I notice the Secretary of State shaking his head. In that case, perhaps I could put it in the form of advice. I hope that the Secretary-General will not be thought of as having purely an administrative rôle, but that the job will go to someone with wide understanding of the problems of Ireland as a whole. When one considers the rôle of the Secretary of State over the last 18 months, one sees that the Secretary-General's will be an important job and that it will be important to appoint someone with wide knowledge of the situation.

In paragraph 8 the communiqué refers to studies to be carried out. I have had to be a learner on Ireland over the last two years, and those who come from the North will know how deep is the lack of knowledge on which most of us on this side of the water have to depend about Northern Ireland. A great deal of information is important. Perhaps some of these papers will, properly have to be controlled by Governments, perhaps with the status of Cabinet papers, but the more of these studies that are published, so that we can read and talk about them, the better it will be and the better-informed we shall be.

I paid a tribute to those in the North by derogating our knowledge on this side of the water. Can I put it the other way around: it might aid their discussions if these documents were published, so that half-truths are not fostered about them, leading everyone to run to their various camps crying that proper discussion is not taking place.

The Secretary of State mentioned functions, and I want to deal now with security, policing and detention. The House should be clear about what was meant by paragraph 14 of the communiqué: … as soon as the security problems were resolved and new institutions were seen to be working effectively, they "— the British Government— would wish to discuss the devolution of responsibility for normal policing to Northern Ireland.

I give way to no one in my desire to hand over to those in Northern Ireland as quickly as possible as much as possible of the running of their own country. But we went through a traumatic experience during the years of the last Government and this Government before we got security into the hands of Westminster. There were many reasons for this. I wonder what is involved in one respect only in paragraph 15. Does it relate only to the police? As long as there are substantial numbers of British troops in Northern Ireland, it is vital that their control should be vested in Westminster and nowhere else.

When I was in the Republic—in case there is any fear of a deep-laid plot, I should say that I was there under an arrangement made many months ago to take part in a university debate—I found that there was more talk about the communiqué among the general public there than there is on this side of the water.

With regard to the common law area which is being discussed and, in the context of the communiqué, some sort of court having responsibility for some agreements between the North and South, and for extradition, which exercises people's minds in the North and the South, there is some talk of resuscitating an Act of Parliament which has fallen into desuetude or perhaps obsolescence. The chat in the Republic is that it was an Act of 1861. When I made some tentative inquiries about the Act, I found in the small print a provision that transgressors could be transported to Van Diemen's Land. I hope that this Act is relevant to today's circumstances. Whatever else still exists in the world, Van Diemen's Land is no longer a penal colony for people from this country. I understand that that area has now become Tasmania.