New clause 6 - Membership of district policing partnerships

Part of Police (Northern Ireland) Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:15 pm on 11 March 2003.

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Photo of Paul Goodman Paul Goodman Conservative, Wycombe 4:15, 11 March 2003

This is the first chance that I have had to welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Amess, although by this time in the afternoon we are nearer to the hour when, alas, you have to quit the Chair and we have to end our sitting, than to the moment at which you arrived.

On new clause 7, I wish to pick up a theme that my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne developed from the Opposition Front Bench, in anticipation of an argument that the Minister might make. Although my hon. Friend is welcome to correct me if I am mistaken, I think that he believes that no one who has been or is in future either convicted of a terrorist-related offence or found to have links with a terrorist organisation should continue to sit on a DPP.

In general—although I stress in general—I think that my hon. Friend is absolutely right. However, I am not sure that the way in which new clause 7 is constructed is completely consistent with how he advanced his excellent case, because the exact words of the proposed new sub-paragraphs are:

''he is convicted of a terrorist related offence''

and

''he is found to have links to a terrorist organisation.''

Under the strict terms of that wording, I would read new clause 7 to mean that a member of, say, Sinn Fein or, for the sake of argument, the Progressive Unionist party, who had previously served a terrorist-related offence, would be allowed to sit on a DPP. That would also apply to a member of Sinn Fein or, again for the sake of argument, the PUP, who had previously been found to have links with a terrorist organisation. However, it is surely the case that at the moment when such a person were found to be convicted of a terrorist related offence or to have links with a terrorist organisation, the provisions of new clause 7 would kick in. The proposed sub-paragraphs (d) and (e)

would be a wholly appropriate addition to paragraph 3 of schedule 3 of the 2000 Act.

I hope that the Minister will not argue that new clause 7 covers those who have previously been convicted of a terrorist related offence or those who have previously had links with a terrorist organisation, and that she will not argue that it would be unreasonable for them to be excluded from DPPs under the clause, because I do not think that the words of the clause are to that effect.

The Minister may wish to argue that the wording of the clause is unnecessary or that she would perhaps be prepared—I will wait to hear what she says—to have members sitting on DPPs who have been convicted of terrorist-related offences or who have present links to terrorist organisations. However, I do not think that she could use the argument that the wording of new clause 7 suggests that those who have been convicted of terrorist-related offences or who have had links with terrorist organisations would be barred from serving on DPPs by the new clause.