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Baroness O'Cathain: I am most grateful to the Minister. When she speaks of the reality of Northern Ireland and the need to please the people, which people of Northern Ireland is she trying to please? That is the problem here. This reeks of concession, concession, concession. So many people have given up a great deal in the interests of the agreement, yet all the time they are being asked to give up more. What are Sinn Fein/IRA giving up?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I would, of course, invite the noble Baroness to recall the amendments that were made in another place. They were made in order to satisfy what we thought to be the rights issues that were raised on behalf of a certain section of the people of Northern Ireland. It is a balance, and it is an attempt to mediate between two differing views that are strongly held and strongly advocated in Northern Ireland.
I come back to the review. As I said, this is only one among 300 recommendations made by the review team. One knows the sensitivity of the issue. If a recommendation could have been avoided, I am sure that it would have been. The Government think that the balance in the matter is about right, and I invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
5 p.m.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass: I suggest to the Minister that she has left us in a worse position than we were in before we started our debate. In my home town, Dungannon, we had a courthouse in which the royal coat of arms was, in my recollection, displayed. I assure the Minister that I did not frequent the courthouse, but I believe that there was a coat of arms inside; there certainly was on the exterior. Will it be the case, going by precedent, that, as there was a coat of arms on the exterior of the previous courthouse, the new courthouse in Dungannon will fall within the criterion that entitles it to a coat of arms on its exterior? If that is intended, it could easily be enshrined in the legislation. It is unclear.
I shall share with the Committee another thought. I take deep offence when I see the Union flag flown from lamp-posts all over my former constituency and left exposed to the weather to fray and become little more than a rag. I do not like to see it treated like that. There are people of different aspirations from myself who feel equally strongly about the tricolour. When I went to groups of people and said, "Will you take these flags down? It is confrontational, and it does not help us in any way", the answer that I invariably got was, "If we
don't fly the flag, our Government will not recognise us and will remove the last vestige of our Britishness. Your agreement will leave us with nothing, and we will be British in name only". That is the dilemma, and the situation will be exacerbated by the clause.The Committee will not divide on amendments, but I must give notice that the issue will not go away. We will return to it again and again.
Viscount Brookeborough: I shall pick up a couple of points with the Minister. She based her whole argument on balancing two differing views. She said that the amendments made in the Commons were made to create a balance and that she and the Government now believed that they had that balance. It is the sort of balance that we tend to see from people who cannot be totally aware of affairs in Northern Ireland.
The balance, if it is a balance, is one not only of a point of view, but also numerically of the number of people who hold either view—it can only be that. What the noble Baroness is trying to balance, which simply does not work, is that the vast majority of people—Roman Catholic, Protestant, ethnic minorities and those of no religion as we seem to include in some of the balances in Northern Ireland—have no objection to the present court system.
On the other side of her balance, the noble Baroness has those who object strongly, predominantly those who will not recognise the court whether it is there or not. Once it accepted that they will never accept the justice anyway, I suggest that the balance, on which she has based her argument, is not a balance in any possible interpretation of even-handedness, even weight, even numbers or even point of view.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I should like to pay tribute to the careful and extremely skilful way in which the noble Baroness has responded to the debate. We are entitled to take the words she has used and, in particular, the technical words she has used, in the knowledge that she appreciates their implications. She ended her speech as she began it, by saying that the Government are engaged in mediating. She knows that mediation takes place when both sides agree to abide by the result. Is there any indication that the Government have secured that agreement in response to this package, of which the question of royal arms is a part?
I shall pause for a moment while the noble Baroness takes instructions. Again, is there any indication that the outcome will be acceptance by Sinn Fein of the validity and the legitimacy of the justice system? Furthermore, is there any indication that the outcome will be acceptance and support on the part of Sinn Fein of the police service as a proper service for Northern Ireland? I very much hope that the answers will be yes. If there are any indications, I shall not press her to explain them. That may be too sensitive and too difficult. However, we are entitled to know, in the light of the assertion of mediation—which the noble Baroness cannot have intended to mean trying to find a middle way—whether there has been any indication that it will be accepted in the way that I have outlined.
