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Dr. George Turner (North-West Norfolk): Does the Minister agree that Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary--in its 1999 report, I believe--made it very clear that some of the criticisms of the RUC could be directed at almost every police force in the United Kingdom? We should recognise that although the issue is especially important in the RUC's training, it is a national issue.
Mr. Ingram: I am grateful for that intervention and I am being very careful in my thought processes on this subject. I recognise that all police services have a very difficult role to play. They are moving through a rapid process of transition, not only in Northern Ireland, and not just within the UK, but internationally as well, and much has to be undertaken. Many mistakes have been made in the past, and I hope that those lessons will be learned. Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary comments, very helpfully and constructively, on what lessons can be learned and the way to proceed. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that contribution, but we are now dealing specifically with the RUC.
I was referring to the report from which my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North quoted at length. I was saying that others could quote from it selectively to show that the RUC is very committed and that improvements could be made. The report states that the course should have been piloted, that there should have been more time for questions and that insufficient time was devoted to context. It seems to me that that is only to be expected in any large exercise, especially in a large exercise that is being tackled for the first time.
I suspect that the police were not the only sizeable organisation to have faced a major challenge in delivering this new training. I suspect that that applies throughout the Government sector, and where it impacts on the private sector people have had to undergo significant training. I am sure that many lawyers are going through that process, and critical reports might appear on the human rights training that lawyers are receiving. We are dealing with a new approach; we are trying to build on experience and move forward.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North said that there was no external involvement in the courses. That is not so, because the university of Ulster was involved,
and its involvement predated the measures that we are passing tonight. I compliment the RUC and the Chief Constable and his senior officers seizing what is a very difficult issue--the management of the process of change, with this heavy overlay of a new Act of domestic law, which is having an impact throughout the government system and beyond.
Mr. John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington): With the greatest respect to my right hon. Friend, he seems to be missing the point of the amendment, which is that we now have a demonstrable failure, in one instance, of the application of the RUC's training to address human rights properly. The import of the amendment is that it would ensure that there is a requirement on the face of the Bill for the RUC to do that, and that this is not just one duty among others. To quote Patten, it is a
- central proposition of the Report that the fundamental purpose of policing should be--
- the protection and vindication of human rights.
I was explaining that we could spend a long time looking at the criticisms and ignoring the many compliments that have been paid, by independent assessors among others, to the role played by the Chief Constable and the RUC in taking forward that management of change.
The report that my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North referred to acknowledged that the RUC has done a great deal of work and has shown an enthusiasm to engage with the commission. Those are complimentary statements, which my hon. Friend read out, and we may derive some confidence from them. There is no evidence that the RUC is resiling from its position. If there are weaknesses in the system, a new Policing Board will take on responsibility for dealing with them.
Lords amendment No. 26 would give the board responsibility to have a training, education and development strategy; to assess the training and development needs of police officers and police support staff; and to give
- particulars of the way in which those requirements are to be met--
The draft regulations, which have been published, again give the Policing Board responsibility for setting out
- Details of performance appraisal systems for police officers.
That is a robust set of mechanisms, and it does not diminish in any way the commitment to human rights. Human rights were part of an overall grouping in the Patten report, which is why we have left it as part of a whole. There can be an interconnection and an interplay between each of those elements, and they should be seen as part of the whole.
I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North that the Government are committed to human rights education. I believe that the Chief Constable and the new police service will be committed to it, and the checks and balances will rest with the new Policing Board, which will have very significant responsibilities in that respect.
This is a developing situation; it is the beginning of a very complex issue. One report does not damn the future. It reflects only on the assessment at that moment.
I emphasise that the Government have not yet responded to the report because we are awaiting the Chief Constable's assessment. He may have trenchant comments to make on what has been said. It is not enough simply to accept what has been said by the Human Rights Commission. Until the commission's description of what happened that day has been properly tested by questioning others who were there, we must judge it in the round on that basis, although I accept that there are very strong points of view within the report.
Mr. McGrady: I ask the Minister to answer the simple question that I asked in my short intervention: will he introduce regulations to ensure that an appraisal strategy is in place to appraise the education and the work of RUC police officers? That is straightforward, and almost follows from his response to my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara).
Mr. Ingram: I am sorry that I did not refer to my hon. Friend specifically--I probably would have done so in my concluding remarks. The passage that I read from the draft regulations deals specifically with that issue. The regulations place on the board an obligation that
- The Board's Policing Plan shall include . . . details of performance appraisal systems for police officers.
Lords amendments Nos. 4 to 13 agreed to.
6.30 pm
Clause 17
Lords amendment: No. 14, in page 9, line 9, at end insert--
("( ) When a district policing partnership submits its report under subsection (1), it shall at the same time send a copy of the report to the Board.")
Mr. Ingram: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 15 to 23.
Mr. Ingram: Under the Bill, at the end of the financial year, each district policing partnership will be obliged to
submit a general report to its district council. The Bill provides that a copy should be sent to the Policing Board by the council. The Police Authority for Northern Ireland expressed the concern that a council might accidentally or otherwise delay sending the board a copy of the report and it argues that a DPP should send the board the report at the same time as it sends it to a council. That seems to us a sensible proposition, so the Government accepted the point made by the Police Authority for Northern Ireland. Amendments Nos. 14 and 15 give effect to that.Clause 19 provides that the board may issue a code of practice on the exercise by DPPs of their functions. The Government were pressed to amend the word "may" to "shall"--that old chestnut. We accepted that argument, and amendments Nos. 16 to 19 give effect to it. The Bill now provides that the board "shall" issue a code of practice relating to DPPs', exercise of their functions.
Amendments Nos. 19 to 21 combine to provide that a district commander may be a regular officer or reservist. As the Bill stands, he may be a regular officer only, but the Government see no need to make such a distinction--hence the amendments.
On amendment No. 22, under clause 21, each sub-group of the Belfast DPP is to provide views to the police and to the board. The Bill should have referred to the police and the Belfast partnership. The amendment fulfils a commitment that the Government made in this House to correct that reference.
Amendment No. 23 is a drafting change to clarify the fact that the word "district" in the last line of clause 21(2) means a police district.
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