Mr. Daniel Holder:

The bill of rights is to go through Westminster legislation. That is very important because otherwise it would not bind any Act of the British Government. It is not just Stormont that could breach the bill of rights; it is the British Government. The legacy example is the obvious one. The excuse at present is that the British Government has made up a prerequisite of either all-party or cross-party consensus on a bill of rights. There is, bar the DUP, consensus on a bill of rights across most of the other parties. There is certainly cross-community consensus among Protestants, Catholics, unionists and nationalists. Every poll that has ever been done on a bill of rights has demonstrably shown that, but the UK Government has, in effect, made up a prerequisite that it will not move until there is consensus on the content of a bill of rights. In effect, this hands to opponents of equality a veto over a bill of rights actually being in place.

Of course, that is not contained anywhere in the Good Friday Agreement, which is very clear about the advice on the content of a bill of rights, because everyone knew there was never going to be consensus on that just as there was never going to be consensus on policing reform - it was something that had to be done as part of the settlement. Instead, the advice on what the content is has been deferred to an independent public body. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission is to provide the advice on the content of the bill of rights, but that commission finds itself in a difficult position at present. The UN has not renewed its UN status as was expected because, as a national human rights institution, the commission needs to abide by a certain set of rules regarding its powers and independence that have not been met. I should stress this is not because of anything the Human Rights Commission has done but what the Northern Ireland Office has done, particularly in respect of cutting the commission's funding to the extent that it cannot discharge many of its core functions.