Northern Ireland (Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan) Bill

Debate between Mark Durkan and Jeffrey M Donaldson

Thursday 10th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

In following my hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) in speaking to our amendment, I want to deal with a few of the points that have been made about this group of clauses on the independent reporting commission.

At the original Stormont House talks in late 2014, the SDLP proposed that the agenda should include paramilitarism and organised crime. It did not take the murders that subsequently happened to tell us that that was still a serious issue that should not be ignored in any serious negotiations. Unfortunately, we were not supported by other parties, who seemed to believe that that would somehow not be a problem. So we are now addressing an issue that other parties chose to ignore. Whenever the murders happened last year, a political crisis was created over issues that parties chose to ignore and then dramatically tried to advertise.

[Mr Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

The hon. Gentleman will forgive us if we take his comments as tongue in cheek, given that we were told after the Good Friday agreement in 1998 that these problems were all being dealt with, and the agreement was a comprehensive approach to resolving the issues relating to our conflict in Northern Ireland. We are still dealing with them 18 years later so he should not point the finger at those of us who warned in 1998 that the agreement was deficient in that regard.

[Mark Durkan]

Without getting drawn too far away from the subject of the Bill, none of us pretended that the 1998 agreement would absolutely solve the problems or dissolve any of the paramilitary organisations. We committed to a framework for decommissioning and a number of other changes. We consistently supported the existence of the Independent Monitoring Commission to deal with the questions of ongoing paramilitary activity. In this House, whenever the previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), announced that the IMC was being wound up, some of us said, “You are taking away the monitoring commission because Sinn Fein has made a political issue of it, but the issue of paramilitarism has not gone away, and it will come back.” We pointed out that something like the IMC would end up being needed. That is exactly what happened last year.

Some of us have been consistent about recognising where there are problems and that they need to continue to be addressed. We were right about the questions arising when the IMC was wound up with no procedure to deal with ongoing concerns. We were right to say that the issue needed to be addressed in the Stormont House agreement. We were right in the proposals that my hon. Friend the Member for South Down has described when we said that we needed an enforcement approach and a whole community approach to secure an end to paramilitarism, as well as all the other changes that were needed to achieve a wholesome society. We were the only parties that advocated such proposals. To an extent, some of the sentiment of that is reflected in the agreement, but in a highly edited, partial and incomplete way, and that is why we have tabled our amendments.

We used to have an Independent Monitoring Commission that reported. Now we have an independent reporting commission. The legislation does not seem able to say “monitor”. The “Fresh Start” agreement refers to the term “monitoring”, but for some reason “monitoring” is not in the Bill. It is as though the legislation has carefully avoided saying anything that the commission will actually do. So we have to look at the “Fresh Start” agreement to see what the commission might actually do. For some reason, it is avoided in the lengthy clauses of the Bill.

The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) said that under the “Fresh Start” agreement the appointments, as well as the one appointment by the British Government and the one by the Irish Government, were to be made by the First and Deputy First Ministers. They were not. The hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Tom Elliott) is correct. The “Fresh Start” agreement said that the Executive shall nominate two members. Therefore, our amendment is consistent with what is in the “Fresh Start” agreement. It says that the appointment should be made, rather than by the First and Deputy First Minister, by the Justice Minister after consultation with the First and Deputy First Minister and in agreement with the Executive. So our amendment is more consistent with the “Fresh Start” agreement than the clause or the right hon. Gentleman’s amendment.

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[Mr Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

We support amendment 6, which was tabled by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon). There is much merit in what she says. When we ask Members of a legislature to give an undertaking that they will behave in a certain way and abide by certain principles, surely there should be some sanction when they breach those principles and their undertaking. We are not asking hon. Members—neither is the hon. Lady—to prescribe what the sanctions should be. We merely want to ensure, as is our duty as the sovereign Parliament, that the Standing Orders of the Northern Ireland Assembly reflect the need for such sanctions. It is our duty to legislate for this element of the Stormont agreement, and we believe that what the hon. Lady has proposed is sensible and prudent. This is a question of not just the politics of all this, but public confidence in the Northern Ireland Assembly, its operation and those who are elected to it.

We talk about a fresh start. We have Assembly elections on 5 May. The Members who will be elected to the Assembly for the first time after that election will be required to make this undertaking. I think that that is the appropriate moment when the Assembly should be saying that we can have no more of a situation in which some people may have been ambivalent in their attitude towards paramilitarism in the past. Everyone has to be very clear about where they stand and it is important to have the undertaking. It is also important, for public confidence and for the accountability of our public representatives, to have a sanction. It is for the Assembly to prescribe that sanction, but it is for this House to ensure that the requirement for that is in Standing Orders. We will support the hon. Lady’s amendment.

[Mark Durkan]

As my hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) said, the SDLP has tabled several amendments on this issue. I take on board what the Minister said in an attempt to give a “prebuttal” of our amendments, and I will come on to amendment 6, which was tabled by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), when I speak to clause 8.

We have tabled amendments 8 to 12 to clause 7. The Minister tried to say there would be no tension in interpretation between different parts of the proposed pledge of office. Proposed new sub-paragraphs (cf) and (cg) of schedule 4 to the Northern Ireland Act 1998—

“to work collectively with the other members of the Executive Committee to achieve a society free of paramilitarism”

and

“to challenge all paramilitary activity and associated criminality”—

could well find themselves in tension with another Minister’s understanding of proposed new sub-paragraph (cj), which is to

“support those who are determined to make the transition away from paramilitarism.”

My hon. Friend the Member for South Down described the situation in which she found herself. She tried, as stated in proposed sub-paragraph (cf), to

“work collectively with other members of the Executive…to achieve a society free of paramilitarism”,

and she was told at that time, “No, it’s in your Department. You do your own thing. You make that decision.” She then acted on the basis of, as in proposed sub-paragraph (cg), challenging

“all paramilitary activity and associated criminality”

only to find herself undermined by other members of the Executive, who said that they were actually discharging the requirement of proposed sub-paragraph (cj) as supporting

“those who are determined to make the transition away from paramilitarism”.

That issue ended up in the courts, so there is already proven experience of exactly the contradictions and tensions that can exist between these things when they are different bullet points that can be quoted separately. This is a recipe for confusion, nonsense and obfuscation.

We also need to recognise that people will interpret various parts of the pledge differently. Will the Minister tell us whether denying something as paramilitary activity breaches the line in the pledge to

“challenge all paramilitary activity and associated criminality”?

When someone turns around and says, “Oh no, so and so is not engaged in paramilitary activity or associated criminality; they are a good republican,” does that mean they are in breach of proposed sub-paragraph (cg)? Is that a failure to challenge? Is denial a failure to challenge, or can denial exist alongside the commitment to challenge all paramilitary activity, because someone can say that as paramilitary activity and associated criminality is not defined by anybody else, it is what anybody wants to define it to be? This touches on a point made earlier by the hon. Member for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan) on the earlier group.

Clause 7 is wide open for misinterpretation and misapplication, which will lead to people being scandalised. It will not avoid us being in exactly the sort of crisis situation we had last year. In the aftermath of a horrible crime and comments that the Chief Constable could not avoid making, we then had political difficulties. The terms of the pledge of office and the undertaking are meant to avoid our being back in that situation, but they will clearly fail to do so. That is why we have tabled our amendments.

Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

Debate between Mark Durkan and Jeffrey M Donaldson

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. On his point about the Environment Minister for Northern Ireland notifying officials when a potential SDLP donor is involved in a planning application, does he know whether that information, when lodged with officials, is subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and is it available to a member of the public?

[Mark Durkan]

As I understand it, it is not, not least because it is not a compelling point. He informs his officials and the matter is handled in a particular way, but that does not put anybody at any risk. I do not believe that Alex Attwood is inadvertently trying to find a way around the provisions and the whole question of protecting things on a retrospective basis; it is about him as a Minister being honest with his officials and with the responsibility entrusted to him to exercise good, clear, honest and independent judgment. It is also about allowing his officials to do that as well, because many of the issues that have arisen in recent days involve concerns that Ministers are intruding into what officials are doing—that Ministers are being overactive in their Departments in relation to matters being handled at an official level. Questions arise about who meets Ministers and whether they record and declare those meetings fully, and whether they account for those meetings in response to questions in Committees. When those questions are being asked, we need to address transparency requirements.

It will not fall to this House and the Bill to provide all the answers to remedy the situation: the Executive and the Assembly will have to address tightening the ministerial code on ministerial meetings and donations. On Second Reading, I made the point that this issue does not just relate to planning decisions, and recent events relate to significant public contracts and public appointments. There have been a lot of questions on whether public appointments in Northern Ireland always follow the standard they are meant to follow. Many people would anecdotally suggest that there is too much coincidence and pattern in some public appointments.

