Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Villiers]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point. I share the goal of those who want to see the extension of the GB regime to Northern Ireland, but, as I have said, I feel that the time is not right for that because the security situation has not improved enough since the rules were first devised. It is a pity, but the Bill will enable us to make progress towards the ultimate goal, which the hon. Lady and I both support.

Clauses 1 and 2 will enable us to make progress towards exactly the sort of normalisation that the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) wants to see. They will give the Government the power to use secondary legislation to increase transparency gradually, stage by stage. As a first stage, in response to the recommendations of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, we propose to move as swiftly as possible to the publication of draft secondary legislation, if the Bill passes all its parliamentary stages.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

On the question of people being in support or not in support of greater transparency—we certainly support greater transparency—will the Secretary of State acknowledge that the Electoral Commission, as well as the Social Democratic and Labour party, preferred option 3 in the Government’s option paper? It said that there were

“concerns…about the risk of intimidation of donors which justified withholding identities”.

This is not just a party political point; the independent Electoral Commission reached that conclusion, which is in line with the Government’s proposals.

[Mrs Villiers]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for pointing that out. Indeed, the Electoral Commission has expressed support for a number of the provisions in the Bill. We have listened carefully to the commission in preparing the Bill, given the impact that the commission has on the running of elections and the mechanics of politics in Northern Ireland.

If the Bill passes all its stages, we envisage that secondary legislation will cover matters such as the number and amount of donations, the type of donor—that is, whether they are individual or business donors—the date of the donation and whether it came from an Irish source.

Clauses 3 to 5 are a key part of the Bill and will ban the holding of dual mandates in the Assembly and the House of Commons. That has been a matter of concern in Northern Ireland for some years and the committee formed prior to the 2006 St Andrews talks agreed that dual mandates should be phased out. Further concern was expressed during the MPs’ expenses crisis, including by the Committee on Standards in Public Life. Most important of all, an end to double-jobbing was an important commitment made in the 2010 Conservative manifesto for Northern Ireland. Clauses 3 and 5 will enable us to keep the promises we made to the electorate in 2010.

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[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I join others in welcoming the Bill. It has had a long gestation period, and the previous Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), who is now the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, heralded it as a normalisation Bill. We heard about the Bill in many meetings with him and others at the Northern Ireland Office, and we were led to believe that it would contain all sorts of wonderful, amazing things for Northern Ireland. Yes, it represents progress, but it is certainly not as far-reaching as was originally envisaged. It is certainly not as ambitious as the then Secretary of State suggested when he became the holder of that office.

The then Secretary of State said many other things, too, and I shall deal with those in a moment. One such matter was allowances for Sinn Fein Members. We have talked about dual mandates, but the issues of non-representation and the non-fulfilment of mandates are equally important. The right hon. Gentleman promised that not a single Conservative Member in this new Parliament would dream of sustaining the position whereby Members who did not take their seats could claim money and expenses. I hope that the House will shortly have an opportunity to consider that matter further.

I welcome the fact that we are debating the Bill at a time when there is no crisis in Northern Ireland relating to the Assembly or the Executive. On many occasions, we have had to debate all the stages of a Bill in one day to deal with the suspension of the Assembly, with some other crisis, or with its reinstatement. Thankfully, those days have gone and we now have relative stability. Indeed, we take that stability for granted. The very fact that we are debating an extension of the current Assembly’s term for another year, and fixed terms of five years thereafter, is in indication of the progress that has been made. Who would have previously imagined that we would be discussing these proposals here today? People would have said that we were living in fantasy land if they had been suggested before. Previous Assemblies did not have this kind of stability, and even the current one that was set up under the 1998 legislation did not have it until 2007. So we have a lot to be grateful for, and we should reflect on the progress that has been made in Northern Ireland, but we should not take it for granted. We must remember that there is still work to be done to ensure that that stability continues.

The Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State have mentioned that we are debating these matters against the background of a propitious event. The hosting of the G8 summit by Northern Ireland was enormously successful, and tribute has rightly been paid to the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the security forces in the Irish Republic and to the help given by other British police and security services. We have had great news, too, in recent days with announcements of significant numbers of fantastic, good-quality, high-value jobs for Northern Ireland. All those announcements are highly significant. As has also been pointed out, however, major challenges remain despite the progress that has been made. The challenge posed by dissident terrorists and other republican groups is significant. The police and security services deserve all our gratitude and our support—given in material ways—to make sure that they are ready, able and fit to combat that threat.

