"I will correct this if I am wrong—it was before my time—but my understanding is that as a result of the consultation with the parties in the Assembly, which I believe took some time, the intention was to reduce the size of the Assembly by one Member per constituency. The …..." Lord Robathan - View Speech
"I am afraid that I cannot be quite as entertaining as the hon. Gentleman, and I shall not try to be. ConservativeHome is not an official website. It is very interesting to read. I believe that it is called a blog, although I am a little out of date on …..." Lord Robathan - View Speech
"I will respond briefly to a couple of the points that have been made.
First, I hope that it will reassure the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) to hear that I, too, have argued endlessly for a reduction in the number of Members in this House, just as …..." Lord Robathan - View Speech
"With the greatest respect to the right hon. Gentleman, that applies to any boundary of any constituency. My point is that the proportional representation system would allow smaller parties to have their say. Of course, there might be some unhappy situations. If I were able to stray beyond the remit …..." Lord Robathan - View Speech
"On the contrary, I do grasp that fact. I do understand that the situation is different. The right hon. Gentleman worked very hard on the Belfast agreement and afterwards as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. He will know that the settlement is not perfect and that many people would …..." Lord Robathan - View Speech
"The amendments that were made in the other place to clauses 10 and 11 relate to the way in which responsibility for the civil service commissioners and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission might be devolved to Northern Ireland in future. The intention of the amendments is to ensure that …..." Lord Robathan - View Speech
"The issue is whether to devolve the civil service commissioners to Northern Ireland. The civil service itself is already the responsibility of Northern Ireland, whereas the commissioners are currently under the control of the UK Government...." Lord Robathan - View Speech
"Currently, I understand, the civil service commissioners for Northern Ireland answer to the UK Government, but by devolving this issue, they will answer to the Northern Ireland Executive. I believe that to be the case, but just in case I am wrong—[Interruption.] Yes, the proceedings and functions …..." Lord Robathan - View Speech