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Lords amendment: No. 5, in page 14, line 15, at end insert—
(2A) The Attorney General for Northern Ireland is to be funded by the First Minister and deputy First Minister, acting jointly.
(2B) The Attorney General for Northern Ireland may appoint staff, but subject to the approval of the First Minister and deputy First Minister as to—
§ Lady HermonI beg to move amendment (a) to the Lords amendment, in line 3, leave out 'acting jointly'.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerWith this, it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 27 to 29.
§ Lady HermonI should explain to the House that we had our own Attorney General in Northern Ireland until direct rule in the 1970s, and clause 22 proposes the return of an Attorney General for Northern Ireland after justice functions have been devolved. That is a key commitment. I was unable to catch your eye earlier, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in order to intervene when the Minister suggested that the people of Northern Ireland had voted for an agreement that contained the provision for the First Minister and Deputy First Minister to make the appointment acting jointly. They certainly did not vote for that.
§ Mr. BluntMay I invite the hon. Lady to clarify her statement that an Attorney General would return to Northern Ireland following the devolution of justice functions? I am not sure that that is entirely correct. I presume that the Attorney General could be appointed well in advance of many of the functions in the Bill being devolved to the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly. It could, indeed, be appropriate for the Attorney General to be in place at the very beginning of this process, before many of the functions have been devolved under the powers that the Government are taking. This may be a matter more appropriate for the Minister to respond to, but if the hon. Lady can assist the understanding of the House, it would be helpful.
§ Lady HermonI thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention. I am sure that the Minister will dutifully pick it up at the end of this debate, given the clarity with which he has just taken us through the Lords amendments on lay magistrates, which filled us all with such enthusiasm that none of us could comment afterwards. I am sure that he will be delighted to comment on whether the appointment of the Attorney General should take place before or after devolution.
It had been my understanding that, in accordance with the agreement, the British Government had given an undertaking that, in the context of ongoing implementation of relevant recommendations within the agreement, there would be devolution of responsibility for policing and justice issues, which I took to include the appointment of the Attorney General.
190 My difficulty with the Lords amendment will come as no surprise to those who served in Committee on the Bill—the words "acting jointly". The hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Dodds) and I do not always agree, but I am pleased that we agree that the difficulty will become increasingly apparent after the scheduled elections to the Assembly in May 2003, which could return a First Minister and a Deputy First Minister who could find it exceedingly difficult to act jointly or agree on anything.
I can save those hon. Members who may be rushing out to count the number of times the Bill refers to the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister acting jointly some time. I counted 28 references by the time I reached schedule 2. If we have a commitment to policing and justice issues being devolved to the people of Northern Ireland, it is not helpful to keep repeating that. In fact, it makes the prospect of devolving such issues more distant.
§ Mr. McGradyI welcome the further clarification in the Lords amendments of the role of the First and Deputy First Minister in the appointment of the Attorney General. I note that the number of staff and their salaries and conditions of service are also part of their remit. Does the Minister intend to impose any conditions in respect of number, salary and conditions of service or is he content to leave it to the office of the First and Deputy First Minister? Hon. Members will note that I refer to the office—in the singular. There is only one office. The First and Deputy First Minister are elected jointly, and one cannot continue in office on the resignation of the other.
The Northern Ireland Act 1998 states specifically that there is only one office, so the incumbents must act together willy-nilly in order to have legality in their decision making. They may find it difficult and be politically opposed in many ways, but it is one of the key points of the Good Friday agreement, with our communities and their representatives acting together for the good of all in Northern Ireland. This is but one expression of that very important principle.
I was surprised to see that the signatories to amendment (a) are David Trimble, Lady Hermon and Roy Beggs, as—
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. I remind the hon. Gentleman that he should refer to hon. Members by their constituencies, not their names.
