviso to subsection (5) that it is not a one and a half hour debate that is contemplated. The words are: Provided that Her Majesty shall not be recommended to make an Order under this subsection unless a draft of the Order has been approved by resolution of each House of Parliament. I understand that to be a procedure which is not brought in at 10 o'clock at night, but one which would involve, I imagine and think, a full day's debate. It is rather different from the procedure which is moved at 10 o'clock to prevent an Order in Council lapsing at the conclusion of a 40-day period. That is my understanding of the matter. However, perhaps we may have some enlightenment upon it from the Government.

I should certainly agree that if what is contemplated is merely an hour and a half debate on an Order in Council for the renewal of these powers, that would be quite unacceptable and intolerable. However, I do not believe that that is what the proviso means or that that is what is contemplated. Accordingly, we on this side of the Committee, will not be supporting the Amendments.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Paul Channon)

I hope that the Committee will not think me discourteous in intervening at this stage. Like my right hon. Friend on an earlier occasion, I intervene now to try to answer the points which have been raised so far. I hope that the Committee will feel able to come to a decision on the matter in the not too distant future in view of the important Amend- ments which still confront us and the late hour which we have already reached.

This is the first occasion on which I have spoken about Northern Ireland. However, from the remarks made by hon. Members I shall not be short of work in future.

I should like to mention one preliminary point in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux). I assure him, as did my right hon. Friend, that it is our intention to be of whatever service we can to hon. Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies in dealing with important constituency matters which they wish to raise. I hope that no hon. Member will have the slightest hesitation in approaching us if he thinks that we can be of assistance. I also note what was said by the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley).

I have certainly found this an extremely interesting and important occasion. The debate has been valuable to me, and I think that many hon. Members have said how important and valuable it has been to them.

I will deal, first, with the more limited Amendment No. 15 of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr), which relates to the duration of the Act. I will also refer to the Amendment put down by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster), which proposes an even more restricted time limit, because it would be three months shorter than the proposal put forward by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South.

I assure the Committee that, as events and my right hon. Friend's attitude have shown, we are all of us naturally obsessed with the sense of urgency in this problem. My right hon. Friend is only too anxious, since the grave decision to take these powers, to get on with the crucial and urgent job which he has been given. The Committee will have observed from his remarks today and yesterday on Second Reading how deeply obsessed he is with the sense of urgency and importance of the task which has been put upon his shoulders,

The powers which the House of Commons and another place, if they agree to pass the Bill, will confer upon my right hon. Friend are very grave and serious. Naturally, he would not wish to have these powers vested in him for a day longer than is necessary for the fulfilment of the task that has been set upon his shoulders.

12.45 a.m.

I must, however, ask the Committee to face the facts of the present situation. I ask whether it is realistic to imagine that my right hon. Friend is likely, at the conclusion of either three months or six months, to be able to ask the House to agree that these powers should be removed. If he were to be in such a happy situation that an agreed solution had been arrived at during that period, legislation to repeal these provisions would be passed by acclamation by the House. But it is only reasonable that my right hon. Friend should have the powers for a year. A year gives him the minimum period of flexibility to carry out what has been proved increasingly clearly to be a very difficult task—a task that will consume a great deal of time.

I understand the feelings of my hon. Friends, one of whom would like a period of three months and the other a period of six months, but it would not be fair to my right hon. Friend to imagine that he would be in a position to be able to fulfil his task in less than 12 months. If he were in such a position no one would be more pleased than my right hon. Friend. I ask my hon. Friends to allow my right hon. Friend to have these powers for 12 months, on the undertaking that I give—which is hardly necessary, because he has shown it already—that my right hon. Friend has every intention to pursue this task with all the force and energy at his disposal—and the Committee will agree that they are not inconsiderable. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be allowed the powers for the 12 months that the House allowed in the Second Reading debate.

I now want to deal with the point raised by the right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones), which, in a way, is connected with the Amendment of the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley), to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) referred earlier. I hesitate to give the right hon. and learned Gentleman legal advice, but I am advised that as the Bill is worded the powers contained in the subsection will expire after one year from the Bill's enactment, unless it is provided by Order in Council that the subsection shall continue in force for a further year, and so on from year to year. That is how the subsection is worded.

Sir Elwyn Jones

I do not think that it is worded like that; that is the construction.

