Commons Sitting of 21 November 2000

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS

  KENT COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [LORDS]
  Motion made,
  That the promoters of the Kent County Council Bill [Lords] shall have leave to suspend proceedings thereon in order to proceed with it, if they think fit, in the next session of Parliament, provided that notice of their intention to do so is lodged in the Private Bill Office not later than the day before the close of the present session and that all fees due up to that date have been paid:
  That, if the bill is brought from the Lords in the next session, a declaration signed by the agent shall be deposited in the Private Bill Office, stating that the bill is the same in every respect as the bill brought from the Lords in the present session;
  That the Clerk in the Private Bill Office shall lay upon the Table of the House a certificate, that such a declaration has been deposited;
  That in the next session the bill shall be deemed to have passed through every stage through which it has passed in the present session, and shall be recorded in the Journal of the House as having passed those stages;
  That no further fees shall be charged to such stages.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]
  Hon. Members: Object.
  To be considered on Tuesday 28 November.

  MEDWAY COUNTY COUNCIL [LORDS]
  Motion made,
  That the promoters of the Medway Council Bill [Lords] shall have leave to suspend proceedings thereon in order to proceed with it, if they think fit, in the next session of Parliament, provided that notice of their intention to do so is lodged in the Private Bill Office not later than the day before the close of the present session and that all fees due up to that date have been paid;
  That, if the bill is brought from the Lords in the next session, a declaration signed by the agent shall be deposited in the Private Bill Office, stating that the bill is the same in every respect as the bill brought from the Lords in the present session;
  That the Clerk in the Private Bill Office shall lay upon the Table of the House a certificate, that such a declaration has been deposited;
  That in the next session the bill shall be deemed to have passed through every stage through which it has passed in the present session, and shall be recorded in the Journal of the House as having passed those stages;
  That no further fees shall be charged to such stages.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]
  Hon. Members: Object.
  To be considered on Tuesday 28 November.

Oral Answers to Questions
  HEALTH
  The Secretary of State was asked—
  HEALTH

    General Practitioners (Clinical Audit)
    Tony Wright: If he will make a statement on progress with the clinical audit of general practitioners. [137636]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Gisela Stuart): The NHS plan states that all doctors working in the NHS will be required to participate in clinical audit from 2001.
    We have introduced a requirement for personal medical services pilots of three clinical audits per year and are working to introduce clinical audit for all general practitioners.
    Tony Wright: I am grateful for that answer. The Government deserve great credit for putting quality and clinical performance at the top of the NHS agenda. Is it not the case, however, that general practice remains a largely audit-free zone? Despite the Shipman affair and all that was said at the time by the General Medical Council and other organisations about the need to take action, particularly in relation to single-handed practitioners, there is no early prospect of clinical audit being introduced. Do not patients have a right to have it, and when can the Government give an assurance that it will be in place?
    Ms Stuart: My hon. Friend is absolutely right that patients have a right to feel safe and secure. That is why we are committed to introducing mandatory clinical audits for general practitioners as part of their quality agenda. It is part of a package that we have introduced to improve safety, not just in hospital trusts but in GPs' surgeries. It has to be seen as part of a package that allows us to take quick action when doctors are failing in their duty. I refer in particular to the document "Supporting Doctors, Protecting Patients".
    Sir Sydney Chapman: Does the Minister agree with the chairman of the British Medical Association that the access demands in the NHS plan would require an additional 8,000 to 10,000 GPs?
    Ms Stuart: It is clear that delivering primary care service is a question not simply of the number of doctors, which we are increasing considerably—there are 2,000 extra GPs and 7,000 extra consultants—but of the way in which they work. The fact that, in the past year alone, almost two thirds of GPs are managing to do that because they have improved their services is a clear indication that the NHS plan with regard to that commitment is deliverable, and we shall deliver it with the help of the doctors.
    Mr. John Cummings: I welcome the extra resources that have been directed to the Durham and Darlington health authority, which will undoubtedly have a beneficial effect on the overall health of people in my

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    constituency. I draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health to the increasing size of general practitioner waiting lists. The average is 2,300, with some in excess of 3,300. Will my right hon. Friend work along with officers from the progressive primary care group in Easington on any new initiative that will lead to a reduction in waiting lists?
    Ms Stuart: Of course we expect the progressive practices in particular to work very actively in this regard. I understand that, before long, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health will visit my hon. Friend's constituency to see at first hand the good work that has been done to ensure that it is copied everywhere. We expect good, reliable services uniformly across the NHS, not just in isolated pockets.
    Mr. David Davis: The most advanced work in improving the safety of the treatment of patients is probably to be found in the United States. Last year, the chief medical officer published a report called "An Organisation with Memory". What will the Department do to incorporate those findings into its current political audit work?
    Ms Stuart: The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right—that is an extremely important and significant document. It focuses not just on detecting mistakes but on learning from them. The key outcome that we all want is safe medical treatment. We will build on that important and significant document, and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for referring to it.
    Dr. Brian Iddon: Nearly 50 per cent. of the general practitioners practising in my constituency are single handed. Is my hon. Friend aware that there is a feeling abroad that single-handed practices are now disapproved of and will she reassure GPs in my constituency that they can continue working in this way indefinitely? In addition, of course, I approve of clinical audits.
    Ms Stuart: It is important to recognise that we must be certain that high clinical standards are being delivered, whether in single-handed or in group practices. Peer co-operation and peer review will be extremely important. That is why we encourage practices to work together, and also to work together in audit so that they can learn from each other. What is important is not the structure of the organisation but the quality of service that is delivered.
    Dr. Liam Fox: Does the Minister accept that concerns about audit are merely the tip of the iceberg, and that there is a growing crisis of confidence in the Government's whole handling of general practice? Yesterday, the British Medical Association chairman expressed his doubts about aspects of the NHS plan, and he is not alone. The Royal College of General Practitioners and the General Practitioners Committee expressed their profound disappointment at the limited expansion of 480 doctors per year, when the annual appraisal alone will require 600 extra doctors. Where will they come from? If the BMA, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the NHS Alliance and the National Association of Primary Care all think that the Government have got it wrong, what, apart from their own arrogance, makes them think the contrary?
    Ms Stuart: The Tories simply could not match our commitment, in terms either of extra capital investment or of expanding the work force. I remind the hon. Gentleman that before 1997, the Tories did not seem to show a keen interest in regulating the profession or in ensuring patient safety. Since 1997, the Labour Government have introduced a framework that includes the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, the Commission for Health Improvement and the extension of audits to include not only hospital trusts but general practitioners. The Labour Government are expanding the service safely, reliably and sustainably, not undermining it as the Tories did.
    Dr. Fox: I remind the hon. Lady that she is the Minister answering questions and that this is Question Time. Is not the real problem that GPs see a growing difference between the national health service that Ministers describe in the House and the NHS with which the rest of us have to live? When flu vaccine is in short supply, when care homes are closing, when casualty departments are shutting, and when GPs are drowning in red tape, Ministers have the nerve to talk about Labour's delivery. Was it not the final insult when the Prime Minister blamed GPs for abusing the admissions procedure? Did not that fully merit the rebuke of the chairman of the Royal College of, General Practitioners, who said:
    Your remarks, coming at a time of low morale and change, have only served to heighten a feeling that primary care is not sufficiently valued by yourself and your government?
    Ms Stuart: I sometimes wonder which planet the hon. Gentleman lives on. When I go to hospitals or general practices, I see new investment in buildings, new staff and retraining. All my colleagues use the NHS because they are committed to it, unlike Opposition Front Benchers who use it only to find out what it is like for people who have to use it.
    Mr. Ronnie Campbell: What advice has the Minister given to general practitioners on the prescribing of antibiotics? In my constituency, one doctor has been told that he is over-prescribing. Many of his patients are miners with bad chests or are from poor families. Have the Government any advice for general practitioners who are told that they are over-prescribing in this way?
    Ms Stuart: It is important that prescribing practices within a general practice or a health authority area are carried out safely, reasonably and in response to the relevant health needs. We are committed to having a system in place in which everyone in a health authority area prescribes according to those rules, and we want to maintain that system.

    Community Health Councils
    Mr. Simon Hughes: What recent representations he has received on the future of community health councils. [137638]
    The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): A number of representations have been received about the future of community health councils and the new structures outlined in the NHS plan. A series

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    of national seminars involving discussions with the Association of Community Health Councils for England and Wales, and others, is currently taking place to determine how best to implement the new arrangements for increasing patients' influence and representation in the health service.
    Mr. Hughes: The Secretary of State noticeably failed to tell us how many representations and expressions of opposition he has received. Perhaps, in his second answer, he will come clean about the level of opposition of which he is aware in the country. Has he accepted any of the arguments put forward by me, by many hon. Members on both sides of the House, and by patients, constituents, pensioners' groups, doctors, consultants and local organisations that say that people want an independent organisation, free of staff employed by the NHS, and able to stand up to the NHS and take complaints. The Government's proposal is entirely unacceptable, as is the way in which they introduced it, because they did not ask anyone before they came up with the idea.
    Mr. Milburn: The hon. Gentleman is wrong on that count, at least. I remember Opposition Members raising the fact that we had an extensive consultation about the future of the national health service, which covered all aspects of NHS care, treatment and structures. Structures for improving patient representation were among the issues raised by patients, NHS organisations and others. The hon. Gentleman is profoundly wrong in making that charge. I, and many other hon. Members, have long argued that there is a democratic deficit in the NHS and that it should be properly scrutinised by the local communities that it is supposed to serve. Who better, then, to undertake that scrutiny and monitoring function than those not appointed by Ministers but elected by the local communities served by the local health service? That is what local government is for. It is right and proper that we should locate that function with local authorities regardless of political party. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that local government is not independent of central Government, why on earth did the Conservative party spend 18 years trying to destroy local government?
    Mr. David Hinchliffe: When the Health Committee considered patient complaints, we proposed that patient advocates should be based within community health councils. My concern is that it is proposed that patient advocates should be placed within trusts, where they will not be seen to be completely independent, as patients need them to be. The NHS plan contains many positive proposals. Will the Secretary of State reconsider that issue?
    Mr. Milburn: As I said in my reply to the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), we are considering how best to take forward those elements of improving patient representation and the patient's voice in the NHS. As my hon. Friend will recall, there are three separate proposals. First, we will locate the scrutiny and monitoring function with the elected representatives of the local people—it is best located with those democratically elected by local communities, the local councils. Secondly, we are giving patients, for the first time, a patients forum within every NHS and primary care trust so that patients are elected
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    directly to the trust board in each and every case, thereby increasing patient representation within the NHS. Thirdly, we propose a patient advocacy and liaison service, which we already have in some NHS trusts, which is designed to deal with patient complaints and nip them in the bud. Discussions are continuing on locating the PALS in the NHS locally, or slightly outside it. Where we have patient advocacy and liaison services and active mediation, the number of patient complaints and counts of clinical negligence brought against the health service declines. The system works.
    Mr. Stephen O'Brien: The Secretary of State will be aware that I asked the Prime Minister a question about community health councils last Wednesday. In his reply, he seemed to want to ensure that we all understood that the matter was out for consultation. He agreed that the proposal in the NHS plan to scrap community health councils was bitterly opposed. Yesterday, I received a letter from the Prime Minister, who was clearly embarrassed by his answer—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is not going to get away with that. The Minister will answer him.
    Mr. Milburn: I did not think that it was a good question, so I shall not give the hon. Gentleman a good answer.
    Mr. Barry Jones: Does my right hon. Friend accept that community health councils do good work in our national health service? Does he also accept that those councils genuinely represent the patients and their families—the consumer? As he is engaged in some necessary, far-reaching reforms throughout the health service, could he delay deciding his approach to community health councils until he has advanced his other reforms? As the system is working, perhaps we should not fix it too soon. Will he bear that in mind?
    Mr. Milburn: With the greatest respect, I am not sure that the system is genuinely working. When community health councils were formed in the 1970s, they were way in advance of any other form of patient representation in any health care system. Time moves on. It has become increasingly obvious to many inside the NHS, in local government and elsewhere, that trying to combine three distinct functions in one organisation has not delivered the goods for patients. Of course, the discussions that are taking place between the Department of Health and the Association of Community Health Councils for England and Wales will seek a smooth transition from the existing to the new arrangements, which will increase patient representation and improve the patient's influence within the NHS, rather than diminish it.
    Mrs. Ann Winterton: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that to abolish CHCs is a retrograde step, bearing in mind that they are the only independent advocate for patients, and that they are needed to give expert advice and to try to identify poor practice? Will he think again about those flawed plans? I hope that he will tell the House that he will amend what exists already—that body of expertise in the CHCs; otherwise, he risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
    Mr. Milburn: Of course we shall try to ensure a smooth transition from the existing CHCs when

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    introducing the new proposals advocated by the Government. Of course we shall try to maintain expertise where it exists; that is the right thing to do. However, no organisation has a God-given right to exist in perpetuity; time moves on. I certainly will not accept lessons about patient representation or independence within the NHS from the Conservatives, who when in government sanctioned gagging clauses on NHS staff.
    Mr. Paul Truswell: Does my right hon. Friend accept that Leeds CHC has an excellent record for providing support to patients? As a former member of the council, I can testify to that. Does he agree that the CHC is concerned not so much about its own abolition, or about the loss of the services that it provides, but about the possibility that those services will be fragmented among a range of providers and that the patient's voice element will be dissipated rather than co-ordinated? There will be serious questions as to the independence of those service providers. Is there not a real danger that we shall create a tower of Babel rather than a tower of strength for the representation of patients' views?
    Mr. Milburn: I do not think that is the case, for two reasons. First, I cannot imagine organisations that are more independent than Conservative, Liberal or Labour local authorities. My hon. Friend would only need to look through my postbag from local councils to realise that they are pretty independent organisations and that they will remain so.
    Secondly, the patients forums will be independently appointed—not by me, but by the independent appointments panel. The panel will decide on the membership of those organisations. Furthermore, patients themselves—for the first time—will decide who should be the patient representatives on each trust board. There will be more independence, more patient power and more patient influence on NHS structures, locally and nationally, than ever before.
    Finally, it is true that we need more integration in patient advocacy and within patient organisations more generally; we need more coherence nationally. There are 300 cancer charities alone, so we need more co-ordination. However, that is a matter for patient organisations to sort out. If they make positive proposals, we shall do everything within our power—including our financial power—to help them.
    Dr. Liam Fox: The Secretary of State does not seem to understand that the real problem is that, in the real NHS, those who are under the auspices of a trust board will not feel free to criticise that board. Let us be clear that CHCs are being scrapped because the Labour Government dislike criticism from any quarter—especially from independent bodies.
    The Prime Minister told the House:
    I am aware that there is bitter opposition, which is why the proposals are being consulted on.—[Official Report, 15 November 2000; Vol. 356, c. 937.]
    Are any genuine consultations taking place that might prevent the abolition of CHCs, or is the Prime Minister's idea of consultation merely to ask the condemned man about the manner of his execution?
    Mr. Dennis Skinner: That is not very original.
    Mr. Milburn: As my hon. Friend points out, the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) did not make a very original comment.
    On consultation—as I pointed out earlier—discussions are taking place and a series of seminars are being held throughout the country involving the Association of Community Health Councils, CHCs, patient organisations and NHS organisations. I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman—as a genuine Conservative radical—would support change in the NHS when it is appropriate, rather than trying to conserve structures that have not always been beneficial to the service.
    Mr. Peter L. Pike: Although I accept what the Secretary of State has said, does he recognise that the good community health councils do an excellent job, that all CHCs should be brought up to that better standard and that he should tread warily before he changes something that has widespread public support throughout the country?
    Mr. Milburn: I am sure that there are very good CHCs, and there is no doubt that CHCs have played an important role in the national health service during the past 25 or 30 years, but I genuinely think that if my hon. Friend were to ask most members of the public whether they had heard of their CHC—let alone contacted it—he would find that the answer would be a resounding no.

    Nurses
    Mr. John Randall: How many nurses he plans to recruit from overseas over the course of the next 12 months. [137639]
    The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): We have not set a target, but according to the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting, 7,361 overseas applicants were admitted to the nursing register in the year to 31 March 2000.
    Mr. Randall: I thank the Secretary of State for his reply. What measures is his Department taking to ensure that the national health service is sticking to its own guidelines in not contracting nurses and midwives from South Africa, through private recruitment agencies, when there is strong evidence that those agencies are still actively recruiting?
    Mr. Milburn: The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely important point. We have issued guidance to the NHS—I think that we issued it either late last year or earlier this year—and it certainly tells the trusts that they should not actively recruit from any developing country. There are surpluses of nurses in some developing countries, such as India, Pakistan and elsewhere. Inevitably, nurses from those countries will sometimes apply, of their own volition, to come to this country, and they make an extremely important contribution, as the hon. Gentleman will agree. Certainly, from my point of view, we should not seek to recruit from developing

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    countries; we want those countries to develop their own health care systems. Where appropriate, we shall recruit from overseas.
    The hon. Gentleman will be aware that I recently signed an agreement with the Spanish Government, for example, to bring nurses to this country, provided that they have the appropriate qualifications, including the appropriate English language skills. I am convinced that they will make an extremely important contribution to health care in our country.
    Mr. Mike Gapes: Will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to thank all the nurses and doctors from overseas who are playing such a vital role in our national health service? Can I draw to his attention the nurses from the Philippines, who have made it possible for two new wards to be opened at King George hospital in my constituency in recent months?
    Mr. Milburn: I am happy to do that. Nurses and doctors and, indeed, other staff from overseas have long made an important contribution to the work of the NHS in many parts of the country, particularly London and the south-east. I know that that is the case in my hon. Friend's constituency. I tell those hon. Members who seem to be more concerned about the accents of those doctors and nurses that what counts is not their accents, but their excellence.
    Mrs. Caroline Spelman: Is not the level of overseas recruitment simply an indictment of the Government's efforts to bring back our own nurses and to stem the tide of nurses leaving the NHS through frustration, exhaustion and despair? Raiding the third world is not the answer. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his answer on the sources of recruitment to the NHS, but what measures will he take to ensure that there are guidelines for the private recruitment agencies to stop nurses being drawn from some of the poorest countries?
    Mr. Milburn: The hon. Lady seems to be on a kamikaze mission. She seems to think that we have problems in the NHS because a shortage of nurses suddenly arose on 1 May 1997. If she stopped to think about it and, more importantly, to examine the facts, she would realise that she is 100 per cent. wrong. Let me remind her of her record when the Conservative party was in office. [Interruption.] I like to think of these sessions at Health questions as a form of regression therapy for Conservative Members, to try to help them to face up to their past, rather than simply forgetting it.
    Mr. John Bercow: Get on with it.
    Mr. Milburn: If the hon. Gentleman will stop shouting and listen for a moment, I will give him some facts; he might learn something.
    In 1992–93, there were 16,340 NHS-funded nursing and midwifery training places. By the end of the last Parliament, that had fallen to 14,980. The truth is that the shortages of nurses that we are now seeing are directly related to cuts in training places that the Conservative Government made. The increased investment that we are making, still opposed by the Conservative party, is paying
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    dividends. We have more nurse training places, 10,000 more nurses, big pay rises and an NHS that is at last expanding, whereas for 18 years it was contracting.

    Bed Blocking
    Mr. Ian Bruce: How much is planned to be spent on providing NHS nursing care to residents of private nursing homes in each of the next three years; and how many NHS hospital beds will be unblocked as a result. [137641]
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): The Government have estimated that the additional cost to the Exchequer of providing free nursing care, as outlined in the NHS plan, will be £420 million over the next three years. Free nursing care will form part of a package of measures to improve care for older people, including an investment of £900 million by 2003-04 in intermediate care and related services, which will help reduce delayed discharge.
    Mr. Bruce: The whole House will be concerned that £420 million over three years will not pay for the nursing care of all those people who are currently in private nursing homes. Was it really an announcement that the Government made, or was it simply spin? Perhaps I can ask the Minister another question, just to clarify the matter. By how much does he believe that fees will be reduced in private nursing homes as a result of the Government's announcement? How much per week will patients save because they are being paid for by the Government?
    Mr. Hutton: With the greatest respect to the hon. Gentleman, I do not think that he understands what he is talking about. The £420 million that I identified in my answer to him relates to those who are at present meeting all the costs of their nursing care. That additional money will help to reduce those costs. The service will be provided free as an NHS service, as it always should have been. For 18 years the Conservatives failed to grasp that. Of course there has been a significant change. The announcement will save about 30,000 people up to £5,000 a year. None of the changes will have the effect that the hon. Gentleman suggests.
    We are increasing social services spending in real terms every year. In the previous Parliament, the real-terms increase in social services spending was 0.1 per cent. Under the Labour Government and into the next spending review, the real-terms increase in social services spending will be 3.4 per cent. So I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is speaking a complete load of nonsense.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Has my hon. Friend estimated how much local authorities would benefit from having available to them that amount of money to provide alternatives to private homes, which, after all, are in it for profit?
    Mr. Hutton: I think that the new investment that we are making available through the spending review provides an opportunity for a new relationship to be created between local authorities and the independent sector providers. That is to be welcomed. Of course we need to make sure that the quality of care provided in private homes meets the

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    standards that we expect in the NHS. That will be done, but we have an opportunity to build important new services for older people, which will improve their recovery from illness, speed up their discharge from hospital and allow them to resume their independence and return home much more quickly than ever before. That is precisely what the public want us to do.
    Mr. Nick Harvey: Is the Minister not concerned that 760 nursing and residential homes have closed in the past year, with the loss of 15,000 beds? Is he aware that one health authority alone has said that it already has 160 patients staying in hospital because there is nowhere for them to go out in the community? That is before winter pressures have seriously mounted. How many more patients do the Government maintain it will be possible to treat at home? Will that compensate for the 15,000 beds lost in the past year? Would not the best way of guaranteeing an end to bed blocking be to accept the royal commission recommendation of free residential or home-based personal care for all?
    Mr. Hutton: Of course, we look at the situation very carefully indeed. We want to ensure that there is sufficient capacity, both in the NHS and the independent sector, to ensure that the NHS works efficiently and that we do not have unnecessary delayed discharges. The hon. Gentleman might be aware that evidence that we submitted recently to the Select Committee on Health shows that the number of delayed discharges is coming down.
    Of course, we need to keep a constant eye on the situation, and we are providing more home-based packages of intensive care for increasing numbers of people, which is helping to offset some of the reductions in capacity in the nursing home sector. However, we do need to plan strategically in the future—and to involve central and local government and the independent sector in that planning—on the whole issue of capacity and what we do to support the independence of older people. We are now starting to take those steps. In all fairness, I know that the hon. Gentleman is with us on that, but in 18 years of government the Conservative party never managed to establish that dialogue with the independent sector. The Conservative party, which claimed to be the champion of the independent sector, never quite got round to sitting around a table to talk to representatives of the independent sector about the future.
    Dr. Howard Stoate: My hon. Friend will be aware that the new private finance initiative hospital in Dartford, serving the residents of Dartford and the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Pond), is up and running, but there are still far too many delayed discharges—currently around 40—owing to the inability of social services to fund and manage significant care packages to ensure that people can be removed into their homes when they are ready.
    What plans do the Government have to respond to a bid by the health authorities and social services departments in Kent for extra funding for winter pressures to try to alleviate that problem, so that people can be moved through the system, thereby freeing up more acute beds for emergency use?
    Mr. Hutton: We will consider very seriously any requests for additional resources from the health
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    authorities and social services in my hon. Friend's constituency. He might be aware that we recently made available nearly £1.8 million of additional resources to cover the winter period, for both the East Kent and West Kent health authorities. I hope that those resources will go a significant way to deal with what I know are quite acute pressures in my hon. Friend's constituency.
    Mr. Philip Hammond: Will the Minister confirm that, over the past two years, there has been an unprecedented loss of nursing and care home beds, and that the result is an unprecedented level of bed blocking in many parts of the country, which is already undermining the Government's NHS winter strategy? Will he confirm that inadequate levels of social services fee funding and increased Government regulation are further exacerbating that problem? Will he tell the House who he holds responsible for that state of affairs?
    Mr. Hutton: All of us on the Government Benches know exactly what game the hon. Gentleman is playing. He wants his winter crisis for the NHS this year, and he will do anything that he possibly can—including ignoring the facts that I have tried to outline to the House today—to reach his conclusion that there is a crisis. There are problems in some parts of the country, and of course we accept that. We are looking very carefully at what we can do to improve the situation, and we are providing record resources to social services to help them to tackle that problem.
    It may be a difficult fact for the Conservative party to come to terms with, and I can hear some chuntering from Conservative Back Benchers on this point, but Conservative Members will never acknowledge their contribution to the crisis—the problems—with which we are now dealing. The hon. Gentleman may talk about these issues as much as he likes, but he cannot possibly deny that under the Conservative party, there were real-terms increases in social services funding of 0.1 per cent., whereas under the present Government, the figure is 3.4 per cent.
    Mr. Chris Pond: Does my hon. Friend recognise that, whereas some Opposition Members might savour the idea of a winter crisis, Labour Members very much support the joint bid by Kent county council and the health service in Kent for extra funds for domiciliary care? Will he also look carefully at the possibility of reopening a ward in Gravesend and North Kent hospital, to ease the burdens on the acute hospital this winter?
    Mr. Hutton: As I said earlier, we are aware of the problems in Kent and we are working closely with the health authorities and social services to find sensible solutions. The type of option that my hon. Friend has just outlined may be something that the health authority and social services need to consider together, but I do say to my hon. Friend and other hon. Members that the best way to ensure that all our constituents receive the best possible care and treatment during the winter is for health and social services departments in all parts of the country to work together as closely as possible. Perhaps then we shall see an end to the puerile party political posturing of the hon. Gentleman and his friends; I hope that we shall.

    Alzheimer's Disease
    Dr. Vincent Cable: If he will make a statement on the Government's initiatives to help victims of Alzheimer's disease. [137642]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Yvette Cooper): The Government are working closely with organisations that provide help and support to people with dementia and their carers in order to improve services. When we publish the national service framework for older people, it will set national standards for the care of older people, including for mental health.
    Dr. Cable: Is the Minister aware of the evidence that has been collated by the Alzheimer's Disease Society, among others, that demonstrates widespread abuse of patients with that condition in nursing homes in particular, as well as in hospitals? They are fed anti-psychotic drugs and sedatives. What action are the Government planning to take to ensure that people with this unfortunate disease are treated in a much more appropriate and dignified manner?
    Yvette Cooper: We are aware of the concerns that have been raised, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for drawing attention to this issue, in which I know he has a strong interest. I agree completely that we need a proper framework in place to protect vulnerable older people and to ensure that proper prescribing takes place. We have welcomed the guidance produced by Age Concern, and we will set standards as part of the national service framework for older people. We also have scope to work to improve the position through the operation of the Care Standards Commission.
    Mr. Dennis Turner: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is visiting Wolverhampton tomorrow and he will receive a warm welcome. I know that he will be given information that will be to his advantage, and certainly to that of Wolverhampton, regarding the progress that we are making in mental health services, particularly those for Alzheimer's disease. While he is there, will he address the very important issue of the fourth cardiac centre for the west midlands, to be based in Wolverhampton? I hope that he—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I have to stop the hon. Gentleman.
    Yvette Cooper: I am sure that my right hon. Friend has heard my hon. Friend's representations.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: I welcome the Government's concern about care standards for Alzheimer's disease, but are they able to tell us whether there have been any advances in the treatment of Alzheimer's and whether movement has been made to make drugs available to deal with the disease?
    Yvette Cooper: We are concerned to ensure that people across the country receive the best possible treatment for Alzheimer's. Treatment should not depend on where people live. The postcode lottery for all types of treatment is completely unacceptable and that is why
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    we have referred several drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence for it to provide clear guidance to be followed throughout the country. NICE is considering those drugs at the moment.

    Medical Profession (Regulation)
    Mr. Barry Gardiner: What plans he has to reform the process of regulation of the medical profession. [137643]
    The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): The NHS plan restated the Government's resolve that the regulation of the clinical professions, including the medical profession, needs to be strengthened and made more accountable.
    Mr. Gardiner: Does my right hon. Friend understand the anguish of my constituents Mr. and Mrs. Khatib, whose daughter Wassan died earlier this year after being attended by a doctor whom the General Medical Council had already been investigating for gross misconduct for 16 months and who had previously received a severe admonishment from the GMC after an investigation that had lasted 14 months? In all, four and a half years were spent investigating a doctor for gross misconduct. The doctor attended my constituent, who subsequently died, and it was only two months after that that the GMC acted to strike him off. Is it not a totally unacceptable state for the health service to be in when a regulatory body does not take timely and effective action against incompetent and malpractising doctors?
    Mr. Milburn: The case that my hon. Friend has outlined is shocking. I am sure that the whole House would want to join me in passing our condolences to the family. Such cases clearly raise important issues about professional self-regulation. I have always made it clear that I believe in professional self-regulation in principle, but it has to prove its worth. Regulatory bodies must grasp some nettles that should have been grasped many years ago and, in particular, they must make their procedures much more transparent and faster. The case that my hon. Friend has raised shows that that is so.
    My hon. Friend knows that the General Medical Council is considering its procedures, and the Government and Parliament will need to take their own view on whether the GMC's proposals match our aspirations for a modernised system of professional self-regulation that is transparent and faster and has greater patient and public representation. Above all, it should be accountable to those whom the medical profession and the NHS serve.
    Mr. Nicholas Soames: Although we are all grateful for the skills of most NHS consultants, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the power of the royal colleges is used most arbitrarily? I welcome some of his initiatives on that. Is he aware that in my constituency, the royal colleges are driving the reform of the Princess Royal hospital by threatening to remove the full accident and emergency service? Does he agree that the health service should be run for the convenience of the patients,

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    not of the consultants, and will he take on board my constituents' grave concern about such high-handed behaviour by the royal colleges?
    Mr. Milburn: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I think that he is aware from the NHS plan proposals that we published in July that we need to get to grips with the issue. We need to balance two, sometimes competing, factors—the training needs of doctors and the service needs of patients. We cannot have a situation in which the training tail sometimes wags the service dog. There has to be change. Our proposals for a medical education standards board, which I hope the Conservatives will support, will provide a forum in which royal colleges, the Department of Health and representatives of patients' interests can get around a table to sort out how best we can ensure that the NHS provides both adequate training for its junior doctors and high quality locally accessible services for patients.

    Carers (Support)
    Dr. Phyllis Starkey: What steps he is taking to provide better support for carers. [137644]
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced on 27 September that the carers special grant will increase from £50 million this year to £100 million in 2003–04, providing extra respite breaks for more carers. The Carers and Disabled Children Act 2000 will come into force next year, giving local councils further duties and powers to help carers. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security has announced a package of measures that will provide an extra £500 million of financial support for carers over three years, from which more than 300,000 carers will benefit financially.
    Dr. Starkey: I know from the Milton Keynes carers project that the people whom it represents very much appreciate the recognition of carers' needs and the help that has been given so far by the Government. However, may I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the outstanding need for greater funding for respite care so that carers get some relief from their on-going responsibility, are able to recover themselves and guard their own health and sanity, and can continue to care for those people for whom they are responsible?
    Mr. Hutton: I agree strongly with my hon. Friend, and that is precisely the purpose of the carers special grant. The grant will double over the next three years, which will allow thousands more carers to receive the respite care breaks for which my hon. Friend called. As a society, we must continue to do more to support carers because they provide a fundamental service to hundreds of thousands of disabled people in our society.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Speaking as the patron of the Macclesfield and District Crossroads, may I ask the Minister to take a personal interest in a constituency case of mine in which a 77-year-old man is having to look after his wife, who is suffering from a
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    terminal illness, without any support from the health authority? Is that the care that a carer should receive for the job that he is doing?
    Mr. Hutton: No, it certainly does not sound as if it is. I would be happy to consider the details of that case and speak to the hon. Gentleman as soon as possible.
    Mr. Hilton Dawson: May I draw my hon. Friend's attention to children who take on major caring responsibilities, often for disabled parents? Can he assure me that the Government are paying special attention to their situation and to the concern not only that their needs are met, but that they have a proper chance to have a childhood while they are carers?
    Mr. Hutton: Again, my hon. Friend is entirely right. When we prepared the national strategy for carers, we were able roughly to estimate that there may be as many as 50,000 young people in England who have heavy caring responsibilities that might well compromise their ability to obtain a good education and enjoy the sort of safe and secure childhood to which my hon. Friend has referred. We have issued guidance to schools about their responsibilities towards young carers. I am sure that the Carers and Disabled Children Act 2000, which my hon. Friend helped to introduce, and which did a great service to the House and to carers, will make a positive difference and a contribution to the issues to which he has drawn attention.

    Care Homes
    Mr. Desmond Swayne: What role independent and local authority care homes have in his strategy for intermediate care. [137645]
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): Intermediate care will be provided in a range of settings, including care homes. Maximising the contribution of all partners in health and social care will be central to building up our capacity in intermediate care. That is why intermediate care is highlighted in the concordat between the NHS and the private sector as a key area for future co-operation.
    Mr. Swayne: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is his policy of loading regulation, and the threat of more regulation, on the private care home sector that is responsible for the blight in that industry? For that reason, developers are queuing throughout the south of England to build on the land occupied by residential and care homes. The loss of those beds will blight the NHS, especially during winter, for years to come.
    Mr. Hutton: I tried to anticipate the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, and I succeeded. His point about standards is completely wrong. I understood that the Opposition Front Bench and the Conservative party supported national minimum standards for care homes. I know that there is an argument about the level at which the standards should be pitched. We are determined to ensure that they will be introduced safely, sensibly and realistically. We have already made announcements about the key aspects of these critical standards. I shall give the hon. Gentleman a quote—he may not like to hear it—

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    from Keith Ingram, who is a senior underwriter for residential and nursing care at the First National Commercial Bank. Last month, in Caring Times—I am sure that the hon. Gentleman studies it as carefully as I do—he wrote:
    there are many reasons to think that we are now embarking on a long term period of steady growth.
    That is certainly what we want to see in this sector. I hope that the hon. Gentleman can bring himself to support our objectives.
    Mr. George Stevenson: Does my hon. Friend agree that intermediate care is a vital element in community or care packages, especially for elderly people? Does my hon. Friend agree also that a rapid development of intermediate care services needs to be pursued throughout the country, which means more co-ordination and co-operation between health services and social services? In spite of the increase in the social services budget, is my hon. Friend concerned that the widening gap between health service budgets and social services budgets might frustrate the objective?
    Mr. Hutton: I would be concerned if that were the case. My hon. Friend will be aware that we are strongly encouraging both health and social care providers to pool their resources, to ensure that we provide properly integrated care services for older people. It is a common cause for concern—we have all heard it in our constituencies and at our surgeries—that, although older people are the biggest supporters of the NHS, they are often among its greatest critics. We have never been able to put in place a range of effective services that can support the objectives that my hon. Friend and I would want to pursue. The Government's policy is entirely right and it is closing a serious gap in services. If we use the new resources that are becoming available and pool them, we can make a significant difference.
    Mr. Crispin Blunt: It is impossible, even in the constituency of the Secretary of State, for people to avoid the consequences of Government policy. What discussions has the hon. Gentleman had with the 135 residents of council residential homes who have had to move because there is no money to renovate the homes to the standards demanded by the Government?
    Mr. Hutton: The hon. Gentleman needs to be careful in his criticisms of these developments. Of course there will be change in any market; that is the nature of markets, and something that he and his hon. Friends espouse. We need effectively and sensibly to manage the changes that are taking place. If there is a need for older residents to move from one care home to another, that must be done sensibly and carefully. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends will examine carefully what is happening. There has obviously been a reduction in the number of beds in the private residential and nursing care sector, and further figures will come out next week that will confirm that. At the same time, we are seeing a necessary and long-overdue investment in better home care services that can avoid the need for unnecessary admissions into residential care.
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    I would hope that the hon. Gentleman and the Conservative party would support the idea of encouraging greater independence at home and providing the necessary nursing and social care support that can allow that to happen. That is precisely what older people want.

    Health Support Workers (Registration)
    Helen Jones: What steps he is taking to provide for the registration of health support workers. [137646]
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Denham): Health support workers, such as health care assistants, operating department practitioners, pharmacy technicians and others, make a crucial contribution to patient care. The NHS plan underlines our commitment to acknowledging and supporting them in developing and expanding their roles, and to publishing proposals for their effective regulation. We have now received a report on the subject by De Montfort university, which we are currently considering.
    Helen Jones: I thank my hon. Friend for his reply and acknowledge the progress that has been made, but does he not agree that, when the Care Standards Act 2000 gives the power to introduce regulation for care support workers, it is nonsense that health care assistants doing a similar job in the NHS are not registered? Should not our priority be the protection of patients? I hope that my hon. Friend will act quickly to end the anomalies and give recognition to the important work done by health care assistants.
    Mr. Denham: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that issue. We have made a commitment to effective regulation, because we recognise the need to ensure that patients are protected from members of staff who have dubious histories. We are anxious to address the issue, which is why we commissioned the report from De Montfort university. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the General Social Care Council, which is one of several measures that the Labour Government were forced to introduce after years of neglect by the Conservatives: we have had to regulate social care, introduce regulation for private health care, strengthen the powers of the General Medical Council and introduce annual appraisal for doctors. All those measures should have been introduced years ago, but were neglected by the Conservatives. We have not yet done everything necessary, but we are making progress on a big agenda.
    Mr. David Tredinnick: Is the Minister aware that many health support workers are also practitioners of complementary medicine? Given his remarks about regulation of other sections of the medical profession, does he not think that the time has come to set up a central register of complementary medical practitioners, so that accurate information is available to members of the general public seeking treatment?
    Mr. Denham: I admire the persistence and imagination with which the hon. Gentleman raises the issue of complementary medicine at every turn. He will be aware that the term "complementary medicine" covers an extraordinarily broad range of practice, from therapies

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    that some people regard as esoteric to those that are close to acceptance as mainstream therapies. One of the great difficulties with regulation, especially in respect of the latter group, is the divisive nature of the disagreements between practitioners of many of the therapies. I accept that there are occasions on which protection of the public from quack practices is important, but there must also be some sorting out done within those professions.
    Mr. Jim Dobbin: Following last week's announcement of additional resources for the NHS, can those professional support workers who are state registered, such as medical laboratory scientists, look forward to receiving levels of pay that are commensurate with their skills, the high qualifications that their jobs require and the role that they play as part of the NHS diagnostic team?
    Mr. Denham: As part of the three-year pay deal, we have already taken steps to increase, quite significantly, the pay of at least lower grade pathology laboratory staff. That is an important step in the direction my hon. Friend advocates. He will be aware that we are working with the unions on "Agenda for Change", which sets out a new pay system for the NHS, which holds out to some staff the prospect of moving into the pay review body system, and to staff grades as a whole a proper job evaluation system, better career progression and fairer rewards for all NHS staff.