It is also crucial that the political parties in Northern Ireland’s civic society continue to give their full support to policing, the courts and the rule of law. One deeply disturbing issue already alluded to in this debate is the selective approach to policing that we have seen in recent months from Sinn Fein. We have seen its members picketing outside police headquarters when certain people are arrested, protesting against certain investigations and now we have seen the incident mentioned by the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), the Chairman of the Select Committee, and others, in which a Sinn Fein Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive and a Sinn Fein member of the Policing Board, Gerry Kelly, were both seen openly obstructing police and clambering on police vehicles at a peaceful parade held in my Belfast North constituency last Friday.

Clearly, there is outrage at this loutish and hooligan behaviour. It is not the job of Assembly Members, elected representatives or members of the Policing Board to interfere in that way in the conduct of police operational matters. Holding the police to account is not, as Gerry Kelly seems to think, a question of clambering on a police vehicle and trying to stop an arrest. It is about doing the job of being a member of the Policing Board by asking questions or coming to this House, if elected to it, and asking questions; it is not about vandalism or the loutish behaviour and hooliganism that we have seen. I have written to the Chief Constable today to ask what action he is going to take to investigate fully and ensure that action is taken against those who engage in this kind of provocative behaviour, which could have resulted in serious trouble. As we saw on the night, these actions led to others getting involved in attacking the police vehicle. There are challenges that we in Northern Ireland face.

Let me move on to the details of the Bill. It does not go as far as was first envisaged, but significant progress has been made on donations, dual mandates, the removal of some powers from the excepted category to the reserved category, and justice powers. I shall deal with each of those briefly in turn.

The issue of political donations and loans falls into three main areas: transparency of donors, the timetable for moving to full transparency and—this is an issue that the Secretary of State only glanced over—an anomaly that will remain, despite the Bill, in that donations will still be able to be made to Northern Ireland parties from individuals and bodies outside the United Kingdom.

This party supports in principle having as much transparency as possible when it comes to donations. There have obviously been good reasons in Northern Ireland for granting exceptions to the rules that apply to parties in the rest of the United Kingdom. Evidence about the security situation presented to the Select Committee in its investigation of this Bill cannot be set to one side. That evidence has come from not just the Unionist side, but the nationalist side and, as I mentioned in my intervention on the Secretary of State, the independent Electoral Commission. It shows that many brave individuals and businesses stepped forward during the darkest of days to make donations. They took great personal and corporate risks coming forward with donations, and their main concern was rightly—there is evidence that when the donations were discovered, these things did happen—that they would suffer personal loss, a downturn in trade and, in some cases, even physical attack. The intimidation was a real threat and was certainly a clear attempt to silence people and prevent them from participating in the democratic process.

As we in Northern Ireland move forward and put the violence of the past behind us, it is right and proper that we move towards a system of donations and loans that is similar to that used in the rest of the United Kingdom. That should apply not only to transparency issues, but to all aspects of donations, such as who can donate. From 2014 onwards, why should there be any exceptions at all?

We support the commitment in the Bill not to publish retrospectively the names of past donors. Any future reform must safeguard the trust that people in the past have placed in the system, to protect them, their families and their businesses from disclosure.

[Lady Hermon]

On transparency of political donations, I agree that donors to any political party were under real and significant threat in the past, but in the present changed circumstances in Northern Ireland that we enjoy by and large—thank goodness—will the right hon. Gentleman say, without disclosing their identities and breaching confidentiality, whether it is tens, dozens or one or two donors to the Democratic Unionist party who currently feel threatened by violence?

[Mr Dodds]

I can do no better than to quote the leader of my party and First Minister of Northern Ireland, who, as stated in the House of Commons Library research paper, shared the concerns of other parties, including the Ulster Unionists, in saying in evidence to the Select Committee:

“In the past, businesses and businesses were attacked because of their association either with security forces or with one section of the community. You cannot be cavalier about these issues because they are real. Even if it did not happen, there would certainly be the perception among those who might be willing to donate that it could.”

