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9.4 pm
Mr. John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington): Throughout this process, the Government's task is to hold together the coalition which supported the Good Friday agreement and wants it to be implemented. There are Members who did not support the agreement--who honestly did not support it--and who will never support any legislation that stems from it. The problem with the Bill is that it has generated such strength of feeling, indeed anger, among those committed to the implementation of the agreement.
Many of us feel that the Bill undermines the spirit and, indeed, the letter of Patten. We wanted a new beginning for policing in Northern Ireland, and that will not be achieved by a Bill that proposes a simple limited reformulation of the RUC. We want the Patten principles to be integral to the Bill. Depoliticising must be the key to the new beginning, so that all can participate in the new arrangements for policing in the six counties. That will result from the creation of real accountability, a genuine community partnership, a clearing out of the partisan symbolism of the past, and a commitment to attaining a critical mass of Catholic/nationalist representation in the police service at every level.
So far, certain general attitudes have been displayed in the debate. It has also given us an opportunity to specify the bottom lines that should be addressed if the Bill is to be supportable. As it should form the new constitution of the police service, it ought to address the question of the name, the flags and the emblems. The bottom line for many, however, will be that the Secretary of State's power should prescribe a new emblem and new symbols that are free of any association with either the British or the Irish state. The regulation of emblem and flag by the Secretary of State should be based on consultation, and achieving consensus with the policing board, the Chief Constable, and human rights organisations in the community generally.
Parts I and VI relate to the policing board. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have spoken of the need to strengthen its powers. Those parts of the Bill should encapsulate the Patten principles of accountability and transparency, but the board's powers are curtailed throughout by the Secretary of State. For instance, the board should be required to meet in public. It should have the power to draw up education and training strategies, working with the police service, human rights experts and the community. The Secretary of State's power to halt a policing board inquiry on grounds other than those set out by Patten should, in my view, be withdrawn from the Bill.
- presumption should be that everything should be available for public scrutiny
- in the public interest--not the police interest--to hold it back.
- in the interests of the efficiency or effectiveness of the police force.
Inquiries should be in line with the Patten principles, in that they should be held in public. The time limits on inquiries and non-publication of reports are against the spirit of Patten. Appointments to the board should be based on the requirement for the Secretary of State to consult, but there should be a time limit on consultation--three months, for example. The first chair and the vice-chair should be elected by the board itself, subject to the agreement of the First and Deputy First Ministers of the Assembly.
I want to say something about district and community policing arrangements. The Bill establishes arrangements for community involvement in policing and for local accountability, but again it fails to live up to the Patten proposals. We should set time scales for the establishment of district partnerships. I want clarification in the Bill of the provision for Belfast sub-groups, which has been discussed before. I also regret the fact that the 3p levy is not included, because it could have funded local policing initiatives.
The district partnerships should meet in public, and members of the public should be able to question their members, including local commanders. District commanders will play a pivotal role in the whole exercise, and should therefore be appointed by the chief constable, but there should be consultation with the board. Because they will play such a pivotal role in the preparation of the local policing plan, they should be responsible for consulting on it with partnerships and with the whole community. The councils that appoint independent members should be transparent in their actions and should base appointments on consultation with the local community.
Part III deals with policing objectives and codes of practice. It gives the Secretary of State power to determine and revise the objectives of the policing service. I consider that that should require the approval of the policing board. The policing plan should be published in full.
The Bill gives the Secretary of State power to determine changes in the codes of practice. Exercise of that power should be based on full consultation, not only--of course--with the Chief Constable, but with the policing board and the community. All codes should be published in full.
In part VI--on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the police service--overall control is again placed in the hands of the Secretary of State. I propose that the function of the board and of the Chief Constable should be overseen by the oversight commissioner. The board should be presented with the task of managing, implementing and monitoring change
under the oversight commissioner's direct supervision. Change should be decided not by the Secretary of State or by the RUC, but by the policing board itself, working with the oversight commissioner.In this period of change, policing practice must be viewed critically, and we must ensure that it is open, transparent and in line with the spirit of Patten. The code of ethics is, therefore, critical. Today, we have heard criticism from both sides of the House that we have not seen the code's detail in sufficient time. Many hon. Members believe that the code should be, as Patten suggested, included in the Bill.
