I thank the Chairman for the invitation and warm welcome. I appreciate seeing the committee in action and listening to some of the evidence presented in the previous session.
I will make some brief remarks on the thought processes that went into developing the Bill. The Good Friday Agreement, the implementation of which is the focus of the committee, was about addressing historical divisions in Northern Ireland. The Assembly and Executive Reform (Assembly Opposition) Bill is, in no small measure, about how we continue to address the divisions in Northern Ireland by moving from a system of governance to good government that is delivering for people. In the past three years, we had the Haass talks, the first Stormont House Agreement and, more recently, a second Stormont House Agreement. There is widespread recognition, and not only among politicians, that we have lurched from crisis to crisis for almost 18 years.
At the next election, some of those who will vote will have been born after the Good Friday Agreement was signed. How have our institutions evolved or changed to ensure we can deliver good government? The rationale for the Bill was to address the question of how to deliver on good governance and reform of the way in which the Executive operates. I am pleased that significant differences have emerged between the provisions made in the Stormont House Agreement of last year and the recent Stormont House Agreement, known as A Fresh Start. These differences are related in no small measure to the Bill and the agenda it sought to push in areas such as speaking rights and recognition of the Opposition. While the agreement does not go as far as I would like it to go, the Bill certainly pushed parties and the Governments in the direction of thinking about the issue.
In forming the Executive, I would like a programme for government with broad budget headlines to be agreed before Ministers take office. I would allow up to four weeks for this to be achieved. There is broad agreement in the document, A Fresh Start, agreed at Stormont House that this must happen and that the programme for government must be set out in a way that is much more outcome-based. There has been broad acceptance among all political parties on that issue.
The Bill also seeks to introduce collective responsibility, an issue with which people down here are familiar. It is in the Irish Constitution that the Government will act as one unit. The Bill proposes to rename the Offices of the First and Deputy First Ministers. I believe there is a major debate to be had on whether the current position entrenches to some degree the tribal nature of our politics, as we all know the two offices are completely equal.
The Bill also seeks to introduce a hybrid system which adheres to the d'Hondt system in that once a party reaches a certain threshold, it will have the right, under the d'Hondt calculation, to be in government, while setting a lower threshold which would allow a party to negotiate its way into government, albeit without having an absolute right to do so. Nevertheless, parties would have an absolute right to be included in the political process. This proposal adheres to the key strands of the Good Friday Agreement and reflects its principles on inclusivity. If a party achieves a higher level of electoral support, it would have an absolute right to be in government, whereas a party with a slightly lower level of electoral support would have an absolute right to be in the political process and could act as an effective opposition.
On the reform of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Bill proposes to enhance speaking rights for the opposition - for example, by setting aside Opposition days for debates. It would create roles of leader and deputy leader. The Bill passed Second Stage on 12 October and is currently going through Committee Stage. I accept that the language used - "leader" and "deputy leader" of the Opposition - reflects the traditional parliamentary system much more than the consociational model. I will probably seek, through discussion with other parties, to change the language to have party leaders or the leader of the largest non-Executive party.
The Bill would also ensure that the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee would come from a non-government party - that is, an opposition party. It also proposes the creation of a budget committee. One of the issues with which many legislators grapple is how to give adequate scrutiny to the budget process. Most of us probably find that we struggle to do the budgetary process much justice. A report produced some years ago by the Committee for Finance and Personnel accepted that this was the case and set out a number of options, but no changes were implemented. This will be important if we move towards acquiring greater tax-varying powers or if greater fiscal devolution to the Northern Ireland Assembly takes place. In that regard, corporation tax is the issue alluded to in the first Stormont House Agreement and A Fresh Start.
The Bill also proposes to introduce the possibility of creating technical groups. I understand seven of 166 Members of the Dáil, or 4% of the Dáil's membership, are required to register for a technical group. I have proposed a threshold of 5% for the Assembly. We have used a 5% threshold which would allow qualifying parties to be in opposition. My slight criticism of the proposals on opposition in A Fresh Start is that they only really allow a party which qualifies for but then opts out of government to form an opposition.
The reduction to nine in the number of Departments provided for in A Fresh Start is welcome. It will, however, make it more difficult for some of the smaller parties to secure a ministerial post under the d'Hondt mechanism because fewer ministerial posts are available.
In the 2011 Assembly election, for example, the Alliance Party would not have qualified under the d'Hondt calculation. It is important that if it or other parties - whether the Ulster Unionists or the SDLP - ever fell out of the process, they would still be recognised. It is important to use the 5% or six members provision to allow that.
Some of the issues that have been problematic for us over the years have also been written into the Bill. I now feel it is time to move away from community designation. I accept that will be controversial for some parties but we certainly need a debate. Judging from the responses from the committee, from academics and across the board it has stoked an awful lot of debate. It begs the question of what we were using community designation for. Is it simply copper-fastening our communal divide?
I want to replace the petitions of concern mechanism with a minority protection mechanism requiring 30 signatures from three different parties. A Fresh Start has addressed the petitions of concern problem with a protocol but that is not strong enough. We need some protection mechanism but we also need it to be used when one garners wider support. As regards the move from the cross-community designation vote to a weighted majority vote, I propose 60% but that could be varied or set at the start of each mandate.
The Bill would run and stick with d'Hondt but would seek to run d'Hondt as one piece through the executive committee chairs. This means if one opted out of the executive one could pick a committee chair and the Opposition parties would end up with a larger selection of committee chairs. Members who have followed the Bill will notice that-----
