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Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Bill

I will take advice on this; there will be time because I have only just stood up. The Policing Board has issued a press release. My response to it is: "““The draft legislation””—" that is this Bill— "““provides that the decision to reconstitute a district policing partnership is a matter for the Policing Board””." I will get more chapter and verse on that as I am going through. If not, I will certainly write to noble Lords. It is a sensitive issue, for the reasons explained. I fully understand that. I am in no way diminishing what has gone on with people who have wanted to help their community by supporting the police and by being part of the district policing partnerships. As the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, said, they have been a success, having not initially been fully in favour. I will take the broad brush of Clause 18. I hope that I can allay the obvious fears of the noble Lord, Lord Trimble. The clause places an obligation on the Assembly to provide a report to the Secretary of State before 27 March 2008 on its consideration of policing and justice. The report is to address the preparations that the Assembly has made and intends to make for the devolution of such matters, which matters the Assembly is likely to seek to have devolved, and whether a request is likely to be made before 1 May 2008 that responsibility for such matters should be devolved. The clause also amends Section 4(2A) and (6) and Section 21A(8) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, all inserted by the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2006. All three subsections refer to a "““devolved policing and justice matter””." However, while these are matters that the Government are committed to devolving when circumstances are right, they are currently reserved. The clause removes the adjective ““devolved”” in this context in order to clarify the position. The clause does not affect any of the safeguards on the transfer of responsibility. It remains the case that the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, acting jointly, must table a Motion for a resolution of the Assembly that policing and justice matters be devolved; the Assembly must resolve that issue with cross-community support; the Secretary of State must concur and lay a draft order before Parliament; and both Houses of Parliament must approve that order. That is a quadruple lock on the devolution of policing and justice matters. None of that is affected in any way, shape or form by Clause 18. Turning to the specific amendments that were spoken to, Amendment No. 18, relates to the temporary provisions for police recruitment. I know that noble Lords who have spoken and many others harbour principled misgivings about this measure, and that has been raised in the House in recent times. But the misgivings were there when the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland, led by Chris Patten, now the noble Lord, Lord Patten, made its report. It reflected the agreed principle of the Belfast agreement that the police service should be representative of the society that it polices. The report highlighted the imbalance between the number of Catholics and Protestants as ““the most striking problem”” in the composition of the police, above issues of gender and ethnic minority representation, which the commission acknowledged were important. The report recommended recruitment of Protestants and Catholics on an equal basis as an exceptional measure, because no one knew what would happen, to try to provide a more representative police service within a reasonable timeframe. An astonishing 70,000 applications have been received from across the whole community since those provisions were introduced, clearly from a new generation of young men and women who are determined to devote their lives to policing. In only five years, because of the 50:50 temporary provisions, Catholic composition among regular officers has risen from 8.3 per cent to 20.79 per cent. In the same time frame, female composition has also risen from13 per cent to 20.8 per cent. This is undoubtedly a success story by any stretch of the imagination, in terms of both Catholic and female representation in the police service, and it is one of the most significant reasons why public confidence in policing is increasing across most of the community. I had personal experience of that when I went out with my drivers, if I may call them that, because they were more than that, as colleagues will know. When I have visited certain locations to have a chat with the police on the beat, more often than not I have happened to deal with female officers. That may be a coincidence, but nevertheless, there is a large number of them. We believe that temporary measures are justified to correct an acute historical imbalance in the composition of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. I emphasise ““temporary measures””. We have also said, both in this House and another place, that they will not stay in place a day longer than is necessary and that is reinforced in annex B of theSt Andrews agreement. Government policy is firmly committed to achieving a progressive increase in Catholic representation in the police service. Our objective is and has always been to reach 30 per cent representation of Catholics as regular police officers by 2010-11. These temporary provisions are subject to a triennial review and will expire unless specifically renewed by an order, subject to the draft affirmative procedure. The temporary provisions are currently due to expire on 28 March 2007 and the basis for a further review is currently the subject of consultation. The Government intend to introduce a further renewal order to commence with effect from 29 March 2007. This order will be subject to detailed debate in both this House and another place. Therefore, we want to continue with this until we hit the 30 per cent target. If we can do so within the time-frame, that will be excellent. At that point, it will stop because the objective will have been achieved. I reiterate that these are purely temporary measures. They do not tear up fair jobs and equality agreements. They are designed for a specific purpose out of a specific commission report and, what is more, they are working: the numbers are changing dramatically, as I have explained to the House. The Government do not support the inclusion of the new clause proposed in Amendment No. 18. A key element of the Patten recommendations was the importance of accountability and, in particular, local accountability. This vital link has been forged by putting structures in place whereby the district policing partnerships are in line with both the PSNI's district command units and district councils. The Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000 gives effect to these structures, requiring the district policing partnerships to have the same boundaries as the PSNI's district command units and district councils. However, the implementation of the Review of Public Administration will have an impact on policing structures. The Police Service of Northern Ireland is currently developing these new structures and the Policing Board is still considering the post-RPA structures for DPPs. That—if I can say it in English—takes account of the decision of direct rule Ministers, which the Assembly will get a grip on, to reduce the number of district councils from 26 to seven. The police agree with that: they want to change their boundaries as well. We want to ensure that any changes to the current district policing partnerships structures as a resultof the implementation of the Review of Public Administration do not weaken local accountability and links to local communities. We want those to continue. We will carry on working with the Policing Board in the development of the post-RPA structures for DPPs to ensure that their proposals reflect Patten’s vision of both strong local accountability and links to the local community. The Government do not support AmendmentNo. 30, as it would prolong the period of the review of each district policing partnership. The Government seek to have the Northern Ireland Policing Board undertake the review of each DPP as quickly as possible, as this is the first step in the process of reconstituting affected DPPs. Furthermore, we do not support Amendments Nos. 31, 32 and 35, which are consequential to it.