    Drug Wastage
    Mr. David Heath: What plans he has to reduce wastage of prescribed drugs in the NHS. [137647]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Gisela Stuart): In September, we published
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    our pharmacy programme, "Pharmacy in the future—implementing the NHS Plan", which sets out a range of initiatives designed to help patients to get the most out of their medicines and to reduce waste. We shall invest at least £30 million in the next three years to support that work.
    Mr. Heath: I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. First, I should like to express my gratitude to St. Thomas's hospital for recently allowing a visit by members of the all-party pharmacy group. Does the hon. Lady agree that the practice now established at that hospital, of identifying and using GP-prescribed drugs in the hospital, is an obvious example of good practice?
    Secondly, will the Minister address the issue of patient packs for in-patient discharge? The packs are often based on one month's supply, whereas what is needed to use the drugs effectively is one or two weeks' supply.
    Ms Stuart: I am aware of the hon. Gentleman's visit, and I have read the reports of it. It was useful. We believe that it is important to encourage patients to use prescribed medicines and to bring them to hospital. That is why the NHS Executive regional office will be rolling out a performance management framework later this year, which will deal with medicine management in hospitals. With regard to the use of patient packs, considerable progress can be made by re-engineering hospital pharmacies, but there will always be some patients for whom patient packs will have to be broken up, and we must ensure that they receive the correct information. Hospitals and the pharmaceutical companies need to address that.
    Dr. Vincent Cable: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall deal first with the application under Standing Order No. 24.

  Biwater Takeover
  3.30 pm
  Mr. Harry Barnes: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 24, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
  the decision of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry not to refer the takeover of Biwater (Clay Cross) Ltd. to the Competition Commission, leading to the immediate loss of 700 jobs.
  The Clay Cross plant is a major manufacturer of pipes, employing 700 people and exporting 80 per cent. of its output. On 4 September it was taken over by the multinational company, Saint-Gobain, which immediately announced that the plant was to be closed at the start of December.
  The Biwater plant at Clay Cross was bought, first, to close down a competitor, secondly, to grab order books for transfer to Saint-Gobain's overseas empire, and thirdly, to transfer the plant to India.
  Biwater was commercially viable, with many of its exports going to third-world nations for the movement of water supplies. The loss of the Clay Cross plant, which was established by George Stephenson in 1837, will devastate the surrounding area. Seventy-five per cent. of the workers live within a five-mile radius of the plant. Fifty-six jobs went last Friday, and pipe production will end this Friday.
  The means of saving the plant is for the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to use powers under the Fair Trading Act 1973 to refer the takeover to the Competition Commission, and then for the commission to come up with a decent judgment. Unfortunately, the Office of Fair Trading and the Secretary of State have refused to call in the Competition Commission.
  The voice of Parliament urgently needs to be heard, to discuss the situation and get the Secretary of State to reverse his disastrous decision. Already, 200 Government Back Benchers—that is, 75 per cent. of those eligible to sign early-day motions—have signed an early-day motion asking for this action by the Secretary of State. May we have a debate on this weighty matter, Mr. Speaker? Time is fast running out.
  Mr. Speaker: I have listened carefully to what the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) has said. I have to give my decision without stating any reasons. I am afraid that I do not consider that the matter that he has raised is appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 24, and I cannot therefore submit the application to the House.

  Points of Order
  3.34 pm
  Dr. Vincent Cable: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I ask for your ruling on the conduct of the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food? At Agriculture questions last week I was drawn to ask oral question 7, which was:
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture to make a statement on the Government's policy in respect of the regulation of imports of French beef into the United Kingdom.
  I received a letter from the Minister of Agriculture stating that the matter was being transferred to the Department of Health. I telephoned the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and was told that although my question was not about health, the Minister had judged that that was the basis for the question, and moreover, that the regulation of imports of French beef into the United Kingdom was not a matter for the Minister of Agriculture.
  I am raising the matter now on a point of order because yesterday the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food issued a press release in which the Minister of Agriculture dealt with precisely the question that I asked. He claimed to have written to the Prime Minister about it and to have raised the matter at the Council of Ministers in Brussels. Is it not out of order, and grossly discourteous to the House, for Ministers unilaterally to pull awkward and untimely oral questions? Can you give us some protection, Mr. Speaker, when Ministers engage in such activity?
  Mr. Speaker: Order. What Ministers say outside the House has nothing to do with me. The hon. Gentleman informed me in advance of his point of order, but I am afraid that I cannot help him. "Erskine May" makes it clear that it is a long-established principle that decisions on the transfer of questions rest with the Minister, not the Chair. I note that the hon. Gentleman waited two weeks to raise this matter with me, and I hope that in future such cases are put in writing and do not take up valuable time on the Floor of the House.
  Mr. David Winnick: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. For quite some time there have been comments in the press that this Parliament is such that the House of Commons no longer counts, is virtually dead and so on. May I bring to your attention, Mr. Speaker—although that is not really necessary, as you were here for part of the time—our debate last night on immigration appeals and the controversy over fees. Does that not demonstrate the fact that the House of Commons is far from dead? Moreover, as a result of the deep concern expressed by my hon. Friends, the Home Secretary conceded an important point in his concluding remarks.
  I bring this to your attention, Mr. Speaker, only because some of us are sick and tired of the accusation that the Chamber no longer counts in this Parliament. Last night, quite apart from all the other occasions, that accusation was given the lie.
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman makes a valuable point, and I do not need to add anything to what he said.
  Mr. Eric Forth: Further to the point of order raised by the hon. Member for

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  Twickenham (Dr. Cable), Mr. Speaker, would you consider looking again at the way in which Ministers can delay and prevaricate on questions, and see if you can satisfy yourself about the relationship that should exist between the House of Commons and the Executive? If, by transferring or deferring questions, Minister are able to avoid being held accountable for the very thing that the House is supposed to hold them accountable for—their conduct as Ministers—surely that relationship has broken down. I am not asking for an answer now Mr. Speaker, but can you think about the role that you might play in seeking to restore that balance before Ministers run riot and avoid this place altogether.
  Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman knows more about being a Minister than I do. However, I would advise him to take these matters up with the Procedure Committee.
  Mr. John Bercow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker: I will take a point of order from the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner).
  Mr. Skinner: If you do any research into the subject of transferring questions, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that you take some advice from the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), who used to be a Minister, and was one of those Euro-fanatics. The right hon. Gentleman also supported all the modernisation that took place under the Tories. If you do some research on him, Mr. Speaker, you will find that he transferred more questions than most of the others put together.
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is making a point, rather than a point of order.
  Mr. Bercow: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I, for one, am most grateful to you for your guidance about reference to the Procedure Committee. Nevertheless, would you take this opportunity to confirm that so far as ministerial answers to oral questions are concerned, filibustering is out of order?
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is quite right. Filibustering from any part of the House is out of order.

  Pet Animals Act 1951 (Amendment)
  3.39 pm
  Mr. David Amess: I beg to move,
  That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend section 3 of the Pet Animals Act 1951 to raise the minimum age of a child to whom a pet animal may be sold.
  I make no apology for returning to a subject that I raised in the House first in 1991 and again in 1993. I feel frustrated that, although on those two occasions the House listened to me courteously and seemed to agree with the merits of my argument—perhaps on this occasion, it will not —in nearly 10 years nothing has happened.
  The timing of my Bill is appropriate. I am reliably informed that Christmas still falls on 25 December—unless that is something else that has been modernised—and at Christmas, purchasing animals, particularly small animals, undoubtedly has a great attraction for the general public. The general public might not be particularly attracted to small Members of Parliament, but they are undoubtedly attracted to the idea of owning kittens, puppies and suchlike. Yet after Christmas, our newspapers are littered with stories of people's cruelty to such animals.
  The Amess household owns a great variety of pets. We have a black labrador, which is described as being wayward. Thinking about that, I realise that that dog is not the only thing in the Amess household that can be so described. We also have rabbits, hamsters, fish, canaries and finches, and the garden seems to be full of foxes. I can testify from first-hand experience that encouraging children to look after the animals is not always successful. Invariably, it is down to mum and dad to look after them.
  The Act is now 50 years old, and my Bill has the support of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Pet Care Trust, the Kennel Club, the National Canine Defence League and many Members of Parliament. The Local Government Association's booklet on the Pet Animals Act 1951 makes recommendations with regard to the sale of pets. However, those are only recommendations, and they are open to flexible interpretation.
  Many local authorities tackle the issue of age seriously when issuing licences, and follow the Local Government Association's recommendations. But I have one example of a local authority—I will not name it, because I am not sure about its political control—which recommends 12 as a suitable age for the purchase of an animal from a pet shop. The Bill would make the association's recommendations mandatory, tightening up yet another loophole in the outdated legislation.
  It is difficult to find specific examples because, owing to the age of the child concerned, one cannot determine who is responsible for abusing the pets, and often parents are held responsible. But more often than not the animals are simply abandoned, and it is impossible to know who made the original purchase.
  During the past year, 100,000 animals were abandoned—a huge number. For the RSPCA, the main problem seems to be that children can afford to purchase small animals such as hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs and rabbits, which they find so attractive, with their pocket money. Unfortunately, in no time at all, the novelty of owning such small animals wears off, particularly with
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  the poor hamsters, which are active only at night and are not very keen to be woken up during the day when children want to play with them. Such animals are often bought with no knowledge about how to look after them, or even of what sex they are, and if one animal turns out to be pregnant, in no time at all there are five or six more.
  As Christmas approaches, the RSPCA will campaign vigorously to try to stop people from buying pets as presents. Every year it has to deal with abandoned animals that have been given as pets, usually to children who quickly tire of them.
  In the early 1990s, problems arose from the teenage craze of buying turtles. I think that they were called teenage mutant ninja turtles, but whatever their name, the craze made people keen to buy turtles without any knowledge of how to look after them. Similarly, after the revival of the film "101 Dalmatians", everyone went out and bought dalmatians. Anybody who knows anything about dalmatians realises that although they look cute with their black and brown spots, they are very lively. Again, people can be unaware of the responsibilities involved in owning them. I dare say that all the dinosaur films currently being shown mean that iguanas will be the next animal to be purchased. [Interruption.] Not on the Conservative Benches. With all the adverse publicity about sharks, no doubt people will soon be keeping baby sharks in tanks.
  The RSPCA has recently campaigned for tighter controls on the trade in, and ownership of, exotic species. In the past year, 3,700 exotic animals were abandoned. It is crazy how irresponsible some people can be, so I should like to give a few examples. A man who paid £20 in an Essex pub for what he thought was an exotic lizard ran into trouble when the creature turned out to be a spectacled caiman, which is a type of crocodile. The caiman, which was about 18 inches long and had large green eyes and razor-sharp teeth, was underweight when it was rescued by the Cambridgeshire RSPCA. Her skin was in poor condition, and several of her toes and the tip of her tail were missing.
  In Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan, six-week-old puppy Ellie was discovered cowering by the side of the road after an eye-witness report was received stating that she had been hurled from a moving car. The incident occurred shortly after Christmas, and it was believed that the animal had been bought as a pet. I am informed that two chinchillas were dumped last Christmas on a doorstep in Barnstaple, North Devon, after sparking a major row between a boyfriend and girlfriend. The girlfriend had been promised something furry for Christmas and was expecting a fluffy coat. She was enraged when her boyfriend produced two chinchillas in a cage, and immediately said that she did not want them. Yet again, the RSPCA had to rescue the animals.
  It is right to judge how civilised a society is by its treatment of animals. I know that hon. Members understand only too well the procedure behind ten-minute Bills, and will be thinking, "Hang on, Parliament is finishing next week, so how's Amess going to get this on to the statute book?" I am, however, very determined. The measure that I promoted some years ago to stop horses, ponies and donkeys being cruelly tethered and abandoned became law through a ten-minute Bill.
  All I ask is that the House reflect on cruelty to animals and consider supporting the Bill. Bearing in mind the fact that the next Session may be short, I hope that when the

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  ballot for private Members' Bills occurs shortly, at least one Member will consider supporting my Bill—or, indeed, that Her Majesty's Government will consider taking it on board. I hope that this Christmas will be a happy one for animals. Hon. Members can ensure that it is by supporting the Bill, which would increase from 12 to 16 the age at which a child who is unaccompanied by an adult can purchase an animal.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. David Amess, Mr. Norman Baker, Mr. Tony Banks, Mr. Simon Burns, Mr. Ian Cawsey, Mr. Roger Gale, Mrs. Eileen Gordon, Mr. Mike Hancock, Mrs. Marion Roe, Mr. Bob Russell, Sir Teddy Taylor and Ms Joan Walley.

  Pet Animals Act 1951 (Amendment)
    PET ANIMALS ACT 1951 (AMENDMENT)
    Mr. David Amess accordingly presented a Bill to amend section 3 of the Pet Animals Act 1951 to raise the minimum age of a child to whom a pet animal may be sold: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 24 November, and to be printed [Bill 185].

  Police (Northern Ireland) Bill (Supplemental Allocation of Time)
  3.50 pm
  The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Adam Ingram): I beg to move,
  That the Order of the House [11th July] shall be supplemented as follows:—

  Police (Northern Ireland) Bill (Supplemental Allocation of Time)

    Lords Amendments
    1.—(1) Proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments to the Bill shall be completed at today's sitting.
    (2) If not previously concluded, they shall be brought to a conclusion at Ten o'clock.
    2.—(l) This paragraph applies for the purpose of bringing proceedings on the Bill to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 1.
    (2) The Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the chair and not yet decided.
    (3) If that Question is for the amendment of a Lords Amendment, the Speaker shall then put forthwith—

    (a) a single Question on any further amendments of the Lords Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown, and

    (b) the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House agrees or disagrees with the Lords in the Amendment or (as the case may be) in the Amendment as amended.

    (4) The Speaker shall then put forthwith—

    (a) a single Question on any amendments moved by a Minister of the Crown to a Lords Amendment, and

    (b) the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown that this House agrees or disagrees with the Lords in the Amendment or (as the case may be) in the Amendment as amended.

    (5) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House disagrees with the Lords in a Lords Amendment.
    (6) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question, That this House agrees with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Amendments.
    (7) As soon as the House has agreed or disagreed with the Lords in any of their Amendments, or disposed of an amendment relevant to a Lords Amendment which has been disagreed to, the Speaker shall put forthwith a single Question on any amendments moved by a Minister of the Crown relevant to the Lords Amendment.

    Subsequent stages
    3.—(1) The Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the consideration forthwith of any further Message from the Lords on the Bill.
    (2) The proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.
    4.—(1) This paragraph applies for the purpose of bringing proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 3.
    (2) The Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the chair and not yet decided.
    (3) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown which is related to the Question already proposed from the chair.
    (4) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown on or relevant to any of the remaining items in the Lords Message.
    (5) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question, That this House agrees with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Proposals.

    Reasons Committee
    5. The Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the appointment, nomination and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons and the appointment of its chairman.
    6.—(1) The Committee shall report before the conclusion of the sitting at which it is appointed.
    (2) Proceedings in the Committee shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion 30 minutes after their commencement.
    (3) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with sub-paragraph (2), the chairman shall—

    (a) first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the chair and not yet been decided, and

    (b) then put forthwith successively Questions on Motions which may be made by a Minister of the Crown for assigning a Reason for disagreeing with the Lords in any of their Amendments.

    (4) The proceedings of the Committee shall be reported without any further Question being put.

    Miscellaneous
    7. The following paragraphs apply to—

    (a) proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments to the Bill.

    (b) proceedings on any further Message from the Lords on the Bill, and

    (c) proceedings on the appointment, nomination and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons (and the appointment of its chairman) and the report of such a Committee.

    8. Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to the proceedings.
    9. The proceedings shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
    10. No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, the proceedings shall be made except by a Minister of the Crown; and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
    11.—(1) If on a day on which any of the proceedings to which paragraph 7 applies take place a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 24 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) would stand over to Seven o'clock—

    (a) that Motion stands over until the conclusion of any of the proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion at or before that time, and

    (b) the bringing to a conclusion of any of the proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion after that time shall be postponed for a period of time equal to the duration of the proceedings on that Motion.

    (2) If a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 24 stands over from an earlier day to such a day, the bringing to a conclusion of the proceedings on that day is postponed for a period of time equal to the duration of the proceedings on that Motion.
    12. If the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before the expiry of the period at the end of which any of the proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion under this order, no notice shall be required of a Motion made at the next sitting by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.
    I shall speak briefly on the supplemental allocation of time motion for the Police (Northern Ireland) Bill, which we last debated on 11 July. The Bill has been the subject of the most intensive consultation with Members of both Houses and with parties, interested individuals and statutory organisations across the board. No part of the
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    body politic has not expressed a view, and we are now considering a measure that has benefited from such extensive input.
    As the Bill stands, it deals with policing realities and with the Patten report, not people's interpretations of Patten. When implemented, it will deliver an effective, accountable and—most importantly—acceptable police service that will meet the needs of the new Northern Ireland.
    When the House finished its consideration of the Bill in July, the Government accepted that it would undergo further changes during its consideration in the other place. As a result of helpful and constructive debates in the other place, the Bill has undergone significant improvement. In particular, we have improved the financial accountability arrangements between the Policing Board, the Chief Constable and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the way in which it will deliver best value standards. Enhancements have also been made to its approach to recruitment to the new service.
    I am pleased that our approach on that issue is underpinned by the exemption obtained to the European Community employment directive. There are, of course, several amendments dealing with that and other issues. In total, we have to consider 140 amendments from the other place, although some 40 are minor and miscellaneous, and more than 25 involve best value.
    In the main, the amendments arise from detailed debates in Committee in the House and from constructive consideration in the other place. The motion provides sufficient time for the consideration of those amendments. I hope that the House will agree that it is better to use our time wisely and productively by discussing their substance than to have a general debate on the Bill's principles.
    The Bill will deliver good and effective policing with a police service that is representative of the whole community. That is what the Good Friday agreement called for when it suggested that there should be a review of policing in Northern Ireland. The Government have honoured that commitment and I look forward to our debates on the amendments. I commend the motion to the House.
    53 pm
    Mr. Andrew MacKay: Any Parliament that decides to reform policing in Northern Ireland must, surely, have one simple objective: to ensure that the ordinary, law-abiding and decent majority of people in both communities are better protected from the men of violence and from terrorism.
    We need to reflect on whether passing the Bill tonight will achieve that sole objective. I fear that it will not because certain significant amendments, which were moved in another place by my colleagues, were defeated by the Government majority. There has been no compromise over the name, so the Royal Ulster Constabulary will completely lose its name and its cap badge, although the insignia represent both communities. That will adversely affect police morale and therefore endanger safety and life in the Province.
    Even more serious are our amendments on the composition of the Policing Board and the district policing partnerships. Those bodies will involve a real

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    security risk because men of violence—previously convicted terrorists—and those representing paramilitary parties will be able to sit on the board and on district policing partnerships. That is not in the interests of the ordinary law-abiding majority of people in both communities, whom it is our duty to protect.
    I ask the Minister and the Secretary of State, what purpose does the Bill serve? It has not even achieved the Secretary of State's precious and necessary objective of persuading nationalist and republican politicians to encourage their community to join the police force. In the last few weeks, SDLP and Sinn Fein politicians have failed to agree to call on their communities to join the police force, despite the loss of the name and the loss of the cap badge, and the—in my view—serious omissions represented by allowing ex-terrorists on to the board. I believe—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I did not wish to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but we are discussing the allocation of time motion. Perhaps those matters can be discussed when we come to the amendments.
    Mr. MacKay: Absolutely, Mr. Speaker.
    It is for that reason—the fact that we have lost votes in the other place—that I see no case for the supplementary timetable motion. Very few controversial amendments are left. This is just another example of the Government's wishing to railroad everything through, and wishing never to allow the House to have proper debate.
    I ask myself why there is any need for a timetable, given that the Minister readily acknowledged that many of the amendments were very minor and very technical, and given that very few are controversial. It makes me wonder whether, owing to the Government's defeat in another place last night on the Disqualifications Bill, they were anxious to make more time to allow that squalid little Bill to return to this place rather than being buried, as it effectively was by the removal of clause 1 last night.
    The Government would be singularly ill-advised to bring back the Disqualifications Bill. It was not in the Queen's Speech. All it has done is attempt to appease Sinn Fein, and we do not wish to see it.
    3.57 pm
    Mr. Douglas Hogg: My right hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay) has articulated the general objection to the Bill, and I will therefore not repeat it. Let me say, however, that I have the strongest opposition to the use of timetables, both in general and in particular.
    I do not believe—if the Minister will forgive me—that he has even tried to advance an argument in favour of timetabling the Bill. He has told us about the number of amendments: he has told us that there are 140—indeed, there are 13 groups—and that 40 are minor. A proper inference to draw from that is that the remaining 100 are not minor.
    My right hon. Friend said that, for the most part, the amendments were not controversial, but that does not strike me as a good reason for truncating debate, unless there is a powerful and compelling case for doing so—and it is for the Government to demonstrate that there is.
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    If there were a genuine fear that hon. Members would wilfully and unreasonably extend debate, that would be a good reason for truncating it; but I do not believe that there is such a genuine fear. I therefore ask myself what can be the justification, and I see no such justification.
    I understand, of course, that Ministers feel that their parliamentary timetable may be at risk, but whose fault is that? It is not our fault, and it is not itself a good reason for truncating parliamentary debate. The plain truth is that we had an extraordinarily long recess. I personally benefited from that, but we could have sat earlier, and the programme could have been very much lighter. In fact, the Government are imposing timetables because they have so overloaded the parliamentary agenda as to put their own artificial timetable at risk.
    Mr. John Bercow: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the Government are fundamentally mistaken in their assumption, and in the premise from which it works, that the presence on the Order Paper of a large number of amendments somehow justifies the imposition of a timetable? Is it not the case that the presence of that large number of amendments, even if technical and drafting, is testimony to the ill-considered, badly prepared, poorly conceived character of the Bill?
    Mr. Hogg: It is testimony to that in part, but it also points to the need for a more extended debate, for reasons that I will come to.
    I have referred to the fact that Ministers complain about the risk that debate poses to their parliamentary timetable. Government Back Benchers will complain about staying late. That argument is often advanced, but I make two points. First, it is the business of Members of Parliament to scrutinise legislation. If a Government introduce legislation that requires scrutiny, it ill behoves Government Back Benchers to say that they do not want to sit and to scrutinise it.
    The second point works in a slightly different direction. The solution lies in the hands of Government Back Benchers. They have to say to their Whips, "I am sorry, but I am not going to spend the night here" or "I am not going to support your beastly legislation." If they said that often enough, the Government would start to listen to them, which would make a pleasant change for them, and they would begin to have an effect on the volume and quantity of legislation.
    If Government Back Benchers really want to reinstate their reputation in the public eye, which will be a hard task for them at the best of times, one of the things that they should do is mark out their independence and cease to be the creatures and clones of the Whips Office and Ministers. They would do well to learn those lessons.
    I return to the substance of the matter. I am glad to see that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) is in his place because he has strong views on timetable motions, which I hope he will articulate, if he gets the opportunity. The first thing that we need to grasp is this. A total of 140 amendments are before the House. It is the first time that right hon. and hon. Members have an opportunity to look at many of those amendments. It is not good enough to say that 40 of them are minor and 20 more relate to best value. That leaves many others which are not.

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    Let us be clear about this: if the timetable motion is passed, many of the amendments, and probably many of the groups of amendments, will not be discussed at all. That takes me to the response to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), who made an important point. If at this stage in the passage of the Bill there are many amendments on the Order Paper, for two reasons that argues not for a timetable, but for an extended debate.
    One reason is that legislation is improved by scrutiny; that is why we have scrutiny. If we let amendments go through without discussion, as night follows day we will have bad law, and that is an abomination. I see the hon. and learned Member for North Down (Mr. McCartney) nodding. He and I know from our practice in the courts that that is true.
    We lose sight of the other reason at our peril. Democracy depends on the acquiesence of the electorate. They want to feel that legislation and policy are being enacted after proper scrutiny. If we do not subject legislation to proper scrutiny, two things happen: we dishonour ourselves in the eyes of the public, although I hope that the opprobrium will fall on Ministers; and, perhaps more dangerously, respect for the law falls, because the public know full well that it is simply law that reflects the dictate of a Department and Ministers and has not been the subject of proper debate. In that way, we dishonour ourselves and respect for the law.
    It is an absolute outrage that the timetable motion and the Division that, I hope, will follow will come out of substantive time. That again shows the Government's contempt for the House. I am against timetables. We should go on protesting, although timetabling is becoming the norm under the Government.
    4.4 pm
    Mr. Seamus Mallon: I noted with interest that when the Minister of State opened the debate, he referred to the consultation on the Bill and the implementation of the Patten report. May I say at the outset that this is the first time that I have ever dealt with a Bill about which there was no prior consultation? I believe that the Minister of State is fully aware of that and that the House is fully aware of the implications, to the extent that this has become a fractious, divisive debate on the issue.
    The Minister of State mentioned implementing Patten. One of the many reasons that I am greatly opposed to today's timetable motion is that when we last debated the Bill on 11 July, almost all the controversial issues were not debated on the Floor of the House. I do not want to give a litany of those issues, but I think that their importance can be summed up just by looking at them—the flag, the badge, quota, powers of the Policing Board, the ombudsman, the Oversight Commissioner and accountability. Those issues were not debated on the Floor of the House on 11 July. That is why I believe it essential that, whichever way the Bill goes tonight, we at least take the opportunity to make a contribution on the issues that affect us all so deeply.
    I do not know whether the predictions that there will be a guillotine tonight are correct. I am, by nature, opposed to guillotines. However, I hope that in the interests of the future, time will be made available in the debate so that some of the outstanding points that people must understand are clarified.
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    May I suggest some such points to the Secretary of State? I would like him to say on the Floor of the House tonight that, in accordance with Patten, the Union flag will not be flown on police buildings from the date on which this becomes operative. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame!"] That is what Patten recommended, and if we are discussing the Patten report we must deal with its recommendations. I provide the Secretary of State with the opportunity—no double negatives or quadruple negatives—to let people in Northern Ireland who have to make judgments know.
    Will the Secretary of State use the opportunity provided by the time allocated tonight to make it clear that a police flag or emblem will not have any identification with the British or Irish state? That is also a requirement of the Patten report, and such neutrality could be crucial.
    We are not yet in possession of the facts about a crucial element that I believe the Government can clarify tonight. I refer to the implementation plan and the aspects of it that were specifically referred to by Patten—the subsuming of special branch into the police service under an Assistant Chief Constable, an indicative date for ending the full-time Reserve, the time scale for increasing the part-time Reserve and decisions on the holding centres, especially now in relation to Gough barracks in Armagh.
    Two other points have received no consideration by the Government on the Floor of the House or in Committee. What is the Government's attitude to lateral entry, and what arrangements have been made for secondment from the Garda Siochana? Again, those are recommendations in the Patten report.
    I have one more point that I would like the Secretary of State to address. We all saw the trauma in this country surrounding the Stephen Lawrence murder, and we all saw how long it took for it to be dealt with. The murders of Pat Finucane, Rosemary Nelson and Robert Hamill have not yet been subjected to inquiry. I pose this question to the Government and to ourselves: under the Policing Board envisaged by the Secretary of State, could and would inquiries such as those, if they were needed in future, ever take place?
    I am opposed to the allocation of time motion. I want to make a point about a matter referred to earlier. We, as a party and as a community, want to play, for the first time in the history of the Northern Irish state, a full role in the policing of our society. We want to do that unequivocally and in the most positive way possible. However, we need clarity and certainty about what is going to happen. We need clarity about the legislation, and certainty about the implementation plan and the approach that the Government will bring to the development. To date, we do not have those. That stands in the way of our decision, and will do so until we have that clarity and certainty.
    4.11 pm
    Mr. Lembit Öpik: It is worth remembering that we are discussing the allocation of time, rather than the substantive amendments. The fact that so many hon. Members feel tempted to discuss the content of the motion shows how important it is to move to the main debate as quickly as possible.
    When we last discussed an allocation of time motion on Northern Ireland, I was optimistic and the Liberal Democrats supported the Government. With the benefit of

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    hindsight, we know that, for understandable reasons and despite the generous amount of time that the Government allocated, we did not have enough time to discuss the matters before us.
    I am confused by the position taken by the official Opposition. The right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay) seemed to say that he does not see the need for discussion at all, yet Conservative Back Benchers said that we need even more time than has been allocated. I am sure that there is logic in that argument somewhere.
    The ideal solution would have been a programme motion agreed among all the parties. Sadly, we do not have that. Whether the time allocated will be enough is, therefore, a matter of judgment. Perhaps we could use a little more than we have been given, but we must remember that our destiny is, to some extent, in our hands. As long as we focus on making new points and do not use the debate as an opportunity to rehearse arguments with which we have finished and over which we now have no control, we can probably make reasonable progress, even in the time—which is slightly too short—that the Government have allocated.
    The right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) described this as beastly legislation. I am not sure about that, but it is important legislation, and for that reason we must debate it fully. Let us also remember that there must be an end point—we cannot go on discussing it for the next few weeks. It is, therefore, reasonable to expect some programming for a subject on which debates have often become very long, and not always because value is being added to the points already made.
    Everyone has a right to express an opinion on the time allocation motion, but as some speakers have already expressed their opinions on what will happen after the motion it makes sense for us to move on. Although I respect the right of all of us to discuss the clock, I hope that we shall now move on quickly to discuss the Bill.
    4.14 pm
    Mr. Kevin McNamara: The beauty of following the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. £pik) is that the Liberal Democrats always say, "Let's get a move on—but not until I've spoken." That is the situation that we are in.
    I was interested in what the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) said—that the Government have discovered some new and unusual parliamentary procedure that was never used between 1979 and 1997. I recall the right hon. and learned Gentleman being present—perhaps he was asleep—for guillotine after guillotine on Bill after Bill. He was happy to be a member of the Government when that was happening. Given his experience, we can treat his comments as humbug.
    On the previous occasion when we debated the Bill, we could not debate many major motions and issues. I was heartened by the fact that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said that most of the amendments that we are to debate are trivial and consequential. On that basis, I am sure that the Government will accept all the amendments that I have tabled, which have the support of various hon. Members.
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    I must emphasise to the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) that the decision on the Bill and its content and passing are, in one sense, unimportant. What is important is what will come after the Bill—what comes of the decisions on flags and emblems, on the contents of the implementation plan and on the Hamill case. When the coroner was unable to decide what had happened in that case, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State sent for the papers. We do not know what he has decided since, and it would be helpful if we could have a statement on that. One thing is certain: that the confidence that we are trying to achieve—
    Mr. MacKay: What has this to do with the timetable motion?
    Mr. McNamara: The right hon. Gentleman is twittering from the Opposition Front Bench. I am pointing out that the timetable is of little relevance because many of the important matters will be decided outside of it. It would therefore be helpful to know about particular matters. As the right hon. Gentleman talked a lot about what happened in another place, which had little to do with the timetable, and as his comments on amendments moved there had little to do with it, he is the last person who should comment from a sedentary position on these matters.
    Decisions that will be taken after the passage of the Bill will be far more important than some of the amendments that we have to consider. On those decisions will depend the acceptability of the Northern Ireland police service to both communities. That is certainly a subject that should be worrying those on the Treasury Bench considerably.
    4.18 pm
    Rev. Ian Paisley: I am sure that the House listened with interest to the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon). In the previous debate on the Bill, he made it clear that his party would not call on its supporters to support the new police service as it is set out in the Bill. At his party conference, as leader of his party, he said that one does not proceed by ultimatums and that the trouble with the Unionists is that we are always making ultimatums. We have heard the ultimatum from the Social Democratic and Labour party—it is a list of matters that the hon. Gentleman has said must be clarified tonight by the Secretary of State.
    I oppose the timetable because there should be time. I want to discuss the issues. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara)—they should be discussed. Each representative, representing his constituents, should have the opportunity to discuss them, but we will not have that opportunity. We will not even reach some of the matters in which the hon. Gentleman is interested. It is only right that we put that on record. If we do not do so, at some point the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will make a speech and point out that we were all in the House of Commons but said nothing on the matter—as though we approved it.
    We do not approve; we are wholly against the idea that Ulster representatives should not have adequate time to discuss the measure. Indeed, more time has been granted in another—unelected—place; more people from Northern Ireland who are not elected have had more time to discuss the measure than we shall have tonight.

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    Certain important matters need to be discussed; those that have been mentioned by the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh concern us. I do not understand why, in part of the UK, the buildings that house the police service cannot fly the national flag. A member of the Patten commission told us that, in future, when one enters a police station in Northern Ireland—or a police house or whatever it is to be called—one will not know whether one is in Africa, India, America or Australia. It will be so neutral that people will blink and ask, "Where am I?" Is that a form of policing that will gain acceptance from the people of Northern Ireland?
    Basic principles of human rights should be prominent. I do not understand why a portrait in a police station of Her Majesty the Queen is a threat to anyone. I do not understand why a flag constitutes a threat. If it does, why do not those who oppose it being flown say that it should be removed from this building? After all, they walk under it every time they enter Parliament. Those matters are important.
    The uniform of the RUC is important too. Surely, if we are trying to institute a form of policing in Northern Ireland that will be acceptable to those who believe in law and order—those who do not believe in law and order will not accept it anyway—we should not outrage the citizens of Northern Ireland who do not agree with the measures. I was assured that the Patten commission was to find a means whereby the majority of the majority and the majority of the minority could agree. The majority of the majority do not agree with the Bill; it seems that the majority of the minority do not agree with it either. The Patten report is a failure by its own standards; no amount of doctoring it will change that.
    The Government have spun the idea that the report is in its implementation stage and that all will be well—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is putting a case that could be put when the amendments are before the House, rather than during the timetable motion—[Interruption.] Order. I am calling the hon. Gentleman to order. Hon. Members should not point across the Chamber.
    Rev. Ian Paisley: I am arguing why we should discuss these matters. I am sorry that I did not make that clear to you, Mr. Speaker. I am arguing not the rights or wrongs of the issues but that we should be able to discuss them. As an hon. Gentleman has argued that the flag should be removed from police stations, and that was completely in order, I should be in order when I point out that I do not agree and should like to discuss such matters. That is my argument. When we come to the marrow, I am sure that you will be under no misunderstanding, Mr. Speaker, about which side we are coming from.
    The length of time spent on the current debate does not matter; it will not change the fact that vital issues will not be touched on tonight and that elected representatives from Northern Ireland—whatever their views—will not be heard. What is more, there will be no opportunity for Members to vote on the issues, so we cannot express our democratic right to show what we think about them. The right of the representatives of Northern Ireland to have their say on the Bill is being taken away, because the Northern Ireland devolved powers do not cover security or the police.
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    My plea to the House is that it should give the elected representatives of Northern Ireland the right to move their amendments, to discuss them, to divide the House on them and to record their stand on the issue. That is all we ask, but we shall not get it. Even if I were to talk for the rest of the allocated hour—I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that I shall not do so—it would make no difference; the guillotine will come down and that will be that.
    I have been a Member for about 30 years, and one has only to lift the mutilated Order Paper to find nearly three pages that seek to explain the ins and outs that the Government have used to ensure that there is no loophole and that everything is fine-tuned to prevent representatives of Northern Ireland from being able to express their views—no matter what they are—on the vital issue of policing.
    Policing is vital to every individual. It might interest the House to know that, in the past four weeks, more of Northern Ireland's prominent citizens have been visited by the police and told that they and their families are in grave danger. The security threat is greater than ever. Therefore, that threat should be met by the House acting democratically, and the voices from that community should be given the right to have their say and vote for what they think is right for the Province.
    4.26 pm
    Sir Brian Mawhinney: I do not intend to detain the House for long. I had the honour of being a member of the Government in two Administrations who, from time to time, used the guillotine. I do not object in principle to it being used, although we never even fantasised about the sort of use and centralised control that has become normal for this Government.
    I remind the Minister that, with one or two notable exceptions, I have always broadly supported the Patten recommendations, so I am not ideologically opposed in principle to what the Government are seeking to do. However, the Government told us that they were primarily trying to do two things: they were trying to use the peace to reform the police service, and they were trying to use the Bill to persuade members of the nationalist community to join the police. My concern is that the timetable motion will not give us the time to explore either of those issues properly.
    The hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) was right when he told the House that all the evidence and all the intelligence shows that the Province is moving in the direction not of peace but of tension and—God forbid—the possibility of more violence. Given that, it is hard to understand the Government's justification for not permitting the House the time necessary to debate the amendments that address the first of the central planks—that the peace would be used as an opportunity to reform the police service.
    The second declared aim was that the Bill would enable the representatives and advocates of the nationalist and republican traditions to join the police service. That is not going to happen, because the SDLP has not signed up; Sinn Fein has certainly not signed up and, as a member of the British-Irish interparliamentary body, I heard the Taoiseach himself say in Galway a few weeks ago that he was not signed up.
    In those circumstances, the House needs time to explore the issues. On that point, I agree with the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon). Whatever

