Mr. John McCallister:

The Chairman is good. It is probably more the case if one is a Minister than if one is a backbencher. If everybody is in government, as is the case with the Good Friday Agreement, I want them included in the political process. D'Hondt gives the parties the right to be in government and we would need a seismic shift away from this. I want an opposition to be recognised not just if a party qualifies to be in the Executive and then chooses to be in opposition. This will get tighter with the reduction of Departments. If the SDLP was reduced to five seats and the Alliance went up by two, the SDLP would not be in the d'Hondt process and this would make a fundamental difference. It would have nowhere to go in opposition. My Bill's provision on qualifying parties would give it the choice of going into it and would give them more rights.