Orders of the Day — Northern Ireland Constitution (Amendment) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 13 Rhagfyr 1973.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Mr Francis Pym Mr Francis Pym , Cambridgeshire 12:00, 13 Rhagfyr 1973

With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like my first words to be words of gratitude to the right hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish). With some hon. Members, the "usual channels" is not the most popular means of communication and I have sometimes wondered what the result would be if it did not exist. But as long as I have been operating the usual channels from my end I have been very fortunate in having at the other end the right hon. Member for Bermondsey. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]

I never knew, until the right hon. Gentleman came into my room, whether he would be in one of his benign moods, in one of his "gentle request" moods or, at worst, in a state of ferocious outrage, which is something to experience. Having sat in the seats on both sides of the House normally occupied by the Whips, I can claim to be a fair assessor of House of Commons speeches, particularly of those made from the Front Bench. But it is very easy to make a Front Bench speech if one never has to make one, so I have no idea what will happen now.

It was only the Sunday before last that I was ejected from the "usual channels" and given responsibility in Northern Ireland. In the first week—just my luck—I was stung for an all-night sitting, and on a Saturday. However, that was at the conference, and mainly because of the conference and the inevitable pressures of the first few days in a new office I should be less than frank if I said that I had known which day it was—until today, when the ritual of business questions enabled me to rediscover my bearings.

The House has already heard from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, in his statement on Monday this week, of the important developments in relation to Northern Ireland following the conference last weekend. I want to take this opportunity of adding my own tribute to those, particularly the representatives from Northern Ireland, who took part in that conference. The determination of the three political parties from Northern Ireland to find a means of accommodating their differences gives both hope and encouragement for the future.

There are those in Northern Ireland who have always been against this or any fundamental constitutional change, or at least thought they were against it. They are entitled to their view naturally, but in my few days there so far I have the clear impression that the vast majority want these new arrangements to work. It seems to me entirely legitimate that those who prefer some alternative arrangement should continue to hold that view, although I am bound to say none of them so far has come forward as far as I know with any constructive alternative that could even remotely be contemplated by the other parties concerned. Even so, it is, of course, possible to argue a case, but I believe there is no justification whatever for anyone trying to excite or incite people to strong-arm or even violent methods in pursuit of their aim. The progress of the past months has been achieved by proper parliamentary, constitutional and electoral processes, and this is the British way of doing things.

The conference at Sunningdale is obviously of much wider significance than its relevance to this Bill, but its successful outcome was one of the last two political pre-conditions for establishing finally the new constitutional arrangements in Northern Ireland, because the agreement of the Alliance, SDLP and UU Parties in Northern Ireland to form an Executive was dependent on the outcome of the conference, and, therefore, it was of particular importance in this respect. The only remaining pre-condition is a slight change to Section 8 of the Constitution Act, and the purpose of this Bill is to make that change.