TALKS: SUB-COMMITTEE GROUPS, 9 JUNE

Objectives

1. Our objective continues to be to facilitate the members of the sub-Committee in doing whatever is necessary to achieve a smooth transition to Strand II by the end of the week. That essentially means seeking to expand and develop the areas of common ground between the parties, especially in respect of future "Westminster Links", to the point at which the Unionist parties are ready to agree to participate in Strand II.

Current state of play

2. The sub-group which considered "Westminster Links" during the course of yesterday seems to have made good progress and should be able to agree a report conducive to the achievement of these objectives.

3. The other sub-group has seen a sustained attempt by Peter Robinson to expand the amount of common ground on the "Possible Outline Framework" in ways which would boost the role of the Assembly and, if possible, secure agreement that Committee Chairmen should be Heads of Departments. This has produced some results (there are now several "woulds" in the section of the "Possible Outline Framework" dealing with the Assembly, whereas the section on the "Panel" is still full of "coulds") but it has made explicit the SDLP's refusal to concede that Committee Chairmen would be Heads of Departments or to concede that the Assembly would be effectively the sole source of legislation.

Possible Further Advances

4. The party delegates agreed to exchange views informally overnight and consult their leaders and colleagues and this may produce further movement. The key question is whether the SDLP could be tempted by the promise of Unionist support for the proposed Panel in exchange for an SDLP acceptance of Committee Chairmen being Heads of Departments. If not - and it seems unlikely - we could try a couple of forms of words which might somewhat reduce the conditionality on this point.

5. An alternative might be to pick up the discussion of the 70%/30% weighted majority/threshold for referral etc. We might offer a Government Paper on the safeguards question (see separate minute).

6. Thereafter the sub-group might look at the Code of Practice paper, where there could be a lot of common ground if the parties wanted to look for it, though - if there is no prior agreement on this point - we would need to be careful to avoid running up against the question of whether the Assembly Committees/Committee Chairmen should have executive/Head of Department powers.

7. Another tack might be to broaden the debate into other areas, eg finance, EC, human rights (on which an SDLP paper was tabled during the course of yesterday) and "cultural diversity". One possibility would be to invite the "Westminster Links" sub-group, if it has time, to take up finance and EC issues where there is a reasonable prospect of recording agreement on some common ground without making too many presumptions about the institutional framework. I would leave human rights to one side for the moment.

End Game

8. Overall, we might seek to remind delegates, throughout the day, of the significant amount of agreement which has been reached during the talks thus far:

(a) Common Themes and Common Principles;

(b) the principle that the Irish identity of the minority community should be expressed in some way through whatever emerges from the talks process (of special importance to the SDLP) coupled with the SDLP's acknowledgement that they are "fully open" to other proposals for achieving this besides their own "external Commissioners" idea (a point for the Unionists);

(c) a possible outline framework which records at least conditional agreement to the general shape of some possible new political institutions for Northern Ireland. This outline framework includes a small separately-elected Panel (important for the SDLP) and an Assembly with (at least) substantial legislative powers and a recognition that Committee Chairmen could be Heads of Departments;

(d) "Westminster Links".

9. Members of the Government Team might draw on these points during the day and begin, informally at least, to acclimatise the delegates (if indeed that is really necessary) to the idea that the Secretary of State might begin his "pre Strand II consultations" on Thursday.

signed DAVID HILL

DJ R HILL

Political Development Team

TALKS/326/DW