I will go even further and quote the leader of the SDLP, the hon. Member for South Down—[Hon. Members: “South Belfast.”] I apologise to both the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) and the hon. Member for Belfast South (Dr McDonnell), the leader of the SDLP, who said in evidence to the Select Committee—I know he is more than capable of speaking for himself—that

“we feel that we were particularly vulnerable…in that some of our donors felt vulnerable and threatened…Sometimes the threat is not even direct, but people are put under pressure and told, ‘You gave the SDLP £1,000 this week; we think that we are entitled to £2,000 this week’. The threat is at that level. In a situation in which there are still a handful of people moving about with guns, that threat is there.”

I agree with the leader of the SDLP, with the leader of my party and with the Government, who have got this issue right. The Electoral Commission—an independent, not party political, body—also expressed such concerns.

I also fully endorse the recommendation of the Select Committee that the clause should be amended so as to provide that the Electoral Commission in future—from 2014 onwards, not going backwards—can disclose donor identity only where there is express consent from the donor; under the Bill as currently worded, such information can be published where there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that there was consent.

On the timetable for moving to transparency, I listened to what the Secretary of State has said: the Bill does not implement any provision, but simply gives the power to the Secretary of State to bring forward legislation in future for achieving greater transparency. At that point, a strong degree of caution and common sense will still need to be exercised because of the continued dissident threat to which we have referred.

The Bill states that the Electoral Commission must be consulted, but—with due respect to the commission—I think that there should also be consultation with the security forces and with the police in particular, and also with the political parties in Northern Ireland. I would be grateful for the Secretary of State’s assurance that this will not simply involve the thoughts and minds of the Electoral Commission, and that there will be a much wider consultation.

[Mrs Villiers]

I can give the right hon. Gentleman that assurance. Of course it would be very important to consult the Police Service of Northern Ireland and others with knowledge of the security situation, but when proceeding with any transparency arrangements, we would want to consult widely with others, including the political parties.

[Mr Dodds]

I am grateful for that undertaking. In Committee, we may return to the question of how the Bill might reflect it more clearly.

Let me now turn to the issue of donations made by individuals and bodies outside the United Kingdom. The Select Committee made the welcome recommendation that the loophole represented by an anomaly, or special provision, should be closed. We will, of course, examine the issue in more detail during the Bill’s Committee stage.

Under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, political parties registered in Great Britain are permitted to accept donations only from UK residents and bodies. The Act extends to parties in Northern Ireland, but parties registered there may accept donations from citizens and bodies in the Irish Republic. Why was the Act brought into being? It was brought into being so that the public—the people who send us to this place—could have some degree of certainty that those who gave money to political parties had a stake in this country, and in affairs of state here. They did not want political parties to be flooded with money from people in the United States, Europe and elsewhere who had interests in the making of certain decisions, but who did not vote here, represent anyone here, or have any stake in this country other than, for instance, a commercial stake. The Act was introduced for very good reasons, yet an exception was made in the case of Northern Ireland.

Individuals and bodies in the Republic of Ireland can donate to parties in Northern Ireland in a way that contravenes the law of that country. Worse still, however, owing to our inability to regulate donations of this kind, those individuals and bodies can be used as a front for donations from other foreign or overseas countries. The Select Committee’s recognition of that problem led it rightly to recommend that the anomaly be removed.

Here we all are, saying that Northern Ireland should be subject to the same level of transparency in respect of donations and identity as every other part of the United Kingdom. We ask “Why should Northern Ireland be any different?” But why should Northern Ireland be any different when it comes to who can donate to political parties? There is no reason at all why it should. I hope that, as we consider the Bill further in the House and in Committee, Members and, in particular, the Government will look afresh at the issue. If the Government fail to close this loophole, they may rightly stand accused of giving preferential treatment to certain political parties for political reasons.

Whatever the causes for the arguments of the past, those reasons certainly do not exist today. There should be a level playing field for all political parties in Northern Ireland. There should be the same rules for all of them, and there should be the same benefits, if possible, in terms of donations for all political parties. This anomaly was introduced for one reason: to allow Sinn Fein, and other nationalists, to get money from America, channelled into Northern Ireland via the Irish Republic. That is why this was implemented. That is the reason it was allowed, and if it is allowed to continue, that will be an indictment of this House, particularly at a time when people are so concerned about the funding of political parties.

