Clause 19 - Fixed-term appointments
Police (Northern Ireland) Bill [Lords]
8:55 am
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
I have not discussed the matter with the Minister, so to say that I have not been reassured would imply that I might have been misled. Suffice it to say that I had a preliminary chat through the usual channels. I did not discuss the matter with the Minister one way or the other, and I hope that that puts the record straight. I genuinely do not know what might happen. I have merely noticed that there is the possibility of two days' consideration on Report.
I know the Bill fairly well by now, and I have my doubts about whether those two days would be used to allow us to examine its technicalities. If the Government are contemplating what I fear they are contemplating, the official Opposition oppose that way of doing things. That is not to say that we oppose or support what the Government might want to do, because we do not know what they might want to do. I merely observe that we object to that way of doing things.
The first group of amendments, particularly amendment No. 117, is difficult to speak to without having a wider debate on the clause. To ask questions about the details, we need to know what fixed-term appointments the Chief Constable would be allowed to make, what they would involve, why they are necessary, what the terms would be and who would be involved—all stand part matters. They are relevant to the amendments, but I shall leave them as stand part issues until the Government have explained what they are trying to do.
Amendment No. 117 would change the term of the appointment from three years to five. From my experience of appointing people on fixed-term contracts in local government, I have a clear view that three years is too little to secure the quality of person and commitment required. Making an appointment for a three-year stint—the clause makes it clear that a constable cannot be involved—means that the person in question is unlikely to be starting out on a career. That person will already have a job and be asked to give it up for three years.
Someone above the rank of constable is likely to have a pensionable job, a family and a mortgage, so is he likely to risk losing all that for the sake of a three-year appointment? Perhaps someone near to retirement age could do the job as an extension to a working life, but the clause excludes senior officers, so we are talking about middle management. We are unlikely to secure the quality of person necessary by offering a job for three years.
The amendment would extend the job to five years, although I can understand people wondering whether five years is any different from three. I admit to proposing five years to tease out for how long the job will be available. I suspect that going much beyond five or six years would take the job to near permanency, and the value of having someone who is going to leave at a specified point becomes less
relevant if the period is to extend to the distant future. I acknowledge that it is possible to go too far, but the amendment is designed to tease out the Government's intentions and to establish whether only three years is justified and whether a fixed-term contract should apply in this example.
Amendment No. 118 allows me to get on one of my hobby-horses. Proposed new section 36A(4) states:
''The Secretary of State may by order make such modifications as he considers necessary or expedient to any provision of the 1998 Act or this Act in its application to persons appointed under subsection (1).''
What is the point of drafting and debating legislation when we end up with a provision stating that what the law says, what was said in debates or what assurances were given do not matter because the Secretary of State can tear it all up, ignore it and do exactly as he pleases? That amounts to government not through the democratic process of Parliament, but by diktat.
If it is necessary to have a provision on fixed-term appointments that sets out how long they can be and that the person appointed cannot be a constable or a senior officer and cannot do this, that or the other, we should debate it and agree to the proposal through the democratic process. As I have said in other Standing Committees, I object to the sweeping powers of the jackboot dictatorship of a Secretary of State who can do exactly as he pleases despite what Parliament has decided and pay scant regard to any assurances given by the Government of the day to Parliament.
I object to such provisions in any legislation, no matter who is in government. Parliament should be supreme. If the Secretary of State finds that the Government have made a mistake in their provisions and the arrangements they have made, let him come back to Parliament and say, ''I am sorry. We got it wrong. Please may we have permission to change this?'' He should not disregard everything that Parliament has said and the Government should not do as they please, which is what the amendment would prevent.
Amendment No. 119 is consequential on amendment No. 118. If we say that the Secretary of State cannot do those jackboot, dictatorship things, there is no point in having a clause that says that he must consult others before he does them. The amendment provides that the Secretary of State would have to tell the board and the Police Association what he intends to do before he tramples all over them with his jackboots, although there will be no need for that if parliamentary democracy prevails.
We should give serious thought to amendment No. 117 when we have heard what the Minister has to say. Amendments Nos. 118 and 119 would uphold the status of Parliament against ever-encroaching Government dictatorship.