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Mr. Öpik: The Minister seems to be saying that the amendments clearly establish the sub-groups as subsidiary to the DPP and not directly to the board. Is that right?
Mr. Ingram: I confirm that interpretation.
On the basis of my explanation, I commend the amendments to the House.
Lords amendments 15 to 23 agreed to.
Clause 24
Lords amendment: No. 24, in page 12, line 2, leave out paragraph (c).
Mr. Mandelson: 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. 25, 27, 28 and amendment (a) thereto, and Lords amendments Nos. 93, 94 and 101.
Mr. Mandelson: This group of amendments deals with consultation on a range of issues. Amendment No. 24 will remove the ombudsman from the list of those to be consulted by the Secretary of State when determining long-term policing objectives and amendment No. 25 will similarly remove her from the list of those to be consulted by the Policing Board on its objectives. Consultation with
the ombudsman was raised by Conservative peers in Committee in the other place and, having discussed the issue with the ombudsman, we accept that her role in planning would be relatively limited and that a formal consultative role would be excessive--hence amendments Nos. 24 and 25.Amendment No. 27 specifies that, before prescribing the statements and particulars that the Policing Board should include in the policing plan, the Secretary of State shall consult the board and the Chief Constable. It responds to concerns that the Secretary of State would make regulations altering the content of the plan without consultation. That was never the intention.
Amendment No. 28 will oblige the Secretary of State to consult other appropriate persons or bodies--in addition to the Policing Board and Chief Constable--before issuing or revising a code of practice issued under clause 27. That meets concerns that, when relevant--obviously it will not always be--the views of bodies such as the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission or the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland should be sought.
Amendment No. 93 includes the ombudsman in the list of those whom the Secretary of State should consult before issuing or revising guidance on the police's use of equipment for maintaining or restoring public order. It is clear that, through her investigations, the ombudsman will gather information that will be relevant to the guidance. For example, in investigating complaints about the use of plastic baton rounds, she may have details to feed in on their usage, by police district, on the occasions most likely to lead to injury, and so on.
Amendment No. 94 widens the scope for the Secretary of State to consult on the regulations as to emblems and flags before coming to any decisions. He is currently obliged to consult the board, the Chief Constable and the Police Association. The Government's consistent position has been that a new beginning requires a new name for the police service, and that a new name requires a new badge and a new flag based on it. The new name is prescribed by the legislation that also gives me the power to prescribe the badge. However, I want to try to obtain cross-community consensus on that if I possibly can. It is important to do so given that these matters are extremely sensitive and fraught.
Patten's view was that the badge should be entirely free from any association with either the British or the Irish state. I said in June that the Government did not accept that this should necessarily be so. That is still my view. I have never seen the symbols of the police service for Northern Ireland as an issue of sovereignty or of getting symbols that represent the British state. However--we must be frank about this--that is not how others see the issue, and we must understand and appreciate why that is so.
I illustrate my point from some of the contributions that were made in the other place when a specific amendment was tabled suggesting that the existing badge of the RUC--crown and all--should be carried over to the new police service for Northern Ireland. The amendment was moved, debated and defeated in the other place, but I refer to that debate only to show how difficult and fraught the
issue becomes when it is mixed up with the issue of sovereignty and the constitutional argument in Northern Ireland.In the debate, one Conservative viscount said that the crown should be retained in the police badge because it symbolises Northern Ireland's position in the United Kingdom and that, if it were removed from the badge, that would be an attack on the sovereignty of the United Kingdom. I attended the debate and listened from the Bar of the other House to all the contributions that were made. Another Conservative peer said that the crown should be retained because it is dear to Unionism.
I am the first to acknowledge--I readily do so--that the crown is dear to Unionism for all the obvious reasons. However, that shows why the presence of the crown on the badge is objectionable to many nationalists. It clearly identifies the police service with one side of the constitutional argument in Northern Ireland, not with the community as a whole. Conservative Members of the other place made that clear in their contributions to the debate on whether the RUC's existing badge should be maintained and carried over. That illustrates the difficulties in reaching a cross-community consensus--which we need to do--on the badge and emblems of the new police service. The last thing that I should like to happen--I hope that other hon. Members would agree--is for the new police service to be a platform for resuming the age-old constitutional quarrel that has dogged and divided Northern Ireland society for so long.
Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield): Is there not another reason--perhaps the same one as was raised when we discussed flags orders? It is a matter not of allegiance, but of reality. A police officer, even if we change the oath as we have, is a Crown officer. All law in this country derives from the Crown. Are we not in danger of entering a state of unreality when we remove that? Is it not better to stick to the reality of the situation while we seek to implement the other changes?
Mr. Mandelson: In logic and legislative premise, the hon. Gentleman may be absolutely correct, but I must bring him back to reality. When we invoke a symbol of the British state--such as the crown--in such constitutional terms when debating or determining the emblem of a police service that we are trying to draw from the community as a whole and to which the entire community, with two distinctive traditions, wants to owe allegiance, he will appreciate that there is more than one reality.
I want to create a police service with a uniform, badge and emblems that every member of the service is comfortable with and proud to wear. On that basis, it behoves us to ensure that there is nothing about the police service's name, uniform or badge that drives away one side of the community because it is construed as offensive to one tradition or another. Above all, in practical terms, we do not want to make it harder to recruit people from both traditions.
Mr. Jeffrey Donaldson (Lagan Valley): When the Secretary of State talks of the crown, he will be aware that that is only one aspect of the current insignia, and that the harp is also important. While the crown symbolises British Government and law, the harp is used on all official documents of the Irish Government and on
Irish passports. Unionists can accept the incorporation of the harp within the badge and do not get offended or upset, because we see our tradition represented by the crown. Can we not have a bit of maturity and use the shamrock and harp to represent the nationalist tradition and the crown to represent the Unionist tradition? The Secretary of State is in danger of misleading the House by focusing simply on the crown. He knows that the insignia cover more than that and are a cross-community symbol that draws on the traditions of both communities.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's intervention is becoming a speech. He has made his point.
Mr. Mandelson: The hon. Gentleman has made his point extremely well. His comfortableness with the presence of the harp, a symbol that he associates with the Irish state, reflects the strength, security and self- confidence that he feels in such matters. He has to understand, however, that people from the other tradition in Northern Ireland are not as relaxed about symbols of the British state.
6.45 pm
It is true that the current insignia of the RUC badge contain the crown and the harp, and the hon. Gentleman would be making a good point if he was saying that the design was intended to provide a balance, an equality and a parity of esteem--although I am not sure that he was. To follow his logic, that is why, given that elements of the badge are associated with both traditions, I would be rather relaxed about continuing that balance and reflection of both traditions, as I have already said.
However, my point is different and important. It is illustrated, as I tried to explain, by Members of the other place who, in seeking to justify the continuation of the present badge and the retention of the crown, made it clear that it symbolises not a parity of esteem or a reflection of both traditions but, as the noble viscount explained, Northern Ireland's position in the United Kingdom. In their view, removal of the crown would constitute an attack on the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.
Such an argument puts us in danger of crossing the line from what is a proper--and, in some people's view, even appropriate--reflection of both traditions in Northern Ireland to a position where we are using the crown, insignia and badge of the police service to provide a proxy for continuing the constitutional argument and quarrel in Northern Ireland; and that is precisely what we should all be united in wanting to remove from the police service, as the Patten report originally proposed.
Hon. Members will know that I have never been entirely persuaded by the argument in favour of neutrality, but if we have equality and not neutrality, the argument about the symbols cannot be played out as a proxy fight to continue the constitutional quarrel about the status of Northern Ireland.
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