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Mr. Kevin McNamara (Hull, North): I draw the attention of the House to amendment (a), in the name of my hon. Friends and myself. I hope that the House will divide on it if my right hon. Friend cannot accept it.

Lords amendment No. 26 would make a welcome change to clause 26 on the policing plan. It seeks to ensure that the plan shall

contain an assessment of the requirements for educating and training police officers and members of the police support staff.

My amendment would then insert the phrase

particularly with regard to human rights.

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My right hon. Friend will recall that throughout the Bill's passage, in this House and in another place, the question of human rights has been very much to the fore, because the Patten report said

training was one of the keys to instilling a human rights-based approach into both new recruits and experienced police personnel.

It went on to say that

fundamental principles and standards of human rights and the practical implications for policing

were to be specially recommended.

Given the background to the situation, the pressures in the House and the statements that have been made by Ministers, one would think that such recommendations would have been driven home to the Royal Ulster Constabulary. However, when I put down a parliamentary question asking my right hon. Friend about the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission's assessment of police training programmes under the Human Rights Act 1998, he referred me to the Human Rights Commissioner, who sent me his assessment. My hon. Friend the Minister of State also received a copy so that he could place it in the Library. The result of the commission's inquiry was a surprising, disappointing and disturbing document.

The commission pointed out that it was almost two years after the passing of the Human Rights Act--April 2000--that the RUC started providing courses. They were all one-day courses. The report states:

The majority of RUC personnel participated in a one-day training course given by internal RUC trainers.

No external element was involved with the majority of the RUC personnel. It went on to say that strategic command officers--who occupy quite a high level in the service--received training but, again, only for one day. Special branch also received training for one day only. It is not my intention to comment on everything in the report, but the commission makes some interesting points.

Paragraph 10 says:

The Human Rights Act training programme was not piloted with a sample of the audience at which it was aimed. To do so would have been normal practice in the provision of new large programmes of this nature.

Under the heading "Evaluation and Monitoring", the report says:

The Commission drew the RUC's attention to the need for internal valuation and independent external evaluation of the training . . . No evidence has been provided of any formal evaluation system of the course, either externally or internally.

On lay outside involvement, the commission doubts whether the training contract was put out to tender. It says:

The majority of participants received their training from RUC trainers, with only the Strategic Command receiving training from lay trainers or lecturers.

The report went on to make observations on the training, and included several important points. A number of talks were given, of which it said:

Of the talks, three were reasonably good . . . One speaker in particular adopted a fairly searching and critical approach, suggesting that a variety of RUC practices would need to be re-examined in the light of the Human Rights Act's commencement.

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However, the report goes on to say:


One speaker's talk was not so good--it tended towards saying that some people get over-excited by human rights and that there are human rights activists who give the subject a bad name.

Mr. Trimble: Quite right.

Mr. McNamara: I understand the right hon. Gentleman saying that, given his reputation on human rights.

Is this really what one would want in a training exercise? The terrible thing was that, according to the report:

Several officers nodded in agreement with the points made in this speech, but their views were not brought out into the open and discussed.

They were not challenged, either, although the report does not say that.

On special branch training, the report said:

The training for Special Branch was to last a full day but the trainer dropped a number of items from the training programme, including an exercise where the police officers being trained would discuss the issues arising from the Human Rights Act 1998 likely to affect their work.

In the most contentious branch of the service, therefore, the most important element of the training programme--lasting only one day--was dropped from the curriculum.

The report goes on to say, at paragraph 20:

It is the Commission's view that on this occasion the tutor gave the training very superficial treatment.

This relates to the most fundamental questions being discussed: human rights, the Good Friday agreement, the whole atmosphere of the Patten report, special branch and special training--yet the trainer gave the training very superficial treatment. The report goes on:

He constantly undermined the reasons why he was giving the training and sped through it. He said to his audience that he did not want to talk about their work, and that they really did not need the training. His remarks included "I'm teaching my granny to suck eggs here", "We all know the circumstances when you do use handcuffs" (when in fact there were different views on when you do use handcuffs) and "It's as clear as mud".

Those comments were made by a tutor to special branch, the most controversial part of the RUC, which has a reputation for being less than accurate in its observance of the European convention on human rights.

Paragraph 22 of the report states:

The tutor's knowledge about human rights appeared to be weak . . . He had a complete inability to field questions about the Act, e. g. the proportionate level of force appropriate to deal with a person on drugs who has a knife and is involved in a stand-off with police.

Paragraph 23 states:

The trainer demonstrated a poor attitude to the training, in that he reinforced a negative view of the Act expressed by some participants at the start of the training. The trainer made discriminatory comments during the session (whilst the group did not join in, no-one challenged him).

Not one member of special branch challenged the discriminatory nature of the observations that the trainer made. The paragraph--let us remember that this is a

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report by the Human Rights Commission on a course being given to special branch on the implementation of the Human Rights Act--continues:

He also referred to old people as "custard-dribbling old fools" and there were constant derogatory comments about people suing the RUC as "toe-rags" and the "£600 per hour".

5.45 pm

Paragraph 24 of the report continues:

Unexpected interventions were made by the trainer in that he offered suggestions as to how to get around several of the Act's requirements.

That is pretty good, is it not? What was the evaluation of the Human Rights Commission? It says:

The training appeared to be done in a vacuum. There was a failure to address the recommendations of "A New Beginning: Policing in Northern Ireland 1999".

On the standard of training, the report said:

The serious flaws in the delivery of the training by the one internal RUC trainer and one of the external speakers indicate that there were significant weaknesses in the training programme. The commission is therefore not confident that the training course was adequately delivered.

On content, the commission found that

the focus of the human rights training was very narrow and legalistic.

The commission considered

the management of the human rights training to have been flawed in several key ways.

Mr. Trimble: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. McNamara: When I have finished my comments, I will certainly give way.

The commission continued:

The lack of piloting, failure to carry out formal internal or external evaluations and the lack of any obvious monitoring of the integration of human rights principles into practice seriously undermined the effectiveness of the training programme. In addition, management's failure to identify the internal trainer's weaknesses and the continued use of the inappropriate external speaker indicates a flawed process for the delivery of training on such a significant topic as human rights.

On international standards, which will be a later reference, the commission said:

At the meeting on 11 August 1999, the Chief Constable assured the Commission that the RUC were benchmarking its progress in relation to international standards through its relationship with both the Garda Siochana and the Council of Europe. The Commission found little evidence of training in international standards other than those in the ECHR or of benchmarking of progress through training to date.

The report concludes:

All in all the Commission concludes that, while the RUC has shown a willingness, even an enthusiasm, to engage with the Commission, they have been less ready to implement the Commission's recommendations or to treat the Commission's views with the seriousness they deserve. The Commission acknowledges that the RUC have done a lot of work to prepare for the commencement of the Human Rights Act, but we are not convinced that this work has always been of the appropriate nature or standard.

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If a school had an Ofsted report of that nature, it would be put under special measures. That is the position of that--

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