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Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

I appreciate the correction, then. Hansard will, of course, shed light on all the versions by tomorrow morning. On 50:50 recruitment, I am staggered that the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in the Social Democratic and Labour party can come to the House and defend that morally repugnant recruitment procedure for the police. I say that with some exasperation. I have brought a copy of the agreement with me—an agreement that was endorsed and repeatedly quoted by the SDLP and an agreement for which I was proud to vote in 1998. One of the reasons why I was proud to vote for the agreement was the assurance that it contains, in black and white—I have not invented this. That agreement was endorsed by thousands of people in referendums both in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. On page 16, under the heading ““Rights, safeguards and equality of opportunity””, the agreement states: ““The parties””—I understand that the SDLP was a party to the agreement, as was the British Government; we have a Minister present this afternoon—"““affirm . . . the right to equal opportunity in all social and economic activity, regardless of class, creed, disability, gender or ethnicity””." The agreement does not say in brackets, ““except recruitment to the Police Service””. On the contrary, it continues, again on page 16:"““the British Government intends, as a particular priority . . . to promote equality of opportunity in relation to religion and political opinion””." That is what I voted for in 1998, as did thousands of people, and the party of the hon. Member for Foyle. I was disgusted, to put it politely, when the British Government—my own Government—legislated to legalise religious discrimination in the recruitment of police officers no later than two years afterwards in the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000. The hon. Member for Belfast, East and his colleagues rightly want to abolish section 46 of that Act through new clause 6, and, likewise, I, the hon. Member for North Down, wish to see it abolished. The Government have pledged to respect human rights and repeatedly tell the country, and say internationally, how much they do so. They say how much it means to them that the 1997 Labour manifesto included a pledge to make the European convention on human rights part and parcel of our domestic law—I am most grateful that they did so. The obnoxious 50:50 recruitment procedure, which was legislated for by a British Government after the negotiation of the Belfast agreement and its commitments, was, indeed, tested in the High Court in Belfast some years ago. A young constituent of mine, Mark Parsons, was courageous enough to challenge the legislation. It was not the case that an exemption from the European convention on human rights was negotiated. The court acknowledged that the recruitment procedure was discriminatory and cut right across article 9 of the European convention on human rights, and upheld it only because of its temporary basis. If I remember correctly, that happened three years ago. The hon. Member for Foyle suggested that if anyone wished to challenge the procedure in Strasbourg, it would be upheld, but that is not the case. The procedure has been in place far too long for it to be temporary. It undermines the Belfast agreement enormously. The Government stand and wring their hands repeatedly and worry about why the Unionist electorate in Northern Ireland has turned against the agreement. It is because of the salami-slicing of everything that was promised to them and, especially, 50:50 recruitment.