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Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, I thank my noble friend. On the basis of what he has said and the undertakings he has given, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

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Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill

4.19 p.m.

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now further considered on Report.

Moved, That the Bill be further considered on Report.—(Lord Williams of Mostyn.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Clause 53 [Reparation orders]:

[Amendment No. 72 not moved.]

Baroness Park of Monmouth moved Amendment No. 72A:

Page 32, line 15, at end insert "from the membership of appropriate statutory organisations"

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 73A, 74A, 75A, 75C and 77A. They all deal with the perceived need to define more precisely the power of the Secretary of State and, after him—upon devolution—of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister acting together.

My concern was about the object, however well intentioned, of being, as the politically correct would say, inclusive. Those Ministers might for perfectly understandable political reasons appoint persons whose agenda would be to achieve power over, rather than to serve, the community, and who might be representing the very paramilitaries who make their own people's lives a misery.

When the question was first debated in Committee, the noble and learned Lord quoted a number of organisations whose members might be seen by the Government as falling into the third category of designation that is provided for in the Bill, and which is now under consideration. He subsequently wrote a most helpful letter—one of many—to which he attached a list of such organisations. I found that very helpful and reassuring. However, I hope that he will nevertheless be able to accede to the amendment, which clarifies the position and gives the necessary reassurance that only persons from recognised organisations with professional expertise to offer can be considered for that powerful third discretionary slot, which recurs throughout the Bill. I beg to move.

Lord Maginnis of Drumglass: My Lords, I rise to support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Park, in so far as it is very much in line with a helpful government amendment, to which we shall come later, about the membership of community safety committees. The Government, having reflected on what was said in Grand Committee, have recognised the inherent danger in the Bill in respect of community safety partnerships. The noble Baroness has done nothing more than extend the logic of what is now the Government's position by trying to ensure that those who will have responsibility—a very important responsibility—will be people of some substance and will be accountable. I fully support the amendment.

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend's amendment. The amendments that I

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had tabled but which I did not move were fairly negative. I hope that the noble and learned Lord agrees that those amendments that have superseded it and which are in the name of my noble friend are very positive. They do not simply involve youth justice; they also relate to other parts of the Bill, including the provisions on safety partnerships.

The Bill, which I hope will be enacted, will devolve a criminal justice system to Northern Ireland. That criminal justice system will be used to guide, force and manage the law over people living in Northern Ireland for many years to come. As I have—really rather drearily—said several times before in different ways, we are very anxious not to leave much flexibility in the Bill. It should be a technical Bill and, largely, it is such a Bill but it contains some extremely good and interesting innovations. We feel that it is inappropriate to leave in such a Bill open clauses involving the Secretary of State's powers—or the powers of whoever they are devolved to in future—which mean that the Secretary of State or those other people are free to do more or less what they want at the time.

There are quite a few amendments in the group that is before us—Amendments Nos. 72A, 73A, 74A, 75A, 75C and 77A. They thread through this and other parts of the Bill and involve instances of the open clause, which we on this side of the House do not like. We are suspicious of it and do not feel that it would be responsible to leave it in. I hope that the noble and learned Lord feels that my noble friend's amendment is positive, reasonable and could be lived with. I support the amendment.

Lord Hylton: My Lords, I am inclined to think that Amendment No. 72A is somewhat over-prescriptive; the same may well apply to other amendments in this group. In Committee, I advanced the case in which a young person might not at the time of his offence be known to a probation officer or a social worker. Therefore, in order to get a sensible report, the Secretary of State might need to have recourse to some other person, whom he would designate. I have not really shifted from that position. I hope that the Government agree with me.

