Clause 3 - Certificates of eligibility
Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill
10:30 am
Ben Wallace (Lancaster and Wyre, Conservative)
On my reading of subsection (2), a person could not become an applicant if they did not fulfil the criteria defined by the police. A Walter Mitty character might turn up and say, “I killed all these people,” but unless a senior police officer in Northern Ireland said that there were grounds to regard that individual as a likely suspect, the application could not be accepted. The Minister’s fear is not warranted.