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Police and Criminal Evidence (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 2007

Again, I thank the noble Lord for laying out the order before us with such clarity. It took him 13 minutes and it was extremely well done, but my point, which I make every time, is that this is a classic situation of a Statutory Instrument for Northern Ireland that ought to be debated as a Bill. It has huge effects on the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland and PACE affairs. I suspect it will have a direct impact on almost every human being in the province one way or another. It will have a major impact on the PSNI. I am very sorry that we have to deal with this legislation in that way. The comfort, however, having had discussions with officials this morning, or yesterday morning, is that I am as confident as I can be that this is very much a copy—a blueprint—of legislation that is now operating in the remainder of the United Kingdom, which has, I assume, been debated in full in both Houses. I ask the Minister to give me an assurance that there is nothing in this legislation today that has not been debated in relation to legislation standing in the remainder of the UK. I understand that to be so, and if it is only detail we do not have to worry about it. I was interested that the Minister mentioned the business about 17 year-olds, because that was one item going through with officials that hit me right in the face and made me think how ridiculous Europe was. We have, in moving legislation in this Chamber, to reduce the age of consent and the age at which marriage, buggery, fornication, smoking, drinking and practically everything else you can think of is permissible down to the age of 16—and we are talking about bringing the age for voting down again. Yet here we are, discussing the criminal justice system, and we are going to call live, strong, adult people of 17 children. Somehow that does not make sense. But I understand that that is a European instruction and has to be, and if that is the way it is we cannot argue. Having made those comments, I support this legislation in principle. It is high time that the PACE legislation was upgraded and updated for Northern Ireland, and I hope that perhaps in two or three years we will do it again because it is vitally important that we keep moving forward and stay in line with the rest of the United Kingdom and—I suppose—Europe.