MPs AT Westminster have approved new legislation effecting an initial DUP/Sinn Féin deal expected to give the Alliance Party the new policing and justice ministry at Stormont later this year.
Alliance leader David Ford, who is widely tipped to eventually take the new post, was in the gallery of the House of Commons yesterday as MPs began debating the Northern Ireland Bill, which provides for the new departmental model agreed by First and Deputy First Ministers Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness.
In recognition of “confidence” issues surrounding the transfer of policing and justice powers affecting both communities in Northern Ireland, the DUP and Sinn Féin have accepted that neither party will hold the post under arrangements initially intended to last until May 2012.
The new policing and justice minister will have to be appointed by a cross-community vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly, at a time of its choosing, and in a marked departure from the established d’Hondt formula for the allocation of the other Stormont ministries.
SDLP leader Mark Durkan accused the British government of “conniving” with the DUP and Sinn Féin to dismantle the principles of “proportionality” and “inclusivity” enshrined in the Belfast Agreement – claiming “gerrymandering” by the DUP and Sinn Féin to prevent the SDLP taking the new ministry.
Following a protracted procedural row involving MPs on all sides over the government’s use of a timetable motion to complete all Commons stages of the new Bill yesterday – and in the absence of a start-date for the actual transfer of policing and justice powers – Mr Durkan was withering about what he termed “the pretence about its imminence”.
Crucially, too, Mr Durkan argued, the Bill injected fresh uncertainty into the political process.
The “madness” of the Bill, he suggested, was that, following fresh Assembly elections in 2011- and without a new agreement between the DUP and Sinn Féin by 2012 – Stormont could either be left with “a department without a minister” or “a zombie minister” without a department.
The British government takes the more sanguine view that the DUP and Sinn Féin leaderships have skilfully navigated difficulties on both sides around this vexed subject while permitting the process to continue.
While officials refuse to be drawn on the issue – and stress the timing is a matter for the Assembly – the indications are that Whitehall now expects the transfer of powers to take place some time after this year’s European elections in June and before the British general election, which need not be called until May next year.
Some DUP sources, on the other hand, have indicated a likely timetable of “a year to 18 months” before the new arrangements “go live” at Stormont – exciting some speculation that they might seek to have the new ministry established initially in “shadow” form.
Confidently commending the Bill to the House, Secretary of State Shaun Woodward urged the parties “to be bold and go forward”.