Mr. Channon

It is not worded like that, but that is the effect of the subsection. That deals with the point raised by the right hon. and learned Gentleman and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell). Whether or not it will be renewed for a second time I do not know, but the House would be chary of renewing it in such a way as to allow it to proceed year by year. It would not be my right hon. Friend's wish to have these powers for one day longer than he needs.

Sir Elwyn Jones

Is this the language used in the Expiring Laws Continuance Act? Perhaps that could be checked. If so, it would be some confirmation that the construction is that which the Committee has been invited to accept, but in the words used in the subsection the construction is not an obvious one.

Mr. Channon

I shall seek advice on the wording of the Expiring Laws Continuance Act, but I am advised that the construction that should be placed on the subsection is the one that I have stated.

I want to deal with the substantial point concerning what would happen if the House were to be asked to renew this legislation again by order. Naturally, none of us hopes that such a situation will occur, but no one can foresee with confidence just how the situation will develop in the next few months.

In 12 months' time, let us hope, a Bill embodying permanent constitutional arrangements for Northern Ireland, secured perhaps after protracted negotiations with all the interested parties, may be passing through the House. It would be wrong to remove the power that the House would have to renew my right hon. Friend's powers by order for a further order, because we could easily fall into a position where we would be be-between two stools, a situation near the end of successful—let us hope—negotiations, just at the time when the Measure was coming forward for renewal. It would be wrong to remove the powers which the House has given to renew the Measure by order rather than by legislation.

Since the right hon. and learned Gentleman asked me the specific question, this Bill does not follow the wording of the Expiring Laws Continuance Act because that Act is not renewed by Order in Council. I am further advised that the advice which I have given about the effect of subsection (5) is accurate. What I must and can do is to say that I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman and others who have spoken in this debate that it would be utterly intolerable, and we hope it would not happen, that if a further order had to be made to continue the Act for another 12 months the House would be expected to deal with that in an hour and a half debate.

That would be a ridiculous situation. In the absence of my right hon. Friend who has been Leader of the House, although I have discussed the Amendment with him, I can say that if such a grave step were taken—it would be a grave step, not a light matter—if there were a further order the House would have a full opportunity for debate. It would be quite impossible to ask the House to deal with these matters in a limited period such as one and a half hours.

That is not in the mind of the Government and evidence that it is unlikely to be in their mind is given by the Amendments referring to the affirmative Resolution procedure about which a forcible point was made yesterday. I think the Committee will agree that this is an indication that the Government have no wish to derogate from the rights of the House in this matter. My right hon. Friend has made clear that he deems himself responsible to this House and would be primarily responsible if the grave decision were taken to renew the Act by further order. Naturally, time would have to be given for a debate.

The Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Antrim, North deals with renewal by Resolution of both Houses rather than by Order in Council. I must confirm that the effect of that Amendment, although I dare say it is not the intention, would be to make the Bill permanent provided that a Resolution was passed by both Houses to have effect in the next 12 months. I cannot believe that any hon. Member would wish to support that proposition.

Rev. Ian Paisley

In the Resolution would not the House of Commons determine the time that the Measure would remain in operation?

Mr. Channon

It would be possible to deal with these matters along some such lines, but the hon. Gentleman's Amendment, though I am sure that this is not its intended effect, would have the effect that I have advised the Committee that it would have. I do not wish to stand upon the fact that the Amendment is defective. It is very difficult to get Amendments tabled by private Members drafted correctly. The Committee is well aware of the hon. Gentleman's intention.

I believe that it is proper for the renewal of a Bill of this kind, if it should take place, to be continued by a legal instrument, subject to parliamentary procedure, rather than by a simple Resolution in the way the hon. Gentleman has in mind. I have undertaken to the Committee that, if such a decision were to be taken, there would be adequate time for debate at an hour which hon. Members would consider to be proper.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West raised the important point whether any such order would limit the period of time to one year and not some lesser time as he had in mind. As the Bill is worded, subsection (5) would have the effect that the powers would be continued for a year. I hope that my right hon. Friend will agree with me about the realities. Were there to be a solution agreed by the majority of people in Northern Ireland that came before the House of Commons, of course it is likely that legislation would be required. In such circumstances, it would be possible to relinquish the period of one year and have a lesser period if that were thought appropriate by Parliament.

Mr. McMaster

Does not my hon. Friend see the strength of the argument? The whole history of these events in Northern Ireland shows that regrettably as the year ends violence instead of falling will tend to escalate. Would it not be better to have a shorter period which could be lengthened, rather than to have a 12-month period, when the matter could go from bad to worse?

