Police (Northern Ireland) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:45 pm on 25 October 2000.

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Photo of Lord Archer of Sandwell Lord Archer of Sandwell Labour 6:45, 25 October 2000

My noble friend Lady Farrington announced that she would not reply to my argument before I made it. Over the years, I have learnt more from her than I can ever hope to acknowledge and I see that she is beginning to learn something from me!

I should, first, apologise for a printing error in the amendment that I failed to notice until last weekend: the word "Commission" should be "Commissioner". Paragraph 2 of Schedule 4 prescribes that the Secretary of State shall give the commissioner "terms of reference". Subparagraph (2) states that those terms of reference,

"shall, in particular, set out the changes in policing", that are now envisaged and which the commissioner is to oversee. It is significant that there are few time limits for these changes. I understand that they cannot take place overnight and that any attempt to rush them through would probably create more problems than it would solve. However, there may be those who are far from feeling a sense of urgency and who may not wish to lend any degree of acceleration to the changes. We are all familiar with situations where those who wanted to see the changes simply became exhausted and gave up because all their efforts at expedition had failed, and the inertia had ground them down. It would be a tragedy if that were to happen in this case.

My amendment simply seeks to suggest that the commissioner should have power to inject time limits where they are appropriate. I cannot believe that the commissioner would seek to do more than use such limits where it is fairly clear that they are necessary. That is the purport of my amendment. I beg to move.