An attempt by the Conservative Party to tie the early release of paramilitary prisoners to the decommissioning of weapons was defeated last night in the House of Commons.
An amendment tabled by the Tories to the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Bill, which was supported by the Ulster Unionist leadership, was beaten at the Bill's committee stage by 274 votes to 125.
The amendment would have required the North's Secretary of State to insist that a qualifying organisation for prisoner releases "is committed to ... the decommissioning of all paramilitary arms, including any of its own, by 22nd May 2000". The shadow Northern Ireland secretary, Mr Andrew MacKay, had signalled, during the second reading debate last Wednesday, his party's intention to vote against the Bill unless the amendments to be tabled during the committee stage of the Bill this week were accepted by the government. He repeated that warning in the debate last night which, if acted upon, would end the five-year bipartisan approach on Northern Ireland.
Before the vote, the Northern Ireland Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, rejected criticisms by the Tories and by the DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, that the Bill was effectively a fudge on the assurances made by the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, during the referendum campaign.
Dr Mowlam rejected any suggestion that the Prime Minister's assurances were not reflected in the Bill. The government was committed to holding every signatory to the Belfast Agreement to its pledge to exclusively peaceful means, both now and in the future.
"Were we to write into this Bill preconditions, barriers or tests, or linkages - however desirable they may be - if they were not on the face of the agreement, we would ourselves be departing from that agreement," Dr Mowlam said. "We would then lose all moral authority to hold other participants fully to the commitments they have entered into."
Earlier Mr Robinson, sitting alongside the DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, denounced the Tory amendment as "patently useless". It did not contain any demand for decommissioning prior to the release of paramilitary prisoners.
The UK Unionist Party leader, Mr Robert McCartney, also said that there would be some form of agreed fudge between the government and the opposition on the issue of linkage and, in the end, the pro-Union people of Northern Ireland would be treated shabbily.