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Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for his patience and for that statement. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 77 and 77A not moved.]
Lord Glentoran moved Amendment No. 78:
- Page 45, line 17, at end insert—
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I hope to clarify through the amendment a careful explanation from the Minister, who in Grand Committee said that Amendment No. 78 would ensure that youth conference co-ordinators are equipped with guidelines and rules of procedure before convening.
The Minister explained that conference co-ordinators will have such guidelines and that they will be published in due course. All the conferences will be unfamiliar. I therefore think it would be wise to place that information in the Bill with the added provision that youth conferences may not be convened prior to the circulation of guidelines.
The Bill specifies that the Secretary of State will provide a code of practice or guidelines as to how the conferences will work. Clause 86 allows the date of devolution to be flexible for different parts of the Bill. We support that. I should like to feel that this part of the Bill will not be devolved until the Secretary of State and his staff have had time to put together the guidelines so that conferences are not called and co-ordinators asked to do a job before the Government's guidelines for their management have been laid down. I beg to move.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I am happy to offer the clarification to which the noble Lord alluded. As he rightly said, in new Article 3B(1), the Secretary of State may make rules governing the procedure of youth conferences. I confirm that it is
Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for that confirmation. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Williams of Mostyn moved Amendment No. 79:
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, in moving the amendment I shall speak also to Amendment No. 80. New Article 3B(1) provides that the Secretary of State may make rules—to which the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, referred in the previous amendment—governing the procedure of youth conferences. It is expected that the rules will be used to set time limits for the various stages of the process and for the performance of the functions of the co-ordinator.
They cannot be used to make provision about youth conference plans, in particular to set a time limit within which the person monitoring compliance with a plan arising from a diversionary conference must submit the final report to the director.
Since the director may, having received a report on compliance or non-compliance, still instigate proceedings against a child if he is of the view that the plan has not been complied with to a significant extent, it must be right to set a time limit for that stage of the process. Without it, the child might wrongly and unfairly have the threat of prosecution hanging over him for an indefinite period.
Amendment No. 79 therefore empowers the Secretary of State to make rules establishing a time limit for the submission of the report to the director. Since we intend to specify a time limit, it is not appropriate for the Bill to have the words relating to the making of the report,
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 57 [Diversionary youth conferences]:
Lord Williams of Mostyn moved Amendment No. 80:
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 58 [Court-ordered youth conferences]:
Lord Williams of Mostyn moved Amendment No. 81:
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 65 [Display of Royal Arms at courts]:
Lord Rogan moved Amendment No. 82:
The question of display or lack of display of royal arms at courts is the first of—and indeed, exemplifies—the measures in the Bill we believe to be wrong. I imagined that the clause heading would give an indication of the purpose of that clause. However, these headings are more than misleading. The heading of Clause 65 is,
The purpose of the royal coat of arms is to represent the state—or, more accurately, the Crown. Courts throughout the kingdom display the coat of arms both inside the court and on exterior buildings. Therefore why should one part of the kingdom be treated differently from the remainder?
This is a matter, as with the issue of flags, of treating Northern Ireland in the same way as the rest of the United Kingdom. As some noble Lords may be aware, the flags regulations were tested for their compatibility with the Belfast agreement. As my noble friend Lord Magginis of Drumglass mentioned in Grand Committee, a High Court decision was delivered by Mr Justice Kerr on 4th October 2001. It had been claimed that regulations pertaining to flags were incompatible with the Belfast agreement. But Mr Justice Kerr upheld that the regulations were indeed compatible with the agreement. He said:
Therefore the correct balance and acting with rigorous impartiality was not to be compromised with treating Northern Ireland on the same basis as the rest of the kingdom on an issue that acknowledged, and therefore reflected, Northern Ireland's constitutional position.
My next point has been mentioned in this House before but I shall repeat it. The Belfast agreement, and more importantly those of us who endorsed the agreement,
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass: My Lords, in Grand Committee I spoke at some length on the contradictions that exist in relation to this clause. I am afraid that that seems to have been misunderstood. If it was not understood, then it was totally ignored, for nothing has been done in the interim to resolve those contradictions.