§ Mr. McGradyThank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Two of the signatories are strong supporters of the Good Friday agreement, whereas the third is totally opposed to it. There seems to be some political incompatibility. I want to emphasise very strongly that to accept the amendment and say that the First and Deputy First Minister should act singly would send a difficult political message to the people of Northern Ireland.
I am aware that the office of the First and Deputy First Minister is a difficult one for the incumbents to engage in. However, to date, it has proved significantly successful in respect of many diametrically opposed policies, and social and economic issues. Those who hold the office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister have come to an agreement, and have been supported by the Assembly in an entire programme of government. They have reached certain agreements on the annual budgetary allocation of our finances, in order to implement that programme. So it 191 is not proven that a great barrier exists to their acting jointly on very difficult matters; in fact, all examples to date prove that it is possible for them to act together, and to be elected together, to serve all the community in the best possible way.
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Although I accept Lords amendment No. 5, I am totally opposed to the amendment to—
§ Lady HermonThe Belfast agreement—for which I definitely voted yes, and which I strongly support, as does my right hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble)—explicitly states:
The First Minister and Deputy First Minister shall be jointly elected into office".However, it does not thereafter require them to act jointly. Does not the hon. Gentleman see the incompatibility between proposed new subsection (2A) of Lords amendment No.5, which requires the First Minister and Deputy First Minister to act jointly, and proposed new subsection (2B), which contains no such requirement? I do want devolution to be a success; I simply think that the devolution of justice will be further delayed if we constantly use the phrase "acting jointly".
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. Before the hon. Gentleman replies, I should point out to the hon. Lady that she must learn more precisely the art of intervention. By making her interventions so long, she is in danger of getting round the rule that hon. Members may speak only once in consideration of Lords amendments.
§ Mr. McGradyI take the points made by the hon. Lady, but would not the very act of deleting the phrase "acting jointly" suggest strongly that the First Minister and Deputy First Minister could, and perhaps even should, act separately? That would be greatly detrimental to the process. On the alleged disparity between proposed new subsections (2A) and (2B), as a lay person—if not a legalistic one—I would assume that the latter would be subject to the interpretation of the former, in that the First Minister and Deputy First Minister would also act jointly in respect of numbers, salary and other conditions of service. In terms of supporting the Good Friday agreement, the hon. Lady would doubtless agree that for the First Minister and Deputy First Minister to act differently in a substantive matter such as this would send entirely the wrong signal.
In conclusion, I welcome Lords amendment No. 5, but I reject the amendment to it.
§ Mr. BluntI am afraid to say that I part company with the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) on this issue, but as I also did so in Committee, it will come as no surprise to her. I agree with the arguments advanced by the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) in respect of amendment (a), which would leave out the term "acting jointly". The Belfast agreement and the institutions rest on the relationship between the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister, and if that relationship does not work, the entire agreement and the institutions will not work either. We are contemplating 192 enacting legislation that will allow the devolution of policing and of justice, so perhaps the most important consideration is our need to rely on that relationship working. If it ceases to work and the First Minister and Deputy First Minister are unable to act jointly in the discharge of their functions, the peace agreement and the process—
§ Rev. Ian Paisley (North Antrim)Strange to relate, this House paid tribute to the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) when he resigned as Deputy First Minister, but the Conservative party did not then demand that the First Minister resign too. Instead, it supported the proposition that he stay in his post. The hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) now argues, very adroitly, that everything is all right and the relationship must be maintained. However, that relationship is now under stress because the First Minister says that IRA-Sinn Fein should be removed, while the present Deputy First Minister says otherwise. That is a real and major issue.
§ Mr. BluntI certainly agree that the relationship is under stress. That stress has caused the institutions to be shaped as they have been. As a purist, I believe that the relationship set out in the legislation is far from ideal, but it stems from the history of the conflict between the two communities in Northern Ireland. I accept that the Democratic Unionist party did not support the Belfast agreement, and that it continues to want to have it renegotiated. It has been consistent in that respect, but supporters of the agreement acknowledge that at the heart of the relationship between the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister lies the necessity of co-operation in the practical discharge of administration in Northern Ireland.
