POLICE SUPPORT STAFF (Hansard, 21 November 2000)

§ 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 208 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 (Hull, North)
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. 209 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. 210 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 211 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. 212 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 (Newry and Armagh)
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, 213 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 (South Down)
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. 214 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 (Greenock and Inverclyde)
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
215 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 (Belfast, South)
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.
216 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 (Hemel Hempstead)
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 217 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.

§ 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
219 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 (North-West Norfolk)
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, 220 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 (Hayes and Harlington)
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.
221 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.