New clause 1 - Discrimination in appointments
Police (Northern Ireland) Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland, Liberal Democrat)
New clause 1, which stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik), and the two new clauses tabled by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann, take us back to what is now fairly familiar territory. Tempting though it is, I do not want to run round the whole argument of 50:50 recruitment, but I again place on the record my party's extreme unease and unhappiness about its operation.
Section 46 of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000 currently reads:
''an even number of persons of whom-
(a) one half shall be persons who are treated as Roman Catholic; and
(b) one half shall be persons who are not so treated.''
We want to replace that with:
''43 per cent. shall be persons who are treated as Roman Catholic;
43 per cent. shall be persons who are treated as Protestants; and
14 per cent. shall be persons who are not so treated.''
I should first like to explain why it is 43 per cent., rather than 42, 44 or any other percentage. The genesis of the figure is the latest census figures, which show that within Northern Ireland Catholics represent just over 40 per cent. of the population, Protestants represent 45 per cent. and just over 14 per cent are people of other religions or with no religious affiliation. The new clause takes that 14 per cent. and splits the remainder into half which gives us the figure of 43 per cent. I would be the first to admit that that is rather a messy compromise. It is far from ideal. In an ideal situation we would not be dealing with this set-up at all. However, it has some benefits in that it introduces into the equation an element of flexibility that is not currently present. It also gets away from the idea that people who might belong to other religious groupings but are not Protestant Christians should all be treated as one. I find that a curious.
We know the reasons why we ended up with 50:50 in recruitment, and some of those reasons had nothing to do with the recruitment of police officers. The constitution of the Policing Board may have been lurking in the background. However, there is no doubt that that policy has left many in the Protestant community with a continuing sense of grievance. There was also the recent case of Mark Parsons, a qualified candidate who was not recruited into the police because of the 50:50 requirement. When the Bill was on the Floor of the House, assurances were given that there would be no discrimination against Protestants. However, experience has indicated that the contrary is the case, and that the issue should be considered again. My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire and I have brought to the Committee a means by which that reconsideration could be effected.
It must be recognised that there has been some improvement in the number of Catholics who have
been applying for employment with the PSNI. About 36 per cent. of applications are now made by Catholics, as opposed to 22 per cent. previously. However, that may not be the result of the 50:50 requirement. I suggest to the Minister that that might be a sign that we are moving towards what, in the rest of the country, is considered to be normality, and that the intimidation that we have seen among paramilitary sections in the Catholic community has started, at long last, to lose its bite.