Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
WEDNESDAY 9 DECEMBER 1998
MR ADAM
INGRAM, MP,
MR GEORGE
O'DOHERTY and MR
DAVID GIBSON
Chairman
1. Minister, we are extremely glad to see
you. It is even more genuine than it usually is—and with
me it is always genuine. We really are grateful. We know that
the Government reorganised its programme in order to enable this
to take place before the Standing Committee tomorrow, and we are
genuinely very appreciative. You will also be aware of the conflict
with the floor of the House, for which I fear my party is in some
sense responsible, though unintentionally, and one at least of
our number—Mr Donaldson—is due to go and take part
in that debate. Therefore, I am going to invite Mr Donaldson to
lead off our questions. However, before I do that, the ground
rules will be the same as on previous occasions. If there is anything
you want to gloss thereafter, you should feel free to do so. If
you would like to introduce your colleagues, that would be welcome
to the Committee, and if you want to say something at the beginning,
please feel free.
(Mr Ingram) Mr Chairman, thanks very much for
the warm welcome. All of us are under pressure because of events
taking place on the Floor of the House and interest in what is
happening there. On my right is George O'Doherty who is the Assistant
Secretary with responsibility for equality matters. On my left
is David Gibson who is the Deputy Secretary at the Department
of Economic Development. Clearly, if there are any matters of
detail, they can assist me with them, and I am sure the Committee
would benefit from their detailed knowledge of the legislation.
I had intended to say something about the history of this legislation
and the immediate history, and lead into it, which hopefully may
help the Committee in understanding why the Government is doing
what it is doing and where it has come from in terms of this legislation.
With your agreement, I think it would maybe be helpful if I say
that what I intended to say really condenses the document which
we have submitted to you, and hopefully for the record it would
be helpful in bringing those major points to the attention of
the Committee.
2. That would be helpful.
(Mr Ingram) Can I say that the promotion of greater
equality between all sections of the population in Northern Ireland
has been a priority of successive Administrations since Direct
Rule was introduced in 1972. Equality of opportunity is a fundamental
human right and, of course, speaking as Minister with responsibility
for development of the economy, it is an absolute essential if
we are to make maximum use of the human resources available to
us in Northern Ireland. Also, of course, imbalances in employment
opportunities have led to a feeling of alienation in some parts
of the community in Northern Ireland. As Tom King said in introducing
the 1989 Fair Employment Bill, the principal objective of legislation
of this kind is a moral one. It is to ensure that a person's opportunity
to obtain employment and all its benefits is determined not by
which part of the Northern Ireland community he or she comes from,
but according to ability, and ability alone. That is a fundamental
right of every human being. The first legislation in this field
was the Fair Employment Act 1976, which followed publication of
the van Straubenzee Report in 1973 and which created the Fair
Employment Agency. Much was achieved by that Agency, but in the
mid 1980s it became clear that, while the 1976 Act was having
an effect, this was not as rapid as might have been hoped and
there were continuing differentials in the socio-economic experiences
of the two communities in Northern Ireland. This was confirmed
by an extensive report on fair employment produced at that time
by SACHR, and in 1988 the Government produced its proposals in
a White Paper. This led to the 1989 Act which was a substantial
advance on the 1976 legislation. It created new institutions with
wider powers in the form of the Fair Employment Commission and
the Fair Employment Tribunal and imposed new obligations on employers,
not least in terms of monitoring of workforces. The new legislation
introduced some of the toughest measures against employment discrimination
available anywhere in Europe, and the then Government undertook
to introduce a comprehensive review after five years' experience
of the new law. This was initiated by the Central Community Relations
Unit in 1994 but, in response to pressure for the review to be
seen to be independent of Government, responsibility was transferred
to SACHR later that year. SACHR duly reported in June 1987, and
the Government published its response to that report in a White
Paper entitled "Partnership for Equality" in March of
this year. The legislation which is before the House at this time
carries forward proposals made in that White Paper having taken
account of the responses received. The legislation that has been,
and is being, introduced has, as its underlying principle, appointment
and recruitment on the basis of merit. There is no question of
reverse discrimination, quotas or any other tampering with the
merit principle. However, as Tom King noted in 1989, established
patterns of employment tend to perpetuate themselves, particularly
in a divided society. This can very easily lead to the virtual
exclusion of either Catholics or Protestants from a particular
workforce. Without any deliberate or malign reason, one section
of the community may find itself effectively excluded from consideration
when vacancies are being filled. This is why the legislation requires
employers to take positive steps to open up their employment opportunities
to applicants from all sections of the community. Equality of
opportunity is not something that will happen of its own accord;
it must be planned for and worked for, like other business objectives.