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    conclusion he or I might reach after such an exploration is not the issue in this debate. He and I agree that more time is necessary on the central, secondary plank of the Government's legislation, but that time will not be made available.
    The hon. Member for Newry and Armagh said one other thing with which I agree—that consideration of the Bill had become increasingly fractious. We have heard echoes of that already, and we are only 39 minutes into a debate on the timetable. If the timetable motion is rammed through and rigorously enforced, as I expect it will be, the fractiousness will increase. It will persist in Northern Ireland long after our debates are forgotten. That defeats the third main plank of the Secretary of State's intention for the legislation, which was to create confidence in the police force.
    The Secretary of State cannot generate confidence if everyone is feeling fractious about the process of legislation. It is because I do not believe that it is in the best interests of my homeland that that fractiousness should get in the way of the generation of confidence that, when the time comes to express an opinion on this supplemental timetable motion, I will oppose it.
    4.31 pm
    Dr. George Turner: I could not disagree more fundamentally with the conclusions of the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Sir B. Mawhinney). He made many valid points, but I shall support the timetable motion because I believe that the time has come for action and reform. It is clear to anyone who reads the Bill that it envisages major changes in the policing of Northern Ireland. I was privileged to be one of a small number of Members of Parliament who, on a recent cross-party visit to the constituency of the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon), talked to people of all views in Northern Ireland.
    It was clear to that group that, as we know from debates in the House on Northern Ireland subjects, views are strongly held in Northern Ireland and that one could never please everyone in one Bill. Certainly it was clear that the Belfast agreement, which was the grandparent of the Bill, was the subject of much compromise. Some in the House to this day complain about issues that they could not accept, but the agreement obtained majority support from the people of Northern Ireland.
    Similarly, the Patten report represented compromises. It is clear that some of the issues that Patten raised were not accepted. The Bill, which is the son—or daughter—of Patten, can be interpreted as satisfying people's requirements or not, according to where they come from. The consensus among members of the group who visited Northern Ireland a week or two ago was that it was now time for the reforms to take place. It is too early to talk about the Bill achieving something.
    My personal position is that discussing the Bill further or being tempted to go into a ping-pong game of amendments with the other place and thereby hold up the Bill would do a major disservice to the people of Northern Ireland. The Chief Constable made it clear in his discussions that what was needed was to get ahead and demonstrate that the reforms in the Bill were appropriate and could be implemented in a way that satisfied the main requirements on both sides of the argument.
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    I shall support the timetable motion because I believe that we should avoid further ping-pong debates on the detail. I have heard the main arguments time and time again both in this Chamber and in my office, on the relay system, and it is now time for practicalities. We should now consider the detail of the Lords amendments, agree with them and give the Bill a fair wind.
    4.34 pm
    Mr. Jeffrey Donaldson: I join other hon. Members who are opposing the timetable motion, because I believe that there are important issues to do with policing in Northern Ireland that we need to debate, but which we shall not have the opportunity to discuss tonight; and this may be, and probably will be, the final opportunity in the House to address these issues before we move beyond the legislation.
    I wish that we had the opportunity tonight to address issues such as the name of the new police service and the symbols. My views are well known, as are those of my colleagues: we wish to retain the title Royal Ulster Constabulary. I have yet to hear any representative of the nationalist community articulate why the present symbol—the cap badge—is unacceptable. I have yet to hear a coherent argument against the inclusion of the harp and the shamrock as two of the three symbols embodied in the cap badge of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
    I simply tell the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon), "You cannot airbrush out the identity of the two political traditions of Northern Ireland, and the idea that we can neutralise Northern Ireland bears no resemblance to reality." I have yet to hear a coherent argument from nationalists as to why they oppose the green uniform of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Perhaps they want an orange one. I do not know; they have not said. There is a need for a serious debate about the name and the symbols, and I have yet to be convinced by anyone that there is a need to change these key aspects—apart from political expediency.
    The hon. Member for Newry and Armagh also mentioned a number of murders and deaths in Northern Ireland, into which he has been calling for a public inquiry. He seeks to link the Royal Ulster Constabulary to those murders in calling for that inquiry and in raising those issues in today's debate. Then he says that he wants speedy implementation of key aspects of the Bill, such as the extension of the RUC Reserve.
    The hon. Gentleman may not be aware, but I certainly am in my constituency, that downsizing poses major problems in coping with the growing amount of criminality in Northern Ireland. He may not have the same amount of criminality in his constituency as I do in mine, but I suspect from my limited knowledge of South Armagh that he does; so how does he suggest that in speedily downsizing our police in Northern Ireland we shall be able to cope with these problems—never mind, as the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) has said, the growing security problem in Northern Ireland?
    If I had the opportunity to speak on these issues tonight, I would be urging the Secretary of State to adopt the utmost caution in proceeding to implement the extension of the full-time Royal Ulster Constabulary Reserve, and—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. The hon. Gentleman may get an opportunity to catch my eye later this evening, but at the moment he must direct his remarks to the allocation of time.
    Mr. Donaldson: I am dealing with the issue of time, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am lamenting the fact that I shall not have adequate time to deal with these issues; that is my argument. If I had time this evening to deal with the implementation of the Bill, which I believe that we should debate because there are important issues to be addressed, I would be telling the Secretary of State that he should be cautious about downsizing the police in the context of an increased security problem and growing criminality. Those issues must be properly addressed.
    The problem is greater even than that. The hon. Member for Newry and Armagh spoke about inquiries into a number of murders. Well, I tell him and the Secretary of State that there is a concern in Northern Ireland that resources are being misallocated. I use for example the murder of two police officers in Lurgan, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble): constables John Graham and David Johnston. Constable Graham's mother walked into Lurgan RUC station recently to discover that 50 detectives from an English police force were investigating the murder of Rosemary Nelson. When she asked how many detectives were involved in the investigation of the murder of her son and his colleague, she was told: two.
    I simply ask the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh and the Secretary of State whether the life of those two police constables is worth so little that so few resources are allocated to the investigation of their murder when a huge number of detectives are allocated to investigating the murder of the solicitor Rosemary Nelson. We should address such issues, because they are about policing. Are the police not entitled to have the same resources for the investigation of the murder of their colleagues as have been allocated to the investigation of the murder of Rosemary Nelson? If we had had the time, I hope that we could have considered such issues.
    Implementation of the proposals is important not just to the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh; it is important to the people whom I represent and the majority community in Northern Ireland. We do want to be left without protection, and we do not want police numbers to be decimated when republican and loyalist terrorists are running about murdering people. They have mortar bombs and are attempting to blow up police stations, so if I had had the time, I would have urged on the Secretary of State the utmost caution. He must not make the protection and the security of the people of Northern Ireland a bargaining chip to try to buy off people such as the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh on the issue of police reforms.
    Security and the protection of the people of Northern Ireland must be the Secretary of State's top priority when the Bill and the proposals that flow from it are implemented. He must not, in any circumstance, compromise the security and protection of the people of Northern Ireland. If that means retaining the RUC Reserve until the security threat has been dealt with, that should be done.
    4.42 pm
    Mr. Robert McCartney: In discussing curtailing the time available for the debate, we should consider the mischief that the Bill is intended to cure. The Bill is intended to provide a police service that is supported on all sides of the divided Province. It is vital that all sides are heard, because there are divided opinions on what sort of police service will achieve what the Bill sets out to do.
    The peripatetic hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Dr. Turner) told the House that he was in a position of great authority, because he was part of a group that made a lightning visit to Northern Ireland. Some of us have lived our entire lives in Northern Ireland, so, with the greatest respect to him, we perhaps have a little more information about what is happening there.
    As many judges of vast experience know, when parties have different opinions and contend forcefully that their views should be upheld, it is vital that one obtain their acquiescence in the decision ultimately arrived at. That means that the contending views must be heard, discussed and scrutinised. However, to suggest, as the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk did, that the time has now come for action, and that an arbitrary decision should be imposed on the people of Northern Ireland, is an extraordinary way to achieve compromise or to obtain an entire community's acquiescence in what the Government may do.
    Even though the Government may impose a guillotine and may force the Bill through with the help of their Back Benchers, we should all bear in mind the fact that, if the SDLP, the Ulster Unionists and other parties do not support the Bill, it will fail to cure the mischief for which it is intended to be a panacea. By striking out the parties through the guillotine motion and preventing them from discussing the Bill in great detail, and from airing their grievances, or at least from having an opportunity to say why they disagree with or support an amendment, the Government are defeating the Bill's purpose. People unheard will not easily agree to a measure that they believe has no prospect of bringing about a degree of social peace.
    4.45 pm
    Mr. David Wilshire: There are important issues to cover, so I shall be brief and raise one general matter.
    When we finish the hour's debate and have a Division, about five hours will be left to discuss the 100 important amendments to which the Minister referred. That is just three minutes for each one. The guillotine motion is not something that the House should be considering. It should remind the House of the length to which the Government will go to appease armed terrorists.
    The guillotine motion reflects the Government's determination to dismember a brave body of men and women. It reminds us that the timetable is being dictated by Sinn Fein-IRA. It does not arise from the peace process, which, if I understood it correctly, decided that the Bill would follow decommissioning. Not a single bullet or ounce of Semtex has been decommissioned, but the Government, dancing to the tune of the killers, are prepared to force the House to deal with 100 amendments, at three minutes an amendment.
    4.47 pm
    Mr. Peter Brooke: When the House debated the remaining stages of the Bill under a guillotine motion on 11 July, prior consideration was not shown to the Select Committee and it was not advised that that would happen. As 12 July is a fixed rather than a moveable feast, most Committee members missed the debate. The Secretary of State was good enough to assure us that that would never recur, and I am grateful to him on this occasion.
    The hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) said that the guillotine on 11 July seriously interfered with debate. The other place is developing a high conceit as the universal scrutineer of legislation that has slipped through not merely unscathed but even unconsidered by this lower but elected House. Parliament's reputation is ill served by the Government's cavalier disregard of this House's scrutiny, and both legislation and reputation are casualties of that casualness. If the hon. Gentleman's laundry list of issues that were left unconsidered in the previous debate on this Bill is right, it would be better if they left the House this time properly scrubbed and not, in the happy words of the title of the autobiography of my noble Friend Lord Peyton of Yeovil, "Without Benefit of Laundry".
    When I opened the Second Reading debate in 1993 on the National Lottery etc. Bill I had time to give way more than 30 times. It will be for historians to judge the National Lottery etc. Act 1993, but I suspect that it was better, rather than worse, for having the time to be dealt with properly and for Ministers not falling back on the familiar mantra that there was no time. Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes is a better counsel for naval warfare than it is for sensitive discourse on delicate subjects.
    4.49 pm
    Mr. Richard Shepherd: The first guillotine on the Bill when it initially came to the House was perhaps the most notorious of this Parliament. As we have heard from both sides of the House, people who are intimately involved in the process have been denied the opportunity to discuss something that is fundamental to their communities. That is a disgrace, but the Government no longer care. This is edict, not debate. We have no justification for being here other than to represent those communities that sent us here. Without that function or ability, we are nothing, and the Government are a shallow, wasted thing who impose their will on this country and on Northern Ireland.
    It being one hour after the commencement of proceedings on the supplemental allocation of time motion, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Order [11 July].
    The House divided: Ayes 272, Noes 171.

    Division No. 344]

    [4.50 pm

    AYES

    Abbott, Ms Diane

    Atherton, Ms Candy

    Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)

    Atkins, Charlotte

    Ainger, Nick

    Austin, John

    Alexander, Douglas

    Banks, Tony

    Allen, Graham

    Barnes, Harry

    Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

    Battle, John

    Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

    Bayley, Hugh

    Ashton, Joe

    Beard, Nigel

    Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

    196

    Begg, Miss Anne

    Follett, Barbara

    Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

    Foster, Rt Hon Derek

    Bennett, Andrew F

    Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

    Benton, Joe

    Galloway, George

    Best, Harold

    Gapes, Mike

    Betts, Clive

    Gardiner, Barry

    Blackman, Liz

    Gerrard, Neil

    Blears, Ms Hazel

    Gibson, Dr Ian

    Blizzard, Bob

    Gilroy, Mrs Linda

    Bradley, Keith (Withington)

    Godman, Dr Norman A

    Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

    Godsiff, Roger

    Bradshaw, Ben

    Goggins, Paul

    Brinton, Mrs Helen

    Golding, Mrs Lin

    Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

    Gordon, Mrs Eileen

    Browne, Desmond

    Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

    Buck, Ms Karen

    Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

    Burgon, Colin

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Butler, Mrs Christine

    Grocott, Bruce

    Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

    Grogan, John

    Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

    Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

    Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

    Hanson, David

    Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

    Healey, John

    Campbell-Savours, Dale

    Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

    Cann, Jamie

    Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

    Caplin, Ivor

    Hepburn, Stephen

    Caton, Martin

    Heppell, John

    Cawsey, Ian

    Hill, Keith

    Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

    Hinchliffe, David

    Chaytor, David

    Hood, Jimmy

    Clapham, Michael

    Hope, Phil

    Clark, Dr Lynda

    Hopkins, Kelvin

    (Edinburgh Pentlands)

    Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

    Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

    Howells, Dr Kim

    Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

    Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

    Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

    Hurst, Alan

    Clwyd, Ann

    Hutton, John

    Coffey, Ms Ann

    Iddon, Dr Brian

    Coleman, Iain

    Illsley, Eric

    Colman, Tony

    Ingram, Rt Hon Adam

    Connarty, Michael

    Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

    Cook, Rt Hon Robin (Livingston)

    Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

    Cooper, Yvette

    Jamieson, David

    Corston, Jean

    Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

    Cousins, Jim

    Johnson, Miss Melaine

    Cox, Tom

    (Welwyn Hatfield)

    Cranston, Ross

    Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

    Crausby, David

    Jones, Helen (Warmington N)

    Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

    Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

    Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

    Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

    Cummings, John

    Keeble, Ms Sally

    Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack

    Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

    (Copeland)

    Kelly, Ms Ruth

    Cunningham, Jim (Cov'tty S)

    Kemp, Fraser

    Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

    Kidney, David

    Dalyell, Tam

    Kilfoyle, Peter

    Darvill, Keith

    King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

    Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

    King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

    Davidson, Ian

    Kingham, Ms Tees

    Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

    Kumar, Dr Ashok

    Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

    Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

    Dawson, Hilton

    Lepper, David

    Dismore, Andrew

    Leslie, Christopher

    Dobbin, Jim

    Levitt, Tom

    Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

    Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

    Donohoe, Brian H

    Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

    Doran, Frank

    Lock, David

    Dowd, Jim

    McAvoy, Thomas

    Drew, David

    McCafferty, Ms Chris

    Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

    McDonagh, Siobhain

    Edwards, Huw

    Macdonald, Calum

    Efford, Clive

    McGuire, Mrs Anne

    Etherington, Bill

    McIsaac, Shona

    Field, Rt Hon Frank

    McKenna, Mrs Rosemary

    Fitzpatrick, Jim

    Mckinlay, Andrew

    Flint, Caroline

    McNulty, Tony

    Flynn, Paul

    MacShane, Denis

    197

    McWalter, Tony

    Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

    McWilliam, John

    Skinner, Dennis

    Mallaber, Judy

    Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

    Mendelson, Rt Hon Peter

    Smith, Angela (Basildon)

    Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

    Smith, Miss Geraldine

    Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

    (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

    Martlew, Eric

    Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

    Maxton, John

    Soley, Clive

    Meale, Alan

    Spellar, John

    Merron, Gillian

    Starkey, Dr Phyllis

    Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

    Steinberg, Gerry

    Miller, Andrew

    Stevenson, George

    Mitchell, Austin

    Stewart, David (Inverness E)

    Moffatt, Laura

    Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

    Moran, Ms Margaret

    Stinchcombe, Paul

    Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

    Stoate, Dr Howard

    Mountford, Kali

    Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

    Mudie, George

    Stringer, Graham

    Mullin, Chris

    Stuart, Ms Gisela

    Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

    Sutcliffe, Gerry

    Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

    Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann

    Naysmith, Dr Doug

    (Dewsbury)

    Norris, Dan

    Taylor, David (NW Leics)

    Olner, Bill

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Organ, Mrs Diana

    Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

    Palmer, Dr Nick

    Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

    Pearson, Ian

    Timms, Stephen

    Pendry, Tom

    Tipping, Paddy

    Pickthall, Colin

    Todd, Mark

    Pike, Peter L

    Trickett, Jon

    Plaskitt, James

    Truswell, Paul

    Pollard, Kerry

    Turner, Dennis (Wolverhton SE)

    Pond, Chris

    Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

    Pound, Stephen

    Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

    Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

    Turner, Neil (Wigan)

    Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

    Twigg, Derek (Halton)

    Purchase, Ken

    Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

    Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce

    Vis, Dr Rudi

    Quinn, Lawrie

    Walley, Ms Joan

    Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)

    Ward, Ms Claire

    Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

    Wareing, Robert N

    Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

    White, Brian

    Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

    Whitehead, Dr Alan

    Rowlands, Ted

    Wicks, Malcolm

    Roy, Frank

    Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

    Ruane, Chris

    Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

    Ruddock, Joan

    Wilson, Brian

    Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

    Winnick, David

    Ryan, Ms Joan

    Worthington, Tony

    Sarwar, Mohammad

    Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

    Savidge, Malcolm

    Wright, Tony (Cannock)

    Sedgemore, Brian

    Wyatt, Derek

    Shaw, Jonathan

    Sheerman, Barry

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

    Mr. David Clelland and

    Shipley, Ms Debra

    Mr. Greg Pope.

    NOES

    Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

    Brazier, Julian

    Allan, Richard

    Breed, Colin

    Amess, David

    Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

    Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

    Browning, Mrs Angela

    Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

    Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

    Baker, Norman

    Burnett, John

    Ballard, Jackie

    Burns, Simon

    Beggs, Roy

    Burstow, Paul

    Beith, Rt Hon A J

    Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies

    Bell, Martin (Tatton)

    (NE Fife)

    Bercow, John

    Cash, William

    Beresford, Sir Paul

    Chapman, Sir Sydney

    Blunt, Crispin

    (Chipping Barnet)

    Body, Sir Richard

    Chidgey, David

    Boswell, Tim

    Clappison, James

    Brady, Graham

    Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)

    Brake, Tom

    Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth

    Brand, Dr Peter

    (Rushcliffe)

    198

    Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

    Maclean, Rt Hon David

    Collins, Tim

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Cotter, Brian

    Madel, Sir David

    Cran, James

    Major, Rt Hon John

    Curry, Rt Hon David

    Maples, John

    Davey, Edward (Kingston)

    Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

    Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

    May, Mrs Theresa

    Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

    Moore, Michael

    Day, Stephen

    Moss, Malcolm

    Donaldson, Jeffrey

    Nicholls, Patrick

    Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

    Norman, Archie

    Duncan Smith, Iain

    Oaten, Mark

    Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    OBrien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

    Evans, Nigel

    Öpik, Lembit

    Faber, David

    Page, Richard

    Fallon, Michael

    Paisley, Rev Ian

    Fearn, Ronnie

    Pickles, Eric

    Flight, Howard

    Prior, David

    Forth, Rt Hon Eric

    Randall, John

    Fox, Dr Liam

    Redwood, Rt Hon John

    Fraser, Christopher

    Rendel, David

    Gale, Roger

    Robathan, Andrew

    Gamier, Edward

    Robertson, Laurence

    George, Andrew (St Ives)

    Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

    Gibb, Nick

    Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

    Gidley, Sandra

    Ross, William (E Londy)

    Gill, Christopher

    Rowe, Andrew (Faversham)

    Gillen, Mrs Cheryl

    Ruffley, David

    Gorrie, Donald

    Sanders, Adrian

    Green, Damian

    Sayeed, Jonathan

    Greenway, John

    Shepherd, Richard

    Grieve, Dominic

    Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns)

    Hague, Rt Hon William

    Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

    Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

    Soames, Nicholas

    Hammond, Philip

    Spelman, Mrs Caroline

    Harvey, Nick

    Spicer, Sir Michael

    Hawkins, Nick

    Spring, Richard

    Heald, Oliver

    Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

    Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

    Steen, Anthony

    Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

    Streeter, Gary

    Horam, John

    Stuneel, Andrew

    Howard, Rt Hon Michael

    Swayne, Desmond

    Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

    Syms, Robert

    Hunter, Andrew

    Tapsell, Sir Peter

    Jenkin, Bernard

    Taylor, John M (Solihull)

    Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

    Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

    Keetch, Paul

    Taylor, Sir Teddy

    Kennedy, Rt Hon Charles

    Thompson, William

    (Ross Skye & Inverness W)

    Tonge, Dr Jenny

    Key, Robert

    Townend, John

    King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

    Tredinnick, David

    Kirkbride, Miss Julie

    Trimble, Rt Hon David

    Kirkwood, Archy

    Trimble, Rt Hon David

    Laing, Mrs Eleanor

    Tyler, Paul

    Lait, Mrs Jacqui

    Walker, Cecil

    Lansley, Andrew

    Waterson, Nigel

    Leigh, Edward

    Webb, Steve

    Letwin, Oliver

    Wells, Bowen

    Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

    Whitney, Sir Raymond

    Lidington, David

    Whittingdale, John

    Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

    Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

    Livsey, Richard

    Wilkinson, John

    Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

    Willetts, David

    Llwyd, Elfyn

    Willis, Phil

    Loughton, Tim

    Wilshire, David

    Luff, Peter

    Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

    McCartney, Robert (N Down)

    Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

    McCrea, Dr William

    Yeo, Tim

    MacGregor, Rt Hon John

    Young, Rt Hon Sir George

    McIntosh, Miss Anne

    Tellers for the Noes:

    MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

    Mr. Keith Simpson and

    Mr.James Gray

    Question accordingly agreed to.
    Resolved,
    That the Order of the House [11th July] shall be supplemented as follows:—

    Lords Amendments
    1.—(1) Proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments to the Bill shall be completed at today's sitting.
    (2) If not previously concluded, they shall be brought to a conclusion at Ten o'clock.
    2.—(1) This paragraph applies for the purpose of bringing proceedings on the Bill to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 1.
    (2) The Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the chair and not yet decided.
    (3) If that Question is for the amendment of a Lords Amendment, the Speaker shall then put forthwith—

    (a) a single Question on any further amendments of the Lords Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown, and

    (b) the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House agrees or disagrees with the Lords in the Amendment or (as the case may be) in the Amendment as amended.

    (4) The Speaker shall then put forthwith—

    (a) a single Question on any amendments moved by a Minister of the Crown to a Lords Amendment, and

    (b) the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown that this House agrees or disagrees with the Lords in the Amendment or (as the case may be) in the Amendment as amended.

    (5) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House disagrees with the Lords in a Lords Amendment.
    (6) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question, That this House agrees with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Amendments.
    (7) As soon as the House has agreed or disagreed with the Lords in any of their Amendments, or disposed of an amendment relevant to a Lords Amendment which has been disagreed to, the Speaker shall put forthwith a single Question on any amendments moved by a Minister of the Crown relevant to the Lords Amendment.

    Subsequent stages
    3.—(1) The Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the consideration forthwith of any further Message from the Lords on the Bill.
    (2) The proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.
    4.—(1) This paragraph applies for the purpose of bringing proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 3.
    (2) The Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the chair and not yet decided.
    (3) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown which is related to the Question already proposed from the chair.
    (4) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown on or relevant to any of the remaining items in the Lords Message.
    (5) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question, That this House agrees with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Proposals.

    Reasons Committee
    5. The Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the appointment, nomination and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons and the appointment of its chairman.
    6.—(1) The Committee shall report before the conclusion of the sitting at which it is appointed.
    (2) Proceedings in the Committee shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion 30 minutes after their commencement.
    (3) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with sub-paragraph (2), the chairman shall—

    (a) first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the chair and not yet been decided, and

    (b) then put forthwith successively Questions on Motions which may be made by a Minister of the Crown for assigning a Reason for disagreeing with the Lords in any of their Amendments.

    (4) The proceedings of the Committee shall be reported without any further Question being put.

    Miscellaneous
    7. The following paragraphs apply to—

    (a) proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments to the Bill.

    (b) proceedings on any further Message from the Lords on the Bill, and

    (c) proceedings on the appointment, nomination and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons (and the appointment of its chairman) and the report of such a Committee.

    8. Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to the proceedings.
    9. The proceedings shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
    10. No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, the proceedings shall be made except by a Minister of the Crown; and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
    11.—(1) If on a day on which any of the proceedings to which paragraph 7 applies take place a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 24 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) would stand over to Seven o'clock—

    (a) that Motion stands over until the conclusion of any of the proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion at or before that time, and

    (b) the bringing to a conclusion of any of the proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion after that time shall be postponed for a period of time equal to the duration of the proceedings on that Motion.

    (2) If a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 24 stands over from an earlier day to such a day, the bringing to a conclusion of the proceedings on that day is postponed for a period of time equal to the duration of the proceedings on that Motion.
    12. If the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before the expiry of the period at the end of which any of the proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion under this order, no notice shall be required of a Motion made at the next sitting by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.

  Orders of the Day
    Police (Northern Ireland) Bill
    Lords amendments considered.
    Police (Northern Ireland) Bill
      Clause 3

        GENERAL FUNCTIONS OF THE BOARD
        Lords amendment: No. 1, in page 2, line 35, after ("police") insert
        ("and of district policing partnerships")
        5.4 pm
        The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Peter Mandelson): 1 beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
        Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 2, 95, 96, 114 and 119.
        Mr. Mandelson: I am delighted to speak first in the debate on this group of amendments on the Policing Board, which is at the heart of the landmark new beginning that we are making in policing in Northern Ireland. For the first time in Northern Ireland's history, both traditions and every party can take an equal share in the responsibility for and the ownership of policing. As a result, policing will be more effective and will be representative of the community as a whole, with equal recruitment of Protestants and Catholics, which is a truly radical departure.
        Patten recommended that an entirely new Policing Board, with the essential element of a majority elected membership, should be created to replace the present Police Authority for Northern Ireland. The Government are implementing the Patten recommendations on composition and the board's powers. Indeed, in relation to the board's best value role, the Government have decided to go beyond Patten and strengthen its powers even more. The board will offer greater accountability and transparency in its role than any comparable police body in the UK, the Irish Republic, Europe or North America.
        I have taken steps to set up the board in shadow form by January. The deadline for applications for independent members ïs tomorrow, and I have notified the four main parties in the Executive that I wish to have the nominations for political members of the board by early December. I want a strong, representative board which, in its initial shadow form, will put crucial jigsaw pieces in place during the creation of the new police service.
        Patten made clear in recommendation 113 that all community leaders, including political party leaders and local councillors, should encourage members of their side of the community to join the police. I wish to reiterate that recommendation in relation to the board, which should be clear enough encouragement. However, in case it is not, I pray in aid the Good Friday agreement which, in the section on policing and justice, stated that the police
        arrangements should be unambiguously accepted and actively supported by the entire community.
        If political parties take up their seats, they will be in a position to influence the development of the board and the new service from the outset of their work. The lead
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        that they would be giving would contribute powerfully to the new beginning to policing that the whole community deserves and which the Good Friday agreement calls for.
        The Ulster Unionist party argued in Committee that the board should be obliged to assess both public satisfaction with district policing partnerships and the effectiveness of those partnerships. Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 will do that. Amendments Nos. 95 and 96 make related changes to clause 55, which deals with the board's obligations to report on its assessments of satisfaction and effectiveness. Amendment No. 114 commences on Royal Assent the provisions enabling the shadow Policing Board to be appointed. Given that that process is under way, the Government think it sensible to amend the Bill in that way, rather than make a separate commencement order shortly after Royal Assent.
        The House amended paragraph 4(5) of schedule 1 to make provision for a member of a direct rule board—which would be constituted during a period of direct rule from Westminster—to be removed if, before his appointment, he had failed to disclose to the Secretary of State a conviction, or if he were convicted of a criminal offence committed after the date of his appointment. We wished to make a similar amendment to the removal provision for a board established during devolution, and amendment No. 119 does that. On that basis, I commend the amendments to the House.
        Mr. William Thompson: Lords amendment No. 119, to which the Secretary of State has just referred, inserts two conditions, the first of which is:
        in the case of an independent member, he failed, before his appointment, to make to the Secretary of State full disclosure of a conviction of his for a criminal offence in Northern Ireland or elsewhere;
        and the second is:
        he has been convicted of a criminal offence in Northern Ireland or elsewhere committed after the date of his appointment.
        In that situation, the Secretary of State may remove that member.
        The Ulster Unionists have always argued that there should be no distinction between political and independent members, and that the rules relating to one should refer equally to the other.
        The amendment deals only with an independent member, not with a political member. We can see no reason why the same rule should not apply to both. If a political member has committed a criminal offence which he has not acknowledged, or if he commits a criminal offence after the date of his appointment, he should be treated in exactly the same way as an independent member. That is why we tabled amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 119, which seeks to leave out "an independent" and insert "a". The Lords amendment will then apply to all members of the Policing Board, rather than merely to independent members.
        Mr. Lembit Öpik: With regard to amendments Nos. 1 and 2, obviously it is welcome that the board must now explicitly assess the effectiveness of the district policing partnerships and report back in the annual report. Will the Minister confirm that the assumption therefore is that the board has a strategic

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        responsibility to work with the DPPs to ensure their effectiveness, and will he outline the most important mechanisms in that relationship?
        Mr. Mandelson: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the Policing Board has a strategic responsibility to work with the DPPs, and codes guiding their membership and operation will be issued after consultation in due course. I have in mind a collaborative arrangement between the two, but however much the Policing Board might want to encourage, guide, supervise and engage in a constructive dialogue and relationship with the DPPs, its primary responsibility is to ensure that the DPPs are authentic voices of the local community.
        The DPPs' view is the board's overriding responsibility, as is their dedication to effective policing in their districts, and on that basis, it should respect the operational independence of the police locally, and above all, do whatever it can and needs do to enable the police to do their job properly. That, at the end of the day, is what the police service is there to do—to police, not simply to engage in an on-running democratic dialogue with supervisory bodies.
        Mr. Öpik: I do not want to labour the point, but I am slightly concerned that the implication of the change, which I welcome, is that the board is now in some way strategically connected to the performance of the DPPs. I still have a slight concern that if there is non-co-operation between the DPPs and the board, the board might have to report poor performance, while not necessarily having the tools to improve that performance. Does the Minister feel that there is something to be discussed there?
        Mr. Mandelson: The board will have, if not powers, extremely strong influence. Of course, residual powers lie with the Secretary of State. I shall want to ensure that the district policing partnerships operate in the way envisaged in the Bill and reflect what Parliament intended when it agreed to the provisions.
        5.15 pm
        I appreciate the point made by the hon. Member for West Tyrone (Mr. Thompson). We expect and assume that any member of the Policing Board, whether independent or political, will carry the same commitment to democratic, peaceful and non-violent practices and behaviour, as well to effective policing, whatever past or baggage that person takes to the board. The past should be the past, and that should apply to every member of the board, whether independent or political.
        It is right to distinguish between independent and political members. Political members are appointed because of their democratic mandate. They derive their mandate, authority and membership of the board from direct election by the public, as do Ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive. The Good Friday agreement and the Patten report are about inclusiveness and the involvement of democratically elected politicians. I want board members to assume responsibility and to demonstrate their commitment to the work of the board
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        and to the effectiveness of the police. If the public, with knowledge of their past, have seen fit to elect them, it is not for me to override their appointment.
        Mr. Robert McCartney: Is the Minister making a value jud4gment? Is he suggesting that an independent board member who has a criminal record that has been concealed or who has committed a crime after his appointment is worse or more unsuitable than somebody who has a political endorsement but carries the same baggage and vulnerabilities?
        Mr. Mandelson: I appreciate the hon. and learned Gentleman's point and I have some sympathy with his view, but there is a difference. Elected members have been subject to scrutiny by the electorate, from whom they also receive their endorsement and mandate. As I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman knows, the Bill contains strong removal provisions. For example, paragraph 9(1)(c) of schedule 1 ensures that the Secretary of State can take action if the political member is convicted after appointment or
        is not committed to non-violence and exclusively peaceful and democratic means.
        Mr. Peter Robinson: Those chosen are elected with a mandate to an elected body. They are not elected to be part of the running of the police service. Although people may be brought into the one body from different directions, does not subjecting them to different standards within that body involve a danger? The Secretary of State's argument suggests that the late Bobby Sands, while he was in prison having been found guilty of an act of terrorism, was an elected representative, and would therefore have been eligible for membership of the Policing Board.
        Mr. Mandelson: The electorate vote for people in the knowledge of where they come from, what they bring from the past and what baggage they carry. The hon. Gentleman and I have views about baggage and about what might and might not be appropriate to bring to office. He says that people are elected to become members of a legislature or a Government but not to be involved in the oversight of policing, but I do not see a profound difference in principle between being a member of a Government who have all sorts of responsibilities, including those for policing and security, and being a member of a Policing Board.
        The Patten commission recommended, the Government have accepted and the Bill makes provision for, a mix of elected members—politicians and representatives of political parties—and independents who do not come from a party political background. Given that the basis of that arrangement is that mix in the composition of the Policing Board, it is not unreasonable for us to respect the will of the voters and the mandate that they give to politicians, rather than to seek to override them. However, if a member, having been appointed to the Policing Board, engaged in criminal activities and was convicted after being prosecuted, or if it emerged that he was not committed to genuinely peaceful and democratic means, that would be a different matter.
        Rev. Ian Paisley: Recently, a member of Sinn Fein who is a Member of the Legislative

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        Assembly said that if Sinn Fein did not get its way, it would go back to what it did best—bombing. If that person's name came before the right hon. Gentleman, would it be acceptable? How would that person's treatment compare with that of an independent member, who may have violated the law in the past, but who had not in recent years said that he would return to such practices? It is all very well for the Secretary of State to say, "If they have made the promise." What would happen if such people, having made that promise, said that they would return to those practices? Would they be discriminated against—rightly so, in my opinion? They might be told, "No, you have not given us a proper undertaking."
        Mr. Mandelson: I cannot provide contingency arrangements for every piece of rhetoric and hyperbole that every member of a political party—Sinn Fein or otherwise—engages in. Heaven knows, if I severed contact with everyone in Northern Ireland who engaged in such rhetoric and hyperbole, I would be left bonding with very few people. On the other hand, if we put aside the rhetoric and hyperbole and the veiled—or not so veiled—threats, and it emerged that a member of the Policing Board was clearly associating himself with anything other than peaceful and democratic means, I would take a very different view.
        Dr. Nick Palmer: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the essence of the Good Friday agreement is the recognition that if we attempted to reach agreement exclusively with people who have always been committed to a democratic road, we would not be able to address the problem? Against that background, it would be eccentric to exclude from the boards people who have moved away from violence and towards democracy.
        Mr. Mandelson: My hon. Friend makes a good point. The whole purpose of the Good Friday agreement and the changes that we are making is to make politics work and to persuade those who were formerly associated with violence to turn away from it and to commit themselves to genuinely peaceful and democratic means. If they are to be committed to those means, there must be institutions, channels and vehicles to enable them to demonstrate that commitment. One cannot insist that they should demonstrate their commitment to genuinely peaceful and democratic means and then erect all sorts of hurdles to prevent them from getting involved in those institutions or channelling their energies in that direction. That would make no sense at all.
        Mr. David Trimble: My hon. Friend the Member for West Tyrone (Mr. Thompson) made the obvious point that all members of the Policing Board should be treated according to the same rules. However, through the Bill, the Secretary of State is giving, as it were, a favoured position to political appointees if they fail to disclose past criminal convictions. Will he give us some reassurance on that point? Will he himself make inquiries about the criminal convictions of all those who are nominated as political members, and not rely purely on their disclosure of past criminal offences?
        Mr. Mandelson: The right hon. Gentleman fails to understand the distinction that I am making, and its
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        practical implications. Independent members of the Policing Board must disclose criminal records as part of the appointments process. The application form requires them to do so. It is therefore entirely logical to provide a means of removal if there is no disclosure. That is the offence that has been created, and the action that flows from it is obvious and appropriate.
        Those who are elected, on the other hand, and who are put forward to the policing board on behalf of their parties, are not subject to the application and appointment processes in the same way. Therefore the rules are different: they do not apply on the same basis.
        I merely say that one of the whole points of the Good Friday agreement was to provide for political representatives to be involved in those bodies, and to assume responsibility. I want political representatives of all the parties, from both positions, to assume responsibility for policing. For too long, too many people have removed themselves from that—in some cases for understandable political or historical reasons. I will not go into them now, because we have debated them endlessly in the past.
        The point now is that, with the new beginning that we are making in policing and under the new political dispensation that we are creating in Northern Ireland, we want everyone to take an equal share of responsibility for policing—and that means taking an equal share of the ownership of the police service. That is what I want.
        Mr. John Bercow: What the Secretary of State said to the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) is entirely understandable, but may I posit to him a slightly different scenario? If an individual guilty of precisely the type of rhetoric and hyperbole to which he referred were, in his opinion, unlikely to carry out the threat, but if that individual's words—as a result of inadvertence or advertence—were likely to have the effect of encouraging others to do so, would that, in the Secretary of State's opinion, disqualify the individual concerned from board service?
        Mr. Mandelson: It would be very difficult for a member of the Policing Board who was exhorting others to resort to violent means to carry conviction as such a member. There would be a fundamental contradiction between that person's language and actions, and his membership of the board. I think that the whole community would question the bona fides of the member, and I think the action that would follow would be fairly obvious.
        Dr. William McCrea: Will the Secretary of State give way?
        Mr. Mandelson: I will, for the very last time.
        Dr. McCrea: I thank the Secretary of State.

        Shortly before Remembrance Sunday this year, a bomb was intercepted on its way—or so it is believed—to a Royal Ulster Constabulary police station. It was intended to blow it up: it was a barrack-buster. The Sinn Fein Member for the area would not condemn the intended attack. Is the Secretary of State going to tell us that that person would be an appropriate member of a policing

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        board—a person who would not condemn the fact that a bomb was on its way to blow up a police station, and the police personnel inside?
        Mr. Mandelson: I think that if such circumstances arose, a real inconsistency would be revealed between that person's statements and his or her continued membership of the policing board. Such would be the contradiction that I think it would make the person's continued membership of the board impossible—in moral terms, if in no other terms.
        The amendments primarily address the relationship between the Policing Board and the district policing partnerships. We have been talking mainly about the Policing Board, but I think that many of the sentiments expressed today apply equally to the partnerships: what goes for one goes for the rest. On that basis, I commend the amendments.
        Lords amendment agreed to.
        Lords amendment No. 2 agreed to.

      Clause 4

        POLICE SUPPORT STAFF
        Lords amendment: No. 3, in page 3, line 16, leave out ("numbers and")
        5.30 pm
        The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Adam Ingram): I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
        Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 4 to 13, Lords amendment No. 26 and amendment (a) thereto, and Lords amendments Nos. 58, 63, 66, 68, 97, 109 to 112, 116 to 118, 120 to 122, 124, 125, 128 to 137 and 139.
        Mr. Ingram: The vast majority of the amendments are minor, drafting and technical. Many are concerned with clearing up stray references to the name of the police as a result of changes in this place. Others remove redundant wording, ensure consistency of numerical cross-referencing and effect other consequential changes. Amendments Nos. 110 and 111 to clause 72 give effect to the recommendations of the Lords Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation.
        Some noteworthy amendments are included in the group. Amendment No. 26 provides for the board to assess the training and education needs of police officers and support staff, and to give particulars of how those needs are to be met. The Government have been convinced by arguments that the significance of the issue merits its inclusion in primary legislation.
        Amendments Nos. 8 to 11 make changes to clause 12, requiring the board, rather than the Chief Constable, to keep accounts in respect of the police funds. The Government were persuaded that the amendments would help to make it clear that the Chief Constable is exercising a delegated function and that the money and the accounts "belong" to the board. Therefore, the Chief Constable
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        will be the accounting officer for the police grant, as recommended by Patten, but the board will hold him to account for his use of resources.
        I commend the amendments to the House. I wait to hear what my hon. Friends have to say on their amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 26. I hope that I will be able to persuade them of the merits of our approach, rather than theirs.
        Mr. Öpik: It is good to see amendment No. 124, which, as the Minister has said or implied, fulfils a commitment to the Commons about the Oversight Commissioner and his or her removal. We thought that that was important at the time.
        From what the Minister said and from our reading of amendment No. 26, the board is now explicitly responsible for having, effectively, a training and education plan for the police. I hope that the Minister can confirm that. Unless he intervenes to say otherwise, I assume that that is the correct understanding. I see him nodding. Again, I am pleased, not least because the education and training plan is important in establishing the culture that we have debated many times in the House. It is a key element—the attitudinal shift to ensure that we have the police board that we want.
        I welcome amendments Nos. 8 to 11. They make it clear that the Chief Constable is exercising a delegated function and that the money and accounts belong to the board. The amendments show that the Chief Constable's financial accountability is to the board and that its oversight of the accounts is unconstrained. It seems that the amendments help to secure the transparency that we called for the last time we debated the powers of the board in the Chamber.
        The Government are, I hope, reassuring us that the board will be able to exercise close scrutiny of the Chief Constable's use of resources. If that is the case, in effect, the board will need a strong internal audit department, although I imagine that the Government are leaving that to the board to set up.
        Amendment No. 110 relates to the fact that a draft of the statutory rules on the code of ethics and orders relating to recruitment should be laid before Parliament, as is done with statutory instruments relating to Northern Ireland. Does the Minister envisage that, as a matter of course, those rules would be debated, or do the Government intend to lay them before the House without debate? The implication of my question is that they should be debated as a matter of course.
        Mr. Kevin McNamara: I draw the attention of the House to amendment (a), in the name of my hon. Friends and myself. I hope that the House will divide on it if my right hon. Friend cannot accept it.
        Lords amendment No. 26 would make a welcome change to clause 26 on the policing plan. It seeks to ensure that the plan shall
        contain an assessment of the requirements for educating and training police officers and members of the police support staff.
        My amendment would then insert the phrase
        particularly with regard to human rights.

