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Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I beg to move that further consideration on Report be now adjourned.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
- House adjourned at sixteen minutes past eleven o'clock.
Official Report of the Grand Committee on the
Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill
Wednesday, 19th June 2002.
The Committee met at half-past three of the clock.
[The Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara) in the Chair.]
The Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara): Before I call the first amendment, perhaps I may remind noble Lords that, as the Leader of the House said yesterday, there will be a photographer present to take photographs of the proceedings at the beginning of this session. These are exclusively for the use of the House of Lords Annual Report.
Lord Shutt of Greetland moved Amendment No. 231:
- Before Clause 65, insert the following new clause—
ROLE OF COMMISSIONER
(1) The Secretary of State must, after consultation with the First Minister and deputy First Minister, appoint a Commissioner to oversee the implementation of changes in the criminal justice system of Northern Ireland described in his terms of reference.
(2) A person for the time being holding the office of Commissioner under subsection (1) is referred to in this Act as the Commissioner.
(3) On appointing the Commissioner, the Secretary of State shall give him written terms of reference.
(4) The terms of reference shall, in particular, describe the changes in criminal justice matters in Northern Ireland, the implementation of which it is the general function of the Commissioner to oversee.
(5) The Commissioner shall publish annual reports.
(6) The Commissioner may at any time make a report to the Secretary of State and the First Minister and deputy First Minister on matters arising in the course of his performance of his general function.
(7) The Commissioner shall be appointed for an initial period of six years and shall be re-appointed for further periods of up to six years unless an order is made under subsection (8).
(8) If the Commissioner makes a report to the Secretary of State and the First Minister and deputy First Minister under subsection (6) stating that he is satisfied that the implementation of changes in the criminal justice matters described in his terms of reference has been completed then the Secretary of State, after consultation with the First Minister and deputy First Minister, may by order provide that the office of Commissioner shall cease to exist."
The noble Lord said: This is a probing amendment. The new clause would become the first item under "Miscellaneous" in the Bill. I think that the proposal is rather more than miscellaneous, but for the moment that is where we have selected to place it.
This is a very important Bill for Northern Ireland concerned with the whole of the justice system. A couple of years ago we passed a Bill about the police service. In that Bill provision was made for an oversight commissioner. For us it seems to be an oversight that the same provision has not been made in this Bill. This new clause therefore seeks to place it in the legislation; namely, that somebody will be on watch, overseeing that the new arrangements work and that they work well.
It may well be that other ideas are put forward as to how this oversight should take place. Bearing in mind, however, that Parliament felt it necessary for oversight to be provided as far as the police were concerned, it is even more important that there should be oversight for justice as a whole. I beg to move.
Lord Glentoran: I have considerable sympathy with this probing amendment. The sentiments expressed on behalf of the Liberal Democrats by the noble Lord, Lord Shutt of Greetland, to the effect that we need to keep a watchful eye on the way through all these changes, appeals to me. Unfortunately we already have a number of commissioners overseeing various matters in Northern Ireland. We have many commissions per se. We have the inspector of the police, amongst others.
I wonder whether there could be some kind of overseeing responsibility, which I imagine would fall to the Lord Chief Justice or perhaps the Lord Chancellor if a commissioner is not appointed. It might be comforting if one of those two people had a very clear and specific duty to oversee the implementation of these changes during this rather difficult process.
I appreciate that this is a probing amendment, but I shall be interested to hear what the Minister has to say in response.
Lord Molyneaux of Killead: I wonder whether there is any significance in what appears to be an omission in line 2 of the amendment. That is where the legislation is at pains to specify in certain matters such as, for example, the hiring and firing of Her Majesty's judges, where the First Minister and Deputy First Minister will be "acting jointly". On Second Reading I pointed out the very great difficulty that the First and Deputy First Minister would have in acting jointly on such a serious matter, given that by law in previous legislation they are required to be of different religions and different political parties. It seemed to me that basically it would place an insuperable burden on them. I wonder if that difficulty has been recognised by the sponsors of the amendment. No reference is made to "acting jointly", although it does appear elsewhere.
Baroness O'Cathain: I seek a little clarification on this matter. Part 3 of the Bill concerns the Chief Inspector of Criminal Justice. Would it not be appropriate for him to take on the role of oversight? Although Northern Ireland is an extremely important part of the United Kingdom, the Province has only 1.6 million inhabitants. We seem to be overloading it with bureaucracy.
