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Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2005

I, too, thank the Minister for introducing this order. Rather like the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, I believe that there are a number of things encapsulated in it. As regards the public consultation between March and June when, I understand, there were 15 responses, concerns were expressed about the legislative proposals relating to ASBOs and reservations about extending the numbers of organisations that can apply for ASBOs, particularly at a time when existing provisions are still being tested. I have a bit of déjà vu with parts of this order, because I have a vague feeling that I have been here before when we dealt with various parts of criminal justice in England and Wales. First, I should like to make a general point about the consultation process. It would have been a great help to our deliberations if we could see the responses to the consultations, which the Minister can take away and consider. Even a trawl through the NIO website shows us the draft, the explanatory memorandum and a letter about the consultation, but nowhere are any of the responses. If some organisations or individuals want their responses to be confidential, obviously we could not expect them to be published. Otherwise, it would be quite useful to make them available. This is just a suggestion, but perhaps the Government could put an exact web address on the accompanying explanatory memorandum. As regards Articles 2 to 8, the order proposes six new provisions designed to extend and improve anti-social behaviour legislation, which mirrors that in England and Wales. Article 2 enables the Secretary of State to designate additional bodies or persons to those already listed in Article 2(3) and (4) of the Anti-social Behaviour Act. Can the Minister give us any kind of indication about what bodies or persons might be added to the list of relevant authorities or persons? Notwithstanding the Minister’s very welcome views on scrutiny earlier, the issue again arises on how we legislate for Northern Ireland. Although the Secretary of State will have to lay a statutory instrument before Parliament to amend the list of relevant authorities or relevant persons, the order will be passed by a negative procedure, so the only opportunity to debate its provisions would be by praying against it. In any case, legislating in this way means that we could not amend an SI even if we wanted to. We cannot even attempt to amend this order to propose that any additions to the list come by way of an affirmative SI. Perhaps the Minister would give a commitment that the Secretary of State should consult on any additions to those lists. Full public consultation would be helpful, but, if not, perhaps the Chief Constable and local councils should be consulted on their views. As regards Article 6, can the Minister remind us what reporting restrictions are in place for minors? There have been concerns that by publishing the names of young people who are subject to ASBOs they may believe that it leads to a sort of hero-worship. They may be quite proud that they have been given an ASBO and consider it almost a badge of honour. Of course, it could also be detrimental, making them the target of older gangs. We are slightly concerned about that. Article 10 provides for boards of visitors for prisons and visiting committees for young offender centres and remand centres to be renamed as independent monitoring boards, which is similar to the renaming in England and Wales. Going back to the first point about consultation, was that change something that the boards of visitors and visiting committees wanted? Will the Government publicise the change so that there is not any confusion? Article 12 would remove the role of the visiting committee in reporting to the Secretary of State that a person is incorrigible or exercising undue influence over inmates. The transfer function will remain the   responsibility of the Secretary of State. Can the Minister clarify who will undertake that role if the   Board of Visitors does not do the reporting. I would be most grateful for clarification on Article 14, which provides that information pertaining to safe deposit boxes will now have to be disclosed by persons or financial institutions when a customer information order is made in the same way that information pertaining to accounts is already required. Is the Minister trying to correct an anomaly here between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK or are there specific reasons why that is necessary for Northern Ireland? We hope that Article 15 will help in the recovery of assets from criminal activities, as the Minister mentioned when he introduced the order. That seems very sensible. Articles 16 and 17 deal with remands to custody. The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, touched on this point. It will bring 17 year-olds within the remit of the youth court. In the majority of cases, those aged 17 will be committed to a young offender centre on remand. Can the Minister explain the thinking behind the decision to do that? Are more sophisticated 17 year-olds adversely influencing younger offenders in juvenile justice centres or are juvenile centres too crowded? Article 18 applies to specimens of blood for analysis. There will be a new summary offence of failing, without reasonable excuse, to give permission for the laboratory test of a blood specimen so taken. I may have missed the Minister’s assurance on comparability with England and Wales. I cannot remember whether he said that it would be comparable. Because I am a bit out of date on those penalties, how does it compare with England and Wales? Finally, Articles 21 to 26 relate to the availability of legal aid for representation at proceedings under Parts 1 and 2 of the Extradition Act 2003. Article 24 deals with giving evidence by live video link from outside Northern Ireland; that does not extend to the accused and such evidence can be given before a resident magistrate as well as a judge. I am not opposed to that, but I wanted to flag up a circumstance and a sort of example. Let us say that someone was involved in drug dealing, was then forced to leave Northern Ireland because of intimidation from the paramilitaries and was subsequently arrested by the police for the drug dealing. While we are obviously not condoning the action for which such a person was rightly arrested, none of us would want a situation to arise in which someone was not afforded protection from paramilitary organisations. Those are the areas of questioning that concern these Benches, and I would be grateful if the Minister could answer them as well as he might.