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        My right hon. Friend will recall that throughout the Bill's passage, in this House and in another place, the question of human rights has been very much to the fore, because the Patten report said
        training was one of the keys to instilling a human rights-based approach into both new recruits and experienced police personnel.
        It went on to say that
        fundamental principles and standards of human rights and the practical implications for policing
        were to be specially recommended.
        Given the background to the situation, the pressures in the House and the statements that have been made by Ministers, one would think that such recommendations would have been driven home to the Royal Ulster Constabulary. However, when 1 put down a parliamentary question asking my right hon. Friend about the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission's assessment of police training programmes under the Human Rights Act 1998, he referred me to the Human Rights Commissioner, who sent me his assessment. My hon. Friend the Minister of State also received a copy so that he could place it in the Library. The result of the commission's inquiry was a surprising, disappointing and disturbing document.
        The commission pointed out that it was almost two years after the passing of the Human Rights Act—April 2000—that the RUC started providing courses. They were all one-day courses. The report states:
        The majority of RUC personnel participated in a one-day training course given by internal RUC trainers.
        No external element was involved with the majority of the RUC personnel. It went on to say that strategic command officers—who occupy quite a high level in the service—received training but, again, only for one day. Special branch also received training for one day only. It is not my intention to comment on everything in the report, but the commission makes some interesting points.
        Paragraph 10 says:
        The Human Rights Act training programme was not piloted with a sample of the audience at which it was aimed. To do so would have been normal practice in the provision of new large programmes of this nature.
        Under the heading "Evaluation and Monitoring", the report says:
        The Commission drew the RUC's attention to the need for internal valuation and independent external evaluation of the training … No evidence has been provided of any formal evaluation system of the course, either externally or internally.
        On lay outside involvement, the commission doubts whether the training contract was put out to tender. It says:
        The majority of participants received their training from RUC trainers, with only the Strategic Command receiving training from lay trainers or lecturers.
        The report went on to make observations on the training, and included several important points. A number of talks were given, of which it said:
        Of the talks, three were reasonably good … One speaker in particular adopted a fairly searching and critical approach, suggesting that a variety of RUC practices would need to be re-examined in the light of the Human Rights Act's commencement.
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        However, the report goes on to say:
        One speaker's talk was not so good—it tended towards saying that some people get over-excited by human rights and that there are human rights activists who give the subject a bad name.
        Mr. Trimble: Quite right.
        Mr. McNamara: I understand the right hon. Gentleman saying that, given his reputation on human rights.
        Is this really what one would want in a training exercise? The terrible thing was that, according to the report:
        Several officers nodded in agreement with the points made in this speech, but their views were not brought out into the open and discussed.
        They were not challenged, either, although the report does not say that.
        On special branch training, the report said:
        The training for Special Branch was to last a full day but the trainer dropped a number of items from the training programme, including an exercise where the police officers being trained would discuss the issues arising from the Human Rights Act 1998 likely to affect their work.
        In the most contentious branch of the service, therefore, the most important element of the training programme—lasting only one day—was dropped from the curriculum.
        The report goes on to say, at paragraph 20:
        It is the Commission's view that on this occasion the tutor gave the training very superficial treatment.
        This relates to the most fundamental questions being discussed: human rights, the Good Friday agreement, the whole atmosphere of the Patten report, special branch and special training—yet the trainer gave the training very superficial treatment. The report goes on:
        He constantly undermined the reasons why he was giving the training and sped through it. He said to his audience that he did not want to talk about their work, and that they really did not need the training. His remarks included "I'm teaching my granny to suck eggs here", "We all know the circumstances when you do use handcuffs" (when in fact there were different views on when you do use handcuffs) and "It's as clear as mud".
        Those comments were made by a tutor to special branch, the most controversial part of the RUC, which has a reputation for being less than accurate in its observance of the European convention on human rights.
        Paragraph 22 of the report states:
        The tutor's knowledge about human rights appeared to be weak … He had a complete inability to field questions about the Act, e. g. the proportionate level of force appropriate to deal with a person on drugs who has a knife and is involved in a stand-off with police.
        Paragraph 23 states:
        The trainer demonstrated a poor attitude to t0he training. in that he reinforced a negative view of the Act expressed by some participants at the start of the training. The trainer made discriminatory comments during the session (whilst the group did not join in, no-one challenged him).
        Not one member of special branch challenged the discriminatory nature of the observations that the trainer made. The paragraph—let us remember that this is a

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        report by the Human Rights Commission on a course being given to special branch on the implementation of the Human Rights Act—continues:
        He also referred to old people as "custard-dribbling old fools" and there were constant derogatory comments about people suing the RUC as "toe-rags" and the "£600 per hour".
        5.45 pm
        Paragraph 24 of the report continues:
        Unexpected interventions were made by the trainer in that he offered suggestions as to how to get around several of the Act's requirements.
        That is pretty good, is it not? What was the evaluation of the Human Rights Commission? It says:
        The training appeared to be done in a vacuum. There was a failure to address the recommendations of "A New Beginning: Policing in Northern Ireland 1999".
        On the standard of training, the report said:
        The serious flaws in the delivery of the training by the one internal RUC trainer and one of the external speakers indicate that there were significant weaknesses in the training programme. The commission is therefore not confident that the training course was adequately delivered.
        On content, the commission found that
        the focus of the human rights training was very narrow and legalistic.
        The commission considered
        the management of the human rights training to have been flawed in several key ways.
        Mr. Trimble: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
        Mr. McNamara: When I have finished my comments, I will certainly give way.
        The commission continued:
        The lack of piloting, failure to carry out formal internal or external evaluations and the lack of any obvious monitoring of the integration of human rights principles into practice seriously undermined the effectiveness of the training programme. In addition, management's failure to identify the internal trainer's weaknesses and the continued use of the inappropriate external speaker indicates a flawed process for the delivery of training on such a significant topic as human rights.
        On international standards, which will be a later reference, the commission said:
        At the meeting on 11 August 1999, the Chief Constable assured the Commission that the RUC were benchmarking its progress in relation to international standards through its relationship with both the Garda Siochana and the Council of Europe. The Commission found little evidence of training in international standards other than those in the ECHR or of benchmarking of progress through training to date.
        The report concludes:
        All in all the Commission concludes that, while the RUC has shown a willingness, even an enthusiasm, to engage with the Commission, they have been less ready to implement the Commission's recommendations or to treat the Commission's views with the seriousness they deserve. The Commission acknowledges that the RUC have done a lot of work to prepare for the commencement of the Human Rights Act, but we are not convinced that this work has always been of the appropriate nature or standard.
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        If a school had an Ofsted report of that nature, it would be put under special measures. That is the position of that—
        Mr. Trimble rose—
        Mr. McNamara: I will give way in a moment. That is the effect of that very damning document.
        Mr. Trimble: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has quoted at considerable length from a report produced by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. He has been giving us the views and the evaluations of the commission and no doubt regards its opinions as particularly authoritative. A large number of people in Northern Ireland, myself included, think that that commission has no credibility in view of the discriminatory process by which it was formed and of quite a few of the persons on it. The commission's evaluations will lack credibility in view of the record of many of its members.
        Mr. McNamara: One has always wondered about the soundness of the right hon. Gentleman in some of his comments about the Human Rights Commission—and those of some of his colleagues. The commission came straight out of the Good Friday agreement. His party took the same attitude to the former Human Rights Commission, which was established under the Hillsborough agreement. The matter also reflects strongly on my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Minister of State. I assume that they will speak strongly in favour of the commission and its members, whom they appointed. There were some applicants who would have made excellent members, but they did not quite make it on to the commission. I realise why Unionists might be disappointed about that. However, I understand that there is a Unionist majority on the HRC.
        Mr. Seamus Mallon: May I make it clear that the statement made by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) does not represent the views of the community throughout Northern Ireland? Many people—myself included—have great admiration for the HRC and the work it has carried out.
        In relation to paragraph 23 of the HRC report, will the hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) tell us whether it is possible to identify the tutor—if I should even use that word to describe him—who described old people as "custard-dribbling old fools", so that the matter can be referred to the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and so that the tutor is no longer employed anywhere within the jurisdiction of Northern Ireland? I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees that someone who describes older people in that way does not deserve to hold such a position.
        Mr. McNamara: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his stalwart support of the HRC. In the report, that particular tutor was referred to as a trainer and I understand that he was a member of the RUC. If that is not correct, I apologise in advance.
        The document offers a serious indictment of RUC human rights training. That training is narrow, legalistic and critical of the Human Rights Act 1998; it sneers at people who, with great courage and at personal risk,

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        stood up for the human rights of members of all the communities in Northern Ireland and who were stalwart in their defence of the RUC when it impartially upheld the rule of law. Such people were criticised and undermined in the training course that the RUC had adopted to bring new ideas—a new dimension—to the whole ethos of policing in Northern Ireland.
        Mr. Robert McCartney: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, not only in Northern Ireland but on the mainland, many people—including members of the judiciary—have serious reservations about human rights legislation? Those reservations are not confined to the RUC. Although there are fundamental differences between the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) and myself, I share his view that a large majority of people in Northern Ireland have great reservations about the competence, partiality and fairness of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission.
        Mr. McNamara: I should have been very surprised indeed if the hon. and learned Gentleman had not made that comment; he would certainly not have let himself be outgunned by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble).
        As my right hon. Friend the Minister of State will express his confidence in the HRC when he winds up the debate, I point out that my amendment is driven by the report of the commission. I trust that my right hon. Friend will be able to accept the amendment.
        Mr. Eddie McGrady: Following the startling revelations made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), it is even more important that we accept his amendment to Lords amendment No. 26. We should have liked to pursue in some detail the way in which the performance of police officers could be appraised, but unfortunately our amendment (b) was not selected.

        I remind the Minister of State that in Committee the Government made available the draft regulations setting out the minimum requirements for the Policing Board's policing plan—training, education and the development of a strategy for the police that would, I sincerely hope, include the human rights appreciation and training to which my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North alluded. It is noticeable, however, that the regulations did not deal with arrangements for the appraisal of the performance of police officers or of civilian support staff. Does the Minister agree that that is most illogical? Training, tutoring and the appraisal of its effectiveness must surely go hand in hand.
        I hope that the training, education and development strategy will set out how officers are to be trained. That must require an appraisal programme to examine whether the goals and objectives of the training are adequate and how they have been put into practice. Surely that is a natural step.
        My hon. Friend has amply illustrated the fact that the police do not need to "toughen up" their appraisal system; if anything, they need to introduce one-starting from scratch. There is a conflict of interest in any society that is self-policing; the police cannot police the police. My hon. Friend clearly demonstrated that the police cannot appraise and reform themselves. The Patten report bore that out.
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        It found substantial defects in the appraisal system that was being applied by the Chief Constable at the time. In particular, the system was not used when promotions were being considered; there was no proper appraisal of performance. Patten found that the systems of internal accountability needed substantial improvement.
        It would thus make sense to ensure that the new board has a new beginning, and draws up an appraisal strategy. Will Ministers offer the House clarification? Will the regulations require the annual policing plan to include details of arrangements for the appraisal of police officers? If they do not, no assessment can be made of the training and development of officers. Surely, the lack of appraisal of the performance of their duties is not good management practice. Will the Minister of State take that point on board and give us an undertaking that an appraisal strategy requirement will be written into the regulations?
        Dr. Norman A. Godman: I have some brief comments in support of the amendments proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara). I shall touch on the HRC report to which he referred.
        As one who, many years ago, taught on a police training course that led to the award of the Scottish higher national certificate in police studies—some of my former students became senior officers in the Lothian and Borders police force—I found the contents of the report deeply disquieting, despite the comments of the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) on the commission and some of its members. If a trainer, teacher or tutor in most higher education establishments spoke to students in the same way as that tutor spoke to RUC members, he or she would be subject to—at the least—a severe reprimand.
        We are moving into new fields of human rights training. Northern Ireland is ahead of the rest of the United Kingdom in establishing the Human Rights Commission and acknowledging the need for human rights training for police officers and others. I look forward to similar developments in Scotland, but mistakes will be made in such training courses. Whatever the right hon. Member for Upper Bann might think about the report's authors, if what it says about the trainers is true, how can the students take such training seriously?
        6 pm
        In fairness to the report's authors, I should point out that, as the right hon. Member for Upper Bann knows, they acknowledge in their concluding remarks that although
        the RUC have shown a willingness, even an enthusiasm, to engage with the Commission, they have been less ready to implement the Commission's recommendations.
        The authors go on to state:
        The Commission acknowledges that the RUC have done a lot of work to prepare for the commencement of the Human Rights Act …
        It is not easy for police officers anywhere to learn those skills, but it is part and parcel of their duties to be familiar with developments in human rights training.
        I hope that 1 can catch the Minister's attention because I want to ask him a question. What comparable evidence has his Department about the human rights training of

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        police officers elsewhere in the United Kingdom, Europe and other English-speaking countries? The human rights training of trainers should be considered first and the very best methods, especially in teaching, should be adopted.
        On the basis of my experience—albeit dated—I have to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North that police officers, especially the junior ranks, are not the easiest students to teach. They are not very docile, and if they challenge their trainers they do not miss them and hit the wall. That is how things should be when training junior, middle-ranking and senior police officers, but the trainers must be highly competent in their subjects or they should not teach them. What evidence has the Minister about such training elsewhere? What training do the trainers receive before they stand in front of RUC officers? We owe it to the officers to give them the very best trainers.
        As an ex-teacher who years ago used to talk about human rights in Edinburgh, I have to say that a day-long course in human rights training is simply not good enough. Although the right hon. Member for Upper Bann might have some reservations about the report's authors, its comments on the training, the trainers, the programme and so on are disturbing. Human rights training must be re-evaluated, and police officers need more than they have been given until now; they deserve better. We are performing a disservice to police officers by offering them such scanty, sparse training in the important matter of human rights. Much more needs to be done for the officers and the communities that they seek to serve.
        Rev. Martin Smyth: I appreciate the opportunity to make some comments following the speeches of Government Members. I welcome the more balanced position of the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (Dr. Godman), and I take on board his reference to the fact that he trained some folk for the SHNC. The RUC possibly has many more academic people than any other comparable police force in the United Kingdom. For years, the RUC has worked with external education authorities to train its members in different aspects. As part of a parliamentary police scheme, I spent six days working specifically with the RUC and understand some of the issues that have been raised.
        I want to consider specifically the remarks of the hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara). Unless I misheard him completely, there was a contradiction in one of his statements. He said that no one reacted, but shortly afterwards he said that one person objected. We seem to be cherry picking from a report, and I thank the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde for his more balanced position and the tribute that he paid to what is happening.
        Long before the Human Rights Commission was set up, the RUC consistently brought in people from outside to try to share with new recruits and older hands the different feelings in the community so that they would understand the issues that they had to face.
        Mr. McNamara: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
        Rev. Martin Smyth: I shall give way when I have finished making the point.
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        It is unfair to use such an opportunity to deal with one aspect of policing—human rights—without bearing in mind that police officers have human rights, too. I should have been more encouraged if a Labour Member had spoken of the pressures under which the RUC works. At the weekend, I asked a young man whether he was working and he said, "I've just finished two weeks' leave—TOIL: time off in lieu." The force cannot pay its men and women for the overtime that it demands of them, and the RUC's morale has been affected as a result. The rights of the police, as well as those of others, should be given a little more consideration in the House.
        Mr. McNamara rose—
        Dr. Godman rose—
        Rev. Martin Smyth: I shall first give way to the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde.
        Dr. Godman: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for showing me his usual courtesy. I sometimes think that that costs me votes back home, but that is another story. I was not paying tribute to the training that the officers have undergone, but—perhaps in Delphic terms—severely criticising its sparsity and what appears to be the incompetence, to put it mildly, of some of the trainers.
        Rev. Martin Smyth: I appreciate that if we had been considering a report on Ofsted, many right hon. and hon. Members would have criticised Ofsted, but the whole training system is being challenged because one person has been criticised.
        Mr. McNamara: The sentence to which I referred states:
        Only one person drew attention to the international documents other than the Convention.
        None of the other statements was challenged by those who were present. I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman misheard me.
        Rev. Martin Smyth: I appreciate that clarification, but we must be balanced in presenting selective comments from any report.
        Mr. Tony McWalter: I had not intended to speak in this debate, but there seemed to be a danger of polarisation and I thought that, as a self-confessed, paid up custard dribbler, I might add something, especially as last year I had the pleasure of attending an RUC training day in which the specific topic was human rights. I attended with considerable enthusiasm because, like my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (Dr. Godman), my background is in teaching such subjects. As most hon. Members know, I was a lecturer in philosophy before I became a Member of Parliament, so I had a professional interest in the training as well as other interests.
        I was extremely impressed by the content of that day's training. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) will be disappointed when I say that. I was impressed by the serious way in which the police had taken the need to make junior recruits understand the limitations of their own views in relation

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        to their function as police officers. That is not peculiar to Northern Ireland; it goes through the whole of policing. People have to deal with the kind of people whom they have never previously met or sought to understand and they have to relate to them as fellow human beings and treat them with respect.
        I felt that the content of the training was good, but I agree with the human rights report that it had significant limitations. I do not believe that they were a product of some nasty plot by the RUC or a desire to do the job shabbily. In common with my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Inverclyde, I believe that the time devoted to the training was much too short. I also agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North said. There was a definite lack of an international dimension.
        After the training session, we had a debriefing about what had gone on during the day. The RUC officers and the Chief Constable in particular were interested in the comments made by the members of the Select Committee. They wanted to take the comments on board positively and to see how they could improve the programme so that it would be much more responsive.
        It is right that we flag up the issue of human rights; whether it needs to be written into the Bill, I am not sure. Some of the comments that have been made tonight have not been terrifically helpful. My hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North gave a good speech in favour of sacking a certain tutor, and I am sure that the House supports that, not because of the quality of his jokes but because some things that he said showed that he did not understand the role of a human rights agenda.
        There is much that is valuable in the Human Rights Commission report. I believe that the RUC is more than willing to respond positively to many of the ideas in it, and I look forward to being invited back to Northern Ireland.
        Mr. McNamara: My speech was based on a report sent to me in reply to a parliamentary question. It was not something that I made up. I have a copy of the report here that my hon. Friend can read. It is outrageous. My hon. Friend suggested that I delighted in it. I did not, because I want the thing to work. I want the police to adopt the ideas in it. I want a balanced police force drawn from both communities.
        Mr. McWalter: All that I am saying is that there is still a long way to go. I agree with the report to that extent. I agreed with the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) when he said that a bit of cherry picking had been going on. Overall, big changes are being made that are welcome and that the Chief Constable and other senior officers in the RUC are taking seriously. I know from the time that I served on the Select Committee that my colleagues on the Committee agree with those remarks.
        I hope that we can read the comments in the report not as comments made by people whom we do not trust, as the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) said, but as comments containing a grain of truth. The police are responding positively to the solid core of criticism that the report contains. I hope that out of that more balanced picture we will begin to see a more positive way forward in police training and education in human rights and the laws that relate to them.
        6.15 pm
        Mr. Ingram: I shall deal first with the points made by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik). I welcome his comments. As I said in the debate on the allocation of time motion, he and his party were very much involved in the consideration of a wide range of issues aimed at improving the original draft.
        I confirm the hon. Gentleman's assessment of the amendments to which he alluded. He asked how amendments Nos. 110 and 111 would be put into effect. As I said in my opening remarks, they give effect to the recommendations of the House of Lords Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation. They provide for orders and regulations under clause 46—the renewal of the 50:50 provisions—and under clause 52, on emblems and flags, to be made by the affirmative procedure. The answer to the hon. Gentleman's question whether the orders and regulations would be debated is yes.
        The main thrust of our consideration has been the wider issue of human rights and related matters. My hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) spoke to amendment (a) to amendment No. 26. I shall deal with the amendment and then with the wider issues raised by the report to which he referred. Amendment (a) specifies that the training strategy should refer specifically to human rights.
        Paragraph 16.4 of the Patten report contains a list of areas that the training strategy should cover. As well as human rights, the report said that the strategy should cover accountability, communication, partnership policing, decentralisation and all the other areas of change covered by the recommendations. I know that my hon. Friend will agree that the Government's commitment to human rights cannot be in question. I remind the House that it was an early act of the new Labour Government to incorporate the European convention on human rights in domestic law and set up the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. People might have questions about the make-up of the commission, but its establishment was an important step. I pay tribute to the work of members of the commission as they have begun to learn how to conduct their business. They are on a learning curve. They may have expertise in human rights, but they all bring different expertise to the table. I am sure that as they evolve they will become sharper and more knowledgeable and that they will learn from experience as the process goes forward.
        The Government are also committed to the other areas mentioned in the Patten report—accountability, communication, partnership policing, decentralisation and the other recommendations. I believe that they are all complementary; they are all part of a whole. It would be wrong to single out one issue for special attention, even though we recognise the importance of human rights and the fact that the concept of human rights underpins everything that we have sought to do in the Bill and beyond.
        I have listened to the arguments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North on the specifics of the amendment. I hope that he hears what I am saying. We give due prominence to human rights, but we have to take all the other areas into account.
        My hon. Friend referred to the human rights report. He takes a strongly critical view. Others have also referred to the report. There is no question but that from one

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        perspective it can be seen to be highly critical of the measures that the commission studied. However, the report specifically complimented the RUC on approaching the issue with enthusiasm. I shall now repeat an argument that others have mentioned.
        The right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke) was not in the Chamber for part of the debate, but I am sure that he remembers only too well the third report of 1997–98 of his Committee, the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs, on the composition, recruitment and training of the RUC. The report, which predated the introduction of the human rights approach as envisaged in the legislation, complimented the RUC on its training methods—its use of awareness programmes and other elements. My hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. McWalter) made a helpful contribution in that regard, on the basis of his practical experience of observing a training programme that was being conducted predating—
        Dr. George Turner: Does the Minister agree that Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary—in its 1999 report, 1 believe—made it very clear that some of the criticisms of the RUC could be directed at almost every police force in the United Kingdom? We should recognise that although the issue is especially important in the RUC's training, it is a national issue.
        Mr. Ingram: I am grateful for that intervention and I am being very careful in my thought processes on this subject. I recognise that all police services have a very difficult role to play. They are moving through a rapid process of transition, not only in Northern Ireland, and not just within the UK, but internationally as well, and much has to be undertaken. Many mistakes have been made in the past, and I hope that those lessons will be learned. Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary comments, very helpfully and constructively, on what lessons can be learned and the way to proceed. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that contribution, but we are now dealing specifically with the RUC.
        I was referring to the report from which my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North quoted at length. I was saying that others could quote from it selectively to show that the RUC is very committed and that improvements could be made. The report states that the course should have been piloted, that there should have been more time for questions and that insufficient time was devoted to context. It seems to me that that is only to be expected in any large exercise, especially in a large exercise that is being tackled for the first time.
        I suspect that the police were not the only sizeable organisation to have faced a major challenge in delivering this new training. I suspect that that applies throughout the Government sector, and where it impacts on the private sector people have had to undergo significant training. I am sure that many lawyers are going through that process, and critical reports might appear on the human rights training that lawyers are receiving. We are dealing with a new approach; we are trying to build on experience and move forward.
        My hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North said that there was no external involvement in the courses. That is not so, because the university of Ulster was involved,
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        and its involvement predated the measures that we are passing tonight. I compliment the RUC and the Chief Constable and his senior officers seizing what is a very difficult issue—the management of the process of change, with this heavy overlay of a new Act of domestic law, which is having an impact throughout the government system and beyond.
        Mr. John McDonnell: With the greatest respect to my right hon. Friend, he seems to be missing the point of the amendment, which is that we now have a demonstrable failure, in one instance, of the application of the RUC's training to address human rights properly. The import of the amendment is that it would ensure that there is a requirement on the face of the Bill for the RUC to do that, and that this is not just one duty among others. To quote Patten, it is a
        central proposition of the Report that the fundamental purpose of policing should be
        in the words of the agreement—
        the protection and vindication of human rights.
        Mr. Ingram: Of that there is no question, and the Bill delivers on that commitment. The Government have delivered on that wider commitment by incorporating the human rights legislation in domestic law and setting up the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. We have taken that forward as a Government.
        I was explaining that we could spend a long time looking at the criticisms and ignoring the many compliments that have been paid, by independent assessors among others, to the role played by the Chief Constable and the RUC in taking forward that management of change.
        The report that my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North referred to acknowledged that the RUC has done a great deal of work and has shown an enthusiasm to engage with the commission. Those are complimentary statements, which my hon. Friend read out, and we may derive some confidence from them. There is no evidence that the RUC is resiling from its position. If there are weaknesses in the system, a new Policing Board will take on responsibility for dealing with them.
        Lords amendment No. 26 would give the board responsibility to have a training, education and development strategy; to assess the training and development needs of police officers and police support staff; and to give
        particulars of the way in which those requirements are to be met—
        thus placing that responsibility on the board.
        The draft regulations, which have been published, again give the Policing Board responsibility for setting out
        Details of performance appraisal systems for police officers.
        Thus we have the RUC, or the new police service for Northern Ireland, delivering on that commitment, and the Policing Board, thereby and thereafter, monitoring all that.
        That is a robust set of mechanisms, and it does not diminish in any way the commitment to human rights. Human rights were part of an overall grouping in the Patten report, which is why we have left it as part of a whole. There can be an interconnection and an interplay between each of those elements, and they should be seen as part of the whole.

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        I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North that the Government are committed to human rights education. I believe that the Chief Constable and the new police service will be committed to it, and the checks and balances will rest with the new Policing Board, which will have very significant responsibilities in that respect.
        This is a developing situation; it is the beginning of a very complex issue. One report does not damn the future. It reflects only on the assessment at that moment.
        I emphasise that the Government have not yet responded to the report because we are awaiting the Chief Constable's assessment. He may have trenchant comments to make on what has been said. It is not enough simply to accept what has been said by the Human Rights Commission. Until the commission's description of what happened that day has been properly tested by questioning others who were there, we must judge it in the round on that basis, although I accept that there are very strong points of view within the report.
        Mr. McGrady: I ask the Minister to answer the simple question that I asked in my short intervention: will he introduce regulations to ensure that an appraisal strategy is in place to appraise the education and the work of RUC police officers? That is straightforward, and almost follows from his response to my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara).
        Mr. Ingram: I am sorry that I did not refer to my hon. Friend specifically—I probably would have done so in my concluding remarks. The passage that I read from the draft regulations deals specifically with that issue. The regulations place on the board an obligation that
        The Board's Policing Plan shall include…details of performance appraisal systems for police officers.
        That function therefore moves away from the police. I do not know which hon. Member commented that it was not for the police to police themselves. They will not do so because, in the regulations and on the face of the Bill, that is an important function to be performed by the new Policing Board. For that reason, I hope that the new Policing Board will be given a fair wind. I hope that the amendments will be supported.
        Lords amendment agreed to.
        Lords amendments Nos. 4 to 13 agreed to.
        6.30 pm

      Clause 17

        ANNUAL REPORT BY DISTRICT POLICING PARTNERSHIP TO COUNCIL
        Lords amendment: No. 14, in page 9, line 9, at end insert—
        ("() When a district policing partnership submits its report under subsection (1), it shall at the same time send a copy of the report to the Board.")
        Mr. Ingram: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
        Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 15 to 23.
        Mr. Ingram: Under the Bill, at the end of the financial year, each district policing partnership will be obliged to
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        submit a general report to its district council. The Bill provides that a copy should be sent to the Policing Board by the council. The Police Authority for Northern Ireland expressed the concern that a council might accidentally or otherwise delay sending the board a copy of the report and it argues that a DPP should send the board the report at the same time as it sends it to a council. That seems to us a sensible proposition, so the Government accepted the point made by the Police Authority for Northern Ireland. Amendments Nos. 14 and 15 give effect to that.
        Clause 19 provides that the board may issue a code of practice on the exercise by DPPs of their functions. The Government were pressed to amend the word "may" to "shall"—that old chestnut. We accepted that argument, and amendments Nos. 16 to 19 give effect to it. The Bill now provides that the board "shall" issue a code of practice relating to DPPs', exercise of their functions.
        Amendments Nos. 19 to 21 combine to provide that a district commander may be a regular officer or reservist. As the Bill stands, he may be a regular officer only, but the Government see no need to make such a distinction—hence the amendments.
        On amendment No. 22, under clause 21, each sub-group of the Belfast DPP is to provide views to the police and to the board. The Bill should have referred to the police and the Belfast partnership. The amendment fulfils a commitment that the Government made in this House to correct that reference.
        Amendment No. 23 is a drafting change to clarify the fact that the word "district" in the last line of clause 21(2) means a police district.
        Mr. Öpik: The Minister seems to be saying that the amendments clearly establish the sub-groups as subsidiary to the DPP and not directly to the board. Is that right?
        Mr. Ingram: I confirm that interpretation.
        On the basis of my explanation, I commend the amendments to the House.
        Lords amendment agreed to.
        Lords amendments 15 to 23 agreed to.

      Clause 24

        THE SECRETARY OF STATE'S LONG TERM POLICING OBJECTIVES
        Lords amendment: No. 24, in page 12, line 2, leave out paragraph (c).
        Mr. Mandelson: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
        Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 25, 27, 28 and amendment (a) thereto, and Lords amendments Nos. 93, 94 and 101.
        Mr. Mandelson: This group of amendments deals with consultation on a range of issues. Amendment No. 24 will remove the ombudsman from the list of those to be consulted by the Secretary of State when determining long-term policing objectives and amendment No. 25 will similarly remove her from the list of those to be consulted by the Policing Board on its objectives. Consultation with

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        the ombudsman was raised by Conservative peers in Committee in the other place and, having discussed the issue with the ombudsman, we accept that her role in planning would be relatively limited and that a formal consultative role would be excessive—hence amendments Nos. 24 and 25.
        Amendment No. 27 specifies that, before prescribing the statements and particulars that the Policing Board should include in the policing plan, the Secretary of State shall consult the board and the Chief Constable. It responds to concerns that the Secretary of State would make regulations altering the content of the plan without consultation. That was never the intention.
        Amendment No. 28 will oblige the Secretary of State to consult other appropriate persons or bodies—in addition to the Policing Board and Chief Constable—before issuing or revising a code of practice issued under clause 27. That meets concerns that, when relevant—obviously it will not always be—the views of bodies such as the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission or the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland should be sought.
        Amendment No. 93 includes the ombudsman in the list of those whom the Secretary of State should consult before issuing or revising guidance on the police's use of equipment for maintaining or restoring public order. It is clear that, through her investigations, the ombudsman will gather information that will be relevant to the guidance. For example, in investigating complaints about the use of plastic baton rounds, she may have details to feed in on their usage, by police district, on the occasions most likely to lead to injury, and so on.
        Amendment No. 94 widens the scope for the Secretary of State to consult on the regulations as to emblems and flags before coming to any decisions. He is currently obliged to consult the board, the Chief Constable and the Police Association. The Government's consistent position has been that a new beginning requires a new name for the police service, and that a new name requires a new badge and a new flag based on it. The new name is prescribed by the legislation that also gives me the power to prescribe the badge. However, I want to try to obtain cross-community consensus on that if I possibly can. It is important to do so given that these matters are extremely sensitive and fraught.
        Patten's view was that the badge should be entirely free from any association with either the British or the Irish state. I said in June that the Government did not accept that this should necessarily be so. That is still my view. I have never seen the symbols of the police service for Northern Ireland as an issue of sovereignty or of getting symbols that represent the British state. However—we must be frank about this—that is not how others see the issue, and we must understand and appreciate why that is so.
        I illustrate my point from some of the contributions that were made in the other place when a specific amendment was tabled suggesting that the existing badge of the RUC—crown and all—should be carried over to the new police service for Northern Ireland. The amendment was moved, debated and defeated in the other place, but I refer to that debate only to show how difficult and fraught the
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        issue becomes when it is mixed up with the issue of sovereignty and the constitutional argument in Northern Ireland.
        In the debate, one Conservative viscount said that the crown should be retained in the police badge because it symbolises Northern Ireland's position in the United Kingdom and that, if it were removed from the badge, that would be an attack on the sovereignty of the United Kingdom. I attended the debate and listened from the Bar of the other House to all the contributions that were made. Another Conservative peer said that the crown should be retained because it is dear to Unionism.
        I am the first to acknowledge—I readily do so—that the crown is dear to Unionism for all the obvious reasons. However, that shows why the presence of the crown on the badge is objectionable to many nationalists. It clearly identifies the police service with one side of the constitutional argument in Northern Ireland, not with the community as a whole. Conservative Members of the other place made that clear in their contributions to the debate on whether the RUC's existing badge should be maintained and carried over. That illustrates the difficulties in reaching a cross-community consensus—which we need to do—on the badge and emblems of the new police service. The last thing that I should like to happen—I hope that other hon. Members would agree—is for the new police service to be a platform for resuming the age—old constitutional quarrel that has dogged and divided Northern Ireland society for so long.
        Mr. Dominic Grieve: Is there not another reason—perhaps the same one as was raised when we discussed flags orders? It is a matter not of allegiance, but of reality. A police officer, even if we change the oath as we have, is a Crown officer. All law in this country derives from the Crown. Are we not in danger of entering a state of unreality when we remove that? Is it not better to stick to the reality of the situation while we seek to implement the other changes?
        Mr. Mandelson: In logic and legislative premise, the hon. Gentleman may be absolutely correct, but I must bring him back to reality. When we invoke a symbol of the British state—such as the crown—in such constitutional terms when debating or determining the emblem of a police service that we are trying to draw from the community as a whole and to which the entire community, with two distinctive traditions, wants to owe allegiance, he will appreciate that there is more than one reality.
        I want to create a police service with a uniform, badge and emblems that every member of the service is comfortable with and proud to wear. On that basis, it behoves us to ensure that there is nothing about the police service's name, uniform or badge that drives away one side of the community because it is construed as offensive to one tradition or another. Above all, in practical terms, we do not want to make it harder to recruit people from both traditions.
        Mr. Jeffrey Donaldson: When the Secretary of State talks of the crown, he will be aware that that is only one aspect of the current insignia, and that the harp is also important. While the crown symbolises British Government and law, the harp is used on all official documents of the Irish Government and on

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        Irish passports. Unionists can accept the incorporation of the harp within the badge and do not get offended or upset, because we see our tradition represented by the crown. Can we not have a bit of maturity and use the shamrock and harp to represent the nationalist tradition and the crown to represent the Unionist tradition? The Secretary of State is in danger of misleading the House by focusing simply on the crown. He knows that the insignia cover more than that and are a cross-community symbol that draws on the traditions of both communities.
        Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's intervention is becoming a speech. He has made his point.
        Mr. Mandelson: The hon. Gentleman has made his point extremely well. His comfortableness with the presence of the harp, a symbol that he associates with the Irish state, reflects the strength, security and self-confidence that he feels in such matters. He has to understand, however, that people from the other tradition in Northern Ireland are not as relaxed about symbols of the British state.
        6.45 pm
        It is true that the current insignia of the RUC badge contain the crown and the harp, and the hon. Gentleman would be making a good point if he was saying that the design was intended to provide a balance, an equality and a parity of esteem—although I am not sure that he was. To follow his logic, that is why, given that elements of the badge are associated with both traditions, I would be rather relaxed about continuing that balance and reflection of both traditions, as I have already said.
        However, my point is different and important. It is illustrated, as I tried to explain, by Members of the other place who, in seeking to justify the continuation of the present badge and the retention of the crown, made it clear that it symbolises not a parity of esteem or a reflection of both traditions but, as the noble viscount explained, Northern Ireland's position in the United Kingdom. In their view, removal of the crown would constitute an attack on the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.
        Such an argument puts us in danger of crossing the line from what is a proper—and, in some people's view, even appropriate—reflection of both traditions in Northern Ireland to a position where we are using the crown, insignia and badge of the police service to provide a proxy for continuing the constitutional argument and quarrel in Northern Ireland; and that is precisely what we should all be united in wanting to remove from the police service, as the Patten report originally proposed.
        Hon. Members will know that I have never been entirely persuaded by the argument in favour of neutrality, but if we have equality and not neutrality, the argument about the symbols cannot be played out as a proxy fight to continue the constitutional quarrel about the status of Northern Ireland.
        Mr. McNamara: Has my right hon. Friend considered the heraldic significance of the badge, which displays not
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        parity of esteem but all power coming from the Crown? That is why people who do not accept that interpretation cannot be comfortable with it.
        Mr. Mandelson: Well, now: careful, careful.
        Mr. McNamara: Have a word with the Duke of Norfolk.
        Mr. Mandelson: I will indeed have a word with the Duke of Norfolk, but it will have to wait for another day. I hope that my hon. Friend does not mind if, instead, I conclude my remarks.
        The battle is to achieve something that will get us consensus rather than controversy. I cannot conceive of rejecting the board's proposals for the new police service badge, and it is to the board that I shall turn in the first instance for its views and agreement on the new badge. I cannot conceive of rejecting the board's proposals if they reflect a genuine consensus within it and are capable of receiving community-wide support in the new police service. Incidentally, by consensus I am not talking about a 10:9 vote, or even a 14:5 vote if all the nationalists or all the Unionist Assembly Members of the board voted against. My hope is that the whole board will be able to rally round a preferred option, and there will not be a narrow vote with a thin majority to try to drive through someone's view and overcome the sensitivities of others.
        Even if unanimity cannot be achieved, I am looking for the board to come forward with proposals that command genuine cross-community support. That is majority support from each tradition on the board. If the board fails to do that, as I have said, and as the Bill provides, I shall have to call the matter myself. In those circumstances, I would not impose an outcome which would deter recruitment from either side of the community. That would be the ultimate folly, and completely self-defeating. Having come all this way with all the pain that this legislation has involved, it would be folly if we were to throw away the ultimate prize on a wrong call over the badge or emblem of the police, which then succeeded in sparking controversy and alienating one side and deterring recruitment.
        Mr. Robert McCartney: The Minister has said that he does not wish to extend the constitutional debate to the issue of insignia. However, has not the right hon. Gentleman claimed that in one sense the constitutional issue has been settled on the basis of the principle of consent, and that Northern Ireland will remain an integral part of the United Kingdom until a majority decides otherwise? That being the case, what objection can there be to the badge of a force that is upholding the Queen's peace? The Queen's peace is upheld in the mainland and Northern Ireland, the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. What objection can there be to the use of the crown as an emblem? It is not—
        Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman's intervention is becoming a speech.
        Mr. Mandelson: I take the hon. and learned Gentleman's point. Not for the first time, and although I would not follow him in all his language, he has probably put my argument better than I did. I believe that the principle of consent has resolved the age-old quarrel, and

