Clause 19 - Fixed-term appointments
Police (Northern Ireland) Bill [Lords]
8:55 am
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
That was riveting, but unhelpful. It grieves me to have to be difficult with the Minister, but I shall discuss the amendments further.
I do not know whether it was a Freudian slip, but when the Minister referred to amendments Nos. 118 and 119, she said that she had railed against such issues in opposition. Consistency should be a virtue in politicians, but unfortunately it is not. I am unconvinced by her argument if her only defence against my amendments is to say that such provisions are acceptable now that she is in government, even though she agreed with my view when in opposition.
One reason why I languished on my party's Back Benches for 13 years was that I was consistent and used to complain about such things when on the Government side in Committee. There are those who would prefer me to be on the Back Benches now, but I would talk even more if I were, so perhaps I am safer where I am. If people believe such provisions to be wrong in opposition, they remain wrong and should not be adopted later for the sake of expediency.
The other argument that the Minister advanced, apart from saying, ''Now we have changed sides, we have changed our minds,'' was that we should not pursue amendments Nos. 118 and 119 as there might be things that have not yet been thought of. That is not a good approach to legislating. If such matters have not been thought through, why is the Bill before us?
I assumed that all sensible, possible thought had been given to the provisions when the Bill was drawn up. [Interruption.] Another reason why I may have been on the Back Benches for so long was that I worked on the assumption that the great and the good did those things sensibly and properly. However, I have discovered this morning that the approach is, ''We'll put a Bill together and shove it out. If it's not right, we'll come back again and sort it out.'' What an extraordinary way to try to run a country.
We should not be legislating if there are unresolved issues, because legislation should resolve them or give effect to agreements. If we are considering a situation in which a member of the Garda may or may not want representation, I should have thought that those matters would have to be cleared up before we even approached the question of seconding someone from the Northern Ireland police service to service in the Republic, or the other way round, rather than saying, ''Let's try this and see what we need later.'' That is an
extraordinary situation. To make those two discoveries having tabled the amendment is enlightening.
I have another point to make on amendment No. 117. Clause 19 states:
''The Chief Constable may appoint a person to the Police Service of Northern Ireland''.
However, in reply to my initial queries, we were told that that means that the Chief Constable of the PSNI may appoint a member of the Garda. If that is so, why on earth does the clause not say so? If that situation arises from an agreement between two sovereign Governments on what might happen with regard to seconding police officers from one force to the other, should not the clause say that the Chief Constable may appoint on a fixed-term contract a member of the Garda Síochana? That is what I understood the Minister to say. The clause will give the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland the power to appoint anyone, but that is not, I now discover, the intention.
The Minister has invited me not to press the amendments because they are not necessary. I shall not press them, not because they are unnecessary, but because they are wrong.