Clause 1
Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill
12:00 pm
Lembit Öpik (Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Affairs; Montgomeryshire, Liberal Democrat)
That makes it sound as though the Government are planning to maintain the legislation indefinitely. I do not think that that is how we should proceed. We have so many debates relating to Northern Ireland in which we renew temporary provisions that they form a significant part of my workload and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute. That is because the Government are good at introducing exceptional measures for Northern Ireland, but extremely poor at repealing them. I fear that once again, because they are concerned about a specific circumstance, Northern Ireland’s problems mean that there has to be a special solution on juryless trials, and in 10 or 20 years the legislation will still be on the books. I should love to think that it will, to quote the Minister, “wither on the vine”, but once provisions are in statute, they stand to be used in ways that a number of us find objectionable.
Finally, the Minister had a go at talking about the risks of a judicial model and the benefits of an administrative approach. Once again, however, he is not being entirely consistent. At the risk of straying a little into another example, I have no doubt that there are many who think that many risks attached to allowing a political process to determine whether we went to war in Iraq, whereas an administrative process, outside the political circuit, might have produced a more informed decision. My point is that the Minister treads on dangerous ground if he decides to talk up the benefits of an administrative model over a judicial one, because exactly the same points can be made about many of the decisions that we make here in the Palace of Westminster.
The Minister may be comfortable, but I am not. It is not good enough to say that an administrative model has fewer risks. In essence, many of us who oppose the Government’s formulation of clauses 1 and 2 and favour the amendments are saying that there are more risks in not making the changes that we propose in our amendments. It is worse for justice for an insufficient return to make juryless trials as convenient administratively as they would be if we were to accept the provisions laid out here.
We will talk about the matter again if we can have a clause stand part debate on clause 7. Suffice it to say that I am not persuaded by the Minister’s arguments. Rather than waste the Committee’s time and have individual votes on each amendment and on clause stand part, may I press amendment No. 1 to a vote, because I think that we can express our concerns very effectively with just one vote? I hope that other hon. Members who have concerns will use the opportunity to express those as well.