Northern Ireland (Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-10
Topic: Law and Crime
Stephen Pelham Pound (Labour, Centre-left): The debate on this group all started so well. The Minister’s initial moves on timetabling were sensible and proportionate, and I believe would have been supported by the whole House. I think the key comments—these should be the leitmotif of this afternoon’s entire discussion—were about the creation of a society "free of paramilitarism". That is the point we start from. That is where we want to go. It is the route to that desired state that we are discussing this afternoon We heard a tour de force from the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon). Sometimes I gain the impression that hers is a multi-Member constituency, because it seems almost impossible that one person could sway the Committee so effectively—and not for the first time, either. I hope that the hon. Lady will allow me, on behalf of my colleagues and, I am sure, all of us, to say what an immensely impressive case she made Come what may, the Government have to reflect and consult and reconsider. We have heard too much evidence this afternoon for us simply to allow this matter to slide through. We have heard some immense detail. The hon. Member for North Down talked about the conflicts that arose during her ministerial period. This provides yet another reason why we need to examine the case somewhat further The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) described the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for North Down as sensible and prudent, while also touching on a vital point. The right hon. Gentleman talked about public confidence, which I believe is very much at the heart of the matter. We can argue about the niceties, about interpretation and about angels dancing on the head of a pin. We can go through this catechism and ask whether people adhere to this precisely or not, but ultimately, the issue of public confidence is immensely important. There cannot be an area in the politics and daily life of Northern Ireland where there is a greater need for public confidence than in the transition away from paramilitarism and violence towards the desired state that I referred to earlier The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley also talked about identifying an ambivalence in attitude, and that feeds into some of the comments made by the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills). There is a need for further finessing and interpretation. When the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) went through the clauses of the Bill in detail, he put his finger on the fact that we are still not entirely clear about what many of them mean. The hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Tom Elliott) also referred to that On behalf of my colleagues on the Opposition side of the Chamber, I call on the Government to take cognisance of the strength, the power and the logic of the arguments that they have heard on the Floor of the House today, not just because of the strength of those arguments but because of the impact that the proposals will have on civic life in Northern Ireland. What has been said today cannot be unsaid, and what has been done cannot be undone. We have to recognise the impact of what we have heard this afternoon. The Government have our entire support in this transition towards a good society and, as the SDLP put it when we debated an earlier amendment, a wholesome society.