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        that enables us to put that quarrel and the violence that is associated with it behind us once and for all. That does not mean that people will not pursue their legitimate aspirations and political objectives, depending on the tradition from which they come. However, they do so by peaceful and democratic means on the basis of the principle of consent that the hon. and learned Gentleman has described. I accept that.
        The problem arises when others come in and reinterpret the meaning or implications of the inclusion of such symbols as the crown in the police insignia, and start reading into it certain constitutional implications which I fear would reignite the quarrel. The police service would be embroiled in a quarrel which I believe is a matter for politics and not for policing. The quarrel should be resolved on the basis of the principle of consent and not by some proxy means involving various and different symbols.
        Lords amendment No. 101 adds the ombudsman to the list of those to whom the Policing Board shall send a copy of any reports of inquiries held. There is already a requirement to notify the ombudsman of inquiries under clause 58(2)(a). With those words, I commend the amendments to the House.
        Mr. Andrew MacKay (Bracknell)rose—
        Mr. Thompson rose—
        Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. William Thompson.
        Mr. Thompson: It is—
        Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman. I did not see that the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay), was rising as fast as he did, because he remained on his feet while I was on mine.
        Mr. MacKay: I hope that I rose as quickly as I was allowed to do, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I would not like to embarrass you.
        Lords amendment No. 93, which worries my colleagues and me, relates to the ombudsman. I shall speak only on this amendment, and I shall do so relatively briefly. To summarise, the amendment would insist that the ombudsman be consulted in simple terms when, for example, the police might be using baton rounds. That is extremely dangerous, and I shall explain why. I refer to the definition of ombudsman in the "New Oxford Dictionary". It reads:
        An official appointed to investigate individuals' complaints against maladministration, especially that of public authorities.
        I submit that the position of the ombudsman is severely compromised by her having a view on issues such as baton rounds publicly expressed, when she might well in future have to investigate complaints—many of them perhaps legitimate—about police action involving baton rounds. That puts her in an invidious position. It is wrong that the ombudsman should be so consulted.
        Without being disrespectful to the present or any future ombudsman, I do not believe that that is her role or anything to do with her. She has plenty to do in
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        investigating complaints. I think that the Minister will confirm that we supported the setting up of the ombudsman. There was nothing between us on the issue. I believe that the ombudsman should sit in judgment on complaints that are sent to her. It is not possible for her to do so if she has already given a view on the matter. If that were to happen in any other court or on any other occasion where an independent person was considering an appeal, I think that there would be judicial review. I think also that the person sitting in judgment would be ruled ineligible to make a judgment and a decision.
        I am sure that the Minister of State and the Secretary of State do not wish to put the ombudsman in that position. I do not want to do so either. We oppose the amendment because we think that it is distinctly unhelpful.
        The Secretary of State occasionally, and the Minister of State perpetually, complain that I do not stick to the letter of the Patten report. I do not think that the letter has to be stuck to, but they do. The Patten report states that the ombudsman should be notified, not consulted. I suggest that that goes far enough, and that we should return to that position.
        Having explained why we are opposed to Lords amendment No. 93, we run into a slight technical problem. The amendment will not be called to be voted upon for quite some time. This debate and another four debates on other amendments will take place before it is reached. It is now almost 7 o'clock and we have only another three hours because of the timetable motion, to which many right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House objected. I am in the slightly difficult position of wishing to advise my colleagues to vote against the amendment when they will probably not be able to do so.
        As a protest, it could be that we shall have to divide the House on Lords amendments Nos. 24 and 25, to which we have no particular objections. It seems that that is the only way in which we can express our legitimate concerns by way of a vote. That well illustrates why so many of us voted against the timetable motion. It makes a mockery of debate in this place.
        7 pm
        Mr. McDonnell: I have a question for the Minister who will respond to the debate. Lords amendment No. 28, relating to consultation, would result in clause 27(2) providing that, before issuing a code of practice, the Secretary of State would be required to consult the board, the Chief Constable and any other parties, as he saw fit. Amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 28 is an attempt to include the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. I support amendment (a), especially in light of the emphasis that has been placed tonight on the importance of human rights development within the Northern Ireland police service. My question is this: in the process of deciding which bodies he considers it appropriate to consult, will the Secretary of State publish any protocol or guidance relating to the matters on which he intends to consult? It would be useful to have some assurances regarding the transparency of the decision-making process relating to consultation arrangements.
        Mr. Thompson: The right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay) has already spoken to the amendment that I intended to address—Lords amendment No. 93. I, too,

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        think that it would be wrong to consult the ombudsman on matters such as plastic bullets, whose use is part of the normal operations of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. The other place agreed to remove from clauses 24 and 25 the requirement to consult the ombudsman, and it strikes me as right to remove it from clause 51. Such consultation might prejudice any decision the ombudsman had to make and it would make some people highly reluctant to make complaints to her, for fear that she would be biased.
        The Secretary of State commented on the emblems of the RUC. Apparently, people think that there are two equal communities in Northern Ireland. There are not. There is a majority community that wants to remain part of the United Kingdom and a minority community that wants to break that link. The two communities are not equal. Attempting to please everybody results in the majority tending always to lose out, no matter what its members think, so that the minority is placated.
        The Secretary of State tells us that he would have been happy to retain the name of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, but he felt unable to do so because the minority would not accept it; therefore, there has to be a new name. He says that he would have no particular objection to retaining the crown, but, again, the minority will not accept it; therefore, the likelihood is that we shall end up with a badge without a crown. The right hon. Gentleman should understand that, by trying to placate a minority, he loses the confidence of the majority of Northern Ireland's people.
        The vast majority of the people of Northern Ireland, whether Unionist or nationalist, were quite happy with the name of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and with the badge and emblems of that fine force. The Secretary of State should be careful about making changes.
        Dr. Palmer: In his introduction, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State offered an honest and intelligent analysis of the problem and stated clearly what we all regard as the central issue on the question of badges. It is not clear to me that every police force requires a badge, especially if it is likely to be a divisive symbol. There was a time when the Labour party had a badge. Giving it up was one of the reforms introduced by the Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson), as part of the new Labour approach. We all seem to have survived its loss. On the issue of the crown and the harp, in principle a balance of symbols is unlikely to be objectionable, but it seems to me—I stand to be corrected if I am wrong—that the harp has rarely in the history of Ireland been perceived as a divisive political symbol, whereas the crown has been the subject of controversy, for reasons with which we are all familiar.

        The hon. Member for West Tyrone (Mr. Thompson) says that the two communities in Northern Ireland are not equal—at least in power. One community is a majority community. He says that we should not try to please everybody, and I do not think that I am over-interpreting his words when I say that he thinks that, if we have to choose, we should choose to please the majority rather than the minority. Such an approach might be appropriate when deciding where to put a motorway, but as a guiding principle for a police force it is profoundly misguided.
        A police force needs to represent and be seen to represent the common interests of both communities. A supremacist view, placing the interests of one
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        community over those of another, has as little place in the conduct of the police as it would in the conduct of the Army, the judiciary or any other organisation or body that aspires to represent the community as a whole. In common with the overwhelming majority of people, I believe that we have to move beyond that sort of sectarianism.
        The hon. Member for West Tyrone should bear in mind that militant Unionism constitutes an extremely small minority among the people of the United Kingdom. The interests of the people of the United Kingdom are certainly not served by a policy that promotes division within Northern Ireland.
        Mr. Robert McCartney: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman realises that an extremist minority of the nationalist minority has consistently used violence, including against the majority on the mainland. That has never been a feature of the Unionist people.
        Dr. Palmer: I am not entirely sure that no Unionist has ever been guilty of violence, and even if that were true, it would not necessarily follow that every peaceful view of the nationalist community should be overridden in the interests of the majority. We should seek a solution that is acceptable to both sides, because that is the only plausible basis on which to build a police force.
        It has been suggested that some officers in the existing RUC would feel uncomfortable in a police force whose badge did not include the crown. It seems to me that an officer to whom the constitutional debate is so crucial that he feels unable to serve because of a badge that does not reflect the traditional sectarian divide, is probably best advised to consider whether he will be well placed in the new police force. We need a police force that is acceptable to both communities, we need officers on that force who are ready to serve both communities, and we need a symbol that reflects that resolve.
        Mr. Trimble: It will come as no surprise to hon. Members if I say that I do not believe that the report of the Patten commission should be treated as holy writ. The members of that commission were ordinary human beings—that is a compliment to some of them—and like all human beings, they are fallible. That applies, of course, to the chairman, Mr. Chris Patten. He is equally fallible. One of the mistakes that Patten made was in the treatment of certain symbolic matters, as they are called. From the comments that he made at the time that the report was published, it is clear that he was profoundly confused about political and constitutional issues.
        The Secretary of State made an important point when he said that he did not want the symbolic issues to be used as a means of reigniting or reopening the constitutional issue. Symbols are important at many levels, one of which is that they are indicators of constitutional issues. The most important point about the Belfast agreement, from the point of view of Unionists, is that if the agreement is accepted and applied, it settles the constitutional issue. If the agreement does not do that, it is of little value.
        The most important thing, for Unionists, is that the agreement settles constitutional issues, if it is applied. On the constitutional issues, the agreement is clear. It goes beyond an acceptance of a consent principle—it accepts

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        the legitimacy of Northern Ireland's position as part of the United Kingdom. That is spelled out explicitly in the very first paragraph of the agreement, and the term "legitimacy" is used repeatedly.
        All those who say that they accept and are committed to the Belfast agreement must, if they are being sincere, also say that they accept that Northern Ireland is a legitimate part of the United Kingdom. I am sorry to have to say that in dealing with the symbolic issues and with the flag and the crown, nationalists are demonstrating that, deep down, they do not accept the agreement. That is what it boils down to. Nationalists have raised the issue of the Union flag and the crown, and in so doing are saying to us, "We do not really accept that Northern Ireland is a legitimate part of the United Kingdom. We do not really accept one of the fundamental building blocks of the Belfast agreement."
        It may be that people have not thought the matter through correctly. They may not have fully internalised what the agreement means. The chief value of the agreement, from the point of view of the Unionist community, is that it settles the constitutional issue. If we find that the constitutional issue is reopened by constant challenges to the expressions of that legitimacy, support for the agreement will rapidly unwind. Because I do not want that, I am anxious that we get the issues right and that we stick to the agreement. Where there is a conflict between the agreement and Patten, the agreement overrides. Let us be clear about that. That is relevant, too, to a later group of amendments, in which, to the Government's eternal shame, they are legalising discrimination. The agreement should override that also, but we shall deal with that argument shortly.
        7.15 pm
        When the Secretary of State comes to deal, as he must, with the difficult issues that relate to the flag and the badge, he must bear in mind that the Union flag and the crown are symbols of the constitutional position. The next time that the Secretary of State goes to visit the Chief Constable at RUC headquarters, which I trust he does from time to time, I recommend that he pauses to look at the display cases there, containing memorabilia of police history. Included among that, he will see one panel displaying the badges of the other 66 constabularies in the United Kingdom—all the badges of every police constabulary in Wales, Scotland and England. He will see that on all 66 badges there is a crown. I am sorry to have to tell him that the crown is right at the top on all 66 police badges.
        If Northern Ireland ends up with the only constabulary in the United Kingdom without a crown at the top of its badge, we clearly have an anomaly, which points out something of considerable significance. It will be so interpreted and so read by many people—not just by those who vote Unionist, but by a much wider range of people.
        We are dealing with a political ramp, which misunderstands and misinterprets the agreement. There is an absolute imperative on the Secretary of State to sustain the agreement. He should not take the view that whatever is said from the Unionist Benches, Unionist compliance with the provisions can be assumed. We regard the
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        Unionist community as being generally law-abiding and wishing to uphold the law and support the police service, but that was not always the case.
        That has not always been the case in some localities in Northern Ireland over the past 30 years, and historically it has not always been the case. In the 1880s and 1890s, there was a very low level of acceptance of the police force by the populace of Belfast because of the way in which the force had behaved in disturbances in Belfast at that time. Unionist compliance with the measure should not be taken for granted.
        The present RUC badge is, in fact, the badge of the Royal Irish Constabulary. It was developed in the 19th century, which is why it includes the shamrock and the harp. The harp has always been a symbol of Irish nationalism, which is why, as my hon. Friends have pointed out, it is found on the Irish passport and on Irish Government documents. It has always been a specifically nationalist symbol. Although Unionists have tolerated it in the police service and on Army badges, that has been on the basis that it is accompanied by a crown to balance it.
        That badge was originally developed in the 19th century as the badge of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Interestingly, in 1922, when the Royal Ulster Constabulary was being formed, the then Unionist Government proposed that there be a new badge, which would have been, one might even say, unambiguously Unionist, as it would have embodied what we call the Northern Ireland flag surmounted with the crown. However, members of the RUC at the time, most of whom had come from the Royal Irish Constabulary, refused to accept the badge. Five thousand new badges had been made and were about to be issued, and the men refused to take them. The Government climbed down, scrapped the new badge, and allowed the old badge to be retained. History sometimes repeats itself. Again, compliance should not be assumed in the present situation. I make the point as a warning. What happened in the past is well known to the people concerned, even if it comes as a surprise to some on the Government Front Bench. Compliance should not be assumed on these matters, and the Government would be well advised to move carefully.
        Finally, something that the Secretary of State said gravely concerned me and my colleagues. He asked what was the point of coming all this distance and suffering all this pain if we end up losing the prize as a result of symbolic issues. That line of argument will lead him into endless appeasement and will result in him facing endless demands as part of the purely political ramp that does not have a significant resonance within the community at large. The existence of the badge and the name of the Union flag did not deter people after the first ceasefire, when there was a remarkable increase in the number of those from nationalist and Catholic backgrounds applying to join the RUC. A number of people who are not in party politics but who come from that community believe that there will be an increase in recruitment, and the Secretary of State must not be put off by people who are advancing a purely political ramp.
        Rev. Ian Paisley: I want to speak about the badge and the emblems for a moment or two. What the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) said is not accepted by the vast majority of Unionists, who do not believe that the agreement brought about the end of

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        the dispute. The Secretary of State said that the dispute over sovereignty was at an end and asked why we should resurrect it by having an argument about the badge. No Unionist in Northern Ireland worth his salt believes that the dispute is at end because after the agreement was made a series of things was added to it. In Stormont, a Sinn Fein Member made the ridiculous suggestion that poppies should not be allowed in the foyer of the Parliament buildings on Remembrance day and should thrown out on the street. He said Sinn Fein Members would see that there would be no poppies in the building next year.
        All down the line, there has been an attack on those emblems that say that we are a legitimate part of the United Kingdom. What about the Union flag? The Secretary of State thought that he had taken that away as part of the devolved right of the Stormont Administration, and that he had the settling of the issue. Perhaps he thought that things would come right, but to his cost, he has found that they have not. Two Sinn Fein Ministers moved out of their offices as soon as the flag was erected. If Northern Ireland is a legitimate part of the United Kingdom, there should be no argument about the flying of the national flag. If the matter is settled, it should be beyond dispute. However, it is not settled, as Sinn Fein and other nationalists are prepared to carry on the battle until they get what they want. They think that if they do so, the majority Ulster population will eventually be forced to agree.
        I, together with the people whom I represent, do not accept that the Belfast agreement made Northern Ireland legitimate within the United Kingdom and was a final end to the battle. That is not so, as the battle for the Union is raging in this debate. The crown, the harp and the shamrock, for example, are on the badge. As is regularly said in the House, there is a history behind that, which corresponds with that of other police forces in the United Kingdom. Nationalists who accept the agreement say that Unionists have nothing to worry about, as the legitimacy of the union is upheld. Why must the nationalists make such an outcry about the badge? After all, it has the symbol of Ireland on it because, as has been said, southern Ireland claimed the harp. I would like to think that all of us hope to play a harp some day—but perhaps I would be ejected from a republican heaven and not allowed to hold such an instrument.
        Mr. McNamara: The hon. Gentleman would be welcomed immediately.
        Rev. Ian Paisley: One thing is certain, and that is that I will not be in purgatory, so the hon. Gentleman need not worry.
        We are going to have police stations that will never have a union flag up, although I thought that we were a legitimate part of the United Kingdom and that the argument was over. We are going to have police stations that can never have a portrait of the Queen on their walls simply because that would raise the matter again, although I thought that it had been settled. The Secretary of State stood at the Dispatch Box and said that he was worried about those matters being raised again, and that we might miss the prize. However, that prize involves taking away from Northern Ireland every symbol, every practice and every flag that is flown, so that there can be development through a sort of condominium into the final united
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        Ireland. That is the target for Sinn Fein-IRA and the republican and nationalist movement. The badge should be left alone, and the arguments should cease. Those who say that the argument about legitimacy is past can prove that they are sincere by leaving the badge alone.
        The serious problem is that the structures of the Royal Ulster Constabulary will be changed. If the Secretary of State had appointed as ombudsman a woman who was the wife of a prominent official Unionist councillor, there would have been riots in the House, as people would want to know how she could possibly be a fair party. Yet the majority population was prepared to accept the appointment of an ombudswoman, a constituent of mine, whose husband is a prominent member of the SDLP, and who was very much engaged in his activities. If I stood up in the House and said anything about that appointment, Members would have roared me down. However, we have to accept that appointment because we are told that is the way that things are going to be.
        There has been talk in the House about the Human Rights Commission. When it was appointed, I advocated to the then Secretary of State that my party be represented on it, but she told me that we would not have that representation. If Members of Parliament want us to accept a commission, it should represent the opinion of people in the country. However, the Human Rights Commission does not, which is why people have no faith in it. A lot of people on the nationalist and unionist sides do not have faith in it because it was not fairly appointed and does not reflect the opinion of people in Northern Ireland.
        The matter of recruitment will come up later, although it has been briefly stated that it is all right, as it is in keeping with European law. However, the recruitment matter will not go away simply because people say that it is in keeping with European law. It is not right to set targets for employment on the basis of people's religion.
        Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. As the hon. Gentleman has flagged up himself, that matter is more relevant to a later group of amendments, so I hope that I can deter him from speaking on it now.
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        Rev. Ian Paisley: As the matter was mentioned by previous speakers, including the Secretary of State, I am entitled to make my brief comment thereon. I was tempted on to the forbidden ground, but I shall now go on to ground that you cannot forbid me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and that is the issue before us, which goes to the heart of the matter. People in the majority community, who are not always Protestants, will have to be prepared to give consensus to what has been done with regard to the police, but we cannot have their consensus unless the Bill is in a form that they can accept, and they can see that there is no undercurrent running in the direction of bringing about the aim of the republican campaign—a united Ireland.
        Mr. McNamara: This has been an interesting debate. With regard to Lords amendment No. 28, the Secretary of State mentioned the Equality Commission and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, and I should be grateful if, when the right hon. Gentleman replies, he could say more firmly that they will be consulted, rather than may be consulted.

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        I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) has left the Chamber because I wanted to address myself to some of his remarks and the political ramp that he accused the nationalists of being engaged in with regard to the cap badge and the flag. I am sorry that he has gone, not least because of the hint that he gave of a mutiny in the present RUC if a cap badge that it is not willing to accept is introduced. That was a dangerous thing for a party leader to say. He recalled the history of the 1920s and said that we should remember what happened then. The implications of that statement were stark and clear.
        Mr. Donaldson: With all due respect, that is not what my right hon. Friend said. He referred to the new police service, not to the existing RUC, and he said that the members of the new police service may reject the cap badge. They will have representatives in the form of a federation. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that it is illegitimate for members employed in a police service to reject, through their federation, something that they find unacceptable?
        Mr. McNamara: In no other force would it be acceptable. To question the uniform would be to defy the decision of the Secretary of State. What the right hon. Gentleman said was without the qualifications that we have just heard. He was specific and direct.
        The right hon. Gentleman spoke about the spirit of the Good Friday agreement, and said that the changes in the cap badge and the flag were going against that agreement. He said that they were being pushed too hard; that there was a political ramp, a secret agenda. But annexe A of the Good Friday agreement refers to the Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland and states:
        Its proposals on policing should be designed to ensure that policing arrangements, including composition, recruitment, training, culture, ethos and symbols, are such that in a new approach Northern Ireland has a police service that can enjoy widespread support from, and is seen as an integral part of, the community as a whole.
        That is the political ramp about which the right hon. Gentleman complained. It is that which he accepted verbally on Good Friday. The Good Friday agreement is the document in which he accepted the change in symbols. It is he who seeks to rewrite the Good Friday agreement.
        Mr. Robert McCartney: The hon. Gentleman completely misrepresents the substance of that paragraph. The confidence of the entire community cannot be obtained by placating the minority at the expense of not obtaining the consent and approval of a majority.
        Mr. McNamara: I understand what the hon. and learned Gentleman says, but he did not put his name to the document, or accept it on Good Friday; the right hon. Member for Upper Bann did. It states:
        Its proposals on policing should be designed to ensure that policing arrangements, including…ethos and symbols, are such that in a new approach Northern Ireland has a police service that can enjoy widespread support from, and is seen as an integral part of, the community as a whole.
        One thing is certain, if the symbols are unacceptable to the minority, there will not be widespread support from the community as a whole. If the symbols are not
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        acceptable to the majority, there will not be widespread support from the community as a whole. But equally certain is why Patten then, despite the reservations of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, said that we should have neutral symbols, which do not show an alliance to either the Irish or the British state. That is precisely why that was done.
        We have seen in the course of this debate how such demands polarise opinion. We have seen that today in the defence and counter claims that have been made across the Floor of the House. We should remember that the Good Friday agreement—the right hon. Member for Upper Bann, alone among the Unionists present in the House, gave his assent to it, so I am sure that he will be delighted that the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) came rushing to his support—has the support of the majority of the population in Northern Ireland, and of the majority of the Unionist community there. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman should cease claiming that he has been sold down the river, or that this is a nationalist ramp. He should accept what he said that he would accept, which is in the Good Friday agreement.
        Mr. Peter Brooke: Following the hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) makes me conscious of the need to observe self-restraint on a night such as this. I shall not speak tonight of the symbols or the emblems, which the Select Committee, whose report on the RUC was commended by the Minister of State in his wind-up speech on the second group of amendments, saw no reason to change. I spoke on the subject on Second Reading. Repetition by a bystander on such a night as this would be self-indulgent, and I stand by what I said then.
        I rise in particular to support my right hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay) and his remarks about Lords amendment No. 93—but from a specialist perspective. I should declare an interest, as for the past four and a half years, I have been chairman of the Building Societies Ombudsman Council, a post in which I succeeded the noble Lord Barnett. The building societies ombudsman scheme was set up by statute and in that respect is unusual among financial services ombudsman schemes. The Government have chosen to amalgamate the schemes in a single scheme under the Financial Services Authority. I simply report as a matter of fact that all associated with the integration of the various schemes, representing all aspects of the debate, were united in keeping the practical, operational role of the new financial services ombudsman completely separate and distanced from the regulatory role of the Financial Services Authority.
        Nothing that the Secretary of State has said tonight explains why the same principle should not apply in a policing context.
        Mr. Robert McCartney: Symbols, whether cap badges or flags, are rarely important in a state or society where the substance that they represent is sure and certain. However, when the substance—in this case, Northern Ireland's part in the United Kingdom, and the British citizenship of the majority of its citizens—is questioned, symbols such as the badges, the crown and the Union Jack become significant. A threat to them is merely a reflection of the underlying erosion of the identity that they represent.

        237
        The Secretary of State said that the constitutional issue had been settled. I believe that the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) also said that. However, it is far from being settled. It has been settled that the title deeds of Northern Ireland will not pass to the Republic, that the formal transfer of de jure sovereignty to the Republic will not occur until a majority consents to it. However, that does not prevent the Government from establishing institutions whose purpose is to create an actual, economically functional united Ireland, which will ultimately render the legal transfer of sovereignty unnecessary or inevitable. That is consistent with Government policy, as declared in their policy statements.
        The basic suspicion of the majority that the substance of their constitutional future and their political and national identity is under threat makes them cling—perhaps rather pathetically in some cases—to the symbols that represent the substance that they wish to retain. When those in the mainland United Kingdom dismiss the Unionists and the majority in Northern Ireland as people who prattle on and have endless disputes about flags and symbols, they miss the point. The inhabitants of the mainland are so confident, assured and certain of their political and national identity and its permanence that they can afford to take a laid-back attitude to symbols. They have the substance; why bother about the symbols?
        Equality of esteem is often discussed in the context of Northern Ireland. For a long time, I found it difficult to understand what was meant by equality of esteem. As a liberal democrat in the widest sense, I believe totally in equality of esteem: in equality of opportunity, of access to education and to the law—all the equalities in a modern democracy. Yet I found that my interpretation was wrong because when nationalist politicians talk about equality of esteem, they mean the equality of the minority with the majority in the right to determine the constitutional and national identity of the state. Debates about symbols are addressed to that basic argument.
        When we talk about the crown as a symbol, people forget that the crown appears in the courts because the peace that is enforced throughout the United Kingdom is the Queen's peace. One of the fundamental rocks of the development of constitutional government in the United Kingdom—in England—was observance of the ruler: the King's or the Queen's peace, and hence the peace of the Crown. The 67 or 57 constabularies in the United Kingdom use the crown as a symbol because their fundamental function is enforcement of the Queen's peace.
        7.45 pm
        Since the glorious revolution, the monarchy, the House of Commons and, until recently, the House of Lords have become a constitutional trinity. However, when we talk about the Crown and its prerogatives, we mean the enforcement of the Queen's peace. Is Northern Ireland to be different? I do not believe that the Government think that the consent argument has been settled. However, if, for the purposes of argument, we accept the words of the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister that the consent argument has been settled and that Northern Ireland will not be excluded from the United Kingdom until a majority of our citizens say so, we are not only the subjects of the United Kingdom Government, but of the Queen and the Crown.
        238
        In those circumstances, why has the crown suddenly become anathema for nationalists? That does not apply to the majority of nationalists. Anyone who reads the opening paragraphs of the Patten report will realise that the Royal Ulster Constabulary enjoys a higher rate of public approval than the majority of police forces in other European states and other parts of the world. Why, therefore, is there such opposition to the symbols? It has nothing to do with the impartiality or the integrity of the RUC as a police force, but everything to do with its role in maintaining what is perceived to be a constitutional status quo. If consent exists, and the status quo is that Northern Ireland will remain part of the United Kingdom, why should the symbols of the United Kingdom be cast aside?
        Between 1918 and 1921, the Royal Irish Constabulary had a Roman Catholic chief constable. Forty per cent. of its officers and 70 per cent. of its constables were Roman Catholic. There was no objection to the RIC's ordinary policing duties. Yet between 1918 and 1921, more than 400 members of that force—more than 70 per cent. of them Catholic—were slaughtered. The RIC was subjected to the same vilification and dangerous propaganda that is now employed against the RUC. It is a case of deja vu. However, on this occasion, a clear majority of the people of Northern Ireland retain confidence in the RUC. I believe that that is felt not only in the Unionist community but by a majority of the nationalist community.
        Mr. Mallon: I rise reluctantly to make two points, which have not been given the prominence that they should receive in the debate. When we speak about the report that Chris Patten compiled, we must bear in mind that it was not a nationalist, Catholic, Irish plot to destabilise Unionism. The Patten commission was chaired by an eminent member of the Conservative party, a former Cabinet Minister in a Conservative Government, now a European Commissioner, who spent untold hours trying to get to the heart of the issues with which he was dealing. It is sometimes forgotten that Chris Patten's recommendations were in effect garnered from his, and his commission's, experience of talking and listening to people in Northern Ireland. I accept that the situation there is unique. If it had not been, there would have been no Patten commission and no Bill.
        I have a lot of sympathy with some of the points that Unionist representatives and the Unionist community make because the reality is that if Patten is to be adhered to, there is one choice to be made about flags and emblems. The Bill says that the Secretary of State will consult the Policing Board and that, if there is consensus, he will move forward on that basis. However, is it feasible that there will be consensus on the Policing Board on those two issues? I would love to think that there would be cross-community consensus, but, simply, I do not see it.
        Although the Bill does not say as much, the reality is that, in effect, the Secretary of State will decide whether to implement Patten or not. His decisions could lift those issues on to a different plane or destroy it completely. That is why my party and I were keen for the Bill to contain at least a basic honesty about how those issues would ultimately be dealt with. That basic honesty might—I stress that word—have been able to short-circuit some of the heat that has been engendered. However, I repeat that, ultimately, those issues will be decided not through consensus on the Policing Board, by Parliament

        239
        or the people in the north of Ireland, but by the Secretary of State. I do not envy him his choice or the position that he will ultimately be in, but it would be much more honest to face up to the situation.
        Legislation should involve certainty and clarity—especially when it deals with controversial issues, those must be present—but I do not find them in the Bill. When my colleagues on the Unionist Benches and I leave the Chamber, we shall not have certainty or clarity on those issues; nor will my colleagues on these Benches. The same will be true for the people in the north of Ireland and the young people in the nationalist community, who might, for the first time, be thinking about a career in the police service. That is the ultimate strength of the neutral position that the Patten report recommended.
        I can understand the affection that Unionists feel for the RUC—they would be less than human if they did not have such affection because they have regarded it for so many years as their police service. It is easy to understand that on a human level. I ask, once again, that people understand the position of, in particular, the young in a community that has been divided and has held certain opinions on those issues since the state was formed. Such people—indeed, all of us—are desperately seeking a means by which to introduce changes that will alter policing for ever and establish effective policing for the first time, because policing will be based on consent. That con sent should mirror the consent in the Good Friday agreement and in the political process that we are operating.
        If we and the Unionists had such clarity on those two issues, that would not make them any easier to deal with, but at least the Bill would contain honesty. We have been dealing with it for roughly a year and two months and we should be able to say, "Yes, I know what the Bill says; yes, its implications are clear; yes, it has the clarity that such legislation should contain."
        I hope that all of us understand people's human and emotional attitudes. If we are to move on from debates such as this and into the future, we should, when we draw up legislation, at least be honest enough to say at the end of the process that it contains sufficient clarity and that we know what it means.
        Mr. Donaldson: I shall be brief. I want to respond to some of the points that have been made.
        The hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) rightly said that humanity and human emotions have a big part to play in the debate. My cousin, Samuel Donaldson, was the first police officer to be blown up by the IRA in the violence of the past 30 years. Ironically, he was murdered in South Armagh, in the constituency that the hon. Gentleman represents. My cousin died serving the whole community and responding to a call to protect the community of South Armagh from the violence of extremist republican terrorists. The religion or politics of the individuals whom he served did not matter to him.
        I reject the hon. Gentleman's assertion that we in the Unionist community regard the RUC as our police service. He has only to look at the annual events at Drumcree to understand that the RUC is not a Unionist police service—it is placed in the middle. He should examine the events of the past 30 years and ask who put
        240
        all those loyalist terrorists behind bars to protect the nationalist community, if not the RUC. Who imprisoned Michael Stone and Johnny Adair, if not the RUC? Did it not do that to protect the whole community, including those from the nationalist tradition? The hon. Gentleman was unfair to the RUC when he suggested that it was the preserve of one tradition or community. That is not the case—I regard it not in that way, but as the upholder of law and order.
        The hon. Gentleman touched on another important point. Implicit in his remarks was the suggestion that if nationalists do not win the debate about symbols, that will have serious consequences for his, his party's and the nationalist leadership's ability to endorse the new police service. That is a serious matter because it amounts to a threat.
        We in the Unionist community are being asked to accept things that we find extremely difficult. We are being asked to swallow them all. We are being asked to accept this new police service, with all the problems that it places on us as Unionists. The hon. Gentleman, however, is saying that unless he gets his way he cannot support the new police service, and I think that that goes to the heart of the matter. I hope that the Secretary of State will not be influenced by approaches of that kind in reaching key decisions on symbols.
        8 pm
        The hon. Gentleman talks of neutrality, but Northern Ireland is not a neutral place. It is part of the United Kingdom, and the symbols associated with the United Kingdom cannot, in that sense, be regarded as somehow to be set aside. What we are looking for—and what the hon. Gentleman seems to be looking for—is a compromise, but nothing in what I heard the hon. Gentleman say suggests that he is willing to compromise. Indeed, his conclusion that the police board will not be able to reach a compromise, and that it will be down to the Secretary of State, implies that he himself is not prepared to compromise with Unionists on the issue of symbols. The Secretary of State must have regard to that. I hope that he will not allow himself to be cajoled in this manner, and that he will reflect on what Unionists have said about the importance of symbols.
        I accept that symbols are important to the nationalist community as well, but I think it sad that, after all we have been asked to accept, and at the end of all the compromises that have been made by the Government to accommodate and facilitate the hon. Gentleman and his party, the SDLP seems not to be prepared to endorse the new police service and join the new Policing Board. If that is indeed so, many in the Unionist community will probably ask what it was all about in the first place.
        We need an answer to that question. I do not believe that, at the end of all this, the hon. Gentleman has the luxury of opting out of support for the forces of law and order—just as I do not have that luxury, because in the end I shall have to make the judgment. Let me say here and now—I give my commitment to the House—that I will support the forces of law and order in Northern Ireland. I only hope that the hon. Gentleman and his party will reflect on their position, and will give a firm commitment to support the forces of law and order in upholding the law in Northern Ireland. That is crucial. Were they to opt out, it would have serious consequences for the whole political process.
        Mr. Grieve: This has been a fascinating, slightly sombre and rather odd debate, in some ways. It is extraordinary that we should be having a debate of this importance on what was effectively a minor amendment in the House of Lords, and I think it reflects badly on the House of Commons that an issue of such importance should have been left until this stage before being heard.
        On Lords amendment No. 94, I hope that the Opposition's stance was made clear by my earlier intervention on the Secretary of State. We believe that there are compelling reasons why the crown and cap badge of a police officer anywhere in the United Kingdom are merely a straightforward reflection of the job that he carries out.
        The Secretary of State has taken upon himself the extremely difficult task of balancing conflicting views. It is in the Bill that it is his decision, and in the amendment he is widening the scope of his consultation. We have no reason to do other than welcome that. It is dispiriting to hear the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) seem to suggest an unwillingness to accept the decision that the Secretary of State might eventually make if it is not acceptable to him. I hope that the Secretary of State will disregard that.
        I also hope the Secretary of State will assure us that he is not treating this evening's inadequate debate as consultation with the House, if he is minded to carry it out. I must tell him that stimulating this debate on a very minor amendment to the procedure that he intends to adopt constitutes a funny way of going about things, which certainly does not commend itself to us. It gives us no opportunity to vote—if a vote is indeed what is desired—because on the face of it the amendment is innocuous and straightforward, and adds to the Secretary of State's scope for consultation. I hope very much that the Secretary of State will assure us that he did not intend to do that. [Interruption.] I am glad to see that he is nodding.
        Mr. Mandelson: I was not nodding. I am afraid that I said, from a sedentary position, that I had not the foggiest idea what the hon. Gentleman was talking about.
        Mr. Grieve: All I can say is that the Secretary of State's concentration, which is normally so acute, must have been wandering. He has proposed an amendment widening the scope of the consultation that he intends to carry out before deciding on the symbols for the cap badge of the Northern Ireland police service.
        Mr. Mandelson: The amendment was tabled in the House of Lords.
        Mr. Grieve: It was, but I understand that the Secretary of State has accepted it, or intends to accept it, and, according to my understanding, he thus commends it to the House of Commons. If that is the case, I can only tell the right hon. Gentleman that we consider it very sensible. [Interruption.] Will the Secretary of State listen for a moment? We have no reason for complaint, except in so far as the Secretary of State may assume that this evening's short debate on the amendment constitutes his consultation with the House of Commons. I hope he will tell us that that is not the case, because, when there is no
        242
        possibility that the House can vote, it is not a sensible way of proceeding—especially in view of the strong feelings generated by the issue. That is for the Secretary of State to respond to; but it is disingenuous of him to suggest that no issue arises.
        Let me now deal with another matter on which we commented earlier. I refer to the role of the ombudsman, the issue on which we wish to concentrate in the context of the amendments. When Standing Committee B considered the Bill, there were some exchanges of views. In particular, the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) wanted the Government to adopt a system whereby the board would have a final say on the guidelines. At that stage, the Under-Secretary indicated, very properly in my view, that he fully appreciated that on an issue of such importance the buck stopped with Ministers. There was quite an interesting debate. The views of the Under-Secretary can be seen in column 368 of the Official Report of the Committee's proceedings for 29 June 2000.
        In the circumstances to which I have referred, we find the ombudsman's role a cause of anxiety. Ombudsmen fulfil a quasi-judicial role. I do not see how it is possible to consult the ombudsman on the guidelines and how then—if a complaint is made about the operation of those guidelines—the ombudsman's subsequent criticisms will not be tainted by any comment that has been made previously.
        We have a good system in this country: one does not go off to the judiciary to seek answers to hypothetical questions. I strongly recommend that the Secretary of State drop the idea of the ombudsman's having such a consultative role in drawing up guidelines. It is the ombudsman's role to receive complaints, and it does no service to the ombudsman—I hope that the Secretary of State will register this—if she is involved in the preliminary process.
        Dr. Turner rose—
        Dr. Palmer rose—
        Mr. Grieve: No, I will not give way; I want to finish my speech.
        I simply ask the Secretary of State to note what I have said. We are trying to be constructive, and we do not think that the ombudsman should have a role in this matter.
        Mr. Mandelson: In contrast to the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), I take an entirely different view of the debate. I think that it has been well reasoned, considered, well informed, passionate and honest. It reflects extremely well on the House that Members should have contributed and exchanged views in a well-mannered way, given the strong passions that are stimulated and evoked by such matters in Northern Ireland.
        I gently say to the House—it might be entirely futile to do so—that we are on the fourth group of amendments. We have another nine to go before we terminate proceedings at 10 o'clock. I point out gently and respectfully that there are matters of importance for later debate, before we reach the closure at 10 o'clock.
        Mr. Eric Forth: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
        Mr. Mandelson: No, I will not.

