Clause 18 - Provision of information to Board
Police (Northern Ireland) Bill [Lords]
8:55 am
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
I thought about the matter overnight and the more that I think about the amendment, much as I want to support the hon. Gentleman, I cannot. There are two ways of looking at it. If the hon. Gentleman is arguing that there is a need to verify information that is provided, so that people can be reassured that the information as provided by the Chief Constable is correct, accurate and complete, I can go some way along with him. If his motive is to get a sight of documents, I do not.
If the hon. Gentleman were arguing that he was worried about information provided that refers to documents that the board does not get a chance to see and whether there can be verification, that points to the ombudsman. If he were to have tabled an amendment or new clause that said that some mechanism should be set up when, if there were some difficulty, a judge or someone from the judiciary should be able to act as an independent verifier of information, I could go along with that. However, we are being asked to agree to the handing over of documents to the board or perhaps a committee of the board, especially set up to deal with the matter. I do not share the hon. Gentleman's view that that is fairly harmless, reasonable action to take.
We must accept that in due course possibly, if some people have their way, membership of the board will include either terrorists or former terrorists who have their own reasons for wanting to get hold of documents. Moreover, a document in itself may not be 100 per cent. relevant to the inquiry. It is possible that one document—an inquiry made by the police—may include a witness statement, which would be the required document, and that witness statement could be 50 per cent. to do with the matter that concerns the board and 50 per cent. to do with something entirely different.
The document is not protected, as the hon. Gentleman asserts, from all abuse. We argued earlier that it was wrong to remove protection for the investigation of crime, so it is possible that, when carrying out an inquiry into one matter, a document might mention an investigation into something entirely different. The investigation is then compromised. It is possible that a document providing factual
information, if it were produced, would reveal the source of the information, identify the informant and thus put that person's life at risk.