Clause 20
Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill
1:00 pm
Paul Goggins (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Northern Ireland Office; Wythenshawe and Sale East, Labour)
I do not suggest that for a minute. The hon. Gentleman is playing a substantial role in the Committee’s deliberations, and I thank him for that.
“Reasonable” is the correct word in other circumstances, but we are discussing extreme circumstances, in which an officer has considerable concerns about a particular individual and perhaps needs to check certain information. It is important in those pressured circumstances that the officer has certainty, and the word “necessary” gives the degree of certainty that we feel is essential. There is a judgment to be made here. I began my remarks by saying that judging the difference between the word “reasonable” and the word “necessary” is a fine judgment, but we think that the word “necessary” is the right one here.
In conclusion, I would like to deal with the other amendment that the hon. Member for Tewkesbury has tabled, which relates to limiting questioning to instances in which there was a suspicion that someone had information regarding an explosion or an incident that would endanger life. It would simply be impossible to conduct any kind of random stop-and-search operation if we were to accept that amendment. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand that, if a threat is made against a particular meeting, building or event, it may be necessary for the Army or the police to mount some kind of surveillance operation, perhaps involving some rolling surveillance cordon. If they were not able, to some degree, to make a random selection of individuals, it would make that operation extremely difficult. Obviously, all such operations need to be carried out carefully, sensibly and sensitively, particularly in certain parts of the community, but we believe that the constraint that the hon. Gentleman’s amendment would give would make it very difficult for the police and the Army to do their job.