Mr. Channon

I understand and appreciate my hon. Friend's sentiments. He has argued a slightly different point in his Amendment. It is not unreasonable for the Committee to decide that these powers should last for one year. If we are likely to reach a position where there is a change in these arrangements or if a solution is found, the powers could be removed in the legislation, if there were legislation—it seems likely that legislation would be needed—dealing with the solution. In that legislation it would be possible to reduce the period from one year to whatever period was thought to be proper by the House of Commons at that time. I understand the very interesting point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West and by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East. In practice this will not present the House of Commons with a problem, if it is faced in the future with the painful decision of having to renew the Bill by order.

In asking the Committee to agree to this portion of the Bill, and by asking the House of Commons to give the Bill a Second Reading, the Government accept that they are asking from the House of Commons very serious, indeed grave, powers. Those powers are not asked for lightly. They are asked for because rightly or wrongly the decision has been reached that such action is necessary. These powers will be used with the very greatest urgency by my right hon. Friend. Indeed, he is anxious to go to Northern Ireland as soon as the House of Commons and another place allow him to do so. It is not my right hon. Friend's wish to retain the powers for a day longer than he has to. I very much hope that we do not have to renew them by order.

[Sir ROBERT GRANT-FERRIS in the Chair]

1.0 a.m.

Mr. Fitt

Can I take it that in his concluding remarks the hon. Gentleman is acceding to the requests which have been made, albeit inadvertently, from the Northern Ireland Government that the British Government must now assume full responsibility for the application of the Special Powers Act in Northern Ireland? This debate has been about whether or not we should impose on other parts of the United Kingdom the responsibility for the application of this Act.

Rev. Ian Paisley

On a point of order. Is the hon. Member in order, because we are dealing with an entirely different Amendment? We are dealing with the limitation of the timing of this Bill and we are dealing with how it should be continued.

The Chairman

If I discover the hon. Member is out of order I will pull him up.

Mr. Fitt

We have been asked by the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) whether there should be a 3-month limitation or a 12-month limitation on the operation of the Bill. Are the Government prepared to accept even for the short period of three months that the application of the Special Powers Act in Northern Ireland should be in the hands of the Westminster Government?

Mr. Channon

I hope the Committee will not think me rude if I say that we very fully debated the whole question of the Special Powers Act earlier and it would be wrong of me to go further than what my right hon. Friend said. Perhaps the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) would be kind enough to look at what my right hon. Friend said, because I am not in a position to go further than that.

I know it is distasteful to the Committee that these powers have to be taken, but if they have to be taken, facing the practicalities of the situation, I hope it will feel able to let my right hon. Friend have the powers for twelve months, as set out in the Bill, and I hope the Committee will not accept the Amendment moved by my hon. and gallant Friend.

Mr. Maude

I will not concern myself with the Amendments designed to reduce the period during which the Secretary of State shall have these powers but only the question of the way in which they should be continued. I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for what he has said. I do not think any of us have any doubts about the goodwill and good intentions of the Government in trying not to put a fast one over Parliament when it comes, if necessary, to extend the Bill. But in a matter as important as this good intentions and assurances are not good enough. Parliament should have this right in the Bill before it becomes an Act.

I listened with care to what the right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones) said and to what my hon. Friend said. They are right about Amendment No. 17 and I think they are probably right, though not certainly, about the meaning of the subsection as it is drafted. I do not think the Amendment No. 17 meets the point. It would be right not only to ask the Government to have another look at this before Report stage but that an Amendment should be down for Report stage to make the matter clear beyond doubt. It is not right that the principle should be extended by Order in Council. If the Bill is to be extended it should be extended by debatable and amendable legislation, whether it be a Schedule to an Expiring Laws Continuance Bill or a new Bill. There is no question that the Bill as at present drafted says: …at any time before the expiry of this section. Her Majesty may by Order in Council direct that it shall continue in force for a further period of one year from the time at which it would otherwise expire. That means that the Government could advise Her Majesty to make an Order in Council at any time, next week or next month, which would cause the Bill to be extended for a period of two years from the date of the Order. That is what the Bill means. At anytime before the expiry of the Bill, Her Majesty may make an Order in Council to extend the Bill for a year after it would otherwise expire. The hon. Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. George Cunningham) shakes his head. Perhaps he would explain why that is not so.