Those are all reasons why we need more transparency. The fact that Northern Ireland is a small place is often used as a reason why we cannot have too much transparency. When I was a Minister, I would have made it known to a civil servant if a relative of mine was appointed to something. I would not have made the appointment, but it would have been for me to take official note of it. I wanted to disclose that, rather than have somebody else find out later on. Where relatives might have had a perceived interest in a particular project, or even a rival project, I would again have made a point of always declaring it. Of course, I was often told by civil servants, “Look, you can’t do that every time. Northern Ireland is too small a place. You can hardly walk down a street without bumping into people. You couldn’t throw a stone without hitting somebody that you know or are related to.” [Laughter.] That is not particularly good advice and is not the way I would usually want to make contact with people—even I might tweet first before doing that. The smallness of Northern Ireland can become an excuse for not having proper standards of transparency. That smallness is one of the reasons why it is necessary. The danger is that slippage in one area becomes an excuse for slipperiness in another. We should not allow that to happen. I have been definite about my support for making stronger moves on transparency, which is why I support amendment 2.

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[Mark Durkan]

I fully take the hon. Lady’s point; it was a helpful intervention, but the point that the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) made was also a good and valid one. If we were using the Bill, in the pedantic sense, to make it truly perfect and to cover all the options, we could have included the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, but we did not, for the sorts of reasons she mentioned.

If we are moving, rightly, towards precluding dual mandates in this Chamber and the Northern Ireland Assembly, the same should apply to the other place as well. If it is to be one Member, one Chamber, it would be wrong if somebody could be in another Chamber in this Parliament—a Chamber which, because of the strange rules, procedures and fixations that people have here, seems at times to have more impact on legislation, by way of amendments, than this one.

The argument then arises about why somebody should be allowed to sit in another Chamber simply because they are not elected and have no mandate. The fact that they are there on an unelected basis does not make their dual membership of two different legislative Chambers any more acceptable than it would be for somebody who had been elected to both Chambers. Indeed, we have heard the Democratic Unionist party make the argument that there is more legitimacy if someone is elected to two Chambers, because the public, in electing that person, know that they are in two Chambers and knowingly give them that mandate. In many ways, the least defensible position is to say that someone can be an elected Member of one Chamber and an unelected Member of another at the same time.

The same thing has to apply to the Oireachtas. If people have rightly been precluded from being a Teachta Dala at the same time as being a Member of the Assembly, they should also be precluded from being a Member of the Seanad Eireann at the same time, whether as a Taoiseach’s appointee or as someone elected through the panels by the electoral college system that exists in the south for the Seanad. Again, if people are sitting in one legislative Chamber, that should be their sole place. That is the point of amendment 20 and the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Belfast East.

I fully take the point made by the hon. Member for Amber Valley, who wants to extend that position to the European Parliament. Some of us had thought that that was already provided for, but I understand that it applies more specifically to membership of this House—to national Parliaments, as opposed to regional or other territorial Assemblies. In practice, when the parties in Northern Ireland have run Members of the Assembly as candidates for the European Parliament in recent times, they have usually done so on the basis of a full declaration that, if elected to the European Parliament, that candidate’s membership of the Assembly would cease. However, in taking a belt-and-braces approach, the hon. Gentleman makes a good point with amendment 3.

I repeat the point that if we want to have one Member, one Chamber, we should apply that to the second Chamber of Parliament and the Oireachtas, as well as to the first Chambers of both.

[Mr Donaldson]

We do not have an amendment in this group, but I want to speak to a number of the amendments that have been tabled.

I, along with others here, held a dual mandate for some time, being a Member of Parliament and subsequently being elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly. At times I think it pushes the boundaries a little to suggest that there is huge public opposition to the concept of dual mandates. When I was elected for two terms in the Assembly, I was a Member of Parliament, but I was elected—I do not share this for any reason other than to illustrate my point—with the highest number of first preference votes of any candidate in the Assembly elections on both occasions. No one voted for me on the basis that they did not know that I was already a Member of Parliament, yet they deemed it appropriate to elect me to a second Chamber. The idea that the public were always entirely opposed to dual mandates is therefore spurious, because the facts do not support it.

Because of the development of the peace process in Northern Ireland, we needed people in the Assembly who had the experience of serving as Members of Parliament. That was important. I recognise that we have now moved on and, on the basis of voluntary undertakings given by parties in Northern Ireland, we now have very few Members who hold a dual mandate between this House and the Northern Ireland Assembly, and by the next election there will be none. To say that there is a need for these changes is therefore stretching the point, to say the least. Indeed, this issue would be way down my list of priorities for inclusion in the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill.

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[Mr Donaldson]

I would also say that a constituent, whether it be in Limavady or Lisburn, is well able to make a judgment about whether the person they elected to a particular chamber better serves the interests of the people by being here to vote on the Mersey Tunnels Bill, which is of no relevance whatever to the people of Limavady or Lisburn, or by dealing with an issue in the Northern Ireland Assembly that is of relevance to them.