Since then, the legislation has been amended twice, firstly in
1991 to clarify the circumstances in which monitoring information
could be disclosed, and secondly in 1995 to remove the limit on
compensation which might be awarded by the Fair Employment Tribunal.
The evidence is that the 1989 legislation has had an effect, but
that there is still some way to go to ensure equality of opportunity.
The recruitment statistics shown in the attachment to the DED
submission, which were prepared by the FEC from monitoring returns
and quoted in the SACHR report, show that appointments from the
two communities roughly reflect applications for jobs from the
two communities with, as might be expected, any marginal advantage
by one community in one year being reflected by the opposite in
another year. The beneficial effect of the legislation can also
be seen in the composition of the Northern Ireland workforce,
particularly by reference to such areas as the professions and
managers and administrators. Roman Catholics now represent 36.5
per cent of those employed as managers and administrators, compared
with 30.5 per cent in 1990. Clearly that is a substantial gain,
but we cannot rest on our laurels. There is still evidence of
a gap between the Catholic share of employment and the Catholic
share of the economically active. The most recent statistics,
for 1997, show that the Catholic share of employment was 38.8
per cent, while their share of the economically active was 41.4
per cent. There is also evidence of continuing imbalances at the
top of large organisations (not least in the Civil Service), and,
of course, substantial evidence that Roman Catholics are far more
likely to be unemployed than Protestants. I therefore believe,
Mr Chairman, that while the 1989 Act has, in the words of SACHR,
had a positive impact on employment equality, there is still much
to be done, not least in helping those unemployed, whether Protestant
or Catholic, to secure employment. Of course all of us will know
that the Government's proposals in the White Paper "Partnership
for Equality" are focussed heavily on helping the unemployed
acquire skills that will enable them to seek employment. The Government
made a commitment to tackle the scourge of unemployment in its
election manifesto, which we are now delivering on through New
Deal and other employment measures. We also gave a commitment
to implement the broad thrust of the proposals in the White Paper
"Partnership for Equality" contained in the Good Friday
Agreement. Much has been achieved to date in moving Northern Ireland
towards a more equal society, and that progress I believe will
be enhanced by the Fair Employment and Treatment Order which I
will be presenting to the House tomorrow and which has already
been considered by the other place on Monday. Hopefully, Mr Chairman,
those are helpful opening remarks, but clearly there may be other
areas of interest to the Committee which I am happy to do my best
to deal with or, if not, we can come back with more details in
written responses.
Chairman: That was
extremely thoughtful of you to provide that, and helpful to the
Committee. Mr Donaldson.
Mr Donaldson
3. Thank you, Chairman, and a very warm
welcome to the Minister. Can I ask you first of all about the
form of the legislation. You will be aware that there were three
possible alternatives open to you as to the form in which the
new fair employment legislation might be brought before Parliament.
In 1976 and 1989, the legislation took the form of primary legislation,
whereas this time round you have opted for the draft Order in
Council approach which has the effect that Parliament has very
limited opportunity to scrutinise the legislation before enactment.
In the past, the Government has frequently resorted to publishing
a proposal for a draft Order in Council which at least enables
interested parties sometimes to comment on the proposal before
it is finalised. Why were the primary new legislation approach
and the proposal for a draft Order in Council approach both rejected
in this case?
(Mr Ingram) I think that is a useful issue to
examine, and I am grateful to you for raising that issue. I think
all of us would recognise that the best way of dealing with any
legislation is through primary legislation except perhaps those
areas which are deemed not to be contentious but which can be
dealt with through other means. Certainly this legislation is
important, but we have got to bear in mind that it is an amendment
to existing primary legislation. Having said that, I think it
is worth while drawing your attention to the Good Friday Agreement,
because there are certain impositions within that Agreement placed
upon the Government. In the section on page 19 of the Good Friday
Agreement, entitled "Rights, Safeguards and Equality of Opportunity",
in paragraph 2 of that part of the Agreement, it says, "Subject
to the public consultation currently under way, the British Government
will make rapid progress with:" and then it details "(i)
a new regional development strategy for Northern Ireland, ...
