Lord Empey:

I will answer the last point first. I do not think anybody would say we could not have done things better. Perhaps we did things too late. Of course, we were under pressure from elements that did not respect the democratic process or who derived their authority not from the democratic process, but from force. Looking back, there is no question we missed opportunities to be quicker and more fleet of foot. I think one would be hard pressed to find somebody to say we did everything perfectly. I do not think that is possible. On the subject of a border poll, it is in the agreement because the rationale to provide a mechanism by which, if circumstances arose that people wanted to change the constitutional position it could be done democratically. That would, therefore, remove the necessity for physical force. These things are always exceptionally difficult to judge. As a general rule of thumb, the rationale was that if there were evidence that opinion had changed to such an extent that a change was likely to occur, the Secretary of State of the day would initiate a border poll. One then asks what the issues are, and how is it to be done? We have elections, opinion polls and all sorts of things like that, which can give an indication of the direction of travel. There could be resolutions in the Assembly and in local government, and all sorts of things. I cannot see that any of those thresholds have been crossed. We are still reeling from the effects of the last poll, with regard to the European Union and the United Kingdom's decision to leave it. I can think of nothing more likely to destabilise us than to open up another front at this time. I think if the Brexit referendum has taught us nothing else, it is that there needs to be preparation. If one was to simply jump into something like that the downstream consequences could be extremely destabilising. I have little doubt they would be. On the subject of things I would have done differently, the big mistake we made in the negotiations, certainly with regard to strand 1, were the titles we attributed to the First Minister and deputy First Minister.

Having a deputy First Minister with a small "d" was such a nit-picking difference that it implied a hierarchy. I have held the office and I know it is not a hierarchy but we were conscious at the time that Scotland was getting devolution and that it had a First Minister and we were conscious of that and looking at that aspect as well. In retrospect, the naming of people in that way was probably wrong.