The noble Baroness has properly referred us to the task of the review body, but she has implied that we must accept every item and every judgment they have made in producing what it hopes will be an acceptable package. But we have not done so. We are perfectly entitled to look at the justification on which that the review body claims to have founded each of their recommendations. Indeed, we have a duty to make our own assessment as regards its validity.
I drew the attention of the Committee to the passage at paragraph 8.61 in which the review body sets out the basis on which ultimately it founded its recommendation,
- "we are conscious that the presence of the Royal Coat of Arms in a prominent position in the courtroom could be regarded by some as off-putting and inconsistent with the need for court proceedings to take place in a neutral environment".
Some people could find it off-putting. One does not want to be flippant about it, but are we really to suppose that, when asked to say anything in his own defence, a person will comment, "I had it in the front of my mind, but I have been put off by the damned royal coat of arms". That is not really a sensible notion.
I have suggested to the Committee and to the Government that, in the light of what rests on it, the review body made a remarkably flimsy and faint recommendation. I hope that the noble Baroness will allow us to make our own assessment of the validity of that which the review body itself identifies as justifying its ultimate recommendation and to ask whether something which will cause great affront—the removal of the royal coat of arms which has always been displayed inside courtrooms—makes the game worth the candle.
Here we have something which the review body itself comments is quite commonly overlooked, whose presence is described only as being capable of being off-putting or uncomfortable. Whether the game is really worth the candle; that is, to remove the coat of arms, with great resulting affront in the circumstances described by the review body, is highly debatable. I hope that the noble Baroness will look at this again.
I pay tribute to the Government for having moved in the other place. They found an architectural or cultural ground for doing so. That is all well and good, but they could perfectly well move a little further now. That would be entirely consistent with the Government's approach to finding a means by which people of Northern Ireland can be helped to live together in greater tranquillity together. That search will be aided greatly if they move in the direction suggested by the amendment of my noble friend.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: First, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew of Twysden, for his
gracious compliments on my initial response. The noble and learned Lord is quite right to say that I did choose my words carefully. When he comes to read the transcript of our debate, he will find that I said, "Mediating a way forward"; that is, finding a route by which we can reach a resolution that suits us all. It was not a mediation between the parties, but a mediation of the route.[The Sitting was suspended for a Division in the House from 5.12 to 5.22 p.m.]
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I was replying to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew. Of course we accept that not every item that is recommended by the review would be accepted without question. Earlier, I made it clear that the Government took very seriously the review's recommendations. Where they found them to be sound, they complied with them or enforced them, but where they did not find that the evidence was made out they felt freer to go another way.
The body of the evidence heard by the review is not referred to in its entirety in the review; nor should it be. One does have the comfort of looking at Appendix A to the report, which sets out fully all those who provided written submissions or position papers to the review and the matters that they took into account. It would be fair to say that those consultations were very extensive indeed and, if I remember aright, they took some two years to undertake.
We know that the review looked carefully at this issue. The review group objective was to create an environment in which all those attending court could feel comfortable. We respectfully suggest that that was the right objective. In the light of the movement that the Government have made in this area, we think that that is significant because it reflects the essence of what the review recommended, although there was some adaptation to take into account the evidence culled from the consultation period. It is for that reason that we say that the recommendations are sound. I should also make it plain that those provisions will be subject to a commencement order—they will not have to await devolution but they will come into being relatively swiftly. I reiterate, however, that there is parity and that what happens in England and Wales will be reflected in what happens in Northern Ireland.
In relation to the court—the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, asked about Dungannon—there is no decision yet about what will be displayed in that court. That will take place nearer the time but the fact that the royal arms were previously on the outside of the court is obviously relevant to the decision. I emphasise, however, that no decision has yet been made.
Similarly, in England and Wales there is nothing written on whether and when emblems or symbols should be displayed outside or inside a court. So far as the outside of courthouses is concerned, however, the practice in England and Wales varies, as it does in Northern Ireland. A number of Members of the Committee have mentioned parity. I humbly suggest
that there is parity in this regard. I hope that gives the noble Lord the sense of comfort that he wanted everyone to have.
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