Clause 1 - Consultation with Board
Police (Northern Ireland) Bill [Lords]
9:25 am
Mr John Taylor (Solihull, Conservative)
I shall speak in particular to the amendments that I tabled. The clause would amend sections 24 and 27 of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000. Currently, the Secretary of State is required to consult the Northern Ireland Policing Board, the Chief Constable and anyone else the Secretary of State deems appropriate before determining or revising
long-term policing objectives and codes of practice on the exercise and functions of the board or the Chief Constable.
Committee members may have heard me say on other occasions that in Northern Ireland legislation I look for a particular virtue, which is that, as far as possible, the law of the Province should be convergent with that of the rest of the United Kingdom. In particular, it should be in line with the law in England and Wales. It is a state of grace for the law to be convergent in the various regions of our country, because those in our society live under a special discipline, which is that the citizen is deemed to know the law. That follows on from a Roman antecedent, whereby ignorance of the law is no excuse for transgressing. It is seemly for the law to be convergent so that the citizen has the best chance of knowing the law and observing it.
It has been the practice in the jurisdiction of England and Wales—I cannot speak with authority about Scotland, but I suspect that the arrangements there are similar—that there is an equilibrium and a fine balance in what has been called the tripartite arrangement between the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the Chief Constable and the Policing Board; in England and Wales the arrangement is between the Home Secretary, chief constables and police authorities. I have no quibble about the police authority—in Northern Ireland, that is the Policing Board. I am interested in the concept of the balance between the Secretary of State, the relevant chief constable and the appropriate police authority. That balance has been carefully sculpted and nurtured over the years. It has worked well and it has been seen to work well.
The clause shifts the balance in that tripartite equilibrium and I am concerned about it because it does no good. It is stipulated that the
''Secretary of State must consult the board with''
—I quote with emphasis—
''a view to reaching agreement''
.
The Secretary of State must still consult the Chief Constable and anyone else, but with the statutory obligation to reach agreement. In his consultation with the board the Chief Constable is fettered, under a condition and a stipulation and almost under a pre-judgment, to go into such a discussion with a view to reaching agreement. The effect of the provision is—we are sure of our ground—to enhance the status of the board vis-à-vis the Chief Constable. The Chief Constable goes to the board not as an equal and not even possessed completely and roundly of his own authority; he must go to the board as a supplicant. This we do not like. The Chief Constable is being fettered in possibly the most difficult, sensitive and dangerous policing jurisdiction in this kingdom and he must go to the board as a supplicant. That is not the traditional freedom that we have known for a Chief Constable, which consists of unfettered authority in determining policy objectives. Surely, he must consult, but now he must consult with a view to reaching agreement.
At the risk of repeating myself, we are on the threshold of making the Chief Constable a supplicant to a board; but what kind of a board is it? It is certain that it will contain politicians. Are we to make the Chief Constable a supplicant to politicians? That is a rather dangerous road. We believe that the provision would downgrade the Secretary of State and the Chief Constable before the board. We were more content with the traditional tripartite agreement. Indeed, we were well content with the 2000 Act. Indeed, we were well content with the 2000 Act. The former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Hartlepool, on Second Reading of the Bill that became that Act, said that he thought that it was Patten to the full, Patten to the utterance and Patten—in the vernacular—with knobs on. Why are we revisiting the matter in this way, and why do we risk disturbing the tripartite balance?