We support the provision to extend the term of the Assembly to 2016. We disagree with the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), on that point, but not because we think people in Northern Ireland will not be able to understand voting in different elections on the same day. Northern Ireland’s citizens have a long and admirable track record of being able not only to vote in different elections on the same day, but to use different electoral systems, and to do so very successfully. The terrible outcome in Scotland recently, when there was a dual election that led to thousands of spoiled ballot papers, has never happened to the same degree in Northern Ireland.

We wanted the extension of the Northern Ireland Assembly term because it has been extended in Scotland and in Wales. In both those jurisdictions, there is now a five-year fixed term. I welcome the fact that today, in this Bill, Northern Ireland, as part of the United Kingdom, is being treated like Scotland, Wales and the other parts of the United Kingdom—and quite right too, as there is no logic whatever in saying we should be treated differently. It means that, as the Secretary of State has said, when there is an Assembly election, Assembly issues will be to the fore, and when there is a Westminster election, the issues affecting this House and Westminster representation will be debated, and there will be no confusion of the two sets of issues. That is very important.

[Mr Laurence Robertson]

There are, of course, two issues here: one is whether this particular Assembly term should be extended, and then whether we should move to five-year terms. The right hon. Gentleman puts a logical case for having five-year terms, but surely the Assembly did not need to be extended in this term. I think that was probably the more important point we were making.

[Mr Dodds]

Actually, the reason for that is the fact that, given the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2012, we will have a clash in May 2015. That is what makes it imperative that action is taken in this Parliament. The dates of the Scottish parliamentary and Welsh Assembly elections were moved for precisely that reason. If we do not take action, in two years’ time there will be elections on the same day for Parliament and in Northern Ireland. That is why this measure has been brought forward.

[Lady Hermon]

May I preface my remarks by saying it is wonderful to see the right hon. Gentleman back on great form? I might not agree with half of what he is saying, but I am delighted to see him, as a great parliamentarian, back and on great form.

May I make an imaginary journey forward to 2016, when we will—unfortunately, from my perspective—have an Assembly election? The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues will be well aware of the fact that the Easter of 2016 will be celebrated, and that could be very divisive, as that Easter marks the centenary of a significant event. Does the right hon. Gentleman have concerns—and I do just mean concerns—about that being exploited by a particular party in Northern Ireland to its advantage?

[Mr Dodds]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her very kind remarks. It is great to be back, and there is no better occasion to be back for than this debate on the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. It is a great Bill and reminds me why I entered politics in the first place.

I understand where the hon. Lady is coming from, but I cannot agree with her. The Easter rising centenary will be commemorated in 2016, but the Unionist perspective will be, “100 years on and still no united Ireland”. One hundred years on from the Easter rising and Ulster—Northern Ireland—is more firmly part of the United Kingdom than it has ever been.

[Lady Hermon]

Aren’t you glad I asked that?

[Mr Dodds]

I am absolutely delighted that the hon. Lady asked that question. I look forward to her, like me, celebrating in 2016 and also commemorating another significant historic event in Northern Ireland—the anniversary of the Somme—on 1 July, as so many Ulster men gave their lives on the first day of that enormous battle. There will be many commemorations, centenaries and anniversaries affecting Northern Ireland in 2016 and the coming years, so I understand what she is saying. Although I do not agree with her on that point, I am sure she will respect my view on the issue.

Let me deal briefly with the change in the size of the Northern Ireland Assembly. As the Secretary of State has said, the powers will change from being in an excepted category to being in the reserved category. The Northern Ireland Assembly will, thus, be able to legislate, with the consent of the Westminster Parliament, and that is right and proper. We believe that there should be more such provisions, making it easier for the Northern Ireland Assembly to legislate in other areas, such as its working, the make-up of the Executive and how they are formed. Of course, this should be done on a cross-community basis and as a result of negotiation, agreement and a cross-community vote, but it would send a strong signal that more of those powers are for the people and parties in Northern Ireland to agree.

