Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan]

I beg to move amendment 18, in page 7, line 4, leave out from ‘is’ to end of line 41 and add—

‘repealed.

‘(2) Any provision by Act of the Northern Ireland Assembly which provides, by virtue of section 21A(3) or (3A) of the 1998 Act, for the method of appointment of a Minister in charge of devolved policing and justice functions, shall be repealed.

(3) Any Minister in charge of devolved policing and justice functions shall be appointed in the same way as other Northern Ireland Ministers.’.

[The Temporary Chairman (Katy Clark)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clauses 8 and 9 stand part.

[Mark Durkan]

Amendment 18 deals with the appointment of a Justice Minister. I shall not go through the history of the various bits of legislation that have gone through this House—many of them steered through by the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain)—to provide for all sorts of permutations and models for appointing such a Minister. The main parties settled on a version that would allow the Minister to be elected by means of a cross-community vote in the Assembly. Of course, the party that gained that Ministry could then end up having a surplus of ministerial positions over and above its entitlement under d’Hondt.

The right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) will recall the tortuous negotiations that we had, and the fact that we were determined that there should be some sort of proportional system, be it d’Hondt or Sainte-Laguë. We went through the various permutations, and d’Hondt was the one that most people were familiar with, because of their experience with the European Parliament. It was deliberately chosen as an inclusive arrangement and to create a situation in which parties were not in a position to vet or veto each other’s ministerial appointments. We actually used that language in the discussions and the negotiations; the parties did not want to be in a position of being able to vet or veto other appointments.

Nevertheless, when it subsequently came to the arrangements for appointing a Minister of Justice in the context of the devolution of justice and policing, there was a departure from that principle—for all the various circumstantial and other reasons with which we are all familiar. I shall not take the Committee’s time in either rehearsing or rebutting them this evening.

If people went for that formula, straying outside the terms, principles and promise of the agreement, they did so on the basis that it was needed to get the devolution of justice started and it was a way of breaking the impasse ensuring that there were no more standoffs. The progress made overall and in the context of justice and policing, means that we have time to consider whether the exceptional arrangements made in and around the position of the Ministry of Justice should still continue.

This clause is designed to end the aberration in the sense of a party being over-represented—over and beyond the d’Hondt entitlement—but that does not simply correct the matter in itself. As I pointed out on Second Reading, it creates other anomalies and potentially some pressures on the parties.