        243
        My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell) asked whether guidance would be issued on codes of practice. I have no intention of publishing protocols, or guidance on the arrangements for issuing codes. With respect, that would be surplus to bureaucratic requirements. The production of codes is a matter of common sense, but the codes themselves, which are the most important matters for us to consider, are likely to be made public in all instances. Obviously, they can be revised.
        My hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) asked about the role of the Human Rights Commission and the Equality Commission. The codes that we will issue are likely to concentrate on the interrelationship between the three public authorities: the Secretary of State, the Chief Constable and the board, which make up the tripartite structure for the new policing service. That does not seem an obvious area where the European convention on human rights would be directly engaged. For example, the only existing code concerns financial arrangements and detailed delegations, so there is no obvious need to consult the Human Rights Commission. Having said that, I give him the undertaking that wherever it is appropriate or relevant to do so I will voluntarily, whatever the legislation says, consult both the Human Rights Commission and the Equality Commission.
        Two main subjects dominated our debate. One concerned symbols, insignia, emblems and badges; the other concerned the ombudsman. The hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon), who I think did not have the benefit of hearing my remarks earlier in the debate, as a result of an enforced absence from the Chamber, would have heard me set out in some detail the approach that I intend to take in consulting the Policing Board and in finally reaching a position on the vexed question of the badge and insignia for the new police service. I will not, if he does not mind, rehearse all that I said. If he were to do me the courtesy and justice of reading my remarks tomorrow, he would find that they stand scrutiny.
        8.15 pm
        It is not fair to condemn the legislation, as the hon. Gentleman seemed to do, because it did not provide complete certainty on every issue. One of the points of such legislation is to provide, among other things, the framework within which decisions are subsequently taken. I do not think that it is unreasonable for me to provide the basis for consulting the Policing Board—the local representative board, which should be drawn from the community as a whole—on its views on what the emblem and badge should be.
        Although I appreciate that it is irritating at the least to have continued uncertainty on the matter, that uncertainty need not and should not continue for long. If it is possible, as I hope it will be, to constitute the Policing Board in shadow form by mid-January or, at the latest, the end of January, it will be possible in early February to consult the board, to invite it to arrive at a genuinely cross-community consensus on the issue and to resolve the question of the badge well ahead of our advertising for recruits to the new police service, which will not
        244
        happen until April next year. Therefore, young Catholics and young nationalists who are thinking about their career prospects and possible recruitment to the police service of Northern Ireland will know and have all those matters and every other matter properly clarified for them—all the pieces of the jigsaw will be in place—by April, which is the point at which we will invite people to consider joining the police service.
        I shall deal with the comments of the hon. and learned Member for North Down (Mr. McCartney), the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley), neither of whom are still with us, and the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble), who, as ever, is still with us. May I say first, however, that, of all the contributions I probably most enjoyed that of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer). He offered an inspiring and visionary contribution when he drew the parallel between the new beginning in policing and the new beginning of the Labour party some years ago. I am not sure whether my commending to the Policing Board the introduction of the red rose as the new emblem for the police service would command universal support. It might challenge even my powers of persuasion, but we will see.
        The right hon. Member for Upper Bann says that the sensitivity to symbols does not have any significant resonance in the community at large. I do not think that that is true either for his side of the community or for the nationalist side of it. On the contrary, those matters have huge resonance, which is why they are capable of stimulating such controversy.
        I follow the logic of what the right hon. Gentleman said about the Good Friday agreement and the principle of consent. All I say to him is that it is not me whom he needs to persuade in the first instance. It is nationalists—nationalist members of the new Policing Board—whom Unionist members of the board must seek to persuade and to bring round to their view. However, whatever the outcome of that discussion in the Policing Board, my view is clear: that outcome must be based on genuine cross-community consensus. Nothing that falls short of that will do. We cannot resolve those matters on any other basis.
        Of course, I do not want to do anything that would jeopardise the Good Friday agreement. Of course, I accept the right hon. Gentleman's logic and his position that we want to sustain the agreement in every respect, but we also want to ensure a proper and successful new beginning for policing in Northern Ireland. Both are important and not mutually exclusive goals.
        I turn to the point made by the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay) and by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield about the ombudsman. They are in danger of making far too much of the issue. I do not think that it quite merits the language that they used.
        As a general proposition, I agree that the role and responsibility of the ombudsman is to deal not with general policing policies but with individual complaints about policing. However, nothing can stop the ombudsman offering her views on matters such as the police use of baton rounds, and she can make her comments in public. She is an entirely independent person, with strong views, and she can say what she likes on such matters. Listing her as a consultee merely recognises the reality and puts this within a formal and appropriate framework and setting. To be perfectly

        245
        honest, I would rather consult her as a formal consultee than as a public referee, because as a consultee she would be offering her views to me in private.
        Mr. Öpik: I understand that the Opposition might push Lords amendment No. 24 to a vote because they object to the inclusion of the ombudsman in the public order consultation process. By doing that, they will be voting against an amendment that removes the ombudsman from the list of those to be consulted by the Secretary of State on determining or revising long-term policing objectives. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that that is the wrong signal to send from the Chamber and that the record will not be sympathetic to what Conservative Members are trying to do in this instance?
        Mr. Mandelson: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I have enough on my plate without resolving the self-evident contradictions of the Conservative party's position on the amendment.
        The hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) made a contribution that I believe a lot of people will have thought seriously about. I appreciate the sincerity with which he spoke. He criticises Labour Members and the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh for objectionable talk about boycotts, but I remind him that the leader of his party talked earlier about a possible refusal to comply-so one person's boycott is another person's refusal to comply. We could do with less talk of that sort from both sides of the House.
        The Bill, like the Good Friday agreement, is not and will not be perfect from anybody's point of view. Nobody will be entirely happy with what has been agreed when the legislation leaves this House. However, the Bill, like the Good Friday agreement, is based on the principles of consent and equality. Ultimately, it is shaped by what is workable in the real world. The next test of workability will be in the shadow Policing Board, when it is constituted in the early part of next year.
        Question put, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment:—
        The House divided: Ayes 280, Noes 121.

        Division No. 345]

        [8.23 pm

        AYES

        Abbott, Ms Diane

        Betts, Clive

        Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)

        Blackman, Liz

        Ainger, Nick

        Blears, Ms Hazel

        Alexander, Douglas

        Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

        Allan, Richard

        Bradley, Keith (Withington)

        Allen, Graham

        Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

        Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

        Bradshaw, Ben

        Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

        Brake, Tom

        Ashton, Joe

        Breed, Colin

        Atherton, Ms Candy

        Brinton, Mrs Helen

        Austin, John

        Brown,Russell (Dumfries)

        Baker, Norman

        Browne, Desmond

        Ballard, Jackie

        Buck, Ms Karen

        Barnes, Harry

        Burgon, Colin

        Barron, Kevin

        Burnet,John

        Battle, John

        Burstow, Paul

        Beard, Nigel

        Butler, Mrs Christine

        Begg, Miss Anne

        Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

        Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

        Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

        Bennett, Andrew F

        Campbell, Mrs Anne (Cbridge)

        Bermingham, Gerald

        Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies

        Best, Harold

        (NE Fife)

        246

        Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

        Hill, Keith

        Campbell-Savours, Dale

        Hinchliffe, David

        Cann, Jamie

        Hood, Jimmy

        Caplin, Ivor

        Hope, Phil

        Caton, Martin

        Hopkins, Kelvin

        Cawsey, Ian

        Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

        Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

        Howells, Dr Kim

        Clapham, Michael

        Hurst, Alan

        Clark, Dr Lynda

        Hutton, John

        (Edinburgh Pentlands)

        Iddon, Dr Brian

        Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

        Illsley,Eric

        Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

        Ingram, Rt Hon Adam

        Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

        Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

        Clelland, David

        Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

        Clwyd, Ann

        Jenkins, Brian

        Coffey, Ms Ann

        Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

        Coleman, Iain

        Johnson, Miss Melanie

        Colman, Tony

        (Welwyn Hatfield)

        Connarty, Michael

        Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

        Corbyn, Jeremy

        Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

        Corston, Jean

        Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

        Cotter, Brian

        Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

        Cousins, Jim

        Keeble, Ms Sally

        Cox, Tom

        Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

        Cranston, Ross

        Kemp, Fraser

        Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

        Kennedy, Jane (Wavetrtree)

        Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

        Khabra, Piara S

        Cummings, John

        Kidney, David

        Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack

        King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

        (Copeland)

        King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

        Cunningham, Jim (Cov'tty S)

        Kirkwood, Archy

        Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

        Kumar, Dr Ashok

        Darvill, Keith

        Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

        Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

        Lepper, David

        Davidson, Ian

        Leslie, Christopher

        Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

        Levitt, Tom

        Dawson, Hilton

        Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

        Dismore, Andrew

        Livsey, Richard

        Dobbin, Jim

        Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

        Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

        Llwyd, Elfyn

        Donohoe, Brian H

        McAvoy, Thomas

        Doran, Frank

        McCafferty, Ms Chris

        Dowd, Jim

        McDonagh, Siobhain

        Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

        Macdonald, Calum

        Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

        McDonnell, John

        Edwards, Huw

        McGrady, Eddie

        Etherington, Bill

        McGuire, Mrs Anne

        Fitzpatrick, Jim

        Mackinlay Andrew

        Flint, Caroline

        Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert

        Follett, Barbara

        McNamara, Kevin

        Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

        McNulty, Tony

        Foulkes, George

        MacShane, Denis

        Gardiner, Barry

        McWalter, Tony

        George, Andrew (St Ives)

        Mallaber, Judy

        Gerrard, Neil

        Mallon, Seamus

        Gibson, Dr Ian

        Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter

        Gidley, Sandra

        Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

        Gilroy, Mrs Linda

        Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

        Godman, Dr Norman A

        Marshall—Anderws, Robert

        Godsiff, Roger

        Martlew,Eric

        Goggins, Paul

        Maxton, John

        Golding, Mrs Llin

        Meale, Alan

        Gordon, Mrs Eileen

        Merron, Gillian

        Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

        Michael, Rt Hon Alun

        Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

        Michie, Bill (Shelld Heeley)

        Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

        Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

        Grocott, Bruce

        Mitchell, Austin

        Grogan, John

        Moffatt, Laura

        Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

        Moran, Ms Margaret

        Hanson, David

        Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

        Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

        Morris, Rt Hon Ms Estelle

        Harvey, Nick

        (Bham Yardley)

        Healey, John

        Mountford, Kali

        Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

        Mudie, George

        Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

        Mullin, Chris

        Heppell, John

        Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

        247

        Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

        Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns)

        Naysmith, Dr Doug

        Soley, Clive

        Norris, Dan

        Starkey, Dr Phyllis

        O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

        Steiberg, Gerry

        Olner, Bill

        Stevenson, George

        Öpik, Lembit

        Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

        Organ, Mrs Diana

        Stoate, Dr Howard

        Palmer, Dr Nick

        Straw, Rt Hon Jack

        Pearson, Ian

        Stringer, Graham

        Pickthall, Colin

        Stuart, Ms Gisela

        Pike, Peter L

        Stunell, Andrew

        Plaskitt, James

        Sutcliffe, Gerry

        Pollard, Kerry

        Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann

        Pond, Chris

        (Dewsbury)

        Pope, Greg

        Taylor, David (NW Leics)

        Powell, Sir Raymond

        Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

        Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

        Temple-Morris, Peter

        Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

        Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

        Purchase, Ken

        Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

        Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce

        Timms, Stephen

        Quinn, Lawrie

        Tipping, Paddy

        Radice, Rt Hon Giles

        Tonge, Dr Jenny

        Rendel, David

        Touhig, Don

        Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

        Trickett, Jon

        Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

        Truswell,Paul

        Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

        Turner, Dennis (Wolverhton SE)

        Rowlands, Ted

        Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

        Roy, Frank

        Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

        Ruane, Chris

        Turner, Neil (Wigan)

        Ruddock, Joan

        Twigg, Derek (Halton)

        Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

        Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

        Ryan, Ms Joan

        Tyler,Paul

        Sanders, Adrian

        Vis, Dr Rudi

        Sarwar, Mohammad

        Walley, Ms Joan

        Savidge, Malcolm

        Webb, Steve

        Sedgemore, Brian

        White, Brian

        Sheerman, Barry

        Whitehead, Dr Alan

        Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

        Wicks, Malcolm

        Shipley, Ms Debra

        Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

        Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

        Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

        Skinner, Dennis

        Winnick, David

        Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

        Worthigton, Tony

        Smith, Angela (Basildon)

        Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

        Smith, Miss Geraldine

        Wright, Tony (Cannock)

        (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

        Tellers for the Ayes:

        Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

        Mr. Kevin Hughes and

        Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

        Mr. David Jamieson.

        NOES

        Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

        Duncan Smith, Iain

        Amess, David

        Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

        Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

        Evans, Nigel

        Beggs, Roy

        Fallon, Michael

        Bercow, John

        Fight, Howard

        Beresford, Sir Paul

        Forth, Rt Hon Eric

        Blunt, Crispin

        Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

        Body, Sir Richard

        Fox, Dr Liam

        Boswell, Tim

        Fraser, Christopher

        Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

        Gale,Roger

        Brady, Graham

        Gamier, Edward

        Brazier, Julian

        Gibb, Nick

        Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

        Gill, Christopher

        Browning, Mrs Angela

        Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

        Burns, Simon

        Green, Damian

        Cash, William

        Greenway,John

        Chapman, Sir Sydney

        Grieve, Dominic

        (Chipping Bamet)

        Gummer, Rt Hon John

        Clappison, James

        Hague, Rt Hon William

        Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)

        Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

        Collins, Tim

        Hammond, Phillip

        Cran, James

        Hawkins, Nick

        Curry, Rt Hon David

        Heald, Oliver

        Day, Stephen

        Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

        Donaldson, Jeffrey

        Horam, John

        Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

        Hunter, Andrew

        248

        Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

        Robertson, Laurence

        Jenkin, Bernard

        Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

        Key, Robert

        Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxboume)

        King,Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

        Ross, William (E Lond'y)

        Kirkbride, Miss Julie

        Rowe, Andrew (Faversham)

        Laign, Mrs Eleanor

        Ruffley, David

        Lait, Mrs Jacqui

        Sayeed, Jonathan

        Leigh, Edward

        Shepherd, Richard

        Letwin, Oliver

        Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

        Lidington, David

        Soames, Nicholas

        Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

        Spring, Richard

        Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

        Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

        Loughton, Tim

        Streeter, Gary

        Luff, Peter

        Swayne, Desmond

        Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

        Syms, Robert

        McCartney, Robert (N Down)

        Tapsell, Sir Peter

        McCrea, Dr William

        Taylor,John M (Solithull)

        MacGregor, Rt Hon John

        Taylor, Sir Teddy

        Mclntosh, Miss Anne

        Thompson, William

        MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

        Trimble, Rt Hon David

        Maclean, Rt Hon David

        Tyire,Andrew

        McLoughlin, Patrick

        Walker, Cecil

        Madel, Sir David

        Waterson,Nigel

        Maples,John

        Wells,Bowen

        Maude, Rt Hon Francis

        Whitney, Sir Raymond

        Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brain

        Whittingdale, John

        Moss, Malcolm

        Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

        Nicholls, Patrick

        Wilkinson, John

        Norman, Archie

        Willetts, David

        OBrien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

        Wilshire, David

        Page, Richard

        Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

        Paisley, Rev Ian

        Yeo, Tim

        Pickles, Eric

        Young, Rt Hon Sir George

        Prior, David

        Randall, John

        Tellers for the Noes:

        Redwood, Rt Hon John

        Mr.Keith Simpson and

        Robathan, Andrew

        Mr.James Gray.

        Question accordingly agreed to.
        Lords amendment agreed to.
        Lords amendment No.25 agreed to

      Clause 26

        THE BOARDS POLICING PLAN
        Lords amendment: No.26,in Page 12, Line 22, Leave out from ("shall")to("matters") in line 23 and insert
        ("—

        (a) Contain an assessment of the requirements for educating and training police officers and members of the police support staff and give particulars of the way in which those requirements are to be met: and

        (b) Include such other statements and give particulars if such other")

        Amendment proposed to the Lords amendment: (a) in line 4, after "staff", insert—
        Particulary with regard to human rights;—[Mr. McNamara]
        Question put, That the amendment to the Lords amendment be made:—
        The House divided: Ayes 32, Noes 252.

        Division No. 346]

        [8.36 pm

        AYES

        Abbott,Ms Diane

        Burstow, Paul

        Allan, Richard

        Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies

        Baker, Norman

        (NE Fife)

        Ballard, Jackie

        Corbyn, Jeremy

        Brake, Tom

        Cotter, Brian

        Breed, Colin

        George, Andrew (St Ives)

        Burnett,John

        Gidley,Sandra

        249

        Godman, Dr Norman A

        ÖPik, Lembit

        Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

        Rendel, David

        Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

        Sanders, Adrian

        Kirkwood, Archy

        Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns)

        Livsey, Richard

        Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

        Llwyd, Elfyn

        Tonge, Dr Jenny

        McGrady, Eddie

        Tyler, Paul

        Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert

        Webb,Steve

        McNamara, Kevin

        Tellers for the Ayes:

        Mallon, Seamus

        Mr.Andrew Stunell and

        Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

        Mr.John McDonnell.

        NOES

        Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)

        Dalyell,Tam

        Ainger, Nick

        Darvill, Keith

        Alexander, Douglas

        Davey,Valerie (Bristol W)

        Allen, Graham

        Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

        Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

        Dawson, Hilton

        Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

        Dismore, Andrew

        Ashton, Joe

        Dobbin, Jim

        Atherton, Ms Candy

        Donaldson, Jeffrey

        Austin, John

        Donohoe,Brian H

        Barnes, Harry

        Doran, Frank

        Barron, Kevin

        Dowd,Jim

        Battle, John

        Eagle,Maria (L'pool Garston)

        Beard, Nigel

        Edwards, Huw

        Begg, Miss Anne

        Etherigton, Bill

        Beggs, Roy

        Fitzpatrick, Jim

        Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

        Flint, Caroline

        Bennett, Andrew F

        Follett, Barbara

        Bermingham, Gerald

        Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

        Best, Harold

        Foulkes, George

        Betts, Clive

        Gardiner, Barry

        Blackman, Liz

        George, Andrew (St Ives)

        Blears, Ms Hazel

        Gerrard, Neil

        Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

        Gibson, Dr Ian

        Bradley, Keith (Withington)

        Gilroy, Mrs Linda

        Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

        Godsiff, Roger

        Bradshaw, Ben

        Goggins, Paul

        Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

        Golding, Mrs Llin

        Browne, Desmond

        Gordon, Mrs Eileen

        Buck, Ms Karen

        Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

        Burgon, Colin

        Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

        Butler, Mrs Christine

        Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

        Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

        Grocott, Bruce

        Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

        Grogan,John

        Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

        Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

        Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

        Hanson, David

        Campbell-Savours, Dale

        Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

        Cann, Jamie

        Harvey, Nick

        Caplin, Ivor

        Healey, John

        Caton, Martin

        Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

        Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

        Heppell, John

        Clapham, Michael

        Hill, Keith

        Clark, Dr Lynda

        Hinchliffe, David

        (Edinburgh Pentlands)

        Hood, Jimmy

        Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

        Hope, Phil

        Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coalbridge)

        Hopkins, Kelvin

        Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

        Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

        Clelland, David

        Howells, Dr Kim

        Clwyd, Ann

        Hurst, Alan

        Coffey, Ms Ann

        Hutton, John

        Coleman, Iain

        Iddon, Dr Brian

        Connarty, Michael

        Illsley, Eric

        Corston, Jean

        Ingram, Rt Hon Adam

        Cousins, Jim

        Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

        Cox, Tom

        Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

        Cranston, Ross

        Jenkins, Brian

        Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

        Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

        Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

        Johnson, Miss Melanie(Welwyn Hatfield)

        Cummings, John

        Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

        Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

        Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

        Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

        Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

        Keeble, Ms Sally

        250

        Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

        Robinson, Geoffrey (Covtry NW)

        Kemp, Fraser

        Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

        Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

        Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

        Khabra, Piara S

        Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

        Kidney, David

        Ross, William (E Londy)

        King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

        Rowlands, Ted

        King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

        Roy, Frank

        Kumar, Dr Ashok

        Ruane, Chris

        Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

        Ruddock, Joan

        Lepper, David

        Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

        Leslie, Christopher

        Ryan, Ms Joan

        Levitt, Tom

        Sarwar, Mohammad

        Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

        Savidge, Malcolm

        Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

        Sedgemore, Brian

        McAvoy, Thomas

        Sheerman, Barry

        McCafferty, Ms Chris

        Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

        McCartney, Robert (N Down)

        Shipley, Ms Debra

        McCrea, Dr William

        Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

        McDonagh, Siobhain

        Skinner, Dennis

        Macdonald, Calum

        Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

        McGuire, Mrs Anne

        Smith, Angela (Basildon)

        Mackinlay, Andrew

        Smith, Miss Geraldine

        McNulty, Tony

        (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

        MacShane, Denis

        Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

        McWalter, Tony

        Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

        Mallaber, Judy

        Smith, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

        Mendelson, Rt Hon Peter

        Soley, Clive

        Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

        Starkey, Dr Phyllis

        Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

        Steinberg, Gerry

        Marshall-Andrews, Robert

        Stevenson, George

        Martlew, Eric

        Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

        Maxton, John

        Stoate, Dr Howard

        Meale, Alan

        Straw, Rt Hon Jack

        Merron, Gillian

        Stringer, Graham

        Michael, Rt Hon Alun

        Stuart, Ms Gisela

        Michie, Bill (Shefld Heeley)

        Sutcliffe, Gerry

        Mitchell, Austin

        Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann

        Moffatt, Laura

        (Dewsbury)

        Moran, Ms Margaret

        Taylor, David (NW Leics)

        Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

        Temple-Morris, Peter

        Morris, Rt Hon Ms Estelle

        Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

        (B'ham Yardley)

        Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

        Mountford, Kali

        Thompson, William

        Mudie, George

        Timms, Stephen

        Mullin, Chris

        Tipping, Paddy

        Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

        Touhig, Don

        Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

        Trickett, Jon

        Naysmith, Dr Doug

        Truswell, Paul

        Norris, Dan

        Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

        O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

        Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

        Olner, Bill

        Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

        Organ, Mrs Diana

        Turner, Neil (Wigan)

        Paisley, Rev Ian

        Twigg, Derek (Halton)

        Palmer, Dr Nick

        Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

        Pearson, Ian

        Vis, Dr Rudi

        Pickthall, Colin

        Walker, Cecil

        Pike, Peter L

        Walley, Ms Joan

        Plaskitt, James

        White, Brian

        Pollard, Kerry

        Whitehead, Dr Alan

        Pond, Chris

        Wicks, Malcolm

        Pope, Greg

        Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

        Powell, Sir Raymond

        Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

        Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

        Winnick, David

        Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

        Worthington, Tony

        Purchase, Ken

        Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

        Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce

        Wright, Tony (Cannock)

        Quinn, Lawrie

        Tellers for the Nose:

        Radice, Rt Hon Giles

        Mr. Kevin Hughes and

        Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)

        Mr. David Jamieson.

        Question accordingly negatived.
        Lords amendment agreed to.
        Lords amendments Nos. 27 and 28 agreed to.

      Clause 28

        ARRANGEMENTS RELATING TO ECONOMY, EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS
        Lords amendment: No. 29, in page 13, line 9, leave out from ("make") to ("to") in line 10 and insert ("arrangements").
        Mr. Ingram: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
        Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Sylvia Heal): With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 30 to 56.
        Mr. Ingram: This large group of amendments makes fundamental changes to the efficiency or best value provisions in part V of the Bill. The changes give the board primacy for securing continuous improvement in the way in which board and police functions are exercised with regard to efficiency, effectiveness and economy. They give the board the lead in reviewing board and police functions. In respect of the police, the board is obliged to involve the Chief Constable in its deliberations.
        The amendments confine the Secretary of State's role to one of default-exercisable only on receipt of an adverse report from the Comptroller and Auditor—General or Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary.
        These provisions were debated thoroughly and constructively in the other place and the Government believe that they now strike the right balance. We are grateful for the wide range of positive contributions made in the other place, which undoubtedly aided the Government to meet their commitment—made in this House—to place the board at the heart of the efficiency measures.
        I commend the amendments to the House.
        Mr. Őpik: Best value is important; the issue was raised by my colleagues in another place—and by my right hon. and hon. Friends in this place—at various stages of the Bill's progress. We thank Ministers for listening to the representations made by us and others on the matter. My colleague, Baroness Harris of Richmond, welcomed the amendment after the Government had listened to her concerns and to those that we had expressed in this place and on Second Reading in the Lords.
        The setting of performance targets is clearly an integral part of the police planning process—indeed, it is a vital tool. The achievement of best value must be the product of close partnership between the board and the Chief Constable. We are grateful to the Government for realising that.
        As was pointed out in another place, the amendments seem to be one of the more significant changes made by the Government. They have unquestionably improved the Bill.
        Lords amendment agreed to.
        Lords amendments Nos. 30 to 56 agreed to.

      Clause 32

        GENERAL FUNCTIONS OF THE POLICE
        Lords amendment: No. 57, in page 16, line 40, leave out ("have regard to") and insert ("be guided by").
        The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. George Howarth): I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
        Madam Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendment No. 88 and amendment (a) thereto, and Lords amendments Nos. 89 to 92 and 106.
        Mr. Howarth: This group of amendments deals predominantly with the code of ethics: they reinforce the code. Amendment No. 57 strengthens the requirements for police officers to adhere to the code of ethics. Not unreasonably, it changes "have regard to" to "be guided by".
        Amendment No. 90 requires the board to review the steps taken by the Chief Constable to ensure that the code of ethics is brought to the attention of officers. Amendment No. 91 adjusts the wording of clause 50 to require the Secretary of State to reflect the code of ethics in discipline regulations
        so far as is practicable.
        Amendment No. 88 makes two changes. The first is to meet more closely the recommendation in Patten that the code should integrate the European convention on human rights in police practice; paragraph 4.8 of the Patten report refers to that. The second change was made in response to concerns that, in drawing up the code of ethics, the Chief Constable and the board should have regard to the wording of the new declaration attested by constables under clause 38.
        Amendment No. 89 makes the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland a consultee on the code of ethics. Amendment No. 92 is technical; it refers to conduct and discipline—not pensions, as suggested by the previous wording.
        Amendment No. 106 requires the Secretary of State to have regard to the principle of impartiality in carrying out his general duties under clause 66. That fulfils a commitment made in Committee in this place. I commend the amendments to the House.
        Amendment (a) proposed by my hon. Friends would require that the code of ethics be used to make police officers aware of the contents of specified international instruments set out in the amendment. The current form of clause 50(1) makes the purpose of the code of ethics in relation to human rights as close as possible to Patten's recommendation 4. Amendment (a) would move the Bill away from Patten's recommendations.
        As we have said, the problem with international human rights standards is lack of clarity, even with the documents mentioned. For example, the United Nations code of conduct for law enforcement officials refers to many other international instruments. I understand that none of the three instruments referred to has been formally ratified by the United Kingdom, or is legally binding in international law in the same way as a treaty would be. The documents constitute aspirational statements.
        If particular, specific measures in those or other instruments would add value to the code of ethics. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission will, no

        253
        doubt, comment on them when it is consulted on the code of ethics. In view of that information, I ask my hon. Friends not to press amendment (a) to a Division.
        Mr. Öpik: I had hoped to speak after the hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), because I am interested to hear what he has to say. However, I shall make a few brief comments in anticipation of what he might say.
        Lords amendment No. 57 goes some way to allaying one of our key concerns. We had strongly pressed the Government to ensure that police officers comply with the code of ethics in carrying out their functions, rather than simply having regard to it, as originally stated in the Bill. The Government have changed the words "have regard to" to "be guided by"—a stronger form of words. That goes some way to reassuring us that the code of ethics will be properly heeded.
        The protection of an individual's human rights is essential to the well-being of a democratic society. Indeed, that is the reason why we were sympathetic to amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 26, which would have brought human rights considerations explicitly into the police training plan. People clearly want the police to protect their human rights from infringement by others and to respect their human rights in the exercise of the duties that they are paid to undertake. We have seen how the bad application or indiscriminate use of powers to limit a person's human rights has damaged and undermined the credibility of the police in some parts of the community. Stop and search, arrests, and house searches can lead to bad police relations with certain sections of the community, thereby making the effective policing of certain areas impossible.
        With the best will in the world, the RUC has had problems winning credibility in some parts of the community. We have established many times in the Chamber that that is no reflection on the overwhelming majority of police officers who do a dangerous job extremely well in difficult circumstances. That is why we are pleased that the Government have chosen slightly to strengthen the phraseology by means of Lords amendment No. 57. The police must therefore be seen to follow and uphold the highest standards of international human rights. The fact that they are to be "guided by" those, rather than simply "having regard" to them, is an important step forward, and we thank Ministers for having listened.
        Lords amendment No. 88 is consistent with the benefits of Lords amendment No. 57, because it will make police officers aware of their rights and obligations, under the Human Rights Act 1998, in relation to the provisions of the code of ethics. In drafting the code, the Chief Constable and the board must also have regard to the terms of the oath. We are pleased that Ministers have taken that important step forward.
        On Lords amendment No. 89, it is good that the Equality Commission has been included among the bodies that will be consulted when preparing the code. The Equality Commission is made up of a tremendously professional and insightful group of individuals who do their job more because of their passion for the cause of equality than for payment or their salaries. For that reason, the Government have been wise to include their counsel in consultations.
        I shall wait to hear what the hon. Member for Hull, North has to say about amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 88. While we were sympathetic to
        254
        amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 26, which was a simple reaffirmation of a strategic commitment to the human rights legislation that is now part of British law, we have some concern that amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 88 goes a little further, and we remain to be convinced that the changes that the hon. Gentleman wants do not go a little too far.
        My understanding is that, if the circumstances permit, the codes of conduct included in amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 88 would probably be included in the work anyway, without such an explicit stipulation. We await what the hon. Member for Hull, North has to say, if he catches your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker.
        9 pm
        Mr. McNamara: Let me put at ease the minds and stomachs of colleagues in the House and outside. My colleagues and I have no intention of forcing a Division on my amendment. That, however, does not take away from the seriousness with which we regard it.
        Certain phrases in the Human Rights Commission report that I quoted at length earlier stand out. They include:
        The tutor's knowledge about human rights appeared to be weak.
        That was in paragraph 22. Paragraph 25 said:
        The training appeared to be done in a vacuum.
        Paragraph 31 said:
        The Commission found little evidence of training in international standards other than those in the ECHR or of benchmarking of progress through the training to that date.
        The European convention on human rights is in many ways aspirational, as I am sure that the Minister would agree. All law that we pass is aspirational; if it were not so, our prisons would not be full.
        Dr. Godman: May I raise a minor point? My hon. Friend might think it trivial, in which case I apologise. Do not the RUC officers serving with the United Nations international police force in Kosovo have to adhere to the UN code of conduct for law enforcement officials and the UN basic principles on the use of force and firearms?
        Mr. McNamara: That is probably right. It is not a point that I have considered. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing my attention and that of the Minister to that point. No doubt the Minister will get a letter from the Box shortly saying who was right.
        Dr. Godman: Or wrong.
        Mr. McNamara: Or wrong, or both. Factually wrong, but morally right, or vice versa—I am not certain.
        Patten said that we should also look to the European convention, which was drawn from the international convention. The Council of Europe has made its own declaration on the police. In fact, it is being revised by the Council of Ministers at the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe is working closely on the matter.
        The European declaration on the police was originally the work of the rapporteur of the Council of Europe, a member of the British Labour delegation in the 1970s, Mr. Watkinson. So there is a lot of basis for the code of ethics. The main point is that we do not have to see the European conventions in isolation from all other

        255
        international standards, particularly United Nations standards. People and policemen must be aware in their training that there is a broad idea of the natural law of justice in relation to policing that spreads beyond Europe and encompasses the whole world. Many nations in the world are prepared to accept it both for its morality and for the standards that it sets for good policing. I hope that when we have a revision—as we are bound to, after this report—of the contents of the curriculum and the teaching methods, the board will look outside what we have had so far, and outside the European convention, and realise that there is a world where a lot of people adopt policies some of which are at a higher level than those in the European convention, and that we should be aware of them and see how they operate.
        Mr. George Howarth: I thank the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik) for his support on the amendments, some of which were inspired by a debate that we had in Committee and elsewhere. I echo the praise that he voiced of the work of the Equality Commission. Last night, I met the chairman and other people associated with the commission. The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that the work that they are doing is very useful and gives us hope for the future that the important issue of equality, which is central to the Good Friday agreement, is receiving proper attention. No doubt when the occasion arises for the commission to be consulted, it will have something to say.
        I am grateful for the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) has said that he does not intend to press his amendment to a Division. I assure him that, despite the concerns that he has voiced tonight and repeated in this debate, the Human Rights Commission will, quite properly, not be backward in coming forward when it comes to being consulted on the cede of ethics. I know that my hon. Friend is familiar with some of the commissioners, and with Brice Dickson, the chief commissioner. It is clear that they are not people who would stand blushing on the sidelines; they ensure that when they are consulted, they have their say. I am sure that if they have any concerns, they will let us know about them.
        I believe that my hon. Friend discussed the role of the RUC in Kosovo and whether it is caught by international human rights standards. We do not believe that those standards apply, but that is a very provisional view. As my hon. Friend correctly predicted, although I say no, there may well be a yes to follow, and if I am incorrect in giving him those assurances, I shall write to him.
        I hope that my assurances will reassure my hon. Friend. I confirm that there will be provision in the future code of ethics to allow any alteration or change if it proves necessary.
        Lords amendment agreed to.
        Lords amendment No. 58 agreed to.

      Clause 44

        RECRUITMENT ARRANGEMENTS
        Lords amendment: No. 59, in page 21, line 27, at end insert—
        ("() In making regulations under this section, the Secretary of State shall have regard, in particular, to the need to secure that information is not disclosed contrary to the public interest.")
        Mr. Ingram: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
        Madam Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 60 to 62, 64, 65, 67 and 138.
        Mr. Ingram: I shall first discuss amendment No. 59, which deals with lay involvement in the recruitment process, and amendment No. 138. Amendment No. 59 obliges the Secretary of State to ensure, in recruitment regulations, that sensitive information is protected appropriately. Amendment No. 138 allows references to "the Board" in the recruitment provisions to be construed as reference to the Police Authority for Northern Ireland before the board replaces the authority. This is to enable the recruitment regulations to be progressed before the board is appointed.
        Amendment No. 61 places a ceiling of 75 per cent. on the level to which the Secretary of State is permitted to aggregate the 50:50 quota. The issue generated much discussion in Committee in the House and in the other place, so it might be worthwhile taking time to explain why we have arrived at our conclusion.
        The Bill allows for the 50:50 recruitment quota for police trainees to be adjusted for the purposes of recruiting police trainees in two sets of circumstances. First, a "set aside order" may be made when there is an insufficient number of candidates from either community background to fill the number of required posts—in effect, that means setting aside the 50:50 provision. Secondly, an "aggregation order" may be made when at least one such set aside order has been made in the previous three years—its purpose being to redress, or partly redress, any imbalance that has arisen as a result.
        Ulster Unionists and Liberal Democrats pointed out to us that, in the absence of any safeguard, the Secretary of State could, in theory, adjust the quota under an aggregation order to permit 100 per cent. recruitment from members of either community background group—Catholic or non-Catholic. The amendment accordingly sets a limit of 75 per cent. on the aggregation power, thus ensuring that a minimum of 25 per cent. from either community background group are appointed. Amendment No. 62 is consequential on that.
        I come to the amendments that will add new clauses to the Bill. Amendment No. 60 is designed to meet recommendations 127 and 128 of the Patten report that police officers serving outside the RUC should be encouraged to apply for the ranks above constable. The report particularly said that Catholic officers from Northern Ireland serving in police services elsewhere—especially those in more senior ranks—should be contacted and encouraged to apply for positions in the Northern Ireland police. So-called lateral entry to the RUC from other United Kingdom forces already takes place to a limited degree. Our aim is to enhance the use of such channels at all levels in the police service, including from the Garda Siochana.
        Dr. Godman: I have recently met two senior officers in the RUC who were recruited from police forces in mainland Britain. Would it be possible for an officer in, for example, Strathclyde, to be seconded to the RUC for three or four years?
        Mr. Ingram: I do not know the detailed provisions for that. However, the answer is probably yes if there is

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        agreement between the forces. For example, a police officer with particular expertise or knowledge of the investigation of fraud could be called in to meet a deficiency in a police service. A police officer from Strathclyde, from any other force in Great Britain or from the Garda Siochana could be seconded for his expertise in certain circumstances. I am sure that such interrelationships already exist. However, transfers on secondment may cause difficulties if the officers have to attest by means of different oaths. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point and I shall write to him if my explanation is not correct.
        I was describing how so-called lateral entry, including from the Garda Siochana, could take place. Such lateral entry will be based on selection and open competition. The fundamental principles of merit will be applied as Patten recommended. Amendment No. 65 is consequential on amendment No. 60. It makes the lateral entry provision temporary, subject to our triennial review and renewal.
        Amendment No. 67 was tabled in response to an undertaking given in Standing Committee to consider female representation in the police. The RUC suffers a marked imbalance in terms of both community background and gender. Only 12.6 per cent. of police officers are women, a third of whom are in the part-time reserve.
        9.15 pm
        The provision enables the Policing Board to monitor the representation of women in the police, the police support staff and the board itself, and to devise measures to increase their representation if necessary. The board may invite the Chief Constable to draft the plan, which can be accepted or amended by the board. Consultation is required with the Equality Commission, the Chief Constable and the Secretary of State before the plan is made or revised. However, publication of the plan will be a matter for the board. Amendment No. 64 is simply a drafting amendment to that process. I commend the amendments to the House.
        Mr. Trimble: As the Minister said, we have debated this issue before and there are some very strong views on it, as I am sure all hon. Members will be aware. Indeed, the amendments raise matters of principles such as the merit principle which the Minister referred to as fundamental.
        I am sorry that the hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) is not here. Perhaps he will be able to join us when he has had dinner.
        Mr. McDonnell: My hon. Friend is telephoning his wife and will be back shortly.
        Mr. Trimble: I am glad for that reassurance. No doubt the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell) can convey my comments to the hon. Gentleman.
        1 have listened to contributions by the hon. Member for Hull, North and his colleagues in which they talked about human rights. The hon. Gentleman has expressed his concern that human rights be upheld. Indeed, the amendments that he has tabled reflect his anxiety that human rights issues are raised and given more attention
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        in the Bill. Human rights are never more important than when they are about to be abused, and we now have a chance to apply an acid test to those concerns about human rights. I hear a great deal about human rights from many hon. Members and from many people here and in Northern Ireland. Let those hon. Members stand up for human rights tonight.
        We intend to divide the House on amendment No. 61. It relates to some of the provisions on quotas in clause 45. The clause heading—"Discrimination in appointments"—is refreshingly honest: the clause provides for discrimination in recruitment, and it is clear and open about that. The Government are deliberately setting aside human rights to discriminate. Although they talk about the importance of human rights and putting them at the heart of the process, they have started off by corrupting the process because they have deliberately decided to discriminate.
        Furthermore, the proposals are quite unnecessary. The Government have discovered that they have problems. That is why amendment No. 61 was tabled in the other place. They realised that they were getting into a situation that would produce not only absurdities but indefensible positions. The Government have realised that their proposals are not practicable and will give rise to difficulty, but the proposals are unnecessary because the target population for recruitment is roughly 50:50 in Northern Ireland between Protestant and Catholic. There is a slight Catholic majority in some ages but not in others. If there are equal levels of participation in both communities there will be roughly 50:50 recruitment. Equal participation depends upon the attitude taken by individuals who apply. We have every reason to believe that now that, as we hope, a major terrorist campaign is a thing of the past—although violence has not completely ended—there will be a significant increase in the number of Catholic applicants. We shall have to see whether the proportion moves immediately to 50 per cent. Given the nature of things, it might not do so in the first year or two. However, we could be surprised.
        The attitude taken by leaders of the Catholic Church and by community and political leaders will be significant. If political and community leaders encourage people to join, we shall rapidly reach a 50:50 position. It would be proper in the present circumstances to have various forms of what is called affirmative action to encourage people to apply. Members are familiar with the concept of affirmative action and are aware of the range of things that can be done in those terms.
        It is unnecessary to provide for a legal quota, and by doing so the Government will discriminate. They may try to console themselves with the thought that in the first few years they may discriminate against only a handful of people—perhaps only a dozen or a score will be discriminated against. They will meet the merit or quality requirement and be put into a recruitment booth, but will not get a job. Other persons who come along after them will get jobs ahead of them. Each of those persons who are so discriminated against will be entitled to have their human rights respected. The Government are deliberately legislating to violate those rights. That is not the way to proceed.
        The Government's approach will sour the atmosphere from the outset, and in the long run it will not work. Given the amendments that the Government have tabled, I think that they know that. They realise that when discrimination

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        occurs and complaints are pursued, their position will not be sustainable. I think that the Government will be unable to operate the system for more than a few years before their own absurdity and injustice catches up with them. However, think of the unnecessary damage that will be done during those years.
        We have pursued the matter in this place and in another place. We were glad to have the support of the Liberal Democrats in Committee when we tabled amendments and new clauses to provide for targets and affirmative action. That would have been a sensible way in which to proceed. I regret that the Liberal Democrats did not lend their support in another place. Had they done so, the amendments would have been carried and we would have a different set of Lords amendments, which we would have been pleased to support. We can only guess what the Secretary of State's smile indicates in terms of whatever was done—given the way in which the House operates—and what was done with the Liberal Democrats so as to induce them to do a U-turn as these matters proceeded to another place. When we vote later this evening, it will be interesting to see whether Liberal Democrat Members do what they did in Committee or adopt the U-turn that was taken by their colleagues in another place.
        I refer to those matters in light terms, but there is still a serious issue. A significant number of people in Northern Ireland have a rather cynical attitude towards the use of the term "human rights". I believe in human rights—despite the sour comments that I have heard from members of other parties—and I am anxious to ensure that people's rights are upheld. That is why I find the provisions so disappointing. Although they are unnecessary, they are being forced through in the knowledge that they will injure people's rights.
        The Government have gone to the length of persuading the European Council of Ministers to produce a derogation from the equal rights directive. That might be the end of matters in Europe, or it might not—I suspect the latter, as issues remain that can be pursued there. There is also the question of the European convention on human rights. No doubt, cases will be brought based on the convention, allowing us to discover whether the certificate in the Bill is accurate. I suspect that several cases relating to the provisions will get to court.
        The provisions do the Government, the Bill and, consequently, the police force great damage, unnecessarily. There is still time for the Government to think again and realise that all that is necessary is that encouragement is given: the Government and community and religious leaders only have to encourage people to come forward, because the irony, as I have said before, is that the target age group for recruitment is roughly evenly balanced. That is the right way.
        Legally coercive methods are the wrong way, and run quite contrary to the agreement into which we entered. This evening, I have reflected on the fact that some parties that say they support the agreement set it to one side when it suits them to do so. I am afraid that that is happening again now.
        Mr. Grieve: As the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) and Ministers know, when this matter was debated in Standing Committee, I, on behalf of the official
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        Opposition, expressed serious reservations about the entirety of the provisions of clause 45. Whatever is done in respect of the European Union and its directives, I wholly share the view of the right hon. Gentleman that the clause is in breach of the European convention on human rights.
        It is in that light that one must see Lords amendment No. 61, which is apparently the device whereby a degree of approval was secured in the upper House for allowing the Bill to pass containing clause 45 in its present form. However, it seems to me that the amendment makes matters worse, because it emphasises the fact that there will be occasions on which up to 75 per cent. of the recruitment pool have to face a discriminatory bias. I do not understand how the provision will achieve the goals that the Government desire.
        From the comments I made in Committee, the Minister of State knows that the Opposition share the Government's desire for a massive increase in the number of members joining the police service in Northern Ireland who are drawn from the minority Roman Catholic community. If that means that the day comes when Roman Catholics comprise more than 50 per cent. of the Northern Ireland police service, as it will be called, we shall not lose one second of sleep. Indeed, taking into account matters of demography and employment, that scenario may well come to pass. I am sure that it is likely that Roman Catholics are more heavily represented in the Metropolitan police in London than their numerical strength in the general population might appear to dictate. We shall not worry about that.
        However, positive discrimination is discrimination, and the effect of Lords amendment No. 61 on clause 45 is to institutionalise even further the discrimination that is clear in the clause as it stands. The amendment may be ingenious in terms of persuading Liberal Democrat peers in another place to support the insupportable, but we cannot support it. We agree entirely with the view of the Ulster Unionists that this is a proper matter on which to divide the House.
        9.30 pm
        Dr. Godman: I offer my compliments to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on amendment No. 67. The promise was made that careful examination would be carried out concerning the role of women in the police, the police support staff and the board's staff.
        No one can criticise subsection (4), which states:
        Before making or revising its action plan, the Board shall consult—

        (a) the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland;

        (b) the Chief Constable; and

        (c) the Secretary of State.