Mr. George Cunningham

I will gladly explain why I was shaking my head. It was because such an order would have force only if it was approved by both Houses of Parliament. In the extremely unlikely event—the hon. Gentleman must concede that it is extremely unlikely—that the Government would do that in four weeks from now or in less than, perhaps, nine months' time, then the House of Commons has the power to do all it would want to do at that stage, which is not to amend anything but simply say "No."

Mr. Maude

The hon. Member is technically right, but when he has been a Member of the House of Commons as long as I have, off and on, he will know that back benchers and Parliament as a whole ought to have a little more assurance in their Statutes than the good intentions and hopes as to how the Executive and the Opposition will conduct themselves. It is right that Parliament should make quite clear the proper provision for extending the Bill, and it ought to be done by legislation.

Mr. John Gorst (Hendon, North)

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Maude

I should like to finish this point first. Following the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), I am also somewhat troubled about whether it is, as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary says, quite certain that the Bill would expire at the end of a further year if an order is brought forward, under the terms of the Bill as at present drafted, to extend it. To extend the Bill for one year would extend it as it stands at present, which includes the provision that it can be extended for a further year by Order in Council.

This situation has arisen quite often in cases of contracts, where a provision is included that the person making the contract with an employee has the right to extend it for a further year on the same terms. This has occasionally produced a situation in which the employee finds himself obliged to continue having his contract renewed year after year without any possibility legally, unless the employer is willing, to get any increase in remuneration, even to counter the effects of inflation, because the option allows not only the renewal of the contract but the renewal of the option to renew. It seems that that is what the Bill does.

It is all very well for my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to say that he is assured that this would mean what it says it means. We ought to have, perhaps, a little more legal advice by Report stage. The right thing to do is to have an Amendment on Report which makes it quite clear that the Bill can be extended only by legislation, which shall be not only debatable but amendable.

I hope that the Government will feel able to do this. If they say that they cannot do it, no doubt my hon. Friends and I will seek to fill the gap on their behalf.

Mr. Pounder

I shall not detain the Committee for more than the very fewest of moments. Having listened intently to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, what I found a difficult subsection to understand when reading the Bill I now find considerably more difficult. I say that with absolute sincerity. The fact that I dislike the Bill from the first line to the last is neither here nor there. Last night the House decided by a majority that it wished the matter to proceed and it is our job to make it as good a Bill as we can.

I thought there were certain contradictions in what my hon. Friend said and perhaps we may have some clarification. He said that the Government hoped a year would be sufficient for the Bill to run. He said that if it were desirable to renew the Bill for a year, efforts would be made to do so. He then went on to say that from year to year thereafter the Bill could be renewed. Does that not mean it could go on and on, even to the year 2000? Before the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) leaves the Chamber, may I say that it is to be assumed that the prorogation salary of Stormont Members will likewise go rolling on and on.

Rev. Ian Paisley

The hon. Gentleman is only sorry he is not a Member of Stormont.

Mr. Pounder

No discourtesy is meant to the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley). I did not mean to include him in that reference.

Sir Elwyn Jones

The attractive prospect held out by the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Pounder) must not give rise to any false hopes, because even Stormont has a limited term for its duration and dissolution would have to take place—no doubt a gloomy event in the circumstances contemplated.

Mr. Pounder

I accept the right hon. and learned Gentleman's point. I was being somewhat flippant.

The Under-Secretary of State said he would regard it, as I would regard it, as a grave step to renew the provision year after year. I accept this, but how can it be reconciled with the possibility of the situation rolling on and on? Perhaps it is the lateness of the hour, but I feel there is a contradiction between the two concepts and I would welcome clarification.

Mr. Biffen

I am such a novice in debates on Irish affairs that I cannot guarantee that my remarks will be other than very brief. My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) made one persuasive point—and I say this as one who, unlike my hon. Friend, voted for the Second Reading. He said renewal of the Bill should be in circumstances in which it was amendable. We are proceeding under a degree of heroic optimism that the Bill will last merely one year. There is a French quotation to the effect that the only thing that lasts is the provisional or the temporary and the title of the Bill has about it something of a challenging ring.

If I may be permitted a degree of scepticism, it leads me to think that this legislation may still be with us in 12 months' time and that we may then be thinking in terms of its renewal. In the intervening period the House will have learned a great deal more about Northern Ireland. That may be to the benefit of Northern Ireland and of the House. We will have learned a great deal more about the difficulties created for our own procedures and for our self-respect as legislators as we come to terms with the sweeping provisions of the Bill.