All officers should operate in line with the central duty imposed by, for example, the United Nations code on conduct of law enforcement, which entails respect for and protection of human dignity and maintenance of the human rights of all people.
The oath is critical. It will, in a time of new beginnings, give confidence in policing practice to all. The oath should be applied to all officers and based on the protection and upholding of fundamental human rights and on equal respect for all individuals and their traditions and beliefs.
The special quota arrangements in recruitment are important, but they will require time to be effective. Therefore, the 10-year review period should be maintained and the proposal for a three-year period rejected. There should be a register of all interests and of membership of all organisations for members of the new police service.
The police ombudsman will play a crucial role in establishing confidence in the new service. Therefore, there should be no time limits on the ombudsman's ability to initiate inquiries. The ombudsman's powers of investigation should be stated in the Bill. Similarly, the oversight commissioner should be given statutory duties and powers in the Bill.
I believe that, in its current form, the Bill should be sent back, but I accept that we shall not have the opportunity today to vote on that matter. The onus is therefore now on the Committee to redraft the Bill in detail, so that it is in line with the original Patten proposals and inspires the confidence of all the communities.
I respect the views that have been stated today by those who live in and represent the six counties of Northern Ireland. However, policing of the six counties is critical to us all, because it is part of the peace process itself. I believe that the Bill's proposals are not in line with the overall Good Friday agreement, undermine confidence in the agreement itself and threaten some of the ways forward that we envisaged when people signed up to the agreement. I therefore look forward to hearing the Minister say in his reply that the Bill will be thoroughly reviewed in Committee.
9.13 pm
Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield): There is much in the Bill to be commended. As many hon. Members have already said, there is much in the Bill that is common ground. Clearly, the police service in Northern Ireland--or whatever its name may be--can do with reform. We have a common aim and ambition: to transform it into something very different from what it is today--
ultimately, we hope, into an unarmed police force doing exactly the same type of job as other police forces do elsewhere within these islands.The problem, however, has been inherent ever since the process was embarked upon, and it was quite apparent when the Patten report was published last autumn. As I realised at that time, when I attended a British-Irish conference, the timing of the process has got completely out of kilter. That fact cannot be escaped. The principles established in the Belfast agreement were intended to produce a set of circumstances by which we would move to establishing political structures, there would be decommissioning and the community as a whole could start looking carefully at the way in which policing was done. Instead of which, we find ourselves considering the Bill at a time when the Assembly and the Executive are only totteringly back on their feet, and when the issue of decommissioning remains up in the air, a sword of Damocles that is hanging over the peace process.
It is already apparent from the way in which the Belfast agreement has been interpreted that there are substantial areas of disagreement in its interpretation which go to its very root. I think that these are reflected in some of the problems we have with policing. In a nutshell--as there is so little time to develop these matters--I simply say that it is apparent from comments made, for example, by members of Sinn Fein--which I heard when in Northern Ireland--that there are diametrically different views on whether the Belfast agreement is setting up a structure where United Kingdom sovereignty remains but tremendous institutional changes are implemented to create harmony and participation by all people, with the prospect of reunification if a majority ever wants it in future, or whether we are proceeding through a process of cantonisation and condominium where individual communities can set up themselves and their rights against others and insist on structures which suit them and not the community as a whole.
I regret that that has been fostered in part by people who should know better, such as the Foreign Minister of Ireland in his ill-considered and ill-judged comments. It is a strand that runs through the way in which the agreement has been interpreted in republican circles. It is not surprising if that strikes at the root of the confidence that is required to carry out the sort of changes in policing that the Secretary of State has put forward, and which in many ways appear perfectly reasonable--and might appear even more reasonable if the right climate existed for their implementation within the community. It is with that in mind that I must approach how I vote or whether I abstain this evening. I will certainly vote on the Opposition amendment.
