Clause 9 - Reports of Chief Constable
Police (Northern Ireland) Bill [Lords]
4:30 pm
If such a mess had not been made of the original Act, we would not be here now discussing legislation to put it right.
Turning to the amendments, of course I have doubts about reports being brought to the Policing Board. If any hon. Member wants me to provide the litany of reasons, I can do so from memory. However, things have changed, and I do not want to go back into the past. Do I have the same type of paranoia about the changes in the board? I have apprehensions about such changes, but I shall not give in to other people's paranoia about that at this stage.
I turn to my amendments, of which there are three: two to this clause and one to clause 20, which is in many ways consequential. They relate to the new aspects of the Bill, which show a new type of approach. That derives from previous failures to deal with the situation. I was asked whether I have tried to get changes made. Yes, I tried for years, but the changes did not happen so I have to deal with the situation as it is now. Patten envisaged strictly limited grounds on which the board could request a report or inquiry, which could be resisted by the Chief Constable. Those grounds were national security or a sensitive personnel matter. However, the previous Bill, in a smart alec way, changed that personnel matter into a personal matter, which of course gave carte blanche in terms of data protection law. That is now gone.
The way round that problem has been the creation of a small committee of the board. The alternative to that, or to the sort of approach that
could have been introduced in 2000, was a continuing veto on the policing board by either the Chief Constable or the Secretary of State. That would not have allowed the changes in attitude necessary for changes in policing to develop. I am quite sure of that. It is important that we get the special committee procedure right.
A key element is how the special committee relates to the rest of the board. Let me point out some of the problems. They will be discussed under a later clause, but are pertinent to this debate. What will be the number of members on the committee? The Government are currently saying five. The Northern Ireland mind will immediately say, ''One Ulster Unionist, one DUP, one Sinn Fein, one SDLP—who is the fifth?'' It will be an independent, but the question is whether that will be a nationalist or a Unionist independent. I believe that five is the wrong number for that reason, and for other reasons. However, that is not the point that I am trying to address. My point is that if a situation develops in which those on the board can be given information, a caucus will be created on that board, which will not allow for the board to work in the way that we all want.
It is right for sensitive information to be dealt with sensitively. I fully support that view. However, when this law is passed and the special committee is decided on, what will take place in reality between the special committee and the board? Who will write the summary that the board will get? Will that summary be decided on by the Chief Constable, who will give the information to the board by proxy through a committee? Will he write it, or will the committee of the board write it?
Under my amendments, the committee, with whatever number of members, will write the summary in agreement with the Chief Constable. Otherwise, there will be an ongoing problem in the board in relation to that committee. The committee should take into account the views of the Chief Constable in doing that. I do not have any doubt that if the amendments were carried, the same type of summary would be presented by the Chief Constable. However, we need a board with the status that it will require to deal with the problems, and if the committee of that board is set up to deal with the matters and is to be trusted with that information, it should also be trusted with writing the summary that goes to the rest of the board.
With regard to sensitivity, the rest of the board will more readily accept a summary, guided by the Chief Constable, from members of the board that they have appointed than they will from a Chief Constable who has already filtered it through part of the board and has excluded them. That may not be the largest philosophical or political point in relation to the issue, but I am concerned with how we can best preserve and continue to create the type of approach that is needed.
I would like to finish with one or two other points before I return to the earlier questions. I find absolutely objectionable the suggestion that constitutional nationalists on the board would artificially contrive requests for reports so that they could filter information out. I can see an understandable apprehension underlying some of the contributions, but if that apprehension becomes obsessive, it will not get us anywhere.
The hon. Member for Spelthorne asked me at one stage if I could bail the Government out. It is not part of my role to bail Governments out. I would have liked to bail them out in 2000. If changes had been made then, we might not have arrived at this point. That is a matter of record because amendments were tabled at that time that might have got round some of the current difficulties. However, we have to deal with life now. The hon. Gentleman is correct. We are going to the heart of the way forward for policing, and the fears and apprehensions that surround that. I was asked whether I had fears, and whether the people whom I represented had fears. Yes, we have.