We have moved on from the question of dual mandates between the House of Commons and the House of Lords or the House of Commons and the Northern Ireland Assembly, but I do not believe that the same arguments apply in respect of being a Member of the House of Lords and being a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly. As I have said, I think there is real value to the Assembly in having a small number of Members who are also Members of the United Kingdom Parliament by virtue of their membership of the House of Lords. Equally, I would hope, the House of Lords can see the value of having that sort of representation, albeit on a small scale.

We nevertheless support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) because the European Parliament is an elected chamber, and we draw a distinction between an elected and an appointed chamber. If the argument is made that it is difficult to be in London and in Belfast, I would say that it is even more difficult to be in Brussels or Strasbourg and in Belfast. None of the Northern Ireland parties pursue the option of having their MPs as an MLA, but if the argument goes that we are legislating to prevent dual mandates for the House of Commons because we want to prevent it happening in the future, I suggest that the same principle should apply to Members of the European Parliament as well. It may not be the practice at the moment, just as I believe the practice of dual mandates in this House is coming to an end, but if preventive measures are called for, we have to be consistent and look at the position of the European Parliament.

We are minded to support amendment 3, tabled by the hon. Member for Amber Valley, but to oppose the amendments that include the House of Lords in the excluding provisions. We believe it is right to include the Irish Parliament within the exclusions, given that it is an elected body, and I think that the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) is seeking to extend that to include the Irish Senate.

[Mark Durkan]

The right hon. Gentleman will recognise that the Irish Senate is not actually elected in a public sense. Indeed, some of the seats are appointed by the Taoiseach. Those of us who are backing these amendments are being consistent: whether or not a chamber is elected is not what matters; what matters is whether it is a legislative chamber.

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[Mark Durkan]

I am not aware that we tried any such thing. I certainly never agreed to any such moves, not least when I was Deputy First Minister. When my fellow leader suggested that there were things that we could do to ensure better political patronage, I made it very clear that I was not for doing any such thing, regardless of what the NIO wanted to do. I used to spend much time in disagreement with NIO Ministers who had wheezes that they were working out with the First Minister. I did not go along with any of the Jonathan Powell, John Reid, David Trimble, Tony Blair wheezes on further ensconcing the position of the then leader of the Ulster Unionist party. It seemed to me that messing about with the institutions and playing those sorts of games was not the way to do things, either for that party or for the process and institutions that we had.

[Mr Donaldson]

It is just a minor point, but I am interested in how the hon. Gentleman regarded the wheeze that was introduced in the Assembly to unresign the former Deputy First Minister, who was then the deputy leader of the SDLP.

[Mark Durkan]

I think that privately I was the first to make the comparison with Bobby Ewing in the shower. I know that others said it publicly, but I think that the memoirs will show that I made that observation first because it was an obvious one to make. I did not agree with such wheezes. When it came to my election as Deputy First Minister alongside David Trimble as First Minister in the autumn of 2001, I did not agree with some of what the then Secretary of State said about the circumstances in which that election would take place. I made it very clear that, as far as I was concerned, if the Assembly fell and there was an election, that should be that.

Similarly, to correct a misrepresentation that was made on Second Reading, we did not agree to the wheeze of moving the date of the Assembly election. Under the agreement, the date of the second Assembly election was meant to be May 2003, because the first Assembly was to sit for five years to allow for bedding in. We did not agree with the date being postponed from May 2003. The right hon. Member for Torfaen, who was Secretary of State at the time, will remember that we said we were opposed to moving that election date. We have not agreed with any of the wheezes. When things are said, they should remain.

[Mr Donaldson]

Lest we rewrite the Second Reading debate, I wish to place it on the record that the point I made was merely that there is a precedent for extending the Assembly to five years. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman now accepts that the 1998 Assembly was extended to five years to, as he describes it, bed in. The point that I made on Second Reading and that I reiterate now is that there is a precedent for extending the life of the Assembly to five years.

[The Temporary Chair (Katy Clark)]

Order. I ask Mark Durkan to address the amendment that we are debating.

Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

Debate between Mark Durkan and Jeffrey M Donaldson

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)]

I am warming to this idea of using shorthand for parliamentary constituencies. Perhaps in future I will refer to the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) as the Member for a river in Londonderry, and perhaps the SDLP will think again—

[Mark Durkan]

That’s not shorthand—it’s longer.