        Certain police functions are better carried out by women police officers than by male police officers. That provision is a useful improvement to the Bill. I am sure that the board and the Chief Constable will deal humanely with the problem of under-representation, if there is one.
        I refer to recommendation 154 of the Patten commission, and ask a question that my right hon. Friend may consider to be of minor importance. When a recruitment programme is finally under way for new recruits, and to bring in experienced officers from other police forces, will they be able to wear the new uniform

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        suggested in recommendation 154? That recommendation refers to paragraph 17.7 of the Patten report, which states that
        we have been persuaded by the Police Federation and individual officers who commented on the present uniform that it is somewhat outdated and we recommend that a new, more practical style of uniform be provided to police officers.
        I have often thought that about RUC uniforms. How far has that recommendation been carried out? Is there a new uniform—I almost said, "on the stocks" to my right hon. Friend. How close are we to a new, more sensible, more appropriate uniform?
        My right hon. Friend knows that I disagree with one part of the recommendation—that the colour of the new police uniform should remain the same as the present uniform. The right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) spoke about the display cabinets at the headquarters of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. I, too, have looked at them a couple of times, and I concur with what he said about the badges worn by members of the other 66 police forces in the United Kingdom. They have a common colour uniform, I believe. Eventually, the new police force in Northern Ireland should wear the identical colour uniform. I should like to know about the design of the new uniform, and how far matters have progressed.
        Mr. Öpik: I shall share a secret about the mysteries surrounding the apparent change of heart by the Liberal Democrats.
        Mr. Mandelson: Oh no, please don't.
        Mr. Öpik: At this moment I feel more powerful than I ever have.
        Now that I have the attention of the House, I reaffirm that, as we would all agree, we are trying to achieve a demographic balance in the police force consistent with the demographic balance in Northern Ireland itself. On the uncontroversial part of this group of amendments, Lords amendment No. 67, as the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (Dr. Godman) said, is encouraging.
        On several occasions, the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde and others, including me, have said that by fixating on the simple sectarian divide that has traditionally been regarded as Protestant versus Catholic, we forget the fact that 11 per cent. or so of Northern Ireland's population do not categorise themselves as part of either grouping. Those people risk continuing to be under-represented in the police force. The symbolic importance of considering the gender balance cannot be overstated, and, given the amendments that we have already discussed, I hope that the increased influence of the Equality Commission will lead to other groups being taken into consideration. I hope that the Equality Commission can ensure equality for ethnic groups such as the Chinese—although at this point perhaps not quite the Estonians, who traditionally have almost no representation at all in the police.
        On the crucial issue of Lords amendment No. 61, my concerns about the Government's original proposal have not changed. I still believe that the solution lies primarily in focusing on applications, and that dealing with recruitment quotas is not the optimal way of tackling the issue. I have often claimed that once Catholics have applied for a police job, I have not seen evidence of
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        discrimination in the recruitment process itself. Although that is still my belief, nevertheless I shall share with the House an honest assessment of why my party and I feel it appropriate to evolve our position—[Interruption.] Hon. Members may snigger, but this is the key issue in what I have learned about the whole process.
        There sometimes seems to be a great desire for black and white, or binary, politics in the Chamber, especially on emotive issues such as this. It is almost as if it is regarded as a sign of weakness to evolve from the position in which one starts to another which is, in this case, less close to that of the official Opposition and the Ulster Unionists. There has been discussion and dialogue, and I have often raised issues with Ministers and others who have an intimate involvement in these matters in Northern Ireland. Many right hon. and hon. Members will have spoken with the same people. The modification proposed by the Government did not fully satisfy our worries, but it was better than the point at which we started.
        As the Minister said, before the amendment was tabled, there was the prospect of 100 per cent. recruitment from one side or the other, which, clearly, would be badly received by the community that lost out. More to the point, it would send all the wrong signals on the egalitarian recruitment policies that we are trying put together.
        Mr. Grieve: I am conscious that the hon. Gentleman may be rather delicately situated. However, does he agree with the principle that there is no difference between discrimination against 100 per cent. of the population and discrimination against 75 per cent? Is that not equally bad? I remember the hon. Gentleman's compelling words in Committee against that course of action, so how can he justify the change when the principle has not been touched at all?
        Dr. Godman: The hon. Gentleman is an evolutionary Liberal Democrat.
        Mr. Öpik: Perhaps so. I look forward to a definition after we have finished our debate.
        I do not want to detain the House too long, as we have only 21 minutes left. However, I shall answer the question asked by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) in simple terms. The principle remains the same. As one reads the Hansard record of our debates on the Floor of the House and in Committee, one can see that all three Ministers have given repeated assurances that they will not countenance discrimination against those who have managed to make it to the end of the recruitment process on merit. The implication of what the hon. Member for Beaconsfield said is clear. I agree that it is hard to see how, even with the 75-25 modification, that will be avoided. Nevertheless, it is clearly incumbent on Ministers to honour the commitment that they have made on a number of occasions as a result of the pressure from the official Opposition and the Liberal Democrats. [Interruption.]
        The hon. Member for Beaconsfield keeps asking from a sedentary position why the Liberal Democrats have changed our vote. We have done so because, through dialogue with Ministers, we have achieved some form of compromise. [Laughter.] I do not understand why that creates such mirth among those on the official Opposition

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        Front Bench. That is what normal people try to do. We were not in a position to convince the Government to turn 180 degrees on their position. We might have won in the other place, but it was my judgment that that would have delayed the Bill and perhaps resulted in some headlines at the time, but was unlikely to achieve a further concession.
        I always feel disappointed and rather uncomfortable when I cross the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble). I have enormous respect for his position and I still agree with him in principle, as I agree, in principle, with those on the official Opposition Front Bench. Time will tell if we made the right decision to modify our view. The result of the recruitment process, and whether the Minister can deliver a genuinely non-positive discriminatory result in Northern Ireland will be the touchstone of whether the Government overpromised. As I have said, I am a little sceptical about whether they can achieve that.
        Therefore, I ask the Minister to do two things. First, I ask him to reaffirm that the Government are sincerely committed to avoiding positive discrimination towards any sector of the community in Northern Ireland with regard to police recruitment. Secondly, I ask him to give the assurance that, if the Government fail to achieve that, they will review the arrangements on the lines proposed by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann and, by implication, the hon. Member for Beaconsfield and the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay). I, too, should like to see that review.
        Consensual politics is sometimes difficult because we become habituated to winning and losing. The position that we have put forward today is a risk; it is an experiment. More than anything, it will be judged on clear results in the months and years ahead. But what is the point in politics if one never genuinely listens to other people's points of view? We shall be judged by the outcomes. Perhaps that approach is why we should have proportional representation. However, I shall not go into that now.
        I have explained why the Liberal Democrats have changed. We have given an honest answer to the questions posed by the right hon. Members for Upper Bann and for Bracknell and by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield. We stand by our record of trying to tell the truth—and as much as we can, more than anything, we stand according to the principle that the Government will honour their half of an honest and open dialogue which is for anyone to see and for anyone to participate in if they are willing to take the risk of stepping outside party politics. On this occasion at least, higher issues are at stake.
        Dr. McCrea: This matter goes to the heart of the policing issue. Many hon. Members on the Opposition Benches have drawn attention to the discrimination which will clearly result from the Bill. The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik) said that 11 per cent. of the ethnic community would not be represented. It is interesting to note that anyone who is not a Roman Catholic or a Protestant is taken as a Protestant. That is one reason why the numbers and percentages are skewed in one direction. But there is a genuine concern that over the years, there has been a propaganda exercise against the RUC because of its make-up. One must ask why we have the present percentage from the Protestant
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        community within the RUC and the RUC reserves. The reality is that SDLP Members opposed the Royal Ulster Constabulary and did not want members of their party or people associated with it to join the organisation, against which they carried out a policy of vilification for many years. Ordinary Roman Catholics therefore found that they had no political back-up. The Church joined the political representatives and opposed individuals' membership of the organisation.
        9.45 pm
        In the community in which I live, many members of the Roman Catholic community served in the RUC with excellence, determination and courage. They faced not only opposition from their political and Church representatives, but the prospect of being attacked and murdered by the IRA. I ask hon. Members to consider the number of members of the Roman Catholic community who have been murdered by the IRA. We must identify clearly the reason why the proper percentage of people from the Roman Catholic community did not join the RUC.
        If members of the SDLP decide to sit on the sidelines because they believe that they have not got enough and can push for a few more concessions from the present Administration, they will certainly oppose members of the nationalist community joining the new service that is being commissioned. There is nothing new under the sun. They told us that the B Specials were the problem, so we got rid of them. They told us that the Ulster Defence Regiment was the problem, so we got rid of them. They move from one thing to another. Of course, the RUC is now the problem, so we move on again.
        The interesting question is whether members of the SDLP will directly encourage members of the Roman Catholic community to join the police force. Furthermore, will Church leaders do so, and will the SDLP's hench-party, Sinn Fein-IRA, also allow such people to join? No one wanted the establishment of a police force that represented only one section of the Northern Ireland community. We had sought to encourage the Roman Catholic community to cast aside its political representatives and join the RUC and had hoped that that would happen because we believed that they had a vital contribution to make to the protection of ordinary, law-abiding people throughout the Northern Ireland community.
        The basic human right of employment will now, however, be taken from the Protestant community. Interestingly, we are being told in the House that members of the Garda should join up and take over the RUC offices. In other words, people living in the United Kingdom are to be put out of their jobs and on to the unemployment lists, and people from a foreign country are to be put in their positions. Will that policy carry easily in the community? Will it establish a community relationship and unite a divided community?
        Hon. Members know that that will not be the outcome. Positive discrimination is at the heart of the proposals. It is institutionalised discrimination against a community that has stood against IRA terrorism, as well as all the other terrorism that has been fired at it. The basic human right to be employed on merit, not according to religious name or tag, should be established clearly, once and for all. That is why I feel that the suggestions under

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        consideration will sit well neither with the basic human rights of the people of the United Kingdom nor with the population about which I am talking. I refer especially to those who have served well and diligently and have withstood the onslaught of terrorism to achieve peace and stability in the Province.
        Mr. Ingram: As ever, the matter under discussion has generated a hot debate. The right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) made a strong speech and has held consistently to his view. In one sense, however, he did not take account of the breadth of the debate. That also applies to the contribution of the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve).
        The House does not necessarily need to accept the view of a Minister or of those who spoke in support of the Government amendments that were introduced in another placeit should listen to —the views of the Equality Commission. On the point made by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann about using targets and affirmative action to deal with the issue rather than our approach, the Equality Commission said:
        It is the Commission's view that goals and timetables and affirmative action measures which are currently lawful under the Fair Employment and Treatment (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 are unlikely to produce the necessary change in the composition of the police for a considerable period … the Commission believes that the creation of a police service which is representative of the community is essential both to the effectiveness of the police service and to the establishment of a peaceful Northern Ireland.
        I recollect our debate on Report. One of the strongest arguments against the Government's approach was that it would place us in a situation that was incompatible with EU employment directives. That argument has not been mentioned this evening. We said at the time that it was not and is not incompatible, although there was a possibility that it might be, but that we should seek an exemption, which we have achieved. I should have thought that hon. Gentlemen would recognise that—
        Mr. Trimble: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
        Mr. Ingram: In a moment. I was making the point that those hon. Gentlemen who previously rested so much of their argument on that suggestion—[Interruption.] We could all go back to the record.
        Mr. Grieve: Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect our discussion in Committee on that matter? I always took the view that the potential breach of the European convention was the central issue. The need to obtain a derogation from EU directives shows how sloppy the EU is if it has to enforce its own human rights legislation. However, I leave that to one side because it was never the central platform of my arguments, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will acknowledge.
        Mr. Ingram: I will not enter into a debate on Europe at this stage of the evening.
        Mr. Trimble: The Minister makes a point against himself. The fact that the Government had to get a derogation from the directive shows that the arguments that we made about the directive before there was a derogation were sound.
        Mr. Ingram: No, it does not. [Interruption.] I must say to the right hon. Gentleman that it does not. Our argument has been consistent all along.
        The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. …pik) discussed the Government's commitment to and view of positive discrimination. We said, and we have always recognised, that these are exceptional measures. Patten recognised that, as did the Equality Commission. We are dealing with a situation that everyone recognises is wrong, no matter how it arose.
        We can all analyse the background, but only 8 per cent. of the RUC's strength comes from the Catholic community, and something needed to be done. We set out to examine the way forward in a practical and mechanistic way, as the Patten report proposed. Certain weaknesses in that approach were raised by Ulster Unionists and by Liberal Democrats, and we took that into account. We modified our position, but did not move away from the central thrust of what Patten was asking us to do, and which we accepted had to be done.
        We have never hidden from the fact that positive discrimination is involved—we accept that, but we also point out that the situation is exceptional. I inform the right hon. Member for Upper Bann that I, too, can become passionate about the matter. Why is there such a disproportionate imbalance in the police service in Northern Ireland?
        Mr. Robert McCartney: The IRA.
        Mr. Ingram: I accept that there is a lot of evidence to show that there is harassment, victimisation and violence against Catholic serving members of the police service. Of that there is no doubt. That may give greater comfort, not to the right hon. Member for Upper Bann, who is not guilty of that, but to others in his community who have a chill factor in this context, which makes it difficult for people from that Catholic community to join the RUC. Our proposal will give comfort to that part of the community. We are serious about, and committed to, changing the complexion of the police service in Northern Ireland to secure that proper religious or community balance for the future. If we do not do so, it will not be acceptable in many parts of Northern Ireland.
        People constantly ask me how many police officers live in south Armagh, how many live in west Belfast, how many live in the Creggan and how many live in other parts of Deny. The answer is probably none, and that must change. If a police service is to serve the whole community, its officers should be able to live in that community,
        These are big issues. Big changes must take place. We are not at the end of the road, but our proposed measures will help us to achieve what we want to achieve. We must continually review the situation, because we must ensure the efficacy of the system. Is it working? Is it achieving its objective? If not, we must look at it again; if so, we have achieved a major success. That is why the amendments are essential.
        Lords amendment agreed to.
        Lords amendment No. 60 agreed to.

      Clause 45

        DISCRIMINATION IN APPOINTMENTS
        Lord amendment: No. 61, in page 22, Line 22, at end insert—
        ("(3A) No order may be made under subsection (2) as a result of subsection (3)(b) Which has the effect, as respects an occasion speciefiedn in the order, of requiring more than three—quarters of the persons appointed on that occasion to be—

        (a) the persons who are treated as Roman Catholic; or

        (b) the persons who are not so treated.")

        Motion made, and Question put, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.—[Mr. Ingram.]
        The House divided: Ayes 293, Noes 122.

        Division No. 347]

        [9.56 pm

        AYES

        Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)

        Clwyd, Ann

        Ainger, Nick

        Coffey, Ms Ann

        Alexander, Douglas

        Coleman, Iain

        Allan, Richard

        Colman, Tony

        Allen, Graham

        Corbyn, Jeremy

        Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

        Corston, Jean

        Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

        Cotter, Brian

        Ashton, Joe

        Cousins, Jim

        Atherton, Ms Candy

        Cox, Tom

        Atkins, Charlotte

        Cranston, Ross

        Austin, John

        Crausby, David

        Baker, Norman

        Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

        Banks, Tony

        Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

        Barnes, Harry

        Cummings, John

        Barron, Kevin

        Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack

        Battle, John

        (Copeland)

        Bayley, Hugh

        Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

        Beard, Nigel

        Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

        Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

        Dalyell, Tam

        Begg, Miss Anne

        Darvill, Keith

        Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

        Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

        Bennett, Andrew F

        Davidson, Ian

        Bermingham, Gerald

        Davies,Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

        Best, Harold

        Dawson, Hilton

        Betts, Clive

        Dismore, Andrew

        Blackman, Liz

        Dobbin, Jim

        Blears, Ms Hazel

        Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

        Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

        Donohoe, Brian H

        Bradley, Keith (Withington)

        Doran, Frank

        Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

        Dowd,Jim

        Bradshaw, Ben

        Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

        Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

        Edwards, Huw

        Browne, Desmond

        Etherington, Bill

        Buck, Ms Karen

        Feam, Ronnie

        Burgon, Colin

        Fitzpatrick, Jim

        Burstow, Paul

        Flint, Caroline

        Butler, Mrs Christine

        Flynn, Paul

        Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

        Follett, Barbara

        Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

        Foster, Rt Hon Derek

        Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies

        Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

        (NE Fife)

        Foulkes, George

        Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

        Galloway, George

        Campbell-Savours, Dale

        Gapes, Mike

        Cann, Jamie

        Gardiner, Barry

        Caplin, Ivor

        George, Andrew (St Ives)

        Caton, Martin

        Gerrard, Neil

        Cawsey, Ian

        Gibson, Dr Ian

        Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

        Gidley,Sandra

        Chidgey, David

        Gilrot, Mrs Linda

        Clapham, Michael

        Godman, Dr Norman A

        Clark, Dr Lynda

        Godsiff, Roger

        (Edinburgh Pentlands)

        Goggins,Paul

        Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

        Golding, Mrs Llin

        Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

        Gordon, Mrs Eleen

        Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

        Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

        Clelland, David

        Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

        268

        Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

        Merron, Gillian

        Grocott, Bruce

        Michael, Rt Hon Alun

        Grogan, John

        Michie, Bill (Shefld Heeley)

        Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

        Miller, Andrew

        Hanson, David

        Moffatt, Laura

        Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

        Moonie, Dr Lewis

        Harvey, Nick

        Moran, Ms Margaret

        Healey, John

        Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

        Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

        Morris, Rt Hon Ms Estelle

        Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

        (B'ham Yardley)

        Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

        Mountford, Kali

        Hepburn, Stephen

        Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie

        Heppell, John

        Mudie, George

        Hill, Keith

        Mullin, Chris

        Hinchliffe, David

        Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

        Hood, Jimmy

        Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

        Hope, Phil

        Naysmith, Dr Doug

        Hopkins, Kelvin

        Norris, Dan

        Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

        O'Breien, Bill (Normanton)

        Howells, Dr Kim

        Olner, Bill

        Hurst, Alan

        Öpik, Lembit

        Hutton, John

        Organ, Mrs Diana

        Iddon, Dr Brian

        Palmer, Dr Nick

        Illsley, Eric

        Pearson, Lan

        Ingram, Rt Hon Adam

        Pickthall, Colin

        Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

        Pike, Peter L

        Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

        Plaskitt, James

        Jenkins, Brian

        Pollard, Kerry

        Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

        Pond, Chris

        Johnson, Miss Melanie

        Pope, Greg

        (Welwyn Hatfield)

        Powell, Sir Raymond

        Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

        Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

        Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

        Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

        Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

        Purchase, Ken

        Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

        Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce

        Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

        Quinn, Lawrie

        Keeble, Ms Sally

        Radice, Rt Hon Giles

        Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

        Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)

        Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

        Rendal, David

        Kemp, Fraser

        Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

        Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

        Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

        Khabra, Piara S

        Ross, Emie (Dundee W)

        Kidney, David

        Rowlands, Ted

        King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

        Roy, Frank

        King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

        Ruane, Chris

        Kirkwood, Archy

        Ruddock, Joan

        Kumar, Dr Ashok

        Hussell, Ms Christine (Chester)

        Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

        Ryan, Ms Joan

        Leslie, Christopher

        Sanders, Adrian

        Levitt, Tom

        Sarwar, Mohammad

        Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

        Savidge, Malcolm

        Livsey, Richard

        Sedgemore, Brian

        Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

        Sheerman, Barry

        Llwyd, Elfyn

        Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

        McAvoy, Thomas

        Shipley, Ms Debra

        McCafferty, Ms Chris

        Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

        McDonagh, Siobhain

        Skinner, Denis

        Macdonald, Calum

        Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

        McDonnell, John

        Smith, Angela (Basildon)

        McGrady, Eddie

        Smith, Miss Geraldine

        McGuire, Mrs Anne

        (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

        Mackinlay, Andrew

        Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

        Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert

        Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

        McNamara, Kevin

        Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns)

        McNulty, Tony

        Soley, Clive

        MacShane, Denis

        Spellar, John

        McWalter, Tony

        Starkey, Dr Phyllis

        McWilliam, John

        Steinberg, Gerry

        Mallaber, Judy

        Stevenson, George

        Mallon, Seamus

        Stewart, David (Inverness E)

        Mendelson, Rt Hon Peter

        Stewart, Lan (Eccles)

        Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

        Stoate, Dr Howard

        Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

        Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

        Marshall-Andrews, Robert

        Straw, Rt Hon Jack

        Martlew, Eric

        Stringer, Graham

        Maxton, John

        Stuart, Ms Gisela

        269

        Stunell, Andrew

        Turner, Neil (Wigan)

        Sutcliffe, Gerry

        Twigg, Derek (Halton)

        Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann

        Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

        (Dewsbury)

        Tyler, Paul

        Taylor, David (NW Leics)

        Walley, Ms Joan

        Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

        Ward, Ms Clarie

        Temple-Morris, Peter

        Wareing, Robert N

        Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

        Webb, Steve

        Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

        White, Brian

        Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

        Whitehead, Dr Alan

        Timms, Stephen

        Wicks, Malcolm

        Tipping, Paddy

        Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

        Todd, Mark

        Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

        Tonge, Dr Jenny

        Winnick, David

        Touhig, Don

        Worthington, Tony

        Trickett, Jon

        Wyatt, Derek

        Truswell, Paul

        Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

        Tellers for the Ayes:

        Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

        Mr. Daivd Jamieson and

        Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

        Mr. Kevin Hughes.

        NOES

        Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

        Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

        Amess, David

        Jenkin, Bernard

        Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

        Key, Robert

        Bercow, John

        Kirkbridge, Miss Julie

        Beresford, Sir Paul

        Laing, Mrs Eleanor

        Blunt, Crispin

        Lait, Mrs Jacqui

        Body, Sir Richard

        Leigh, Edward

        Boswell, Tim

        Letwin, Oliver

        Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

        Lidington, David

        Brady, Graham

        Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

        Brazier, Julian

        Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

        Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

        Loughton, Tim

        Browning, Mrs Angela

        Luff, Peter

        Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

        Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

        Burns, Simon

        McCartney, Robert (N Down)

        Cash, William

        McCrea, Dr William

        Clappison, James

        MacGregor, Rt Hon John

        Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)

        McIntosh, Miss Anne

        Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

        MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

        Collins, Tim

        Maclean, Rt Hon David

        Gran, James

        McLoughlin, Patrick

        Curry, Rt Hon David

        Madel, Sir David

        Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

        Maples, John

        Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

        Maude, Rt Hon Francis

        Day, Stephen

        Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

        Donaldson, Jeffrey

        Moss, Malcolm

        Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

        Nicholls, Patrick

        Duncan Smith, Iain

        Norman, Archie

        Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

        O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

        Evans, Nigel

        Page, Richard

        Fallon, Michael

        Paisley, Rev Ian

        Flight, Howard

        Pickles, Eric

        Forth, Rt Hon Eric

        Prior, David

        Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

        Randall, John

        Fraser, Christopher

        Redwood, Rt Hon John

        Gale, Roger

        Robathan, Andrew

        Gamier, Edward

        Robertson, Laurence

        Gibb, Nick

        Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

        Gill, Christopher

        Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

        Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

        Ross, William (E Lond'y)

        Gray, James

        Rowe, Andrew (Faversham)

        Green, Damian

        Ruffley, David

        Greenway, John

        Sayeed, Jonathan

        Grieve, Dominic

        Shepherd, Richard

        Gummer, Rt Hon John

        Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

        Hague, Rt Hon William

        Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

        Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

        Soames, Nicholas

        Hammond, Philip

        Spring, Richard

        Hawkins, Nick

        Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

        Heald, Oliver

        Streeter, Gary

        Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

        Swayne, Desmond

        Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

        Syms, Robert

        Horam, John

        Tapsell, Sir Peter

        Hunter, Andrew

        Taylor, John M (Solihull)

        270

        Taylor, Sir Teddy

        Wilkinson, John

        Trimble, Rt Hon David

        Willetts, David

        Tyrie, Andrew

        Wilshire, David

        Waterson, Cecil

        Wilshire, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

        Waterson, Nigel

        Yeo, Tim

        Wells, Bowen

        Whitney, Sir Raymond

        Tellers for the Noes:

        Whittingdale, John

        Mr. William Thompson and

        Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

        Mr. Roy Beggs.

        Question accordingly agreed to.
        It being after Ten O'Clock, MR. SPEAKER Put the remaining Questions required to be put at that hour, pursuant to Order [this day].
        Question put, That this House agrees withn the Lords in the remaining Lords amendments:—
        The House divided: Ayes 299, Noes 81.

        Division No. 348]

        [10.9 pm

        AYES

        Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)

        Clark, Dr Lynda

        Ainger, Nick

        (Edinburg Pentlands)

        Alexander, Douglas

        Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

        Allan, Richard

        Clark, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

        Allen, Graham

        Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

        Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

        Clelland, David

        Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

        Clwyd, Ann

        Ashton, Joe

        Coffey, Ms Ann

        Atherton, Ms Candy

        Coleman, Iain

        Atkins, Charlotte

        Colman, Tony

        Austin, John

        Connarty, Michael

        Baker, Norman

        Corbyn, Jeremy

        Banks, Tony

        Corston, Jean

        Barnes, Harry

        Cotter, Brian

        Barron, Kevin

        Cousins, Jim

        Battle, John

        Cox, Tom

        Bayley, Hugh

        Cranston, Ross

        Beard, Nigel

        Crausby, David

        Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

        Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

        Begg, Miss Anne

        Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

        Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

        Cummings, John

        Bennett, Andrew F

        Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack

        Bermingham, Gerald

        (Copeland)

        Best, Harold

        Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

        Betts, Clive

        Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

        Blackman, Liz

        Dalyell, Tam

        Blears, Ms Hazel

        Darvill, Keith

        Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

        Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

        Bradley, Keith (Withington)

        Davidson, Ian

        Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

        Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

        Bradshaw, Ben

        Dawson, Hilton

        Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

        Dismore, Andrew

        Browne, Desmond

        Dobbin, Jim

        Buck, Ms Karen

        Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

        Burgon, Colin

        Donohoe, Brian H

        Burnett, John

        Doran, Frank

        Burstow, Paul

        Eagle, Maria L'pool Garston)

        Butler, Mrs Christine

        Edwards, Huw

        Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

        Etherington, Bill

        Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

        Fearn, Ronnie

        Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies

        Fitzpatrick, Jim

        (NE Fife)

        Flint, Caroline

        Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

        Flynn, Paul

        Campbell-Savours, Dale

        Follett, Barbaba

        Cann, Jamie

        Foster, Rt Hon Derek

        Caplin, Ivor

        Foster, Michael J (Worecester)

        Caton, Martin

        Foulkes, George

        Cawsey, Ian

        Galloway, George

        Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

        Gapes, Mike

        Chidgey, David

        Gardiner, Barry

        Clapham, Michael

        George, Andrew (St Lves)

        Gerrard, Neil

        271

        Gibson, Dr Ian

        MacShane, Denis

        Gidley, Sandra

        McWalter, Tony

        Gilroy, Mrs Linda

        McWillam, John

        Godman, Dr Norman A

        Mallaber, Judy

        Godsiff, Roger

        Mallon, Seamus

        Goggins, Paul

        Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter

        Golding, Mrs Llin

        Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

        Gordon, Mrs Eileen

        Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

        Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

        Marshall-Andrews, Robert

        Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

        Martlew, Eric

        Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

        Maxton, John

        Grogan, John

        Meale, Alan

        Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

        Merron, Gillian

        Hanson, David

        Michael, Rt Hon Alun

        Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

        Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

        Harvey, Nick

        Miller, Andrew

        Healey, John

        Moffatt, Laura

        Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

        Moonie, Dr Lewis

        Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

        Moran, Ms Margaret

        Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

        Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

        Hepburn, Stephen

        Morris, Rt Hon Ms Estelle

        Heppell, John

        (B'ham Yardley)

        Hill, Keith

        Mountford, Kali

        Hinchliffe, David

        Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie

        Hood, Jimmy

        Mudie, George

        Hopkins, Kelvin

        Mullin, Chris

        Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

        Murphy, Denis (Wamsbeck)

        Howells, Dr Kim

        Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

        Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

        Naysmith, Dr Doug

        Hurst, Alan

        Norris, Dan

        Hutton, John

        O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

        Iddon, Dr Brian

        Olner, Bill

        Illsley, Eric

        Öpik, Lembit

        Ingram, Rt Hon Adam

        Organ, Mrs Diana

        Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

        Palmer, Dr Nick

        Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

        Pearson, Ian

        Jamieson, David

        Pendry, Tom

        Jenkins, Brian

        Pckthall, Colin

        Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

        Pike,Peter L

        Johnson, Miss Melanie

        Plaskitt, James

        (Welwyn Hatfield)

        Pollard, Kerry

        Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

        Pond, Chris

        Jones, Helen (Wamngton N)

        Pope, Greg

        Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

        Powell, Sir Raymond

        Jones, Marlyn (Clwyd S)

        Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

        Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

        Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

        Keeble, Ms Sally

        Purchase, Ken

        Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

        Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce

        Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

        Quinn, Lawrie

        Kemp, Fraser

        Radice, Rt Hon Giles

        Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

        Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton)

        Khabra, Piara S

        Rendel, David

        Kidney, David

        Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

        King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

        Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

        King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

        Ross, Emie (Dundee W)

        Kirkwood, Archy

        Rowlands, Ted

        Kumar, Dr Ashok

        Roy, Frank

        Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

        Ruane, Chris

        Lepper, David

        Ruddock, Joan

        Leslie, Christopher

        Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

        Levitt, Tom

        Ryan, Ms Joan

        Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

        Sanders, Adrian

        Livsey, Richard

        Sarwar, Mohammad

        Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

        Savidge, Malcolm

        Llwyd, Elfyn

        Sedgemore, Brian

        McAvoy, Thomas

        Shipley, Ms Debra

        McCafferty, Ms Chris

        Simpson, Alan (Nottingam S)

        McDonagh, Siobhain

        Skinner, Dennis

        Macdonald, Calum

        Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford)

        McDonnell, John

        Smith, Angela (Basildon)

        McFall, John

        Smith, Miss Geraldine

        McGrady, Eddie

        (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

        Mackinlay, Andrew

        Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

        Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert

        Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

        McNamara, Kevin

        Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd,ns)

        McNulty, Tony

        Soley, Clive

        272

        Spellar, John

        Truswell, Paul

        Starkey, Dr Phyllis

        Turner, Dennis (Wolverhlon SE)

        Steinberg, Gerry

        Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

        Stevenson, George

        Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

        Stewart, David (Inverness E)

        Turner, Neil (Wigan)

        Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

        Twigg, Derek (Halton)

        Stoate, Dr Howard

        Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

        Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

        Tyler, Paul

        Straw, Rt Hon Jack

        Vis, Dr Rudi

        Stringer, Graham

        Walley, Ms Joan

        Stuart, Ms Gisela

        Ward, Ms Claire

        Stunell, Andrew

        Wareing, Robert N

        Sutcliffe, Gerry

        Webb, Steve

        Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann

        White, Brian

        (Dewsbury)

        Whitehead, Dr Alan

        Taylor. David (NW Leics)

        Wicks, Malcolm

        Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

        Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

        Temple-Morris, Peter

        Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

        Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

        Winnick, David

        Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

        Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

        Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

        Worthington, Tony

        Timms, Stephen

        Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

        Tipping, Paddy

        Wright, Tony (Cannock)

        Todd, Mark

        Wyatt, Derek

        Tonge, Dr Jenny

        Tellers for the Ayes:

        Touhig, Don

        Mrs. Anne McGuire and

        Trickett, Jon

        Mr. Jim Dowd.

        NOES

        Amess, David

        McCrea, Dr William

        Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

        McIntosh, Miss Anne

        Beggs, Roy

        MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

        Bercow, John

        Maclean, Rt Hon David

        Beresford, Sir Paul

        McLoughlin, Patrick

        Boswell, Tim

        Madel, Sir David

        Brazier, Julian

        Maples, John

        Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

        Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

        Browning, Mrs Angela

        Nicholls, Patrick

        Burns, Simon

        OBrien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

        Clappison, James

        Page, Richard

        Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)

        Paisley, Rev Ian

        Collins, Tim

        Pickles, Eric

        Cran, James

        Prior, David

        Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

        Randall, John

        Day, Stephen

        Robathan, Andrew

        Donaldson, Jeffrey

        Robertson, Laurence

        Duncan Smith, Iain

        Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

        Evans, Nigel

        Ross, William (E Londy)

        Flight, Howard

        Rowe, Andrew (Faversham)

        Forth, Rt Hon Eric

        Ruffley, David

        Fraser, Christopher

        Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

        Gale, Roger

        Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

        Gibb, Nick

        Soames, Nicholas

        Gray, James

        Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

        Green, Damian

        Steen, Anthony

        Grieve, Dominic

        Swayne, Desmond

        Gummer, Rt Hon John

        Taylor, John M (Solihull)

        Hammond, Philip

        Thompson, William

        Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

        Tyne, Andrew

        Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

        Walker, Cecil

        Jenkin, Bernard

        Waterson, Nigel

        Kirkbride, Miss Julie

        Wells, Bowen

        Lait, Mrs Jacqui

        Whittingdale, John

        Leigh, Edward

        Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

        Letwin, Oliver

        Willetts, David

        Lidington, David

        Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

        Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

        Yeo, Tim

        Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

        Young, Rt Hon Sir George

        Loughton, Tim

        Tellers for the Noes:

        Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

        Mr. Peter Luff and

        McCartney, Robert (N Down)

        Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown.

        Question accordingly agreed to.
        Lords Amendments agreed to.

      BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
      Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 15 (Exempted business),
      That, at this day's sitting, the Motion in the name of Mr. Richard Allan may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Clelland.]
      Question agreed to.

      DELEGATED LEGISLATION
      Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
      DELEGATED LEGISLATION

        AGRICULTURE
        That the Farm Waste Grant (Nitrate Vulnerable Zones) (England) (No. 2) Scheme 2000 (S.I., 2000, No. 2911), dated 30th October, a copy of which was laid before this House on 30th October, be approved.—[Mr. Clelland.]
        Question agreed to.
        Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

        INTERNATIONAL IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES
        That the draft EUTELSAT (Immunities and Privileges) (Amendment) Order 2000, which was laid before this House on 30th October, be approved.—[Mr. Clelland.]
        The House divided: Ayes 283, Noes 13.