(ii) a new economic development strategy for Northern Ireland",
and in (iii) it says, "measures on employment equality included
in the recent White Paper ("Partnership for Equality")",
then it goes on to set out various aspects relating to that. So
we were then faced with the need to move forward on this agreement.
The Government has made it clear that we will deliver on every
aspect of the Agreement by every identifiable means. The phrase
there "will make rapid progress" meant we had to look
at it in a particular way. If we had not had the White Paper,
if we had not been involved in a comprehensive process of consultation,
then we would have had to go through that process, but because
the White Paper was there, recognised within the Good Friday Agreement,
there had been quite a considerable level of response—not
from your own party, I may say, Mr Donaldson; your party did not
respond to it, although there was an opportunity to respond to
the document—but we felt that there had been quite a detailed
examination of the issues involved. SACHR obviously had been commenting
on the issue as well, from which the White Paper had largely been
drawn. On that basis, if we had then left it to primary legislation,
there was no guarantee of when we would get the Bill slot in terms
of this Session of Parliament. We have been very lucky—I
do not know if "lucky" is the right word. We have certainly
been very busy in the last Session with the large number of Bills
which we have put through. Of course, when one department is gaining
precedence over other departments, other departments tend to say,
"Well it's now our turn." If we had come along and said,
"Let's have another piece of primary legislation", then
we would have had to get in the queue. This is important legislation.
therefore there has to be detailed consultation. Everyone had
the opportunity to respond to it. We are putting in place amendments
to existing legislation based upon that consultative document,
so that there are no surprises in this. Indeed, some of the Order
was tweaked to amend it to cope with the consultation studies
and the consultation responses we had received. That is the reason
behind it. We want to move forward on this agenda, it is important
for all the citizens of Northern Ireland, and if we had not done
it we would have missed a period when these important changes
are taking place.
Mr McWalter
4. Welcome, Minister. I think that partly
I am asking a supplementary to make very clear that there is quite
a wide range of opinion that this is a very dubious method of
proceeding. Either we have very significant improvements in the
prospects of getting fair employment, in which case it would seem
that primary legislation really is appropriate, or we are tweaking
with a Bill, an interesting Act which, although it was an advance
at the time, is deemed to be ineffective and at the very least
then the Order is of significance, in which case it should have
been the proposal for a draft Order, one can see, because that
would at least establish the idea that Parliament would be involved
in investigating at length the departures from that Act which
has not been very effective despite the fact it was an advance,
and we would want to see significant changes and improvement.
What we seem to have is something whereby there is a danger of
it becoming a bit of a habit; that we had very compressed debate
on 8 September on legislation which was a direct response to the
events in Northern Ireland, and we appear here again to be getting
the short circuit. I agree with you that this is a major step
forward, but there is a strong will on the part of Parliament
to process these things in the appropriate time, if that is necessary.
There is still a bipartisan approach, particularly for matters
like this. I find it difficult to accept that the kind of rushed
job which we are faced with here is the best way of getting an
Order or a change in proceedings, which would be effective. I
speak as somebody who I am sure shares with you the view that
this is very important stuff, but if it is, should we not spend
a bit of time trying to get it right?
(Mr Ingram) Let me say that I do not accept the
description of this legislation being dubious, or the procedure
being dubious, or its being a rushed job. I think that in my earlier
response I showed that there was a very extensive consultative
process gone through in bringing together the conclusions to the
White Paper. In fact, there were three months available to people
to comment on the White Paper. I would repeat the point that there
is a requirement in the Good Friday Agreement that we have, as
a British Government, to comply with, because we want everyone
who has signed up to that Agreement to comply with their responsibilities
as well, and so we had to make rapid progress towards the Agreement.
As far as where this legislation may end up a year from now is
concerned, of course it does not at all rest with the House of
Commons; it is one of those devolved issues, and it becomes a
matter for the Assembly. We are also within a timeframe where
the Assembly may well have been up and running. We may have put
out a White Paper, then it would have been left to the Assembly.
Who knows where they would have put that in priority terms, if
at all? Therefore, because it has been devolved and therefore
been left to the Assembly, we could not, as a Government, have
made progress as required of us in the Good Friday Agreement.
