§ Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann)I beg to move amendment No. 48, in page 10, line 12, leave out clause 13.
§
No. 49, in page 10, line 17 [Clause 13], after `practicable', insert
'and so far as is consistent with subparagraph (1B) below'.
§
No. 50, in page 10, line 18 [Clause 13], at end insert
'in terms of ethnicity, gender, religion and age'.
§
No. 51, in page 10, line 18 [Clause 13], at end insert—
'(1B) In appointing independent members of a DPP the Board shall in so far as practicable appoint persons who are representative of business or trade unions or have expertise in community safety matters.'.
§ Mr. TrimbleThis series of amendments applies to clause 13, which deals with the appointment of independent members. As drafted, it imposes on the board a duty to ensure that the members of the board, taken together, are representative of the community in the district. It is noteworthy that that is the first statutory provision setting out criteria for the appointment of independent members.
The key amendment of this group is No. 51, which would add the following provision:
In appointing independent members … the Board shall in so far as practicable appoint persons who are representative of business or trade unions or have expertise in community safety matters.The reason we are tabling that amendment is to write into legislation the terminology used in the Patten report. I had reason to refer to that earlier to point out that Patten was clear about the character of the persons who should be independent members: they should not be just a collection of individuals or people drawn from local community groups; they should be persons who have some expertise in community safety matters, and persons drawn from business or trade unions. Indeed, in the earlier debate, I pointed out that Patten had implied that those should be persons with some credibility, who 416 would add to the value of the board, and who would therefore balance, as it were, the political members drawn from the council.It is important that those additional words be added, because community safety partnerships should reflect a broad range of backgrounds, and that is not necessarily the case at the moment. I intervened on the Secretary of State earlier to ask him to trawl through the existing persons who are appointed to district policing partnerships to see how many of them can honestly be said to have any expertise or background in community safety matters. I suspect that it will turn out to be comparatively few.
The amendments also raise the general question of how appointments to district policing partnerships should be made. Thanks to the energy of the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik), we discovered earlier this evening that, back in August 2002, a code of practice was produced on the appointment of independent members to district policing partnerships. I was not previously aware of that code of practice, even though it was produced well over six months ago. I do not know whether any effort was made to circulate it to people or to consult on it, but it appears that it was produced. Consequently, I have had the opportunity to see it.
I should add that that is quite a common occurrence: I heard a rumour earlier today that, a week or two ago, the Northern Ireland Office produced a revised community safety strategy. Where it has been sent I do not know. None of my hon. Friends has heard of it or seen it. We have just heard a rumour about it, and I do not know whether, in fact, it has been produced. The Northern Ireland Office really needs to look at its communications with Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies and other Members who have responsibility to speak on Northern Ireland matters in the House.
§ Lembit ÖpikIt is thanks to our researcher. Elizabeth Hanna, that we were made aware of the code of practice and a credit to the Northern Ireland staff that they supplied me with a copy. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that we could save time and, in some cases, allow Ministers to avoid hassle if such documents were made available to us, because sometimes they answer the questions that we would otherwise raise on the Floor of the House.
§ Mr. TrimbleI thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. The issue is important. It tends to sour relations with those in other parties who take an interest in Northern Ireland if the Northern Ireland Office does not communicate with them successfully.
Having discovered the existence of the code of practice, it was interesting to see what it said about the appointment of independent members. Paragraph 3.2 states:
Appointments must be made on merit"—that word appears in bold and is underlined—strictly in line with the competence based selection criteria outlined in the person specification.So far, so good. Paragraph 3.2(3) refers to equal opportunities and equality, although I hasten to point out that section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 mentions only equal opportunity. We need to be careful because equality can mean something different.417 The rest of the paragraph is unexceptional. It mentions proactive measures to secure equality of opportunity and that the Government expect widespread advertisement of appointments as well as letters of invitation and appropriate follow-up to relevant groups. In other words, reasonable steps should to be taken to widen the field of candidates. Those are acceptable measures to encourage a broad spread of applicants. The paragraph ends by stating:
Ultimately, of course, appointment must be made on merit, strictly in accordance with the requirements outlined in the personal specification.Again, so far, so good, but how I wish that the Policing Board had followed the code of practice.I should perhaps mention that it is a matter of public notoriety in Northern Ireland that my wife failed in her attempt to become a member of the Lisburn district policing partnership. Correspondence that she received subsequently from the Policing Board made it clear that merit was not the overriding consideration in the appointments. Apparently, community background, gender and political opinion overruled merit. The Policing Board developed matrices that allowed it to take so many people from one background and so many from another. It then applied the merit score within the context of those results, but it would not be used to override those who fell into that category. So it is clear that merit is disregarded in some circumstances to obtain a community or gender balance.
Thanks to the industry of my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth), we have also discovered the remarkable imbalance in the political background of those appointed. Independent members went through a two-stage process. The interview at district council level determined whether they were worthy of appointment. The list of appointable people was sent to the Policing Board, together with their scores in the interview, and it made the final decision. My hon. Friend tabled a written question on that. I do not have the exact figures, but to the best of my recollection the answer stated that more than 100 of those who applied for appointments as independent members were identified as coming from a Unionist background. Although 60 were regarded as appointable, only four were appointed. The equivalent figure for the Social Democratic and Labour party showed that, of the 50-odd who applied, 30 got over the bar to appointment and 15 were actually appointed. The percentage of members of the Women's Coalition who were appointed in terms of the proportion of those who applied was even higher. So there was a remarkable variation in terms of political background. It is clear from the written answer that there is something unusual about the appointments.