Of course, Northern Ireland is over-represented, but we have 108 Members because the parties that supported the Belfast agreement in 1998 wanted the Assembly to be that big. We opposed that, for the reasons of over-representation that many Members are now talking about. The choice of six Members per constituency was a blatant attempt, once again, to get smaller parties that were, at that stage, in favour of the Belfast agreement into the Assembly at the expense of others. It did not work out that way because the Northern Ireland electorate had much greater common sense, voting for parties that would fight for change and reform, and for a better way forward. We achieved that, which is why we have the stability we have had since 2007.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I wish to add a little information and insight. When strand 1 was negotiated, the agreement between the Social Democratic and Labour party and the Ulster Unionist party on that holy Thursday night or early hours of Good Friday was for a 90-Member Assembly based on five-seat constituencies. What we disagreed on was whether there should also be a top-up, in either the first Assembly or, possibly, the first and second Assemblies, of an additional 10 Members that could account for smaller parties that might be under-represented because of the spread of the vote. That idea was not agreed by the UUP and, in the absence of agreement between us, Tony Blair stipulated it had to be six-Member constituencies—108 Members. None of the Northern Ireland parties proposed that.

[Mr Dodds]

I think I am grateful for that explanation. Two things come out of it that are clear. First, the SDLP and the UUP still wanted a significantly larger Assembly, with more than 100 Members, no matter the form of the electoral process. [Interruption.] Certainly, initially—

[Mark Durkan]

Ninety—

[Mr Dodds]

Ninety, plus, as I understand it, a further top-up, which would bring the figure to 100. So they wanted a significantly larger Assembly than the one we want to see nowadays. The second thing we learned from the hon. Gentleman’s contribution was, once again, how much in debt we are to Tony Blair for so much in the political process, both here and in Northern Ireland! Whoever speaks for Labour will doubtless want to defend what Tony Blair did in that regard.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman also feel that John Major played a significant part in the whole process, kicking it off in the first place?

[Mr Dodds]

I was not getting into the issue of credit for the peace process as a whole; I was only making reference to Tony Blair’s contribution to having a bloated Assembly in Northern Ireland. I do not think that John Major would want to be associated with that. I gladly pay tribute to John Major and others on both sides who have played a significant role in the peace process. I am glad to put that on the record.

With no difference between the views of the political parties in Northern Ireland, most of its parties are on the record as supporting a reduction in the size of the Assembly. The DUP, the Alliance party, the UUP, the SDLP and many independent Members are in favour, but Sinn Fein is not. Let us be clear that the reason we are not getting this reduction is not because the Assembly Members all want to keep their positions and the parties all want to keep the same numbers; it is because one party, Sinn Fein, refuses to accept that, in this day and age so many years on from the 1998 agreement and St Andrews, there is no need to have 108 Members any more. Let us put the focus squarely where it belongs, just as we need to do with the “blame”, if I may put it like that, for the national security issues. Again, they are the result of one or two parties in Northern Ireland taking a particular stand.

On the issue of dual mandates, our position is clear: they are being phased out. The Bill does not bring an end to dual mandates; the political parties in Northern Ireland are bringing an end to them. We in the DUP are certainly doing that. We made a commitment that by 2015 they would be phased out, in line with the recommendations made by the independent body—I cannot remember its name, because we had so many of these bodies at one time. That was what was said should be done, we committed to it and it is what we are doing. The Bill’s provisions outlawing dual mandates should apply to Scotland and Wales as well. I am glad to hear that the Welsh First Minister is introducing such proposals, but they should also apply to Scotland—Northern Ireland should not be unique in this regard.

The issue of non-representation also needs to be addressed. I alluded to it at the start of my remarks and I will close with it. Although it is not a matter for legislation, it is a matter for the resolution of this House—it is a House of Commons issue. It is a scandal that there are Members elected to this House who do not do their jobs and do not carry out parliamentary activity but get expenses, allowances and money, and not just to carry out their constituency duties—through representative money they get money to campaign. The rest of us are bound by the rules of this House and are rightly accountable for our expenditure for parliamentary purposes, but these people can spend this money for party political purposes and not a word is asked about it.

That special provision was brought in, again, under Tony Blair’s premiership. The then Secretary of State, John Reid, brought it in. It was opposed by the then Conservative Opposition, as it had been by the previous Speaker, Betty Boothroyd, and others. Sinn Fein had challenged all the way to the courts—European Courts—and had been defeated, but it was introduced as a special concession because it was argued at that time that it was necessary to bring Sinn Fein into the political process. If anyone can argue today that Sinn Fein is not in the political process, I would find it staggering. The time has now come for the House to address this issue. If we are concerned about dual mandates and about people being in two places at once, we cannot ignore the glaring issue about non-representation and a special status given to Members who do not attend. Their arrangement is actually advantageous and better than the position given to Members who do take their seats.