I think we are a victim of circumstances here. Timetables have
been imposed upon us as well.
5. You are saying you are a bit unhappy
at the procedure as well?
(Mr Ingram) We are a victim of circumstances which
we were very grateful for, in that this does show the process
that evolved in Northern Ireland in bringing about a different
type of society. As far as the Orders in Council procedure is
concerned, we have had extensive discussions with the First Minister
and the Deputy First Minister on this, not just on the specifics
of this but on the generality of Orders in Council. Indeed, the
Northern Ireland Bill was amended to take account of procedures
which would apply where the Government was bringing forward Orders
in Council, and within that Bill, which is now an Act, there are
procedures laid down where there has to be full consultation with
the Assembly before the Government acts an Order in Council. There
are always going to be times where we do need to use that type
of emergency procedure. Hopefully we do not need to use them,
but there will be occasions—and I do not want to speculate
as to where and why we might do that—when we might do it.
On that basis, we have said that the Assembly must be consulted
so that there at least we have got their reflections on what the
Government is seeking to do. So I think we have tried to accommodate
as best we can all the different aspects of this. You asked a
supplementary question about does it mean I am not happy with
the procedure? I would have preferred as a democrat that this
was done through primary legislation, but, again, as I think I
said, we are victims of circumstances, but healthy circumstances,
as far as this process is concerned.
Mr McWalter: That
is helpful, thank you.
Mr Donaldson
6. Minister, I have had constituents on
both sides of the fair employment provisions who have come to
me. I have had constituents whom I have encouraged to pursue cases
through the Fair Employment Commission, and I have had employers
who have been on the receiving end of cases. There are some aspects
which concern me about the operation of these provisions, and
I would like some clarification on those. I have had cases where
employers have had former employees take cases against them, and
one might describe them as vexatious cases. That has caused those
employers to engage legal defence teams at quite some expense,
only to find at the last minute that the litigant withdraws the
case, and they find themselves left with a large legal bill, through
no fault of their own, arising out of such vexatious cases. I
have had other situations where employers have found themselves
on the receiving end of findings for fair employment cases and
frustrated because the appeals procedure is limited in terms of
those cases. We now, as I have said, have encouraged people to
take cases to the Fair Employment Commission. I am not here defending
one side or the other, but I do have sympathy with employers who
find themselves in those circumstances. I wonder if the Government
has any plans to provide some kind of remedy?
(Mr Ingram) Of course costs can be awarded against
vexatious litigants; that is the reality of it. It clearly is
a matter for those who are sitting in judgement of the matter
to determine whether that case was vexatious and therefore to
what extent damages or costs should be awarded. In terms of the
statistics which we have presented to you in our submission, clearly
you may want to examine this in greater detail as to just how
extensive that issue is. I do not have in front of me at this
point in time that type of categorisation, but we would be probably
categorising in terms of monitoring, that of the 3,500 total registrations—I
am trying to see the words—1,592 were withdrawn. Of course,
that does not mean to say they were withdrawn because they were
vexatious; they were withdrawn because clearly there was no purpose
in proceeding with the case, because of advice or because of a
subsequent consideration as to the presentation of the case. So
whilst the figure does look large, in terms of cases withdrawn
and others withdrawn after tribunal hearings and so on, they may
be fewer. I am sure you will be taking evidence from Sir Robert
Cooper, to get a better handle on all of that, because he deals
with the nuts and bolts of this and will give you a better feel
as to how many are vexatious and then what should be done about
it. I make the point again about the Assembly's responsibility
in this. This is framework legislation, devolved legislation,
which the Assembly over time can amend if it so wishes and if
it feels that there is a need, assuming the Assembly gets up and
running—and all of us hope that that is the case. They can
then consider whether the legislation is effective, does it need
amendment, and if so where should they amend it. Therefore, it
gets closer to the people upon whom it is having an immediate
impact. I think that is helpful as well.
7. Is that an issue that the Northern Ireland
Office have given consideration to in reviewing this legislation?
I know that complaints have been made by employers to the Northern
Ireland Office about this in the past, and a number of Members
representing Northern Ireland constituencies have brought it to
the attention of some of your predecessors. I wondered what actual
consideration has been given to the problems which employers can
find themselves in in terms of these kinds of vexatious claims.