        Division No. 349]

        [10.20 pm

        AYES

        Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)

        Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

        Ainger, Nick

        Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

        Alexander, Douglas

        Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies

        Allan, Richard

        (NE Fife)

        Allen, Graham

        Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

        Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

        Campbell-Savours, Dale

        Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

        Cann, Jamie

        Ashton, Joe

        Caplin,Ivor

        Atherton, Ms Candy

        Caton, Martin

        Atkins, Charlotte

        Cawsey, Ian

        Austin, John

        Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

        Baker, Norman

        Clapham, Michael

        Banks, Tony

        Clark, Dr Lynda

        Barnes, Harry

        (Edinburgh Pentlands)

        Barron, Kevin

        Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

        Battle, John

        Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

        Bayley, Hugh

        Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

        Beard, Nigel

        Clelland, David

        Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

        Clwyd, Ann

        Begg, Miss Anne

        Coffey, Ms Ann

        Beith, Rt Hon A J

        Coleman, Iain

        Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

        Colman, Tony

        Bermingham, Gerald

        Connarty, Michael

        Best, Harold

        Corbyn, Jeremy

        Betts, Clive

        Corston, Jean

        Blackman, Liz

        Cotter, Brian

        Blears, Ms Hazel

        Cousins, Jim

        Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

        Cox, Tom

        Bradley, Keith (Withington)

        Cranston, Ross

        Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

        Crausby, David

        Bradshaw, Ben

        Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

        Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

        Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

        Browne, Desmond

        Cummings, John

        Buck, Ms Karen

        Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

        Burgon, Colin

        Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

        Burnett, John

        Dalyell, Tam

        Burstow, Paul

        Darvill, Keith

        Butler, Mrs Christine

        Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

        274

        Davidson, Ian

        Kumar, Dr Ashok

        Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

        Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

        Dawson, Hilton

        Lepper,David

        Dismore, Andrew

        Leslie, Christopher

        Dobbin, Jim

        Levitt, Tom

        Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

        Livsey, Richard

        Donohoe, Brian H

        Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

        Doran, Frank

        Llwyd, Elfyn

        Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

        McAvoy, Thomas

        Edwards, Huw

        MsCafferty, Ms Chris

        Etherington, Bill

        McDonagh, Siobhain

        Fitzpatrick, Jim

        Macdonald, Calum

        Flint, Caroline

        McDonnell, John

        Flynn, Paul

        McFall, John

        Follett, Barbara

        Mackinlay, Andrew

        Foster, Rt Hon Derek

        McNamara, Kevin

        Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

        McNulty, Tony

        Foulkes, George

        MacShane,Denis

        Galloway, George

        McWalter, Tony

        Gapes, Mike

        McWilliam, John

        Gardiner, Barry

        Mallaber, Judy

        George, Andrew (St Ives)

        Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter

        Gerrard, Neil

        Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

        Gibson, Dr Ian

        Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

        Gidley, Sandra

        Marshall-Andrews, Robert

        Gilroy, Mrs Linda

        Martlew, Eric

        Godman, Dr Norman A

        Maxton, John

        Goggins, Paul

        Meale, Alan

        Golding, Mrs Llin

        Merron, Gillian

        Gordon, Mrs Eileen

        Michael, Rt Hon Alun

        Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

        Michie, Bill (Shefld Heeley)

        Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

        Miller, Andrew

        Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

        Moffatt, Laura

        Grogan, John

        Moonie, Dr Lewis

        Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

        Moran, Ms Margaret

        Hanson, David

        Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

        Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

        Morley, Elliot

        Harvey, Nick

        Morris, Rt Hon Ms Estelle

        Healey, John

        (B'ham Yardley)

        Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

        Mounford, Kali

        Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

        Mudie, George

        Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

        Mullin, Chris

        Hepburn, Stephen

        Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

        Heppell, John

        Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

        Hill, Keith

        Naysmith, Dr Doug

        Hood, Jimmy

        Norris, Dan

        Hope, Phil

        O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

        Hopkins, Kelvin

        Olner, Bill

        Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

        Öpik, Lembit

        Howells, Dr Kim

        Organ, Mrs Diana

        Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

        Palmer, Dr Nick

        Hurst, Alan

        Pearson, Ian

        Iddon, Dr Brian

        Pickthall, Colin

        Illsley, Eric

        Pike, Peter L

        Ingram, Rt Hon Adam

        Plaskitt, James

        Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

        Pollard, Kerry

        Jamieson, David

        Pond, Chris

        Jenkins, Brian

        Pope, Greg

        Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

        Powell, Sir Raymond

        Johnson, Miss Melanie

        Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

        (Welwyn Hatfield)

        Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

        Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

        Purchase, Ken

        Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

        Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce

        Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

        Quinn, Lawrie

        Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

        Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)

        Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

        Rendel, David

        Keeble, Ms Sally

        Ross, Emie (Dundee W)

        Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

        Rowlands, Ted

        Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

        Roy, Frank

        Kemp, Fraser

        Ruane, Chris

        Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

        Ruddock, Joan

        Khabra, Piara S

        Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

        Kidney, David

        Ryan, Ms Joan

        King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

        Sanders, Adrian

        King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

        Sarwar, Mohammad

        Kirkwood Archy

        Savidge, Malcolm

        275

        Sedgemore, Brian

        Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

        Sheerman, Barry

        Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

        Shipley, Ms Debra

        Timms, Stephen

        Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

        Tipping, Paddy

        Skinner, Dennis

        Todd, Mark

        Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

        Tonge, Dr Jenny

        Smith, Angela (Basildon)

        Touhig, Don

        Smith, Miss Geraldine

        Trickett, Jon

        (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

        Truswell, Paul

        Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

        Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

        Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

        Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

        Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns)

        Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

        Soley, Clive

        Turner, Neil (Wigan)

        Spellar, John

        Twigg, Derek (Halton)

        Starkey, Dr Phyllis

        Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

        Steinberg, Gerry

        Tyler, Paul

        Stevenson, George

        Vis, Dr Rudi

        Stewart, David (Inverness E)

        Walley, Ms Joan

        Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

        Ward, Ms Claire

        Stoate, Dr Howard

        Wareing, Robert N

        Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

        Whitehead, Dr Alan

        Straw, Rt Hon Jack

        Wicks, Malcolm

        Stringer, Graham

        Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

        Stuart, Ms Gisela

        Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

        Stunell, Andrew

        Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

        Sutcliffe, Gerry

        Worthington, Tony

        Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann

        Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

        (Dewsbury)

        Wright, Tony (Cannock)

        Taylor, David (NW Leics)

        Wyatt, Derek

        Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

        Tellers for the Ayes:

        Temple-Morris, Peter

        Mrs. Anne McGuire and

        Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

        Mr. Jim Dowd.

        NOES

        Beggs, Roy

        Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

        Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)

        Ross, William (E Lond'y)

        Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

        Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

        Donaldson, Jeffrey

        Swayne, Desmond

        Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

        Thompson, William

        McCrea, Dr William

        Tellers for the Noes:

        Paisley, Rev Ian

        Mr. Eric Forth and

        Robertson, Laurence

        Mr. Doughlas Hogg.

        Question accordingly agreed to.

      Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
      10.30 pm
      Mr. Richard Allan: I beg to move,
      That this House approves the First Report from the Information Committee on the Future of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (HC 659).
      Although the Prime Minister has kindly tabled a motion to allow debate to proceed until any hour, I hope that that hour will not be too far away. I understand that there is general support across the House for the aims of the report. I will briefly describe the thinking of the Committee and the background to the need for POST and explain the key recommendations in the report.
      I woke up this morning to hear the "Today" programme headlined by two science issues—bovine spongiform encephalopathy in connection with French beef, and the availability of the drug Relenza in the national health service. It is not uncommon for such key scientific issues to be prominent in the media. I think of issues such as genetics, global warming and climate change, the internet, medicines, stem cell research—the list goes on. Science stories have in some ways replaced the funny item at the end of the news, but they are far more serious and generate more public interest.
      The response must be to improve the information sources available to us as legislators. It is sometimes hard for us to admit our ignorance. We are expected to be experts on everything, but science and technology issues often test us and, in many cases, they are not issues of party politics. I would argue that a debate such as the stem cell research debate is tougher than many of the others that we face in the House.
      The Select Committee on Information wishes to do all it can to ensure that hon. Members have the best information possible to support their decisions. There is a phrase in computer science, "Garbage in, garbage out." We cannot guarantee that the reverse applies—that quality information in will result in quality legislation out, but the odds on creating good legislation have to be higher if Members are better informed. The recommendations in the report seek to do exactly that.
      POST was established on a temporary basis and reviewed by previous Information Committees in 1991 and again in 1995. I know that veterans of that debate are present tonight—the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller), for example. The key recommendation in the report before us tonight is that POST should be made permanent from April 2001. We believe that that will provide security for the institution and its staff and will make possible some of the other developments for which we have argued in the report.
      We hope to see an improved career structure for staff working for Parliament in science and technology. We also recommend that the board structure remain essentially as it is, as it has served POST well. I know that the chairman of the board, the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), has devoted a great deal of his time to ensuring the success of POST over recent years, as did the former distinguished chairman, the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Dr. Clark), who chaired the board for a considerable period. The board structure also allows important voices to be brought in from the wider scientific community, which adds to the work of POST.

      277
      Finally, I refer to some of the key facts that demonstrate the value of POST to date, which we fully expect to be carried into the future. The list of POST notes is in the report and shows how productive the team has been. It is a small team of hard-working and skilled scientists with a high rate of output. Their timeliness has been excellent. I refer the House to the stem cell research report, which it produced in June this year, well ahead of the public debate. This timely and high quality advice is likely to increase in value to Members over time.
      The Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee referred to a paper in Nature in his submission to the Information Committee, which demonstrates how science and technology issues have moved up the parliamentary agenda over recent years. I have mentioned the increasing media interest, and Members' postbags will testify to their constituents' growing interest.
      I shall bring my comments to a close by quoting some of the evidence that was presented to the Information Committee. In keeping with the debate earlier today, it is from the Chairman of the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs, who wrote to us:
      As you might expect, the Committee has made infrequent use of the services of POST as relatively few scientific and technological matters fall within its remit. However, for an inquiry last year, the Committee sought evidence from the Meteorological Office on the possibility that global warming might enhance the frequency of severe storms in Northern Ireland. It received a highly technical submission from the Hadley Centre for Climate Change(part of the Meteorological Office), of which, at the Committee's request, POST promptly prepared an excellent non-technical digest. The language of this formed the basis of the relevant paragraph in the Committee's report.
      The Committee found it very useful to have the necessary expertise in-house.
      That submission shows that POST has managed to service a wide variety of Members' interests, including some of the more unlikely Select Committees of the House. I hope that the House will approve the report and put POST on a firm footing to maintain that level of service for years to come.
      10.35 pm
      Dr. Ian Gibson: I am proud to be chair of the POST board, which contains representatives of the Library, Members of both Houses and distinguished scientists from the community outside this place. The board considers all the issues that are relevant today and will be relevant over the next few months, and asks POST employees to get on with the job of providing us with the information that will help us in our debates. That is done in a very neutral way; POST does not take a biased or political view. It is sensitive to people's interests and is extremely informative.
      I recently attended, on behalf of the POST board, a meeting in Berlin. There were many people there from other Parliaments who looked forward to having access to information of a scientific, medical or technical nature to inform new legislation. The POST board and its work were held in the highest esteem. Many Governments of other countries have now said, "The structure that you have in the British Parliament is wonderful; we should do that."
      I am very proud to have been the chair of the board and to have heard the debates. In a previous life, I was head of a large university department, which attained one
      278
      of the highest levels of excellence in the research assessment exercise. If I were assessing the POST board and its work, I would say that they were five star, like some of the departments at Oxford, Cambridge and elsewhere. POST's work is amazingly good and very informative.
      In many debates in this place hon. Members use what POST says, and many hon. Members read it over their cornflakes or at their dinner table and inform themselves, and benefit from the erudition that is in those documents.
      There are many things that we could look forward to doing in terms of science and technology. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) spoke about the paper referred to in Nature. That is the highest accolade of publication. Probably I was one of the authors of the article that is mentioned, and to get it in Nature is five star in itself, which is not bad for an MP—it is better than I ever did when I was the boss of a university department, so being a Member of Parliament is not too bad in terms of being recognised.
      On scientific and technological issues, such as telecommunications masts and mobile telephones, POST informs people in this place and the other place of the science and technology involved, the issues that we should focus on and the difficulties of legislation in those areas, based on good and proper science. I am proud to say that POST has distinguished itself internationally. It is recognised across Europe, and many other countries, including the United States, are now adopting the way that it operates. I hope that, in future, one or two additional members of staff will allow us to penetrate other areas of science, such as medicine, that are coming up very fast. The three people who work at POST could be increased to four or five without any detriment to the information that helps us take our decisions.
      I hope that the House will support this very thorough report. Many of us have spoken, in Select Committees and elsewhere, of our interest in scientific developments that are taking place countrywide. POST has really been successful in informing the public and getting the public involved in science. No organisation in this country knows better how to get technical and difficult information over to the public. POST has taken on that important role seriously.

      Hon. Members will know from the debate on stem cells that we had in the House last Friday that we spent many minutes discussing how the public would understand a stem cell and the potential advantages of the research. POST's report helped that debate and moved it forward.
      The House should award its accolades to POST for what it has done from its small base just 200 yards away. We should provide it with the status and permanency that will ensure that we are better informed, that our publications are more effective and that resources are provided. Debates on science, technology and medicine feature more prominently than ever before, and there has been a sixfold increase in the number of parliamentary questions on those subjects in the past few years.
      I have heard science quoted in the House that does us real discredit, but POST has helped to raise standards and made us much more scientifically literate. None of us will ever be a Nobel prize winner, but at least we shall understand the issues and be able to talk to our constituents on a much more informed basis. POST has played a major part in enabling us to do that.
      10.41 pm
      Dr. Michael Clark: I welcome the report and thank the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) and his Committee for the work that they have done in scrutinising the activities of POST. In the previous Parliament, I had to go before the Information Committee in the same way as the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) has done in this Parliament. However, he has had more success than me. I managed to achieve a three-year and a five-year extension, but he has persuaded the Information Committee that POST should become a permanent feature of parliamentary life.
      I shall not speak for long, but I would like to reminisce on what happened in 1985, because tonight's decision to make POST a permanent feature of parliamentary life is the culmination of 15 years' work. In 1985, we became aware of the work that the Office of Technology Assessment—the OTA—was doing in the United States to inform Congress and the President of scientific issues. We thought that it would be a good idea to have something similar in this Parliament. Three Members of Parliament went to Washington to study the OTA and produced a report suggesting that we should have such an organisation here.
      We went to see the then Prime Minister, now Lady Thatcher, and told her of our plans. She thought that it was a very good idea to have such a body to increase scientific knowledge in Parliament, so we asked for Government funding for it. She replied, "Oh no, certainly not. If it is such a good idea, you will find money for it from industry, academia and institutions outside Parliament." She then reached for her famous handbag, took out her cheque book and wrote a cheque for £100. She said, "Raise the money yourself, and let this be the first £100 to get it going." In the next two years, we raised more than £170,000 and were able to institute POST with just three or four researchers and fellows.
      POST was a tight ship and the hon. Member for Norwich, North will agree that it remains a tight ship. Its director, Professor David Cope, uses his resources very efficiently. That contrasts with the OTA, which got bigger and bigger until it became so large and expensive to run that it was disbanded. The organisation on which we modelled ourselves no longer exists, but ours has remained neat and small.
      I must pay tribute to our first director, Dr. Michael Norton, who held the post from 1989 to 1998.
      Mr. Andrew Miller indicated assent.
      Dr. Clark: I am pleased to see the hon. Gentleman nodding. Dr. Norton was a superb director. He got the organisation started with its short notes and longer, more detailed scientific reports. He helped to establish POST' s reputation, and he has left behind a legacy of which he can be proud.
      As well as helping parliamentarians with proactive notes about scientific issues of the day, POST is capable of helping, and does help, Select Committees when they want an idea of whether a scientific issue should be investigated. POST will write an initial report for the Committee, and when the Committee has decided on a line of inquiry, POST will assist on scientific matters. Of the advisers that the Science and Technology Committee,
      280
      of which I am Chairman, has called in to help in its inquiries, more than 50 per cent. have been recommended by POST. The organisation does many things to raise the level of scientific knowledge in the House, and I am pleased that we are welcoming the Information Committee's report.
      In my evidence to the Committee, I remarked:
      Parliamentary funding provides POST with an enviable degree of independence,
      and, as I said way back in 1994,
      makes the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology far more Parliamentary and no less scientific or technological.
      I welcome the report and commend those who have studied POST and concluded that it should become a permanent feature of the parliamentary estate. I am sure that all hon. Members wish it well in the future.
      10.47 pm
      Mr. Andrew Miller: I want to put on record my thanks to the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Dr. Clark) for doing a splendid job when he was chairman of POST. He developed the organisation from the original form that he described. I did not realise that I would find myself on the same side as Lady Thatcher on the issue of Parliament's need for advice. The hon. Gentleman transformed POST in 1994 by persuading the House and the Information Committee to move towards the model that we now have.
      The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) rightly praised the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) in his capacity as chairman of POST. There has been continuity in the work that has been done, and as the only Member who has been on the Information Committee in the two Parliaments, I have studied that work carefully. I took the Committee's decision on POST extremely seriously because it concerned the spending of public money, which is what we are discussing now.
      I urge those who have any doubts about POST to read annexe 4 on pages 20 to 23 of the report which lists the excellent papers that POST has produced. Those must be beneficial to Members of Parliament. I started my career—not quite so eminently as my hon. Friend—in a university laboratory and left some years later, having developed several important X-ray technologies. I make it clear that my scientific background is not enough; there is a huge gap in my knowledge on scientific matters, as there is in the knowledge of every hon. Member.
      It is a weakness in all our legislative procedures that we do not fully understand the scientific and ethical issues surrounding the difficult decisions that we make, and we will fail in our responsibilities to our constituents unless we achieve that understanding. POST is an excellent way, at a low cost, to help inform Parliament.
      The hon. Member for Rayleigh referred to what has happened in the United States and my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North referred to his recent meeting in Berlin. It is clear from Parliaments elsewhere in the world, including some of the emergent democracies, that there is a desire for parliamentarians to receive better scientific information. Few of us come from scientific disciplines and there is a desire for our knowledge base to be increased. POST is a vehicle that will enable that to happen.

      281
      I congratulate the POST board on its activities in this and the previous Parliament. I fully endorse—as a member of the Information Committee, I would because the report was unanimous—the remarks of the hon. Member for Hallam. POST is an excellent body and we need more of it.
      10.51 pm
      Dr. Nick Palmer: I declare an interest because the director of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, Professor David Cope, is one of my constituents; he is typical of the scientific excellence that we come to associate with Broxtowe.
      As the points made by those who preceded me summarised what I wanted to say, I shall not detain the House for long. I suspect that, like many hon. Members, when I receive a glossy document in the post, printed with many pictures and 40 pages long, my instinct is to chuck it in the bin. That is the fate of much of the printed matter that comes through the post.
      The reports from POST, rather like Le Monde, are usually not illustrated. If they are, the illustrations are pertinent. The reports are four pages long and they pass what my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) described as the cornflakes test—we can understand a complex issue while eating, or drinking, a bowl of cornflakes.
      As my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) said, Members have great difficulty in grasping the complexity of many issues; I am one of those Members. It is surprising that we are expected to be familiar with so many issues. It is essential that we have a body such as POST, which is able to provide information that is small and perfectly formed—like the organisation itself.
      Mr. John Bercow: Speaking as someone who is certainly small but would not claim for one moment to be perfectly formed, I am intrigued by what the hon. Gentleman has to say. I am conscious of the scientific expertise with which he speaks. He will be aware of the document entitled "The Sun and Space Weather", which was produced in November 1999. Perhaps he can enlighten me as to its central thesis.
      Dr. Palmer: The hon. Gentleman has been watching too much of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?"
      POST is a good predictor of issues to come. Stem cells have already been mentioned. Another issue that arose a few months ago was that of carbon sinks, which is now the central debating ground for the post-Kyoto conference. We would be in a mess without POST. We need it permanently. Let us keep it.
      10.54 pm
      Mr. Dominic Grieve: It has been an interesting debate, and having listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Dr. Clark), I have little to add to it. The official Opposition's view is that the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology performs a valuable function. The only point that arises from reading the report, and which may properly be noted, is that one dissenting voice suggested that at times POST overlapped with the activities of other briefing committees. I think that the Select Committee on Defence
      282
      expressed that view. However, that is a detail—a simple matter of co-ordination that can easily be addressed by the board itself. The value of the reports is beyond doubt; I have read several and found them informative. I hope that the House will approve the Committee's report.
      10.55 pm
      The Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office (Mr. Paddy Tipping): I am pleased to follow so many colleagues who have a scientific background. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan), my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Dr. Clark) and my hon. Friends the Members for Ellesmere Port and Neston and for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) all have a science degree. I do not think that that is true of the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) and it is certainly not true of me. I readily confess that I doubt that I would pass even the cornflakes test: I regularly receive and read POST reports and, sometimes, I have had to read them two or three times to understand them properly. I shall certainly follow up the report mentioned by the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow).
      Science and the explanation of science is important to all parliamentarians—for example, in connection with issues such as genetically modified organisms, stem cell research and BSE and its links with CJD. A more practical matter of concern to many of our constituents is telecommunications, the subject of the Stewart report. All are important issues that Members of Parliament need to learn about and understand. I was strongly struck by the example of the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs going to POST for advice. One the points highlighted in the recent Liaison Committee report is the need for central services to advise Select Committees.
      Mr. Peter Lilley: I confess to knowing little about the existence of POST. Several key issues have been mentioned, one of which is being discussed now by the Deputy Prime Minister, yet POST does not appear to have included in any of its reports an evaluation of whether global warming is occurring and, if so, to what extent. Why is that?
      Hon. Members: It has.
      Mr. Tipping: I know that the right hon. Gentleman has had little time to study these matters, but I understand that POST has examined that issue. One of the main issues being addressed by The Hague conference is the concept of carbon sinks—a difficult issue that needs a great deal of work. POST has achieved a lot, but those who are involved with it know that there remains much to be done.
      Mr. Allan: Let me assist the Minister and save him time that he might otherwise spend going through the reports. I can refer him to the 1990 report on global warming, the 1992 report on global warming update and subsequent reports, from the 1993 report on carbon dioxide levels to the report published in October this year on implementing the Kyoto climate change agreements.
      Mr. Tipping: Let me conclude by saying that I do not think that sufficient attention is given to science, its importance and the need to promote it. In my view,

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      the debate on GMOs has been characterised by ignorance. There is far more to be done, and I am delighted that POST is there to inform us.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Resolved,
      That this House approves the First Report from the Information Committee on the Future of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (HC 659).

      Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology

        BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
        Motion made,
        That, at the sittings on Wednesday 22nd, Thursday 23rd and Monday 27th November, the Speaker shall not adjourn the House until any Message from the Lords shall be received.—[Mr. Clelland.]
        Hon. Members: Object.

      Bracknell Primary Care Group
      Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Clelland.]
      10.59 pm
      Mr. Andrew MacKay: I start by thanking the Speaker, through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for ensuring that I could so quickly bring an urgent matter involving my constituency to the attention of the House. I also thank the Under-Secretary for coming to reply to the debate.
      It is not very often that a member of the shadow Cabinet who is also a Privy Councillor and has been a Member of Parliament for 20 years introduces an Adjournment debate. By and large, we are fortunate enough to be able to ensure through other channels that our constituents' interests are properly looked after.
      I regret to say that in the case of Bracknell primary care group's application for trust status, the disgraceful way in which the application has been handled by Bracknell regional health authority, the cavalier manner in which my letters have received no reply and the way in which the primary care group has been treated by the arrogant Sir William Wells and his colleagues has caused me, unprecedentedly, to write to the Speaker and request this Adjournment debate.
      I will say more later about the lack of reasons for the trust status application being refused. First, I shall turn the clock back a few months for the benefit of the Minister. Berkshire health authority, which has been nothing but co-operative throughout, made it clear, as I believe the Minister will confirm, that every primary care group in Berkshire should, if possible, obtain trust status at the same time—in April 2001. There are clear advantages across the county for all primary care groups to move to trust status at once.
      Some 10 days ago, the regional health authority informed Slough, Reading, Wokingham and Newbury that they were to obtain trust status next April—but not Bracknell. Bracknell has an excellent reputation and outstanding doctors and health workers. As the Member of Parliament for the constituency for the best part of 18 years, I very rarely receive complaints about primary health care in the borough. The primary care group seemed an ideal candidate for trust status.
      An initial vote of general practitioners did not support trust status. For other reasons, many of those voting voted against as a protest. That should not be a reason for the trust application to be turned down. Subsequently, there was a second and much more valid vote, in which only eligible general practitioners voted. As the Minister should be aware, in the first vote, locums and assistants voted, and the whole practice in B infield had to be counted in the Wokingham vote because at that point it had not been transferred to the Bracknell primary care group area, even though Binfield is part of Bracknell Forest borough.
      The second vote, for which all GPs were eligible, overwhelmingly supported trust status for the primary care group. In addition to that, all the other stakeholders are, like me, passionately in favour of the trust being set up as soon as possible. I refer to the excellent district nurses, health visitors, district midwives, community physiotherapists and speech therapists. They have all been

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      ignored by an overbearing regional health authority that has consistently neglected Bracknell, and by an arrogant chairman, Sir William Wells, who, I regret to say, does not even bother to reply to letters from Members of Parliament.
      The moment that I heard that Bracknell's trust status might not have been granted, I wrote to Sir William on 6 November. That was some time ago. I have not received an acknowledgement, let alone a comprehensive reply. One can understand how upset health workers in my constituency are when their Member of Parliament writes to the regional health chairman, marking the letter urgent, to say that he gathers that the chairman is about to turn down their application for trust status yet grant it to other primary care groups in the county, and to put forward an excellent case for trust status going ahead for Bracknell, only to be completely ignored. There has been no reply whatsoever. That, again, is the arrogant Sir William Wells.
      A week later, on 13 November, after the primary care group had been summoned to the regional headquarters and had been told that its application had been turned down, I again wrote to the chairman asking why and complaining that the group had been given no reasons. By now, no one will be surprised to hear that the arrogant Sir William has, to date, not replied to me. He is a public servant, paid for with the hard-earned taxes of my constituents, and I know that the Minister will deeply disapprove of such a cavalier manner.
      Let us briefly move on to when the Bracknell primary care group attended upon the regional health authority at its headquarters. No reasons were given for its application being turned down. It was told at the meeting that it was not allowed to take notes. I do not think that, outside the old Soviet Union, many doctors have to attend meetings where they are told by civil servants that they are not allowed to take notes.
      A huge document was produced and Bracknell primary care group was told that it contained the reasons for the refusal of its application, that it had five minutes to read the document, but could not take it away and study it. Naturally, in five minutes one cannot get to the bottom of the reasons contained in such a comprehensive document. On 13 November, I asked Sir William Wells to give the reasons. If trust status has been turned down for an excellent primary care group, we have every reason to want to know why.
      Additionally, and even more sinisterly, some members of the primary care group have been threatened with the fact that it would not be wise to go to their Member of Parliament or to cause trouble—that it would be best to stay quiet; otherwise future applications for trust status would not be granted.
      The Bracknell primary care group was then told, under duress, to withdraw its original application because it would be turned down, and, if it was formally turned down, it would affect a future application. That is deeply unsatisfactory. As I suspect the regional health authority will have told the Minister, the application was withdrawn, so there are no problems.
      Berkshire health authority has now suggested that there might be a virtual Bracknell primary care trust, whatever that means. It refers to it as a trust in all but name and law. That is a poor alternative; it is not the real thing. It means two upheavals: moving from group to virtual
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      trust and, if successful, in April 2002 to full trust status. No doubt Berkshire health authority, which has been supportive throughout, was trying to be helpful again, but it is not sufficient.
      I share the aspirations of the Minister and the Secretary of State, as does my shadow Cabinet colleague, the Opposition health spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), that, wherever possible, trusts are a good thing because they give local people power to decide their own destiny. That is why the Government have rightly encouraged primary care groups to follow hospitals to trust status. Without trust status, the primary care group has to rely on the regional health authority. It is obvious from my comments that we have no confidence in that authority, especially under the chairmanship of the arrogant Sir William Wells.
      The position is bad for the morale not only of doctors but of other stakeholders. It also means that for another year or 15 months, an unnecessary tier of bureaucracy will exist and local health workers and doctors will not be able to make their own decisions and continue to provide primary care effectively and efficiently to the benefit of my constituents.
      I shall conclude by addressing specific remarks to the Minister. We now depend on her because the application for trust status has been turned down to date. She will realise that we have no faith in the region or Sir William Wells. Will she, as Minister, personally look at the application? I want it to be judged simply on merit. For those with professional expertise, it is inconceivable that other primary care groups in Berkshire have gained trust status while excellent Bracknell has not. We are confident that the Minister will reach the same conclusions if she examines the case on merit.
      I should like confirmation from the Minister that it is incompatible with a free and open society, which she and I support, for an application for trust status to be turned down without the provision of reasons, which should be in the public domain. Members of the primary care group do not know the reasons and the Member of Parliament has not been given them. That inevitably casts a slur on everybody; the alternative is that the regional health authority and Sir William Wells have something to hide. Whatever the position, it is deeply unsatisfactory.
      We are approaching the end of November; the trusts will be set up in April 2001. It is not too late for Bracknell to receive trust status because other areas in Berkshire to which I referred were granted their status only 10 days ago. I therefore urge the Minister to review the case, publish the reasons for the regional health authority's refusal to allow the application to proceed and, with the Secretary of State, to consider the future of Sir William Wells.
      11.12 pm
      The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Gisela Stuart): I congratulate the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay) on raising primary health care trusts tonight. Although the main subject of the debate is trust status for the Bracknell primary care group, I need to say a few words about the overall framework in which trusts are developing. I also hope to be able to explain the reasons for the decisions that were made in Bracknell, not least to make it clear that the application was not turned down. It never reached the stage of being put before Ministers. I shall try to place that in context.

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      When we published the national health service plan in July, nobody questioned what was at stake. In many ways, the plan was about reforming the NHS, which had come under attack not only from patients but from within the organisation. People realised that change was necessary. Underfunding hampered the NHS, but so did its operation. The way it was organised to make people wait, the barriers to efficient use of staff, and the chasm between the NHS and social care, all had to be tackled. The NHS needed money, but it also needed change. The NHS plan is about investment and reform, money and modernisation. The money comes at a price; the price is change. The need to change the way the NHS operates is acknowledged in many places, including Berkshire.
      We had to consider access to primary care because, during the consultation, the need for more tests, diagnosis and treatment in primary care settings was identified. Proper priority needed to be given to major killer diseases such as cancer and coronary heart disease. We needed to stop postcode rationing for drugs and to secure better access to high-tech equipment. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence has played a significant role in that. However, that change can come about only with the full involvement of everyone in primary care.
      We have already allocated some £54.5 million to primary care groups and trusts this year to kick-start the expansion of primary care services, and further investment will follow. It is important that those funds be used strategically to develop new services and improve access to primary care. However, although primary care will receive earmarked funds, those are not the only funds that will affect how services are delivered. More than £20 billion has been devolved to primary care groups and trusts, to commission services. That money must be used responsibly.
      The creation of primary care groups was a vital step in the biggest devolution of power and decision making ever seen in the NHS. It brought together doctors, nurses, community nurses, health visitors and local people and put them in the driving seat in deciding how local patients would be looked after and treated. We have set up a central programme of support and development to help to manage the transition, because the cultures of corporation and management that have developed over the past 50 years were and are variable.
      For starters—this is extremely close to my heart because I have information technology responsibilities—we have provided some £50 million to help all PCGs to improve their IT infrastructure and data management, so that all the partners in the system can communicate effectively. The national primary care development team was set up to ensure that all PCGs have access to expert advice and support. We expected each group not to reinvent the wheel, but to learn from good practice.
      We have issued guidance to ensure that all PCGs have organisational development plans in place that are relevant to their needs. That has already made a real difference to patients, and I shall give examples from the right hon. Gentleman's constituency. He has acknowledged that good work is going on in Bracknell. All those involved show great commitment, and we recognise that. Bracknell has an exercise referral scheme; the Bracknell assessment and rehabilitation team offers rehabilitation packages; waiting
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      times for physiotherapy services have been reduced by three to six weeks, and additional physiotherapy has been provided in the community; and an innovative project on access to primary care for people with learning disabilities has been developed with the centre for community development.
      In addition, general practices in Bracknell are participating in a primary care collaborative, which brings practitioners together to develop simple but effective improvements in the way that services are provided. The collaborative is considering access to GPs and nurses and to secondary care and coronary heart disease facilities.
      Such examples of good practice have been achieved by ensuring better working across boundaries and the development of robust links between primary and secondary care. That, with a more effective direction of resources, was meant improved services for patients in Bracknell.
      The development of primary care groups into primary care trusts provides an unparalleled opportunity. It will allow local health professionals to control budgets that will enable them to shape hospital and community services for patients in their area and to invest in improving the primary and community services provided by doctors, nurses and other local professionals. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for not falling into a trap into which I occasionally fall—I am always quickly told off when I talk about doctors and nurses alone. He acknowledged that more than 60 per cent. of those who work in the NHS are not doctors or nurses but support staff who are part of the chain of care. They are extremely important, and I assure him that we recognise their contribution.
      Trusts can develop services more integrated between general practice, community services and social services, and can give patients better access to health care by identifying which services most need developing. Above all, decision making must be brought closer to patients and must be shaped by the professionals who most often meet patients' needs. Nationally, some 40 PCTs are up and running, and more than 130 PCGs have expressed an interest in becoming PCTs from 1 April 2001—which leads me to the concerns raised by the right hon. Gentleman.
      Bracknell was one of the PCGs hoping to take the step to PCT status in 2001. Its application was part of a wider plan in Berkshire to move, on a whole-system basis, to six PCTs, which would be broadly coterminous with the unitary authorities, by April 2001.
      There is no such thing as a blueprint for PCT applications. Certain criteria must be met, and we have specified four basic criteria. The first involves a vision: applicants must be able to demonstrate their need to become a PCT, and also demonstrate what will be achieved as a result. The second relates to support: applicants must show that their applications have received local support from all stakeholders.
      I was disturbed by the right hon. Gentleman's perception of the way in which the first and second ballots went. I hope that, as we move on—and I shall go on to explain how we can move on very positively—any such issues will be resolved, and it will be made clear who is involved. For instance, all general practitioners are involved.
      Thirdly, applicants will need to show competence with regard to clinical leadership, management capacity, technical systems and skills enabling them to manage

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      large budgets and provide community services. Fourthly, they must be able to ensure that there will be no detrimental impact on other services, or service providers, within the health system involved.
      Unfortunately, the Bracknell PCT application did not meet all those criteria. More work is needed to consolidate and realise the plans outlined in the application, and to ensure that the PCT is fit for its purpose. The PCG and the health authority were fully aware of the concerns raised by the NHS executive about their plans, and worked hard to address them. However, it was not possible to complete all the necessary work in time to establish a PCT safely next April. That is unfortunate, but the needs of the patient must always come first.
      Once established, PCTs face a huge agenda: expanding the provision of services, integrating services transferred from community trusts with existing primary care services, developing the essential commissioning role, putting in place new clinical governance and quality regimes, and undertaking financial and human resources management on a considerable scale. It is important for them to be ready to take on the task. A PCT in Bracknell would not have been ready by April 2001, and it was felt that it would be irresponsible to let the application proceed.
      This is important. It was not that the application was turned down; it was that the negotiations to let it proceed never reached the stage at which it would be put before Ministers.
      It is vital for the new PCT to have local support, and the application did not demonstrate the existence of broad local support in Bracknell. I hope that all stakeholders will use the time available to make their support much plainer.
      The issue was raised with both the PCG and the health authority in the summer, but only limited progress has been made in the resolution of issues of concern. Let me give a broad example, based on my examination of various other applications and the number of local meetings that have been held. I understand that only 11 have been held in the Bracknell area. I would expect at least 20 to be held. Perhaps, in the right hon. Gentleman's view, his community feels it is working so well that it does not need to demonstrate that; but we need to see evidence of broad local support.
      The health authority and the PCG will need to build on the support that they already have over the coming months. I understand that they will be visiting GP practices and working with other professionals to explain the benefits of PCT status. In view of all the work still required to develop robust actions plans and to foster local support, the PCG and the health authority agreed with the regional office that it would be better to withdraw the current application.
      The PCG and the health authority will now work to improve the weaknesses identified, and aim to re-submit the application next spring. If the revised application meets the necessary criteria, the new PCT will be established in the autumn and will be ready to go live in April 2002.
      No doubt the right hon. Gentleman is wondering what his constituents will suffer as a result of the delay. Let me emphasise that the quality of care received by patients in Bracknell, and indeed in Berkshire as a whole, will not be affected by the plans.
      The additional period of development is to ensure that patient care is of a high standard when the PCT assumes its responsibility. Any other course of action would have
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      been foolish. Good quality service will continue to be provided in the interim. The health authority has already decided to maintain the existing community trust in east Berkshire for a further year for that purpose. In addition, the PCG will be bolstered by a project director to lead and to support further development of services.
      I note the right hon. Gentleman's concern that there may be a financial loss to the new PCTs in that period of development. He said that all the other PCGs in his area turning into PCTs may have an adverse effect on Bracknell, but I assure him that it will not. PCGs and PCTs receive their resources from the health authority, based on a weighted capitation formula. That will not be affected by the transfer of services later than originally planned.
      I make it clear that the further development that the PCG requires before the transition to PCT status is not a reflection of the efforts to date by the staff of the PCG. It is a case of being realistic. I put it on record that the commitment of those who have worked on that so far is fully recognised. There has been much good work, but the local support has not been shown sufficiently. I hope that we can remedy that. Perhaps the debate will help us all to mobilise that support.
      We must recognise the task that faces the PCG before the transition can be made. We would not be helping either staff or the people of Bracknell if the change went ahead prematurely. Promising work has already been done. I will expect the health authority to give the chief executive and other PCG staff further support to build on that.
      Primary care trusts are central to delivering our vision of the new modern NHS. They will ensure that the right services are available at the right time, in the right location for the right patients.
      I note the right hon. Gentleman's specific questions. I cannot look at the application as a Minister; it never proceeded as far as the ministerial decision stage. I certainly undertake—he will have no doubt about it—that I will watch developments in Bracknell carefully and ensure that we come to a position whereby the application can be brought forward.
      I was slightly disturbed that the right hon. Gentleman had the perception that people were trying to keep something secret. I know that aspiring PCTs have meetings with the regional office before they submit the application. Those meetings are supposed to be in confidence because it is prior to the application. I understand that some people may not have felt bound by the confidence, but, again, I will take a close look. It is to no one's benefit if ill feelings arise in an area. If that can be resolved, I will look into it.
      I fully recognise that the right hon. Gentleman looks forward to his constituents benefiting from PCT status. When the necessary action has been taken, they will. If we can engage the stakeholders more closely on the ground, they will be in a position to take the application forward. Then I will look at it with keen interest, and with greater knowledge of what has been happening on the ground than I had before the debate. Therefore, I am grateful to him for raising the matter. I hope that I have dealt with his questions.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Eleven o'clock.