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27 Mar 2003 : Column 468—continued
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. Of course, we regret the absence of the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble), but may I assure her that this House, as far as I can tell, is never happier than when she is here and on her feet? [Interruption.]
1.15 pm
Lady Hermon: I thank the hon. Gentleman; I am so pleased with those remarks, especially as they appear to have been generously endorsed by the hon. Members for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) and for East Londonderry (Mr. Campbell). I am delighted that they have endorsed his comments.
I should like to preface my remarks about amendment No. 60 and associated amendments by reminding the House and the Minister in particular of words that she used only a few days ago in relation to the Northern Ireland Assembly Elections Bill. On 17 March—that is, St. Patrick's day, when, if my memory serves me correctly, we were all blessed with great generosity of spirit in this House—she said:
- "there had been a catastrophic breakdown of trust"
- "made the effective functioning of devolved government impossible."—[Official Report, 17 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 641.]
Against the background of a huge and dramatic breakdown in trust, which the Minister rightly identified, may I remind her and her colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office that it is absolutely essential to build back that trust? When we go to the Assembly elections, which are set in stone, concrete or whatever—they have been set in tablets in this House—for 29 May, if Sinn Fein decides to come into the Policing Board after acts of completion, as I hope it will, the composition of the board, which now has 19 members, will change. There are currently 10 political members and nine independents. After the Assembly election, the composition of the political members will inevitably change. If confidence is to be rebuilt in the communities, we must have confidence in the Sinn Fein members of that Policing Board.
It is therefore not helpful that the Bill removes one of the four original grounds on which the Chief Constable could withhold information from the entire board, reducing their number to three. I shall not rehearse the arguments that we heard in Standing Committee, but the net effect of the amendments would be to restore the
Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000 to its original form. Hon. Members will know that section 59 of that Act sets out the four grounds on which the Chief Constable is entitled to withhold information from the entire Policing Board and also from the police ombudsman and from inquiries following reports to the Policing Board. It states that information should not be disclosed
- "in the interests of national security . . . because it relates to an individual and is of a sensitive personal nature"—
- ". . . because it would, or would be likely to, prejudice proceedings which have been commenced in a court of law, or"—
- "because it would, or would be likely to, prejudice the prevention or detection of crime or the apprehension or prosecution of offenders".
I greatly regret that, to bitter opposition, the Bill deletes the fourth of those grounds. I know that the old excuse is trotted out that maintaining the three conditions and dropping the fourth more closely reflects the much quoted Patten report. However, paragraph 6.22 of that report makes this recommendation:
- "the Policing Board should have the power to require the Chief Constable to report on any issue pertaining to the performance of his functions or those of the police service . . . The grounds on which the Chief Constable might question this requirement should be strictly limited to issues such as those involving national security, sensitive personnel matters and cases before the courts."
The Government have attempted to deal with the change in another way as well. They propose the establishment of a special committee in the Policing Board. Government amendment No. 31 places a duty on the board to establish such a committee in certain circumstances, but we want a discretion rather than a duty. In fact, to be honest, we do not want special committees at all. It is regrettable that the Government should use and quote from the Patten report when it suits them, for purposes of political expediency. The report contains no recommendation for the establishment of special committees, and we will oppose that move.
I ask the Government to reflect more carefully, and to reinstate the fourth ground on which the Chief Constable can withhold delicate information in the run-up to court proceedings. We do not want criminal proceedings to be jeopardised or undermined by the premature disclosure of such information to the board.
The Minister should bear in mind what she rightly said about the catastrophic breakdown of confidence. That confidence must be restored, and if Sinn Fein chooses to sit on the board the process must be carried through and must be seen to be carried through.
Mr. John Taylor (Solihull): I listened with interest to the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon). We all know of her knowledge of these matters.
If I may say so, in a deliberately self-denigrating way, although I have been here for a number of years I have never entirely mastered the process by which amendments are called for voting purposes. I will leave it to the invisible ones to have a word with the Chair about the point at which my party would like to divide the House and express its view.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps I can reassure the hon. Gentleman. The visible one in the Chair will do his best to keep him informed.
Mr. Taylor: I am utterly confident of that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am relieved to learn that, in biblical terms, the cup passes from me.
My party is in considerable sympathy with amendments Nos. 60 and 61, to which the hon. Lady spoke so well, but I want to say something about amendments Nos. 84 and 85, tabled by members of my party. Clause 23 inserts a new section 76A in the 2000 Act, sometimes called the Mandelson Act, entitled "Disclosure of information and holding of inquiries". The new section would reduce the number of grounds for appeal by the Chief Constable to the Secretary of State under sections 59 and 60 of the 2000 Act from four to three.
Section 59 currently requires the Chief Constable to submit reports whenever he is required to do so by the Policing Board, but if he thinks that a report would contain information that ought not to be disclosed, there are four grounds on which he can refer such a requirement to the Secretary of State. He can do that if he thinks that the information should not be disclosed
- "(a) in the interests of national security,
(b) because it relates to an individual and is of a sensitive personal nature,
(c) because it would, or would be likely to, prejudice proceedings which have been commenced in a court of law, or
(d) because it would, or would be likely to, prejudice the prevention or detection of crime or the apprehension or prosecution of offenders".
Under clause 23, the grounds on which the Chief Constable can appeal are that
- "(a) it is in the interests of national security"
- "(b) the information is sensitive personnel information",
- (c) the information would, or would be likely to, prejudice proceedings which have been commenced in a court of law."
Throughout the Bill's passage so far, we have argued that the change could seriously undermine the operational independence and effectiveness of the Chief Constable, who would now have a statutory obligation to provide the board with reports relating to the conduct of ongoing investigations. That is unacceptable. Significantly, the Government have not pointed to a single deficiency in the current legislation, passed less than three years ago, that justifies the change. We appreciate the changes made to the Bill on Third Reading in the House of Lords, but they remain very much second best to retention of the existing appeal grounds.
Following our failure to reinsert the existing fourth ground, our amendments Nos. 84 and 85 offer the Government an alternative wording—although that should not imply any less support for the amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) and the hon. Member for North Down. For all practical purposes, our amendments are designed to achieve the same objective. They would give the Chief Constable a fourth ground for appeal, namely that the information requested under section 59
- "would, or would be likely to, prejudice on-going police investigations or operations."
We are sympathetic to amendment No. 59, and we tabled amendment No. 83 ourselves. We cannot support the requirement in new sub-paragraph (1B)(c), proposed in clause 22(3), for any special committee set up to handle sensitive information supplied to it by the Chief Constable to be "as far as practicable . . . representative of the Board". Surely that is interfering too much in the internal affairs of the board. Put simply, we believe that that should be a matter for the chairman and deputy chairman of the board to decide. Surely, if we believe that the board is a grown-up body properly carrying out its functions, as Ministers have repeatedly said that it is, that sort of matter should be decided internally. That is what our amendment would allow.
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