You have acknowledged that, although we do not have a scientific
breakdown of the nature of cases withdrawn, nevertheless there
are quite a high percentage of them, are there not?
(Mr Ingram) I would say that obviously I will
take account of representations made, but what you would not do
is alter legislation on the basis of a small or even a medium-sized
number of representations, because here we are trying through
this legislation—and it has been on the statute book in
different shape and form for a good number of years—to create
a different type of employment and equality of opportunity in
Northern Ireland. How do you then debar a vexatious claim? You
have got to have a pre-judgement on that. So there is a process
of examining the cases, to advise people as to what they should
be doing. The implication would be that because they are vexatious
claims, then we should not have the legislation or the existing
legislation should not be altered. I think that legislation is
a powerful piece of legislation which has proved its efficacy
over a number of years, but it does need improvement. That, of
course, is what SACHR and the White Paper sought to achieve. It
is a moving feast all the time. The Assembly can deal with this
in its supplementary revision of that.
8. I do not think there is any suggestion
that you would go nearly as far as removing the legislation, but
in terms of fair employment provision, whilst of course there
is much facility given to someone who is pursuing a case of fair
employment, the question I am simply asking is, in the review
of the operation of this legislation, has adequate account been
taken of the difficulties which many employers find? After all,
right at the top of the agenda in Northern Ireland is economic
development, and you did refer earlier to the need to provide
employment. The best way of dealing with unemployment is to provide
employment. If businesses are saying to you, the Northern Ireland
Office, "Look, we're prepared, we will work with this system",
are you taking adequate account of the concerns that employers
have, to ensure that the system is more effective in catching
the vexatious applicants and litigants at an earlier stage, so
that employers do not find themselves in a situation where, because
of a protracted case situation, the clock is ticking and the fees
are running up in terms of the legal defence teams they have to
employ?
(Mr Ingram) There are two points to make to that.
If, from your own party's point of view, you had had a substantial
body of evidence which said that this was the case, that is a
point which you could have made during the consultation process
on the White Paper. We received no representations to that effect.
As far as the business interest is concerned, whilst the CBI does
not represent all the business interests in Northern Ireland,
this is a body which does represent a wide range of business interests,
and they made no representations to this effect. I have no knowledge
of any group of company interests who made such representations.
Clearly, if there had been a weight of evidence coming our way,
then that would have conditioned our thinking, but where there
is no evidence, where there is no pressure, then there is a need
in one sense to take that fully into account. You have to respond
to the consultation process, and there was a vacuum as far as
that type of evidence was concerned.
Mr Livingstone
9. Good afternoon, Minister. I was one of
those who felt that the 1989 Act was just a sop to try to buy
off the campaign for the MacBride principles. In the event, I
am clearly very glad to see it has turned out to be much more
effective than many of us feared, but there are two areas in particular
which lagged behind the general improvement. One of those obviously
is the security-related area, where there are problems we have
discussed elsewhere in this Committee before, and in relation
to other reports, where the proportion of Catholics in employment
has gone up by just 1 per cent, almost as bad as in the private
sector where you have craft and skilled manual workers, where
the increase is a mere 1.5 per cent. This strikes me as very similar
to the sort of pattern I suspect you would find with black and
Asian employment in London or any other major city. What is your
thinking about what can be done? Is this just a question of providing
better training and skills for Catholics, or is there just a more
embedded resistance in those areas of employment?
(Mr Ingram) The way in which we have altered the
legislation, of course, is to allow employers to target their
employees in a specific way. The other delivery mechanism of the
Government is in terms of New Deal, in terms of trying to improve
the skills base overall in Northern Ireland, with other targeting
approaches for unemployment not just in terms of the specific
groupings or categories but also in terms of gender and race as
well. So we are trying to make a widely available employment opportunity
to all, trying to put through these mechanisms which improve and
lift the skill base. Therefore, we are trying to do this with
proper training mechanisms. The delivery area for that is the
TEA (the Training and Employment Agency). They are very proactive
in all of this. Again, they may be a body from whom you want to
take evidence. You may be interested in what they are delivering
specifically in this area, because they do monitor what they are
doing to match what we are trying to do in terms of fair employment.
As I understand it, there is no obligation upon them to do it,
but they do it anyway because it is worthwhile so doing. So, in
the short term we have been in Government we are beginning to
tackle all of that. Only time itself will tell whether we have
been successful or not in this and in lifting the skill base.