[Mark Durkan]

It is not often that I stand up to defend the former Secretary of State John Reid from criticism about his time in Northern Ireland but the measure on Opposition party money and the special terms given to Sinn Fein was actually introduced by the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) when he was Secretary of State. He said that it was a necessary measure for the peace process. He refused to answer when asked what promise or threat made it so necessary, but confirmed that Sinn Fein could use the money for entirely different purposes from anybody else.

[Mr Dodds]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to point out the glaring discrepancy in accountability arrangements for this money. That is not tolerable, because all the political parties that take their seats in this House are at a disadvantage compared with Members who do not take their seats and who can use the representative money for whatever they like.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is ironic that somebody like me, as the sole Member from a party, has no access to such money whereas multiple Members of another party who never turn up to this place to do the work they are elected to do have access to it for policy support and development?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

The right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) has been making his comeback with an amazing tour de force and has been very generous in giving way, but I gently point out that he has now been speaking for 34 minutes and quite a few of his colleagues wish to speak as well. As much as we are enjoying his speech, I am sure that he is going to give us his final words about his views on the Bill.

[Mr Dodds]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I have had so many weeks to ponder and consider the contents of the Bill in relative peace and quiet that I have become carried away. I agree with the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long). Following your injunction, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will not go into detail on the various issues to do with the changes to the rules of court, sharing biometric data, equality and so on—not that I had very much to say about them.

The Bill is relatively modest, but it is significant in the context in which it has been introduced. It is significant in that it moves things forward in Northern Ireland, which is important because when all else is stripped away, the most important thing for those of us who represent the Province here in this House of Commons is to keep Northern Ireland moving forward.

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[Dr McDonnell]

I am not sure what answer I am supposed to give, or what answer is expected. I do not think that any of us pay much attention to opinion polls yet, at the same time, we can quote selectively from them when it suits.

[Mr Dodds]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. A moment ago, the hon. Member for Belfast South (Dr McDonnell) was challenged about his party’s support for the naming of a playground after an IRA terrorist. Rather than answering the point, he used the term “bigots” to refer to hon. Members in a somewhat childish reaction, instead of responding to the substantive point. Can you give a ruling, Mr Deputy Speaker, on the use of the term “bigot” as parliamentary language to refer to hon. Members?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

That is why I interrupted the debate. This is about having a temperate debate. It is about using moderate language. We do not want to inflame the debate. That is why I interrupted in the way that I did. I do not think that it was an appropriate use of the word, but I made that point at the time. We have moved on, and it is about making sure that it is a debate in which people have respect for one another. We are in danger of losing that respect with the use of inflammatory language.

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[Dr McDonnell]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. For the record, I did not accuse any hon. Member. I referred to a group of—[Interruption.]

[Mr Dodds]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Before we get too far with further points of order, I know that reference was not made to an individual Member, but the Members to whom the hon. Member for Belfast South (Dr McDonnell) referred were sitting behind him. In a sense, it was a collective use of the word. I do not want to prolong this. I have given my view and I want to hear more of the hon. Gentleman’s speech.

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[Mr Donaldson]

Just as, no doubt, the SDLP opposed the extension of local government terms that occurred in Northern Ireland. Let us not hear this drivel about how it is somehow undemocratic in principle to move the date of an election. When it suited the SDLP’s political purposes to have the term of the Assembly extended, the term of the Assembly was extended by fiat of the Northern Ireland Office—not even by coming to this House.

[Mr Dodds]

Given that these points were made so strongly by the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie), it is right that we get the facts right. As for local government, this is not ancient history. Only in the last mandate, the term of local government was extended from elections in 2009 to elections in 2011, so that instead of serving four years, councillors had six years. The SDLP did not object—[Interruption.] It did not object. In fact, it supported the move.

[Mr Donaldson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making precisely the point that I have been making: when it is politically advantageous for members of the SDLP to do something, principle does not come into it, but when they consider themselves potentially disadvantaged—I am not sure why they feel they in particular would be disadvantaged by this provision of the Bill—all of a sudden, they find a principle on which to take a stand. Well, we are not into revisionism. Madam Deputy Speaker, if you study the psychology of Northern Ireland, you will find that there are two different approaches to history: there is the revisionist approach, where you rewrite the facts to suit your argument, depending on where you are standing at the time; and then there is the approach that says that what is fact is fact, and it should be recorded as fact. On this issue—