The key point, however, is that it appears that the Policing Board departed from the merit principle, which the Northern Ireland Office properly underlined in its code of practice. What steps were taken to ensure that the code of practice was adhered to and that merit was regarded as the overriding consideration? It is clear from the material available and the outcome that it was disregarded. The person who was ranked first in the interviews for the Lisburn DPP—not the lady I referred to earlier, in case anybody is putting two and two 418 together and getting five—was not appointed, so merit was clearly disregarded. It is important that statutory provisions govern appointment, and I am glad that clause 13 allows for that. We have tabled amendments to bring the legislation into line with Patten, and I very much hope that we will be supported by the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon), who is keen on the full implementation of Patten. Our amendments would achieve that. Taking the matter on its own merits, it is appropriate that the provisions in Patten are written into the legislation.
However, there are wider considerations. It is sad, given that the Policing Board has got off to a good start, that it has been undermined by both the last group of Government amendments and the curious procedures that it was persuaded to adopt, even though those procedures departed from the Government's own guidelines. That should be rectified before it does even more damage to the Policing Board.
§ Mr. CarmichaelI wish to place on record the fact that Liberal Democrats regard the amendments favourably. As the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) said, they are a straight, uncomplicated lift from the Patten report. Having said in the past that we regard the report as an all-or-nothing option, we are more than pleased to endorse the amendments. I understand, however, that they will not be pressed to a vote, and accordingly I hope that the Minister will find a mechanism, when she reads the debate in Hansard tomorrow—she may not be listening at the moment—to introduce similar amendments in another place.
The appointment of representative members is an important part of the normalisation process, and will ultimately contribute to the effective operation of the DPPs. It is important that the House should state that if a body is to be representative, especially in Northern Ireland, it must be judged and constituted according to something other than religion. References to ethnicity, gender and age are therefore of particular importance, and accordingly Liberal Democrats in the Commons and elsewhere support the amendments.
§ Jane KennedyMay I tell the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) that I will review the consultation procedures used by the Northern Ireland Office? However, there was extensive consultation on the code of practice, including a detailed consultation with the Policing Board, on which the right hon. Gentleman's party is represented. The consultation began in January last year and concluded in the summer, and the code of practice was published in August. As a result of representations that I have received, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said that he will look at I he procedures that were followed by the board. Although the right hon. Gentleman's good wife did not succeed in joining a DPP, I was delighted that she succeeded in abseiling down the BT building the other day—she deserves respect and commendation for doing so.
We will review procedures, but we did consult widely. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for tabling the amendments, which seek to put on a statutory footing the requirement already set out in the code of practice on the appointment of independent members of DPPs. However, they are not necessary, because the code 419 specifies what representativeness means, so it is not helpful to define it in the Bill itself. This is not the time or place to comment on the controversy. I attended the Belfast launch of DPPs last Wednesday, and it was refreshing to see DPP members from such a wide variety of backgrounds, despite the perceived bias that the right hon. Gentleman believes there has been. A significant proportion of new members of the DPPs are young people. They all share a desire to contribute positively to local policing and to improving community safety.
It is right that we define what we mean by representativeness, but that should be done in a code of practice. By doing that, we would be complying with a request that was put to me by the chairman of the Policing Board on its behalf last September.
§ Mr. TrimbleThe Minister says that the code of practice meets the case. Where does the code of practice refer to the desirability of people having expertise in matters of public safety?
§ Jane KennedyThe code may not specifically use the phrase "expertise in community safety", but it clearly refers to concepts of representativeness, which we may not usually think of in the context of Northern Ireland. It refers to gender and equality in the widest possible sense.
Amendment No. 51 is, as the right hon. Gentleman said, one of a group of three amendments tabled for our consideration. It proposes that only those who are representative of business or trade unions or have expertise in community safety matters should be appointed as independent members. With my history of involvement with trade unions, it may seem curious for me to take issue with the right hon. Gentleman on an amendment that includes reference to trade unions, but it is important that we leave the board as much flexibility as possible in selecting independent members.
May I direct the right hon. Gentleman to page 30 of the code of practice, which deals with the eligibility criteria and lists as the first of a group of essential requirements the requirement that there should be a demonstrable interest in local community, community safety or policing issues?
§ Mr. TrimbleBut not expertise.
§ Jane KennedyThe code of practice refers to a value, a skill or experience that we would look for among those whom we would want to appoint to a district policing partnership. It is important that we leave the board as much flexibility as possible in selecting independent members. We do not want to be unduly restrictive. That is why it is inappropriate for us to tie the board's hands in the way that the amendments would do. The code of practice adequately meets the spirit of the amendments without being over-prescriptive. We are satisfied that the provisions laid out in the Bill, supplemented by the provisions of the code of practice, are appropriate and sufficient. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment and that clause 13 will stand part of the Bill.
§ Mr. TrimbleI have noted the Minister's comments. I know that her response was hurried, but I regret to say 420 that I find it wholly inadequate. The Patten report is clear about the need for solid expertise, and that does not appear in the code of practice. I ask the Minister to re-examine the matter.
I had advised other hon. Members earlier that we did not intend to have any further Divisions, so that those who had been held in the House later than they thought they would be this evening could get on their way. Only for that reason, and not in any way connected with the merits of the matter or the quality, such as it was, of the Minister's response, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The proceedings set down for the day being concluded, the Deputy Speaker brought proceedings to a conclusion, pursuant to Order [10 February].
Bill to be further considered tomorrow.—[Mr. Heppell.]