Our overall economic strategy for Northern Ireland is to do just
that, because that is the type of employment we want in Northern
Ireland—the high skill, the high quality, the highly-paid
jobs. You need a good skill base to achieve all of that. There
is a potential there, because of the large pockets of unemployment,
because that is where unemployment is likely to be located. So
only time will tell whether that proves to be successful. As far
as the statistics are concerned—the statistics which we
gave in relation to improvement in the security-related areas—that
again is something which we are currently reviewing. It is at
an early stage of review, and I would not expect that we would
be in a position to give you a definitive breakdown on this by
the time you have concluded your investigation, but if we were
in a position to do that, clearly we would do that as well. That
is much more problematic in Northern Ireland, because there is
still a paramilitary threat out there, and for the interests of
all of the community of Northern Ireland, we have to be very careful
who is taken into certain categories of employment. Once we get,
or hopefully get, to a normalised society in Northern Ireland,
then there is no need for this type of debarment to exist, but
do not ask me for a timescale on that, I do not think I could
even begin to guess.
10. Thank you. There is one point which
occurs to me. Many of the states in the United States of America
passed MacBride legislation banning pension fund investment in
Northern Ireland, and these laws will still be on the statute
book. Has your Department considered a direct appeal now to those
states in the light of the progress being made, which is supported
by many of us who actively campaigned for MacBride, now to repeal
these measures.
(Mr Ingram) Again my feeling for this is that
what we had in the 1989 legislation was beyond the elements of
the MacBride and much more comprehensive than the MacBride principles.
There were certain aspects of the MacBride principles that may
have been difficult to implement anyway. There may have been a
conflict with the EU regulations. Clearly we want to establish
in our biggest potential market for investment, ie the United
States, a better understanding of what we are doing on the equality
agenda for Northern Ireland. I think why this particular piece
of legislation was taken through is important. We will constantly
raise the equality issue when we are in individual states. A chain
of Consuls through the Embassy in Washington are always proactive
in this area trying to correct many misunderstandings that are
around, primarily in Irish America about the MacBride principles
and about the equality agenda which has been delivered by the
Government. We believe we have very tough legislation which is
moving this agenda forward and hopefully you, yourself, would
have good contacts in this area to help us sell that message.
This does give us an opportunity to bring jobs and investment
into Northern Ireland, which helps the minority of the population
to get into employment.
Mr Livingstone: Thank
you very much, Minister.
Mr Grogan
11. I was particularly interested in the
Monitoring Regulations that will be published at some stage to
accompany the draft Order. When are they likely to be published
and how will they differ from the existing Monitoring Regulations?
(Mr Ingram) I am advised that they will be published
in January. Just to supplement that. The side advice is "hopefully".
We are trying to drive this forward so the intention would be
to proceed with that. We will do everything to take this through
as rapidly as possible. Therefore, January would be the objective
date for that.
12. Will they differ in any way from the
current operation of the Monitoring Regulations?
(Mr Ingram) Maybe Mr O'Doherty could help you
on that.
(Mr O'Doherty) Mr Chairman, there will be additional
requirements in the Monitoring Regulations. Firstly, employers
will be required to include part-time employees, but to group
them separately. All registered employers will be required to
monitor applicants and appointees and larger employers—that
is, 250 employees plus— will be required to monitor promotions
and leavers.
Chairman
13. I have another question at this juncture
about the timetable. Before I put it I will indicate from the
chair a sympathy with the views put forward by Mr Donaldson and
Mr McWalter about the pace at which these matters are being brought
in. I did read the House of Lords transcript of Hansard for the
events on Monday. I was a little alarmed, I have to say, in the
exchanges between the noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Cope and
the Minister on the re: Amin case, that although an assurance
was given by the Minister, while the substantive legislation was
being debated, that the matter was going to be taken care of without
actually any ifs and buts, by the time the matter was raised on
Monday the Minister was, perfectly reasonably—I am not complaining
about this—driven to saying that he would write to the noble
Lords in terms of the answer. It is that kind of detail which
worries us. In other words, the pace at which things are going
forward, where there are loose ends which have not been fully
attended to before Parliament is asked to conclude its business.
It may well be that if that matter is raised with you tomorrow,
Minister, there will be no problem at all and you will give a
virtuoso performance.
