COMMUNITY LAW AND CONVENTION RIGHTS (Hansard, 30 July 1998)

Mr. Murphy
I beg to move amendment No. 23, in page 9, line 39, leave out ', 21 and' and insert 'to'.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No. 3, in clause 22, page 11, line 18, leave out from 'equal' to end of line 20 and insert 'consideration shall be given to both the number of Ministers and the number of Chairmanships allocated to the respective parties in allocating the already remaining Chairmanships in an equitable manner.'. Government amendments Nos. 25 and 26.

Mr. Murphy
I believe that the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik) may want to speak to amendment No. 3, which is closely related to the other amendments. It may be convenient for the House to listen to his points before I wind up.

§ Mr. Öpik
Ministers seem to have discounted the importance of the points that I made on this matter in Committee. In simple terms, amendment No. 3 would ensure that, in the event of a tie between two parties in the allocation of chairmanships, the number already allocated plus the number of Ministers already appointed would be taken into consideration. The Bill takes account only of the number of chairmanships.
I do not want to go too far into the algebra, for fear of being labelled an anorak, but I can assure the House that the amendment fits exactly into the spirit of the Bill, which seeks to ensure that there is a fair and equitable distribution, in a proportional fashion, of the positions of office in the Assembly.
There is a danger that a large party could easily get an additional chairmanship when a small party has none, but with the smallest of changes that small party could benefit by picking up one chairmanship. If the amendment were made, there would be a genuine opportunity for small parties to increase the likelihood of having a chairmanship in the Assembly.
582 We must remember that, although the larger parties picked up the lion's share of the vote, smaller parties, such as the Alliance party and others, did very well in terms of the absolute number of people who chose to support them. It would be sensible and popular to make the modification that I have suggested. I hope that the Minister will give us a rather more encouraging response this time. I am looking for an assurance that he will entertain the possibility of revisiting the matter over the summer.

§ Mr. Peter Robinson
The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik) wants to see that which is fair and equitable, and he wants to be the one to decide what is fair and equitable. He does so in a manner that just happens to be to the advantage of his sister party in Northern Ireland. The reality is that, if a party cannot get enough seats in the Assembly, it cannot expect chairmanships. That is what democracy is all about.
Government amendment No. 25 concerns the allocation of Committee places. I cannot recall our having considered that matter at all. It has been thrown in at the last moment. I wonder why.

§ Mr. Malcolm Moss (North-East Cambridgeshire)
In fact, we discussed the matter on an amendment that we tabled in Committee, where it was amendment No. 14. I thank the Minister and his team for accepting it more or less verbatim.

§ Mr. Robinson
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that clarification.
Government amendment No. 25 says that a nominating officer must prefer a Committee on which his party does not have a ministerial post. Is that absolutely necessary when we move from the chairmanships to the deputy chairmanships?
In many cases, who is the Chairman or Vice-Chairman will depend largely on the person's skills, so the nominating officer's flexibility will be curtailed. I see the necessity for the provision in relation to chairmanships, as one wants more objective scrutiny of the Minister's actions, but in the case of deputy chairmanships, I would have thought that the Government could have been more relaxed.

§ Rev. Martin Smyth
I have some sympathy with amendment No. 3. I would have had more sympathy with it if the same pattern were applied here. In 1982 and 1983, we were told that Northern Ireland parties had four places on Select Committees, and this year we have been cut down because the Government party demanded a majority of two in every Committee, and our Liberal Democrat friends decided that they also wanted places. The harsh reality is as the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) described it. Where a party has members, it gets places. My sympathy lies with the amendment, however. The concept of cross-community partnership should run right through the process, and it is strange that a Government who have gone down that road are withstanding the amendment.
Those who berated us in the 1975 constitutional convention for being obscurantists fighting a rearguard action who were not prepared to give places to others of different viewpoints would be surprised to find that 583 committees then would have been 50:50, with the chairmanships divided equally between the majority group and the minority group. We made that decision because we could not see that any party would ever win control under proportional representation. If the Government want to keep to the spirit of the agreement, they should not treat the amendment as cherry picking, but they have perhaps done some raspberry picking of their own.

§ Mr. Öpik
I assure the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) that amendment No. 3 applies also to the larger parties. If there is a tie between two large parties, they could benefit from the proportional process. It was not intended simply to help small parties, but to provide an equitable solution in the event of a tie.

§ Rev. Martin Smyth
I accept that. That is why I sympathise with the amendment. However, the tragedy is that the House of Commons, the mother of Parliaments, has not always followed its own democratic procedures.

§ Mr. Paul Murphy
I fear that I must give the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik) the same answer that I gave in Committee. The spirit of the agreement is proportionality, and there is an opportunity in the Assembly for smaller parties to exercise responsibility in the large number of chairmanships and deputy chairmanships that will be meaningful jobs there. The hon. Gentleman referred specifically to Ministers, but if there is a tie, the only real answer is to re-run the d'Hondt system. The number of first preference votes for each party would then be reconsidered, instead of the number of seats that it had won in the Assembly. That is a fairer and more proportional system for Northern Ireland.

§ Mr. Öpik
I have visions of algebra. The amendment refers to chairmanships, and I fear that the Minister slightly misunderstands our intent. The amendment is not intended to create an unfair skew towards small parties, but to increase proportionality in the allocation of positions. I must emphasise that, because the assumption has been made a few times that the amendment is designed to favour small parties. I intend only that distribution should truly be fair.

§ Mr. Murphy
My understanding was that the amendment would favour smaller parties. That is why we do not favour it, but we may be able to discuss the point, and, when the Bill reaches the other place, perhaps it could be more clearly made. For tonight, however, we must reject it.
Amendments Nos. 25 and 26 provide that Northern Ireland Ministers, and the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, should not also be Chairmen or Deputy Chairman of Committees. That is sensible. Although the agreement is silent on the matter, there is no case for overlap. The amendments also deal with whether Committee Chairmen and Deputy Chairman should come from the same party as the Minister whose Department the Committee is advising and assisting. The hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) has referred to the Opposition amendment that would have prevented any overlap, and we agree with the sentiments of that amendment. As I said in Committee, there may be 584 cases in which overlap is impossible to avoid, and that may answer the point made by the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) about flexibility.
Amendment No. 25 refers to the nominating officer of a party preferring a committee in which he does not have a party interest to one in which he does. That is not as rigid as saying that he cannot be on one in which he has an interest, but that he should prefer the other. It is sensible to have a spread, and to try to avoid overlap.
Amendment No. 23 is consequential. Clause 19 defines "Minister", for the purposes of clauses 19, 20, 21 and 23, as meaning the First Minister, the deputy First Minister or a Northern Ireland Minister. Government amendments to clause 22 include references to Ministers that need to be construed in the same way, and the amendment extends the definition to cover clause 22.