1.15 a.m.

I do not believe that anyone on the Treasury Bench is happy about the Bill. They excuse the nature of the Bill by the avowed provisional terms in which it is couched. Therefore if at the end of 12 months that provisional nature is seen to be somewhat more enduring then I believe that the terms on which it shall be renewed should enable it to be amended. I hope that if my hon. Friend, on further consideration of the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon thinks this is a point of some validity he will hold out hope that the matter can be considered on Report.

Mr. Michael Havers (Wimbledon)

Before my hon. Friend sits down—would he accept that there is all the distinction in the world between a contract of service between an employer and employee and something of this sort? A contract between employer and employee can only be altered by agreement between both sides but this can obviously be altered at any time by a majority decision of the House.

Sir Elwyn Jones

I am sorry to intervene again but I may have misled the Committee in so far as the Committee is capable of being led by me. I intervened in the speech of the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Pounder) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) has reminded me that if one looks at Clause 1(3) it provides that: So long as this section has effect, the Parliament of Northern Ireland shall stand prorogued…".

Rev. Ian Paisley

The gloom is taken away!

Sir Elwyn Jones

That has the effect of a permanent Nirvana. All will be idleness for the Members of Stormont.

Mr. Channon

I wish to deal with the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Pounder). It will always be for the House to decide what it wants to do and it would be for it to decide what the future course should be in matters of this kind. My right hon. Friend will naturally be reporting to the House as appropriate and it is his hope and that of the Government that this will be in force only for a year. The powers are taken, subject to parliamentary approval, by Order in Council to enable this section to be continued in force for a further year and then from year to year. It is unlikely that this procedure would be adopted but that is what the Bill does. At this early stage my right hon. Friend hopes that the Committee will allow us maximum flexibility. Again I give the assurance that these powers will not be used lightly and that adequate time will always be given for debate. My right hon. Friend has every intention of consulting the House as fully as possible and taking it into his confidence whenever possible.

Mr. Powell

Will my hon. Friend be good enough to clear up the point, since it has arisen and is clearly relevant to this Amendment regarding prorogation, and say whether the first or second interpretation of the right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, North (Sir Elwyn Jones) is correct?

Mr. Channon

It is an extremely important point. Under subsection (3) the Parliament of Northern Ireland shall stand prorogued. I understand the situation to be that this Bill, if passed, will have the effect that the Northern Ireland Parliament will stand prorogued until some further action is taken to reverse that situation.

Mr. Powell

We should be clear about this, that the maximum quinquennium and limit of the life of the Northern Ireland Parliament is automatically removed by this legislation, that we are endowing the Northern Ireland Parliament with infinite life and pay.

Rev. Ian Paisley

For all the work.

Mr. Chichester-Clark

If my right hon. Friend is right, we are giving permanent existence to Stormont, if not life. Does that mean that the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) and the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) are going to receive a handsome pension and is that pension assignable to anyone else?

Captain Orr

I understand what my hon. Friend has said on the time position. I accept the assurance which he has given about his Government's intention. I do not really like the situation as it stands and I particularly do not like the arrangements about continuance, but none the less I should be prepared to withdraw my Amendment on which this debate is taking place and to vote with my hon. Friend on the later Amendment.

Rev. Ian Paisley

Because of the arguments put forward, I do not think the Amendment which stands in my name covers the full point I want to make, and as some other hon. Gentlemen are saying that they will table an Amendment on Report stage, I have give notice to the Chair that I am not pressing mine.

Captain Orr

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that plain. We will see what happens on Report stage. The right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite raised an appalling prospect when he said that he expected that within a year my right hon. Friend would have unravelled the tangled web of the Irish problem. If we are going to wait for that to be done, and to continue this arrangement year after year, keeping Stormont in being and paying pensions in perpetuity to its Members, that is a prospect too frightful to contemplate.

Mr. McMaster

My hon. Friend gave an undertaking to consider the first Amendment on continuance. If the life of Parliament is to be extended, unfortunately the relevance of the first Amendment becomes much more important. My hon. Friend gave an undertaking that he would further consider the matter and that he was having further discussion with Northern Ireland. On Report, when I intend to move an Amendment, we can deal with factors affecting the position of indefinite extension and the subsidiary point of by-elections and a Member dying.

Captain Orr

I am obliged to my hon. Friend. I was about to say that, in view of the discussion, I beg leave to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.