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Mr. McNamara: I will give way in a moment. That is the effect of that very damning document.
Mr. Trimble: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has quoted at considerable length from a report produced by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. He has been giving us the views and the evaluations of the commission and no doubt regards its opinions as particularly authoritative. A large number of people in Northern Ireland, myself included, think that that commission has no credibility in view of the discriminatory process by which it was formed and of quite a few of the persons on it. The commission's evaluations will lack credibility in view of the record of many of its members.
Mr. McNamara: One has always wondered about the soundness of the right hon. Gentleman in some of his comments about the Human Rights Commission--and those of some of his colleagues. The commission came straight out of the Good Friday agreement. His party took the same attitude to the former Human Rights Commission, which was established under the Hillsborough agreement. The matter also reflects strongly on my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Minister of State. I assume that they will speak strongly in favour of the commission and its members, whom they appointed. There were some applicants who would have made excellent members, but they did not quite make it on to the commission. I realise why Unionists might be disappointed about that. However, I understand that there is a Unionist majority on the HRC.
Mr. Seamus Mallon (Newry and Armagh): May I make it clear that the statement made by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) does not represent the views of the community throughout Northern Ireland? Many people--myself included--have great admiration for the HRC and the work it has carried out.
In relation to paragraph 23 of the HRC report, will the hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) tell us whether it is possible to identify the tutor--if I should even use that word to describe him--who described old people as "custard-dribbling old fools", so that the matter can be referred to the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and so that the tutor is no longer employed anywhere within the jurisdiction of Northern Ireland? I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees that someone who describes older people in that way does not deserve to hold such a position.
Mr. McNamara: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his stalwart support of the HRC. In the report, that particular tutor was referred to as a trainer and I understand that he was a member of the RUC. If that is not correct, I apologise in advance.
The document offers a serious indictment of RUC human rights training. That training is narrow, legalistic and critical of the Human Rights Act 1998; it sneers at people who, with great courage and at personal risk,
stood up for the human rights of members of all the communities in Northern Ireland and who were stalwart in their defence of the RUC when it impartially upheld the rule of law. Such people were criticised and undermined in the training course that the RUC had adopted to bring new ideas--a new dimension--to the whole ethos of policing in Northern Ireland.
Mr. Robert McCartney: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, not only in Northern Ireland but on the mainland, many people--including members of the judiciary--have serious reservations about human rights legislation? Those reservations are not confined to the RUC. Although there are fundamental differences between the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) and myself, I share his view that a large majority of people in Northern Ireland have great reservations about the competence, partiality and fairness of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission.
Mr. McNamara: I should have been very surprised indeed if the hon. and learned Gentleman had not made that comment; he would certainly not have let himself be outgunned by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble).
As my right hon. Friend the Minister of State will express his confidence in the HRC when he winds up the debate, I point out that my amendment is driven by the report of the commission. I trust that my right hon. Friend will be able to accept the amendment.
Mr. Eddie McGrady (South Down): Following the startling revelations made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), it is even more important that we accept his amendment to Lords amendment No. 26. We should have liked to pursue in some detail the way in which the performance of police officers could be appraised, but unfortunately our amendment (b) was not selected.
I remind the Minister of State that in Committee the Government made available the draft regulations setting out the minimum requirements for the Policing Board's policing plan--training, education and the development of a strategy for the police that would, I sincerely hope, include the human rights appreciation and training to which my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North alluded. It is noticeable, however, that the regulations did not deal with arrangements for the appraisal of the performance of police officers or of civilian support staff. Does the Minister agree that that is most illogical? Training, tutoring and the appraisal of its effectiveness must surely go hand in hand.
I hope that the training, education and development strategy will set out how officers are to be trained. That must require an appraisal programme to examine whether the goals and objectives of the training are adequate and how they have been put into practice. Surely that is a natural step.
My hon. Friend has amply illustrated the fact that the police do not need to "toughen up" their appraisal system; if anything, they need to introduce one--starting from scratch. There is a conflict of interest in any society that is self-policing; the police cannot police the police. My hon. Friend clearly demonstrated that the police cannot appraise and reform themselves. The Patten report bore that out.
It found substantial defects in the appraisal system that was being applied by the Chief Constable at the time. In particular, the system was not used when promotions were being considered; there was no proper appraisal of performance. Patten found that the systems of internal accountability needed substantial improvement.It would thus make sense to ensure that the new board has a new beginning, and draws up an appraisal strategy. Will Ministers offer the House clarification? Will the regulations require the annual policing plan to include details of arrangements for the appraisal of police officers? If they do not, no assessment can be made of the training and development of officers. Surely, the lack of appraisal of the performance of their duties is not good management practice. Will the Minister of State take that point on board and give us an undertaking that an appraisal strategy requirement will be written into the regulations?
Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Inverclyde): I have some brief comments in support of the amendments proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara). I shall touch on the HRC report to which he referred.
As one who, many years ago, taught on a police training course that led to the award of the Scottish higher national certificate in police studies--some of my former students became senior officers in the Lothian and Borders police force--I found the contents of the report deeply disquieting, despite the comments of the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) on the commission and some of its members. If a trainer, teacher or tutor in most higher education establishments spoke to students in the same way as that tutor spoke to RUC members, he or she would be subject to--at the least-- a severe reprimand.
We are moving into new fields of human rights training. Northern Ireland is ahead of the rest of the United Kingdom in establishing the Human Rights Commission and acknowledging the need for human rights training for police officers and others. I look forward to similar developments in Scotland, but mistakes will be made in such training courses. Whatever the right hon. Member for Upper Bann might think about the report's authors, if what it says about the trainers is true, how can the students take such training seriously?
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In fairness to the report's authors, I should point out that, as the right hon. Member for Upper Bann knows, they acknowledge in their concluding remarks that although
- the RUC have shown a willingness, even an enthusiasm, to engage with the Commission, they have been less ready to implement the Commission's recommendations.
- The Commission acknowledges that the RUC have done a lot of work to prepare for the commencement of the Human Rights Act . . .
I hope that I can catch the Minister's attention because I want to ask him a question. What comparable evidence has his Department about the human rights training of
police officers elsewhere in the United Kingdom, Europe and other English-speaking countries? The human rights training of trainers should be considered first and the very best methods, especially in teaching, should be adopted.On the basis of my experience--albeit dated--I have to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North that police officers, especially the junior ranks, are not the easiest students to teach. They are not very docile, and if they challenge their trainers they do not miss them and hit the wall. That is how things should be when training junior, middle-ranking and senior police officers, but the trainers must be highly competent in their subjects or they should not teach them. What evidence has the Minister about such training elsewhere? What training do the trainers receive before they stand in front of RUC officers? We owe it to the officers to give them the very best trainers.
As an ex-teacher who years ago used to talk about human rights in Edinburgh, I have to say that a day-long course in human rights training is simply not good enough. Although the right hon. Member for Upper Bann might have some reservations about the report's authors, its comments on the training, the trainers, the programme and so on are disturbing. Human rights training must be re-evaluated, and police officers need more than they have been given until now; they deserve better. We are performing a disservice to police officers by offering them such scanty, sparse training in the important matter of human rights. Much more needs to be done for the officers and the communities that they seek to serve.
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