| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Mandelson: My hon. Friend makes a good point. The whole purpose of the Good Friday agreement and the changes that we are making is to make politics work and to persuade those who were formerly associated with violence to turn away from it and to commit themselves to genuinely peaceful and democratic means. If they are to be committed to those means, there must be institutions, channels and vehicles to enable them to demonstrate that commitment. One cannot insist that they should demonstrate their commitment to genuinely peaceful and democratic means and then erect all sorts of hurdles to prevent them from getting involved in those institutions or channelling their energies in that direction. That would make no sense at all.
Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann): My hon. Friend the Member for West Tyrone (Mr. Thompson) made the obvious point that all members of the Policing Board should be treated according to the same rules. However, through the Bill, the Secretary of State is giving, as it were, a favoured position to political appointees if they fail to disclose past criminal convictions. Will he give us some reassurance on that point? Will he himself make inquiries about the criminal convictions of all those who are nominated as political members, and not rely purely on their disclosure of past criminal offences?
Mr. Mandelson: The right hon. Gentleman fails to understand the distinction that I am making, and its
practical implications. Independent members of the Policing Board must disclose criminal records as part of the appointments process. The application form requires them to do so. It is therefore entirely logical to provide a means of removal if there is no disclosure. That is the offence that has been created, and the action that flows from it is obvious and appropriate.Those who are elected, on the other hand, and who are put forward to the policing board on behalf of their parties, are not subject to the application and appointment processes in the same way. Therefore the rules are different: they do not apply on the same basis.
I merely say that one of the whole points of the Good Friday agreement was to provide for political representatives to be involved in those bodies, and to assume responsibility. I want political representatives of all the parties, from both positions, to assume responsibility for policing. For too long, too many people have removed themselves from that--in some cases for understandable political or historical reasons. I will not go into them now, because we have debated them endlessly in the past.
The point now is that, with the new beginning that we are making in policing and under the new political dispensation that we are creating in Northern Ireland, we want everyone to take an equal share of responsibility for policing--and that means taking an equal share of the ownership of the police service. That is what I want.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): What the Secretary of State said to the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) is entirely understandable, but may I posit to him a slightly different scenario? If an individual guilty of precisely the type of rhetoric and hyperbole to which he referred were, in his opinion, unlikely to carry out the threat, but if that individual's words--as a result of inadvertence or advertence--were likely to have the effect of encouraging others to do so, would that, in the Secretary of State's opinion, disqualify the individual concerned from board service?
Mr. Mandelson: It would be very difficult for a member of the Policing Board who was exhorting others to resort to violent means to carry conviction as such a member. There would be a fundamental contradiction between that person's language and actions, and his membership of the board. I think that the whole community would question the bona fides of the member, and I think the action that would follow would be fairly obvious.
Dr. William McCrea (South Antrim): Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Mandelson: I will, for the very last time.
Dr. McCrea: I thank the Secretary of State.
Shortly before Remembrance Sunday this year, a bomb was intercepted on its way--or so it is believed--to a Royal Ulster Constabulary police station. It was intended to blow it up: it was a barrack-buster. The Sinn Fein Member for the area would not condemn the intended attack. Is the Secretary of State going to tell us that that person would be an appropriate member of a policing
board--a person who would not condemn the fact that a bomb was on its way to blow up a police station, and the police personnel inside?
Mr. Mandelson: I think that if such circumstances arose, a real inconsistency would be revealed between that person's statements and his or her continued membership of the policing board. Such would be the contradiction that I think it would make the person's continued membership of the board impossible--in moral terms, if in no other terms.
The amendments primarily address the relationship between the Policing Board and the district policing partnerships. We have been talking mainly about the Policing Board, but I think that many of the sentiments expressed today apply equally to the partnerships: what goes for one goes for the rest. On that basis, I commend the amendments.
Lords amendment No. 2 agreed to.
Clause 4
Lords amendment: No. 3, in page 3, line 16, leave out ("numbers and")
5.30 pm
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Adam Ingram): I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 4 to 13, Lords amendment No. 26 and amendment (a) thereto, and Lords amendments Nos. 58, 63, 66, 68, 97, 109 to 112, 116 to 118, 120 to 122, 124, 125, 128 to 137 and 139.
Mr. Ingram: The vast majority of the amendments are minor, drafting and technical. Many are concerned with clearing up stray references to the name of the police as a result of changes in this place. Others remove redundant wording, ensure consistency of numerical cross- referencing and effect other consequential changes. Amendments Nos. 110 and 111 to clause 72 give effect to the recommendations of the Lords Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation.
Some noteworthy amendments are included in the group. Amendment No. 26 provides for the board to assess the training and education needs of police officers and support staff, and to give particulars of how those needs are to be met. The Government have been convinced by arguments that the significance of the issue merits its inclusion in primary legislation.
Amendments Nos. 8 to 11 make changes to clause 12, requiring the board, rather than the Chief Constable, to keep accounts in respect of the police funds. The Government were persuaded that the amendments would help to make it clear that the Chief Constable is exercising a delegated function and that the money and the accounts "belong" to the board. Therefore, the Chief Constable
will be the accounting officer for the police grant, as recommended by Patten, but the board will hold him to account for his use of resources.I commend the amendments to the House. I wait to hear what my hon. Friends have to say on their amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 26. I hope that I will be able to persuade them of the merits of our approach, rather than theirs.
Mr. Öpik: It is good to see amendment No. 124, which, as the Minister has said or implied, fulfils a commitment to the Commons about the Oversight Commissioner and his or her removal. We thought that that was important at the time.
From what the Minister said and from our reading of amendment No. 26, the board is now explicitly responsible for having, effectively, a training and education plan for the police. I hope that the Minister can confirm that. Unless he intervenes to say otherwise, I assume that that is the correct understanding. I see him nodding. Again, I am pleased, not least because the education and training plan is important in establishing the culture that we have debated many times in the House. It is a key element--the attitudinal shift to ensure that we have the police board that we want.
I welcome amendments Nos. 8 to 11. They make it clear that the Chief Constable is exercising a delegated function and that the money and accounts belong to the board. The amendments show that the Chief Constable's financial accountability is to the board and that its oversight of the accounts is unconstrained. It seems that the amendments help to secure the transparency that we called for the last time we debated the powers of the board in the Chamber.
The Government are, I hope, reassuring us that the board will be able to exercise close scrutiny of the Chief Constable's use of resources. If that is the case, in effect, the board will need a strong internal audit department, although I imagine that the Government are leaving that to the board to set up.
Amendment No. 110 relates to the fact that a draft of the statutory rules on the code of ethics and orders relating to recruitment should be laid before Parliament, as is done with statutory instruments relating to Northern Ireland. Does the Minister envisage that, as a matter of course, those rules would be debated, or do the Government intend to lay them before the House without debate? The implication of my question is that they should be debated as a matter of course.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |