The British government is expected to adjourn the Northern Ireland Bill in the House of Lords later today, following Ulster Unionist Party insistence that it will not form an executive with Sinn Fein ahead of IRA decommissioning.
Peers were due to consider today amendments to the Bill proposed by the British government in an attempt to persuade Unionists to drop their pledge of "no guns, no government." But with the need for legislation to be passed quickly through the Commons and the Lords now removed, the passage of the Bill will proceed "at a more leisurely pace," Downing Street said last night.
After a five-hour debate in the Lords yesterday, the Bill was given a second reading without a vote. The three government amendments provide for the publication of a specified decommissioning timetable laid down by Gen de Chastelain; automatic suspension of the executive and Northern Ireland institutions if the timetable is breached or if any party fails to honour devolution commitments and the formal identification of a defaulting party.
Speaking in the second reading debate, Northern Ireland Minister Lord Dubs said the government had listened carefully to the insistence by the Ulster Unionists and the Conservatives that the International Commission on Decommissioning should publish a clear decommissioning timetable. "We claim no monopoly of wisdom," he said. "If it is possible to improve the Bill, consistent with the Good Friday agreement, we will of course do so."
Lord Dubs said the government recognised the sanction of suspending the executive in the event of default by a single party was "hard" on the parties who were not in default. But it was wrong to portray the sanction as a punishment and the government could not prescribe automatic expulsion of any party since such a move would be inconsistent with the Belfast Agreement.
"There is a risk of failure. But we have provided what guarantees we could and they are substantial ones. Suspension may seem harsh, but an innocent party is no worse off after a default on commitments by someone else than they are now," he said.
The former Ulster Unionist leader, Lord Molyneaux, said the Bill was a "wholly destructive" piece of legislation. "The Bill destroys the concept of coalition, as most of us understand it, which normally would permit any element to withdraw or disqualify itself without endangering the coalition as a whole."
Former Conservative minister Lord Tebbit said there was nothing in the Bill to put pressure on loyalist terrorists or any terrorists not associated with Sinn Fein to decommission. The only method to do this, he said, was to stop the early release of terrorist prisoners.