Let us consider one or two of the issues that are raised. There is the question of the boards and the district boards. Having served on the Lambeth police community consultative group, I know the value of engaging the police with a community that may have built-in hostility to it. It is a creative process, as long as there is a willingness for dialogue and not an attempt to undermine one side or the other.
My anxiety about aspects of the Bill is that they provide fertile ground for precise undermining--the cantonisation. I well remember that when we discussed these issues at British-Irish conferences two years ago, it was suggested at one stage that there should be a two-tier police service with a sort of reserve gendarmerie to deal with one aspect,
with locally based community police services to deal with others. I thought that that would be highly undesirable for all concerned. There is real anxiety that the structures that we shall set up will contribute to endless and rancorous debate, as they are used as a blunt instrument to bludgeon the police into the further process of cantonisation, which is contrary to the spirit of the Belfast agreement.These are matters that we can consider in Committee, and I hope that we shall be able to do something with them. I have an open mind on some aspects, but I have real reservations about whether the proposals will create the clarity that is desired and wanted to make the proposed legislation work in practice.
The same considerations apply to all the other issues that seem to concern us so endlessly. In a funny way, and perhaps iconoclastically, I am not sure whether I mind very much what the oath is. Equally, I am not sure that I very much mind what the symbols may be. However, we cannot get away from the fact that as we are dealing with a part of the United Kingdom, all judicial offices--the Secretary of State acknowledged this when he was dealing with the courts--and the police service are Crown appointments. A constable holds an office under the Crown. To perform elliptical somersaults to get away from the fact that all power derives from the Crown within the United Kingdom--and as long as Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom we should seek to make that the impartial mechanism by which the legal system and the police service is provided--is to venture on to difficult ground from which we shall never succeed in extracting ourselves.
Therefore, I say to those on the Treasury Bench that I am happy to look at all sorts of possible solutions, but they cannot fudge the reality. If they try to fudge the reality, they are contributing to the cantonisation and condominium procedure, which the Belfast agreement does not seek to do, but which the enemies of the agreement--or at least the cherry-pickers of the agreement--want. It is small wonder that Ulster Unionists feel strongly about the issue when they see what appears in many ways to be a fairly clear document being muddled in that fashion.
As for the quotas, I confess that I am amazed. I do not see how putting quotas in the form in which they appear in the Bill is compatible with the European convention on human rights--forget about European legislation. I am 100 million times in favour of increasing Roman Catholic representation within the police service in Northern Ireland, whatever name it may have. I could not care less what figure it reaches. If it reaches 60 per cent. or 70 per cent., I will sleep quietly in my bed at night, but to enshrine a 50:50 split in the system seems to be questionable. An aspiration that it should reflect properly the constituent make-up of the community from which it is drawn seems totally unexceptionable, but the 50:50 quota raises far more problems than it will solve.
I hope that, later in the passage of the Bill, I may be able to contribute further. As I say, the Government are to be commended. They have tried to work their way through a minefield. I am sorry that that has come about in the way in which it has. The fault lies with those who have prevented the Belfast agreement from getting up and running to the point where we could have some clarity of discussion on the future of the police, but we must live in
the real world. We must be careful of listening to too many siren songs about a few more somersaults or convolutions solving the problem.The past year has shown that it is when the Secretary of State is prepared to express himself clearly that we make progress. It was regrettable that he had to come along and to start telling us all about flags. The fact that we had to spend an evening dealing with flags reflects rather badly on the way in which the whole process has been developing, but at least we cut through that.
We need to be willing to cut through some of this, too. Otherwise, we will get ourselves into an increasingly complex situation, where we do not provide the sort of police service that I am convinced the majority of people in Northern Ireland want.
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