Clause 31 - Director of Public Prosecutions
Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill
10:30 am
Mr Peter Kilfoyle (Liverpool, Walton, Labour)
I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh, and I was struck by his arguments against the old boy network and for widening the net when making an appointment. This may or may not be relevant, but his words brought to mind the Government's emphasis on exactly the same arguments in 1997. It was noteworthy that they took exactly the same direction as the hon. Gentleman in their first piece of legislation, which enabled the Lord Chancellor to draw the permanent secretary from a wider selection of people. I look forward to the Minister's comments on the Government's consistency in these matters. I appreciate that we are talking about an entirely different function from that exercised by the permanent secretary in the Lord Chancellor's Department, but the Government must be careful about the mixed messages that have been sent out over time.