Lord Molyneaux of Killead: My Lords, briefly but sincerely, I support the noble Baroness's amendment. However, I am at variance with my noble friend Lord Hylton, who I believe is too much of an innocent in advising that the Government should take into account his reservations. With all due respect to him, I do not think that he understands the sheer villainy of paramilitary organisations on both sides of the divide or their ability further to deepen the penetration by terrorist organisations into all of our various communities throughout Northern Ireland. As the Bill is drafted, we have the right respectfully to ask the Government: what guarantee can they give that such orders as have been mentioned in this regard will not be used to, one might say, "contract out" court-imposed penalties to those who exercise community control cynically by operating on the fringes of the law?

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Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, I very much support the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. The approach is over-prescriptive. I understand the views of the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux, who speaks from his own experience; he suggested that we may perhaps be unduly naive in this regard. The Bill must be presented with a degree of optimism and against all the odds. There is a case for giving Northern Ireland the chance to develop a mature judicial system.

4.30 p.m.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, I rise in the context of a mild paradox as regards Amendment No. 75C. I apologise to my noble friend Lady Park for not having given her warning that I was going to make an observation. I am not absolutely confident that that amendment makes sense in the context of the Bill. I believe that it has been included in a particular list on the grounds that the amendments were all the same. Amendment 75C relates to a matter which I raised at the end of Clause 55 stand part of the Bill.

The Minister said in response to me that it really was not a matter of great importance as it was only the rendering of a notice. I retreated abashed from the field and I acknowledge that his point is right. However, the original words in the Bill,

"such as the Secretary of State may designate"

were the same as those which occur in the other cases. The Minister, in responding to the other amendments of this kind in Grand Committee, had explained that,

"such person as the Secretary of State may designate"

would refer to people from particular statutory organisations, which is the theme of the amendments to which my noble friend Lady Park has spoken. The case that I am citing relating to the passage in Amendment No. 75C did not matter at all. The problem is that if the wording is the same between the amendments which matter and those which do not, the man on the Clapham omnibus might have the impression that they are the same and that the meaning which the Minister has given to,

"such person as the Secretary of State may designate"

is not carried if the same words are being used in a much more nominal place somewhere else in the Bill.

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, as noble Lords have indicated, we discussed this matter quite fully at Committee. I am speaking to the amendments helpfully enumerated by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, grouped in this section.

They seek to cover the same area and therefore perhaps I should deal with one by way of example, which is Clause 53, page 32, line 15. It refers to Clause 53(4) which states,

"Before making a reparation order, the court must obtain and consider a written report by—

(a) a probation officer

(b) a social worker of the appropriate authority; or

(c) such other person as the Secretary of State may designate".

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The noble Baroness's amendments would limit the designation to statutory organisations. That is the point of these amendments.

We need to remember that before the court makes a reparation order, it must obtain a report on the requirements it might impose as part of that order. So a court has a duty to obtain a report but, rightly, it has the judicial discretion to decide the source of that report. I agree that in the majority of cases the report writers will be either a probation officer or a social worker.

But to take up and echo the remarks of the noble Lords, Lord Hylton, and Lord Smith, there are those who can give extremely valuable assistance who are not statutory bodies, for instance, Extern, the YMCA, and other bodies which we have spoken about. They do work and they have vast experience with marginalised and vulnerable children. What we do not want to do is to exclude the possibility of those bodies providing such assistance to the court if it considers that they have an important contribution to make.

The noble Baroness's amendment would exclude all those extremely valuable and worthy voluntary organisations. I understand the fears which have been expressed, but these amendments do not cure that real or imagined mischief. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, is quite right. If one is dealing with the needs of victims and offenders one needs a decent amount of flexibility. I remind noble Lords that not any body or person would be eligible for a mandatory report. It has to be, according to subsection 4(c),

"such other person as the Secretary of State may designate".

So it has to be a designated organisation. Therefore, the only difference is whether some voluntary organisations are rightly to be considered as worthy of designation. I can go through all the amendments, but the approach is similar. As the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said, we do not want to be unduly prescriptive. We want to have flexibility, stressing as I do that any such organisation in any of the relevant contexts referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, would first have to be designated by the Secretary of State.

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