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Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Bill

I have a number of amendments in this grouping—Amendments Nos. 31, 32, 33, 35 and 37, about which I shall speak briefly. Those are about district policing partnerships—DPPs— which have the job of holding the police to account on local issues. They are composed of a majority of political members drawn from Northern Ireland’s councils as well as a minority of independent members. Schedule 8 rightly provides that when Sinn Fein is entitled to political membership of a DPP, all political members of the DPP are automatically stood down so that space can be made for Sinn Fein councillors to join DPPs. However, it also provides that independent members of DPPs will be automatically fired and will have to reapply if they wish to serve again. Independent Members are just that—independent. They should not be fired just because Sinn Fein is joining the board. They were appointed for a four-year term, and it is wrong to sack them after just one and a half years, especially when one considers that many of them have been intimidated by Sinn Fein and attacked by republican dissidents. It may be difficult for some of them to re-apply, dealing a lasting blow to the DPPs. Nothing in the St Andrews agreement requires that. These amendments safeguard the position of independent Members. Under our amendments, the only circumstance in which the independent Members will lose their position is if, upon Sinn Fein joining the board, there is an overall imbalance in the composition of the DPP.