I hope that the necessity that the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister discharge those functions together will be part of the process by which the wounds that the two communities have inflicted on each other over the past seven or eight decades—or longer, in the case of the history of the whole island of Ireland—will be bound together. I therefore have much more sympathy with the argument of the hon. Member for South Down than with that of the hon. Member for North Down.
As for the other amendments in this group, I am glad that the Government have had the opportunity to trawl more carefully through the relevant legislation. I am pleased, too, that they have identified those matters of international law that properly will be for the Advocate General for Northern Ireland, and in respect of which he, and not the Attorney General, will be the appropriate Law Officer.
We welcome those improvements to the Bill. I hope that the Minister will assure the House that he has performed a full and comprehensive search and that there are no matters to which we shall have to return.
§ Mr. Gregory CampbellI wish to make a few comments about the use of the term "acting jointly". I rarely agree with the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon)—for instance, she signed an early-day motion congratulating the Republic of Ireland football team on its success in the World cup. whereas I signed one congratulating the England team. That shows how far apart she and I are politically.
193 The term "acting jointly" is superfluous. The office of Attorney General for Northern Ireland will be fundamentally important in law. It should be funded by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, with no need for the term "acting jointly" to be used in the Bill—as it is, ad nauseam. The fact that the term appears again and again shows how weak the Government must feel the two Ministers can be at times.
The words "acting jointly" are unnecessary. One would not have thought that funding the Attorney General for Northern Ireland would require their inclusion in the Bill at all.
§ Mr. Kevin McNamara (Hull, North)Following on from what the previous speaker said, I must tell the House that, on the ground of parity of esteem, I congratulated both the Republic of Ireland football team and the English team on their World cup success. I look forward to teams from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales achieving similar success, and to my having the opportunity to congratulate them as well. I take pride in what these islands achieve, and do not want to hold one island up against the other.
I do not appreciate the logic of the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) in respect of the amendment. The hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) has made most of the points that I was going to make, so I shall not delay the House. However, if we say that the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, acting jointly, must appoint the Attorney General for Northern Ireland, it follows logically that both will have to agree to fund that position, acting jointly. We should therefore keep the phrase in the Bill.
§ Mr. BrowneLords amendment No. 5 clarifies two matters in the Bill. In establishing the new Attorney General for Northern Ireland, it is important we should avoid, as far as possible, any potential ambiguities. The Lords amendment has been tabled with that aim in mind.
First, the Lords amendment clarifies that the funding for the new Attorney General is to be provided by the First and Deputy First Ministers. They, of course, will fund the Attorney General from money appropriated by Act of the Assembly.
Secondly, the Lords amendment clarifies that the Attorney General may appoint staff, subject to approval by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister as to numbers, salary and other terms of employment. Those members of staff will become civil servants on appointment.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) asked whether the Government intended to set out the amounts paid in salaries and any other terms and conditions of employment for such staff. I must tell him that the Government singularly do not intend to do that, as those are matters for the Attorney General, subject to any approval required from the First Minister and Deputy First Minister.
Lords amendment No. 5 was tabled in response to the Northern Ireland Executive's view that the new Attorney General will need such provision in order to carry out his functions. Amendment (a), moved by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), would remove the words "acting jointly". As I said in Standing Committee and on Report, the First Minister and Deputy First Minister must act jointly in exercising their functions in relation to the 194 local Attorney General's office. Generally, they must do so, for the reasons set out by my hon. Friend the Member for South Down and supported by the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt).
The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Campbell) said that the Bill's repeated use of the term "acting jointly" was otiose and a sign of weakness. I have taken the Bill through the House and have been asked, for purposes of clarity, to express in the Bill many things that I thought were implied by the Bill or that could reasonably be inferred from its wording. However, the Government consider that the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister must act jointly, and we believe that it is preferable, therefore, that we make that clear in the Bill. That is why we state as many times as we do in the Bill that the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister must act jointly.
