Mr. John McCallister:

-----the process of the Bill is slightly unusual. We can do much of what is in the Bill in the Northern Ireland Assembly but we need the Secretary of State to change the 1998 Act for parts of it. She indicated, in a letter to me of almost a year ago, that if broad cross-party support is achieved in the Assembly, she would be happy to make those changes. From the start, the Bill was about making parties move to a point where they had to vote "Yes" or "No" and to decide what they can and cannot accept to make sure something happens. The Assembly has a tremendous track record of producing reports and looking at things but of not actually getting to the point of doing anything.

It also changes the way we elect the Speaker. The Ceann Comhairle, elected by Members of the Dáil, is automatically returned to the next Dáil. The current Speaker in the Northern Ireland Assembly is not seeking re-election but, if he were, he would have to go back and get selected by his own party and face the electorate again. In the House of Commons, the Speaker is re-elected but traditionally does not face any electoral challenge. It also causes a difficulty when the Speaker cannot write to Ministers or question Ministers in the same way that Deputies, MPs or MLAs can. I propose that we elect the Speaker by secret ballot in a weighted majority vote. The Houses of Commons use a secret ballot, which is an idea I like because the speakership should not be a gift of the Executive arm of Government but of the backbenchers and members of the legislature. The Speaker is out of the party and of constituency politics and we would like to replace him or her, filling the seat with a Member from the party from which he or she was elected.

I will run through the various clauses in the Bill. It starts with the purpose of the Act and addresses how the Opposition is formed, the timing of the Opposition and when people can opt in. People make a decision at the start of the mandate as to whether they are going into Government or into Opposition. Following some of the committee scrutiny, we will look at whether we can create space if some Members do not want to be identified as being in Opposition. On the question of the dissolution of the Opposition, if there is no executive to hold to account there can be no Opposition. We are looking at amendments concerning the Leader of the Opposition and are considering changing the language to a more consociational form, such as in Scotland and Wales where they have a leader of the largest non-executive party, or in the Dáil where there are simply Leaders' Questions. Topical questions and Question Time will be split, allowing an unballoted question from the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Opposition to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister and a similar provision has been built into the fresh start agreement, which I welcome.

Speaking rights would be slightly amended so that when Government and Opposition are established we will increase Opposition speaking rights by 20% at the expense of Government time, meaning no more Assembly time would be needed. The Opposition would also have the right to chair the public accounts committee and to be on the business committee and we would use the financial review panel to look at the money allocated to Opposition parties and salaries for office holders in the Opposition.

There are clauses around how the Assembly and Executive reform motion is tabled and there is a provision on the right to form a technical group, which is a very important development for independents and small parties as it would give them some voice and the right to be represented on the business committee. It is important because at present, as an Independent Unionist, I have no way of tabling a motion whereas a technical group would be entitled to do so, though not particularly often. Members will be very familiar with that concept and its technical group might be the largest Opposition group in Dáil Éireann with 20 or 21 Members, almost equal to the official number. The technical group would not, however, have precedence over a political party so Fianna Fáil, the largest party in Opposition in Dáil Éireann, would remain so even if the technical group was bigger.

Renaming the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister is also suggested and the various parts of the motion are set out. These include: the removal of community designation; changes to petitions of concerns; the way the speaker is elected given the reference to our current speaker's letter in response to the Bill; the question of adding deputy speakers elected by secret ballot with a weighted majority; collective Cabinet responsibility; the threshold for nomination of Ministers; agreeing a programme for Government up to four weeks before running d'Hondt; and enabling the budget to be passed by a simple majority.

There is much I welcome in fresh start and the Bill has moved the debate forward but this goes significantly further in how we can continue to address our historic divisions and deliver good, effective governance on the very issues on which the Chairman questioned officials when I was in the Gallery.