Perhaps I may, as briefly as I can—I do not want to detain the House to an undue extent by repeating what I said in Grand Committee but it is important—remind the House of my arguments. Clause 65(1) suggests that,
That leads me to ask the question: if the Government are intent on being so political; if the Government believe that those who object to the coats of arms are right to the extent that they can be offended by their presence; and if in recognising that they repudiate to some extent the very source through which justice is administered—that power that devolves from the sovereign, from the Crown—then it is a sad day not just for Northern Ireland, but for the whole of the United Kingdom. However, if the Government accept that people will be offended, are they telling me that they should not be offended in any new courtrooms, but it is all right for them to continue
The problem is that the contradiction does not confine itself to the courtrooms; it extends to courthouses as a whole. In Clause 65(3) we are told that:
I cannot believe that the Government intend to continue to behave in such a na˙ve and illogical manner in relation to Clause 65. Either it is right to acknowledge where the source of justice exists, and what is acknowledged in one courtroom should be acknowledged in another, or it is right—"and" it is right, perhaps—to acknowledge the symbol so far as concerns the exterior of the courthouses.
I raised the issue with the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, about the new courthouse in Dungannon. I posed the question that since the old courthouse had a coat of arms on its exterior what would happen to the new courthouse? She whetted my appetite by suggesting that there might be a precedent. But nothing has come forward between Grand Committee and this Report stage which indicates that a source of resentment, of conflict, and of ongoing turmoil will be addressed in a sensible and dignified manner by your Lordships' House. That is wrong. I support the noble Lord, Lord Rogan.
"( ) No youth conference may be convened until the rules specified in subsection (1) have come into effect."
Page 46, line 12, at end insert—
"(8) The Secretary of State may make procedural rules about youth conference plans which may (in particular) include provision about the period within which functions of persons required to monitor compliance with youth conference plans must be performed.
(9) Rules under paragraph (8) are subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament in the same manner as a statutory instrument; and, accordingly, section 5 of the Statutory Instruments Act 1946 (c. 36) applies to such rules."
"as soon as reasonably practicable",
which Amendment No. 80 deletes. I hope that your Lordships will feel that that is a tightening up and improvement of the protection for a possible child defendant. I beg to move.
Page 49, line 35, leave out ", as soon as reasonably practicable,"
Page 52, line 5, leave out from beginning to "unless" in line 7 and insert "A court must not make a reference under Article 33A"
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, new Article 33C(1) provides that a child may be referred to a conference only if he lives in an area where the new system is in place, so that we can pilot the new arrangements and, if necessary, stagger the subsequent roll out of the conferencing system. The amendment is simply to clarify that that applies equally to mandatory referrals to a conference—provided for at new Article 33A(1)—and to discretionary referrals, provided for at 33A(3) and (4). It is a tidying-up clarification. I beg to move.
Page 58, line 8, leave out "not"
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving the amendment I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 83, 84 and 85.
"Display of Royal Arms at courts";
yet its purpose is not to encourage but indeed to discourage the use of royal arms at courts by largely prohibiting them. The amendments standing in my name and that of my colleagues are designed to change the purpose of this clause to one more in keeping with its heading, and in a sense to uphold the continued use or display of the coat of arms in the courts in Northern Ireland.
"That approach seems to me to exemplify a proper regard for partnership, equality and mutual respect and to fulfil the Government's undertaking that its jurisdiction in Northern Ireland shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all the people in the diversity of their identities and traditions".
"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".
I emphasise,
"symbols and emblems are used in a manner which promotes mutual respect rather than division".
The agreement does not prohibit the use of symbols. I suggest that the approach taken by this Government goes against the spirit of that agreement, which accepted that symbols, and symbols of state, would remain in post-agreement Northern Ireland. I beg to move.
"The Royal Arms must not be displayed in any courtroom".
But Clause 65(2) then goes on to list a number of courtrooms to which that rule does not apply. They include the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast, the courthouses in Armagh, Banbridge, Magherafelt, Omagh, and Court No. 1 in the courthouse in Downpatrick. Why do we have that contradiction? Simply because the IRA have not managed to blow up those courtrooms. The courts are still there; the coats of arms are still on the walls and it has been decided that it would not be the wisest thing in the world to deface those courtrooms by hauling down the coats of arms that exist there.
"The Royal Coat of Arms must not be displayed . . . on the exterior of an existing court-house . . . unless they were displayed there immediately before the coming into force of this section".
There is a huge vacuum in terms of information relating to new courthouses. I raised this matter in Grand Committee and it was acknowledged by the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, who indicated that the Bill, as she put it,
"is silent in the placing of royal arms on the exterior of new courthouses".—[Official Report, 19/06/02; col. CWH 174.]
So every time a courthouse is repaired or rebuilt, or newly built, there will be a political argument which impacts on the whole judicial and legal process in Northern Ireland; an ongoing source of conflict in an area where for 30 awful years there was no conflict.
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