[Mr Donaldson]

It might be longer, but, considering the length of the hon. Gentleman’s speech—[Interruption.] Length seems to be very important indeed.

I want to deal with the issue raised by the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) about extending the term of the Assembly. This year is the year of culture in Londonderry and I think the SDLP should consider entering some of the competitions, particularly storytelling. The hon. Lady would tell a very good mystery story indeed.

Let us deal with political history and reality. The principle that the hon. Lady seeks to express is that when the public vote for an elected body for a fixed term, if we seek to alter that term we should go back to the people before we do so. In the stakes of political U-turns, political changes of mind and the irony of taking up a position one day and then advocating the opposite, the SDLP must take first prize.

The Assembly elected in 1998, after the Belfast agreement, was elected for a four-year term. I accept that there were periods when the Executive did not function, but Assembly Members continued to be paid and to hold office throughout that period. There was no election until November 2003, I believe. Mathematics was not my strongest subject at school, but I know enough to say that November 2003 back to May or June 1998 is a lot more than four years. Did we hear the SDLP— the largest nationalist party at that time—say, “This is dreadful! We must go back to the people. We must have an election”?

[Mark Durkan]

I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that I, as leader of the SDLP at the time, advocated that the election, if it was to take place, should take place at the due time, on the due date. The British Government of the day said, “No. We have negotiations going on with the Ulster Unionist party and Sinn Fein. They need the summer to work at this and to move things on. They need more time.” I opposed moving the election day, and I imagine that John Reid, who was misquoted earlier, could confirm that that was the position I stated to him as Secretary of State.

[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 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—

[Mark Durkan]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

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[Mr Donaldson]

I think I have given way enough. The SDLP is backpedalling furiously on this issue. SDLP Members know the reality: they have decided to make a point on the Bill tonight, but it is a bogus point—one on which their own record, when it is subjected to scrutiny, does not stand up for a moment.

Today, we have heard from the leader of the SDLP about the need to make progress towards reconciliation. On this point, we are agreed: we do need to make progress towards reconciliation; we do need to address the issues of the past. I too was struck by the comments made by young Hannah Nelson last week at the Waterfront hall. She said, yes, we have a past and we most certainly cannot forget what happened in the past. We must acknowledge the hurt and the pain suffered during those dark, dark years of the troubles, and the victims need to be acknowledged and recognised. But we also want to help to move Northern Ireland forward. I really do not think it is helpful when during efforts to move Northern Ireland forward and to get a discourse, a dialogue, going about how to deal with those matters, people resort to old insults such as, “All you lot are bigots.” That really does not engender the sort of political climate we need to make progress on reconciliation. What must the young people of south Belfast be thinking this evening, when their Member of Parliament stands up in the House and describes the leading party of one side of the community in Northern Ireland as a bunch of bigots? Is that conducive to the kind of reconciliation that the hon. Member for Belfast South (Dr McDonnell) claims he wants to achieve?

What does not help reconciliation is having political parties that posture as being the moderate voice and, at the same time, take actions that can have only one effect, which is to cause hurt and pain on the other side of the political divide in Northern Ireland. That is why I challenged the hon. Gentleman on the point about reconciliation. It does not help when, in Newry and Mourne district council, councillors from his party support the renaming of a children’s play park in Newry after a dead IRA terrorist—and not just any dead IRA terrorist but a terrorist who was convicted of a number of offences, including possession of a weapon, which was used in the murder of 10 Protestants in Kingsmill in south Armagh.

One might think that a progressive party that claims to be a moderating voice and which wants to promote reconciliation might reflect for a moment on the fact that supporting the naming of a children’s play park after someone with such a record might be offensive to a section of our community, and might cause hurt to the families of those killed in the Kingsmill massacre. It might be a retrograde step for our wish to move Northern Ireland beyond the dark days that we witnessed in the past.

[Mark Durkan]

The right hon. Gentleman rightly speaks passionately about the feelings in this instance of the relatives of those who were murdered in such a vicious, sectarian way at Kingsmill. I have been on the record, as have party colleagues, both publicly and privately, saying that we thought what our councillors did at that time was a mistake. I have subsequently been advised by those councillors that this was not the first naming of the park—it was named 10 years ago, and the vote was simply to confirm the original decision. When the decision was first made, no objections were made by any Unionist councillor present, and the vote that my party colleagues supported was also a vote for a procedure that would ensure that it could not happen in future—nothing could be named in such a way again. I fully accept his criticism, but I urge him to look at the wider facts, and in saying so, I do not detract in any way from the important point that he has made in relation to the relatives of the Kingsmill massacre.

[Mr Donaldson]

rose—