Has any thought been given to the number of bureaucrats who are going to be generated by this Bill, all in addition to the huge overload of bureaucracy that is already in place? Could someone look at the position and work out how proportionate it is to other parts of the United Kingdom? I suspect that it will prove to be very top heavy indeed.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Williams of Mostyn): I certainly echo the words of the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain. One wants to be very careful in this context to ensure that one does not simply add an additional layer of bureaucracy to what is, as Members of the Committee have all agreed, a complex set of relationships which needs to be worked through.
I do take the point made by the noble Lords, Lord Shutt and Lord Glentoran. This is an extremely important time for Northern Ireland and it is vital that public confidence in the review and its implementation should be sustained.
When this matter was raised in the Commons, the Secretary of State said that he would give the proposal careful thought. He has done so. Work is now under way—I hope that this is helpful—on the revised implementation plan which we plan to publish after the Bill receives Royal Assent. The revised plan will be a fuller document than the plan that was published last November. A number of respondents to the consultation exercise, following the publication of the original plan, said that they would like to have more detail, in particular in regard to time-scales. We shall certainly take that on board.
The revised plan will give more detailed information on how implementation is progressing and set out important milestones. It will make clear when particular actions are to be taken, and it will deal not only with matters in the Bill, but also with administrative recommendations that are going to be put into effect.
It will demonstrate clearly who is responsible for what. The responsibility here, of course, is divided between the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney-General but not, I believe, the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland. As noble Lords know, those three people are working together for a successful implementation.
My right honourable friend Dr Reid indicated that he was not minded to put in place a statutory oversight commissioner, but he did say that his mind was open. On that basis, the Government are certainly considering with an open mind a non-statutory commissioner. Given that, I would ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment, and I hope that I have gone some way to meeting his concerns which I recognise are absolutely legitimate.
Lord Shutt of Greetland: I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for that response and we look forward to seeing in due course the documents which we have been promised. I am also grateful for the contributions of the noble Lords. In particular I was impressed with the argument about due economy
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 65 [Display of Royal Arms at courts]:
Lord Glentoran moved Amendment No. 232:
The noble Lord said: I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 235 and 236 in which I am joined by my colleagues from the Unionist Party.
In my opinion this is rather a sad stage of the Bill. We have had, up to this stage, serious debate about what, by and large, is a good, positive, devolutionary Bill.
We now come to Part 5, which is entitled "Miscellaneous". Somehow, most of the miscellany is pretty peripheral to criminal justice per se. It is subjective politics of typical—difficult—problems from Northern Ireland but not much of it seems to belong here. This group of amendments concerns the structures and the decoration of court houses throughout the Province. They are about the display of royal coats of arms in court rooms and on court houses. The Good Friday agreement makes it absolutely clear—we have pointed this out during the Bill's earlier stages—that interfering with emblems, architecture and the like for either, or any, of the various communities in the Province is not necessary.
It is accepted that Northern Ireland is, at this stage of its life, an integral part of the United Kingdom. It is absolutely necessary to be clear where the judicial authority comes from and how it is derived. Paragraph 5 on page 20 of the agreement states:
That is a pretty clear statement. When the noble and learned Lord replies, I shall be interested to hear him justify morally, logically, practically and in any way that he can, this part of the Bill. There seems to be no logic at all. I frequently visit the Republic of Ireland; I said in my maiden speech in this House many years ago that while I was British in most ways, when I go to Twickenham or elsewhere, you will find me carrying a tricolour—there are many of us like that. Equally, if you go to the republic you will find that the Lord Mayor of Dublin has King Billy on his chain. There is the Royal Cork Yacht Club in Cork and there are other royal institutions, including the Royal Agricultural Society. The royal title gets all sorts of usage. Royal coats of arms are certainly found around the Republic of Ireland—they were not destroyed or
Page 57, line 31, leave out subsection (1).
"All participants acknowledge the sensitivity of the use of symbols and emblems for public purposes, and the need in particular in creating the new institutions to ensure that such symbols and emblems are used in a manner which promotes mutual respect rather than division. Arrangements will be made to monitor this issue and consider what action might be required".
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