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 Alistair Carmichael Alistair Carmichael Shadow Spokesperson (Energy and Climate Change), Liberal Democrat Spokesperson (Energy and Climate Change) 4:15, 11 March 2003

I have a couple of brief thoughts that I want to share with the Committee. When we discussed the previous new clause, in the name of the right hon. Member for Upper Bann, the hon. Member for Spelthorne advanced and supported the argument that the backward-looking aspects of the ombudsman's office should be curtailed because lines should be drawn in the sand, if I might put it like that, and that the extent to which one went back into the past and was prepared to unearth things was something that should be limited. That line found favour with the Minister, although the actual terms of the proposal did not.

To be consistent, we should be prepared to apply the same approach here. The reality is that many people who have in the past sought to influence the course of events in Northern Ireland through undemocratic and violent means—which I deplore—will, if they are to be included in future, seek to do that through legitimate means. That means election to bodies like the legislative Assembly or to the House. of Commons. If we are to allow them into the legislative Assembly and into the House, how can see seek to exclude them from other aspects of civil society in Northern Ireland? I feel that there is a certain inconsistency in that argument.

My other concern, which relates more to the second of the two proposed new clauses, is that the reference to having

''links to a terrorist organisation''

is vague and open to abuse in many ways. It might be that somebody who has renounced violence will still have links with an organisation because they may still know many of their former comrades. They may wish to maintain those links in order to persuade those with whom they previously engaged in an armed struggle to renounce that activity. Is the purpose of the new clause to exclude those people with links to a terrorist organisation?

If I were to be particularly picky about that, I might say that what we should really be considering is a relevant terrorist organisation. In the bad old days of

apartheid in South Africa, I and, I suspect, many others on the Committee, had links with the African National Congress, which many might have considered to be a terrorist organisation. Would that have excluded me from membership of a DPP? I think that the point can be seen that the wording is on the loose side.