Anti-Agreement Unionist MPs will today fail in their latest attempt to establish the decommissioning of IRA weapons as a precondition for Sinn Fein's entry to the Northern Ireland Executive.
The issue of entitlement to office - and the mechanisms for the exclusion of parties failing to sustain a commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means - is set to dominate the third day of House of Commons consideration of the Northern Ireland Bill, which will bring the Assembly and other institutions established in the Belfast Agreement into being.
The Government will defeat a series of DUP-UKUP amendments which strike at the heart of the agreement.
The Conservatives will force a division on their own amendment, which would allow for the exclusion of parties "not committed to the total disarmament of all paramilitary organisations and the achievement of the decommissioning of all paramilitary arms by May 22nd, 2000" or "not co-operating fully" with the decommissioning commission.
However, the Tories are unlikely to back an amendment from the Rev Ian Paisley, Mr Peter Robinson and Mr Robert McCartney requiring the prior start of decommissioning and compliance with "a decommissioning timetable which will ensure that it has completed decommissioning before May 22nd, 2000".
A majority of Ulster Unionist MPs will again join forces with the DUP and the UKUP. However, there is no certainty about the disposition of the party leadership following the warning by Mr John Taylor, during Monday's second reading debate, that his support for the Bill in its third reading was not guaranteed without further assurances "on the key issue of the exclusion of people who are inextricably linked to paramilitary organisations when such paramilitary organisations are still carrying out murders and bombings".
The pattern of unionist defeats was established in the Commons last night on the first division on a DUP motion tying a decision by the Secretary of State to hold a Border poll to a prior cross-community vote of the Northern Assembly. Dr Paisley's amendment was defeated by 285 to 10.
The Lords last night completed their consideration of the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Bill, which provides for the two-year programme of prisoner releases.
The Lords rejected an attempt to delay the early release of paramilitary prisoners until two British soldiers serving life sentences for the shooting of a Belfast teenager were freed. Voting was 213 to 156, a Government majority of 57, against the move by the former Tory cabinet minister, Lord Tebbit, that the cases of James Fisher and Mark Wright should be given priority under the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Bill.
Speaking in the third reading debate on the Bill, Lord Tebbit called for the soldiers to be "accorded a priority" over paramilitaries who are expected to become eligible for early release in September.
The soldiers' cases are at present being reviewed by the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam. They are also due to be considered by the sentences review body later this year.