Mr. John McCallister:

I appreciate that Mr. Maskey welcomes the Bill. He and several of his colleagues spoke during the debate on it.

I have a couple of points on percentages. The reason I referred to percentages was to future proof the Bill for the reduction in the size of the Assembly. A figure of 16.6% reduces the number in the Assembly from 18 in a 108-member Assembly to 15 in a 90-member Assembly. As I said, my commitment to D'Hondt has been rock solid. However, we are not yet at that place. The figures were developed to build a sort of hybrid between a very pure consociational Government, with everyone in government and actually delivering good governance. From talks with the First and Deputy First Ministers, I found very often their biggest problem tended to be the smaller parties in the Executive. The approach taken in the fresh start involves the two main parties in government driving the fresh start. Some people say that is a bad thing, but I think it is a good thing because it involves people stepping up and saying they have to lead the process.

At times it is easier to deliver things like collective responsibility when there are fewer parties in government. There are currently four parties in government; there were five until the very end of August. My fear is that we will have a five-party coalition next May. Such a government could continue to keep going for a while under the new mandate but very quickly we will get back to a situation whereby parties are trying to jockey for position and we will be back to the days of dysfunctionality.

The figure of 18 concerns what in our view is the reasonable size one needs to achieve the D'Hondt right to be in government. Below that it is questionable. One could still negotiate one's way into government but one would have to sign up to a programme for Government and collective Cabinet responsibility. That was the reason I came up with the figure of 18 and I wanted to write it as a percentage into the Bill in order that we could future proof a move to a 90-member Assembly.

Mr. Maskey referred to the Public Accounts Committee. He was very thorough in his role as chairman of that committee. The advice from many legislators around the world and the World Bank on the role of public accounts committees tends to be that somebody who is not a member of a government party should chair such committees. If such a committee is examining any regulation or regulatory framework, it is probably better to have a chairperson at whom nothing can be thrown and who does not have some sort of vested interest. That is why it is much better to separate the chairman from government departments or Ministers.

As a result of our consociational government, Mr. Maskey would have had three ministerial colleagues, but every other department involved a different party. The committee is not as badly tied by that. If we moved to a system whereby the two main parties in government and the Alliance Party were involved in justice, it would become more problematic for a member of the government parties to then chair the Public Accounts Committee. Best practice would point to us going down this road.