§ Mr. DoddsThe Minister has stressed repeatedly that the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister must act jointly, but does not that emphasise that Northern Ireland really has joint First Ministers as, in effect, the First and Deputy First Ministers cannot act separately?
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§ Mr. BrowneNo, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman; his point has no merit. The devolution settlement for Northern Ireland clearly provides for a process for electing a First Minister and a process for electing a Deputy First Minister. [Interruption.] It may well be one process, but there is a process for the election of a First Minister and for the election of a Deputy First Minister. In terms of the provisions of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, it may be technically one process. I have not been present when it happens. However, there is a First Minister and a Deputy First Minister and they are not joint First Ministers, as the hon. Gentleman suggests.
A number of specific points were raised with regard to the amendments and their effects, which I shall deal with now. The hon. Member for North Down says that the requirement for the Attorney General and Advocate General to work jointly will delay devolution. It is not the Government's intention to devolve justice functions until the institutions of devolution are ready to receive them. An important aspect of whether the institutions of devolution are ready to receive those functions will be the confidence that the First and Deputy First Ministers will be able effectively to discharge the functions that will be imposed on them. It is a question not of delaying devolution but of a judgment having to be made that the institutions are ready to receive those important functions. Part of that judgment will be the ability of the First and Deputy First Ministers to carry out the statutory duties that are required of them, acting in the way that they are required to do.
Proposed subsection (2B) of clause 22 in Lords amendment No. 5 does not have the words "acting jointly" because they are clearly unnecessary there. The provision requires that the First and Deputy First Ministers approve the matters referred to. It makes no difference whether we say that they must approve such matters together or separately, because it amounts to the same thing. Obviously, both of them need to approve such matters before that provision can be satisfied.
195 In an intervention on the hon. Member for North Down, the hon. Member for Reigate suggested that the local Attorney General could be appointed at any time. I think that he is technically right, but the local Attorney General will be appointed on devolution. The Attorney General is appointed by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister under clause 22(2). There is no provision that precludes the commencement of this clause before devolution, but the working assumption is that it will commence after devolution.
§ Mr. BluntI am grateful to the Minister for giving way on that point. I would appreciate some clarity. Clause 86 states:
The preceding provisions of this Act (with the Schedules) shall not come into force until such day as the Secretary of State may by order appoint.It continues:An order may appoint different days for different purposes.In the process of the devolution of justice, I should have thought that the big bang theory would not be the right one. It might be better to put the individuals and posts of Advocate General and Attorney General in place before devolving certain functions. A progressive roll-out of different powers under the Bill might be appropriate.
§ Mr. BrowneI take the hon. Gentleman's point. Like many that he has made, it may have some merit and I shall consider it. It does not need to be addressed in this debate because, as he says, the flexibility in the Bill can deal with it. I had anticipated that his point would be somewhat different from a progressive roll-out of devolution, but we shall continue to consider it. The intention is not to have an Attorney General appointed other than in the context of devolution, but it may, in the fullness of time, prove more sanguine to appoint such a person in anticipation of the act of devolution so that offices and staff can be in place.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman sought assurance about all consent powers being transferred to the Advocate General where appropriate. We have the order-making power to transfer those powers under clause 28(2), and I shall take into account his observations about the exercise of that power.
Lords amendments Nos. 27, 28 and 29 are purely technical and add further offences to the list of those in relation to which the Advocate General for Northern Ireland must give consent before a prosecution can be undertaken. After devolution, the new local Attorney General will have no power to consent to prosecutions. The Director of Public Prosecutions will exercise most consent provisions, but a very few—in relation to national security and international relations, for example—will be exercised by the Advocate General for Northern Ireland. Schedule 7 lists the offences for which the Advocate General's consent will be required.
I ask the House to agree with the Lords in the said amendments and invite the hon. Member for North Down not to press her amendment.
§ Question negatived.
§ Lords amendment agreed to.