(Mr Ingram) Thanks for the warning!
14. I shall read the Hansard with interest.
But that is a concern on our part. We know some of the circumstances
surrounding the pace at which you have to move, but you must forgive
us if there is a degree of sensitivity on the part of the Committee.
What timetable do you envisage for the establishment of the new
Equality Commission, the appointment of the Chair and the other
Commissioners, and what progress is being made by the committee
which is overseeing the transitional arrangements?
(Mr Ingram) Perhaps I should explain. This is,
in one sense, outside my remit because it is actually dealt with
by one of my Ministerial colleagues who has taken forward the
Equality Agenda. The Commission, as you know, has not yet been
appointed. The Working Group has been set up to bring forward
recommendations on how the Commission should operate. That Working
Group has held its first meeting and is expected to report by
March of next year. The post of the Chief Commissioner and the
other Commissioners will be advertised shortly, it will be advertised
publicly and, of course, the Nolan principles will apply to those
appointments; so there is a process which then has to be gone
through all of that. It is hoped that those adverts would appear
in January of next year. That is the timetable.
15. So the advertisements will precede the
conclusions in March?
(Mr Ingram) That is the appointment of the Chief
Commissioner and the other commissioners.
16. These events are happening concurrently,
not consecutively?
(Mr Ingram) The Working Group is looking at how
the Commission should operate. Again, it seems to me that it is
important to have people in place who would have the responsibility
of operating that, rather than just saying that these are the
things you are now going to do.
17. I understand that fully. Let us assume,
for a moment, that I am a candidate for the Chair and I ask those
who are interviewing me to tell me about the working arrangements
and they say, "We can't tell you that, the committee has
not yet decided."
(Mr Ingram) If I was asked that question and I
was interviewing I would say, "We are interviewing you because
you have the ability to help us in coming to a conclusion on this.
We can help each other in coming to the best conclusion as to
the best way forward." If you leave it to afterwards then
there is a longer period obviously. You go through the Working
Group examination. You decide on the recommendations. Then you
go through the interview process, which delays it. So what we
are trying to do is to foreshorten it for the right reasons, not
for the sake of rushing it through, but to try to get this body
in place as quickly as possible because of the range of important
issues which it is having to deal with—not just in terms
of fair employment but other aspects of the equality agenda. This
is because that whole agenda is critical to what we are seeking
to do in Northern Ireland, as you well know, Mr Chairman. It is
one of those issues which is constantly raised and one which has
to be addressed. If we are seen to be dragging our feet for no
good reason, then we will be subject to criticism. I refer again
to the requirement in the Good Friday Agreement to make progress
in that area and we are seeking to achieve that objective.
Mr Salter
18. Good afternoon, Minister. My questions
refer to national security exemptions and the right of appeal,
which looking through the explanatory notes are Articles 96 and
79 and 80, which are amending section 42 of the 1976 Act. My first
question is: are your officials aware of the critical findings
of the, I think it is Tinnely——
(Mr Ingram) —— and McElduff.
19. You obviously are—cases in the
European Court of Human Rights in July with regard to procedures
governing national security exemptions and perhaps more critically
the subsequent rather more severe judgment of the European Court
of Justice. How have you taken account of those criticisms of
the previous procedures?
(Mr Ingram) By responding to them in full. When
the Northern Ireland Bill came through the House we, of course,
amended it to take account of that ECHR judgment on Tinnely and
McElduff. We put in place a tribunal mechanism so that the right
of appeal is there. Because we are dealing with national security,
then specific elements of that appeal mechanism have to apply:
i.e. a QC will be employed to represent the interests of the complainant.
He will not be responsible to that complainant. As explained in
the House, the reason for this is that when we are dealing with
matters of national security, to impart information to someone
whom we have previously judged as a threat to the State, may then
put at risk the person or persons who are acting on behalf of
our society and the nation in obtaining certain information. We
have to balance the fine judgment between the rights of the individual
and the national interests in all of this. The way we have dealt
with it through the Northern Ireland Act, in terms of the proposed
legislation, takes into account the whole of the ECHR judgment.
Of course, that does not mean it is the end of the matter, because
people can challenge our judgment in that. Then it is a matter
for the courts to determine who has got it right; whether we handled
this correctly and sensitively and in full measure as far as that
person is concerned.
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