The Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, told the conference that key elements of the Belfast Agreement, including criminal justice reform and new human rights legislation, would continue to be implemented.
The implementation plan for criminal justice reform is to be published today. It will deal with issues such as how judges are appointed, the role of an independent prosecution service, and more controversially it is expected to back the removal of British symbols from Northern courts.
Dr Reid said that as well as criminal justice, consultation work was continuing towards the publication of a human rights bill, towards allowing the lateral entry of garda∅ into the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and that a new study was due shortly of the possibility of an alternative to plastic bullets.
The Northern Secretary said as Mr Mark Durkan faced into his leadership the British government was determined to consolidate the Belfast Agreement and to bring long-term stability to the institutions of the agreement. He applauded the "courage" of the SDLP in endorsing the new police service and for joining the Policing Board.
He used the conference to urge loyalist paramilitaries to desist from sectarian attacks.
"Peace and prosperity will not come out of the barrel of a gun. It will not be announced by the blast of a bomb. It will only be done by slow, patient building of a bridge to run over the flood of distrust that has run down the decades, the centuries, in this part of Ireland and indeed on the whole island of Ireland," he added.
He said people must be conscious of the difficulties facing unionism. Progressive unionism had illustrated that it could be inclusive and this should be recognised by nationalists.
Dr Reid paid a warm and witty tribute to Mr Hume and Mr Mallon. He said a British Labour colleague at the SDLP conference, when noticing all the standing ovations for the outgoing leaders, asked him: "Is this what Mass is like?" Dr Reid said when he first met Mr Hume his late wife, Cathy, "who could smell a snake miles away", said to him: "That is not just a good man, that is a great man." If songs could be attributed to each man then Mr Hume's song would be To Dream the Impossible Dream while Mr Mallon's would be I Did it My Way, he added.
"I'm from Glasgow, and we're not delicate flowers, but SΘamus is the only guy I know who can make 'Good morning' sound like a threat," said Dr Reid.
"John and SΘamus are living proof that Enoch Powell was wrong when he said every political career ends in failure," he added.
Dr Reid said the torch was being passed to a new generation of SDLP people led by Mr Durkan. "There is no one more worthy as a successor to John Hume and SΘamus than Mark Durkan. It isn't going to be easy, but there is one advantage to following a giant, and that is when you stand on the shoulders of a giant you can reach even higher."
He was aware that it was often stated that the British government was part of the problem in Northern Ireland. He hoped that in the future he could say that the British government was part of the solution in Northern Ireland.
"If I can say that, just that, then the lifetime that I have spent in politics will be made worthwhile," he added.
