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27 Mar 2003 : Column 527—continued
Mr. Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley): Is the hon. Gentleman aware of figures published yesterday by the Policing Board? They reveal that confidence in policing in Northern Ireland has dropped from 67 per cent. last year to 60 per cent. this year. That is due in no small measure to the 50:50 recruitment policy, which is regarded as discriminatory, and the lack of police officers on the streets to deal with rising crime.
Mr. Campbell: I know of those figures, and I agree that they are due in no small measure to the 50:50 rule.
There is a common fallacy that until a few years ago Catholics did not apply for positions in the Police Service. In fact, the father of the present SDLP leader was a member of the RUC. He was a Roman Catholic, he was employed on merit, and he served admirably, with courage and distinction.
Three days before Bloody Sunday, in Londonderry, two police officers were killed. One was a Protestant, the other a Roman Catholic. Both had been employed on merit, and both were murdered. No distinction was made between their religions. They were brutally murdered by the Provisional IRA. The last RUC officer to be shot dead in the city of Londonderry, only five years ago, was a Roman Catholic.
Merit and merit alone must be the criterion that decides whom we employ in the Police Service. For that reason, I would find it impossible to endorse a temporary abrogation of the merit principle. If it is wrong in principle to discriminate, it is wrong in principle to discriminate on a temporary basis. It cannot be justified, it cannot be defended, and for that reason I fervently hope that I will get the opportunity to press new clause 12 to a Division.
5.15 pm
Mr. Paul Goodman (Wycombe): I support new clause 20. My hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) put the case for it very well, as did the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael), the Liberal Democrat spokesman, who made a powerful case and said that he looked forward, as I do, to hearing what the Minister could possibly say that justified the rejection of the new clause.
My hon. Friend emphasised, if I read him rightly, that our present support for the principle of 50:50 is essentially on the basis that it is a choice between two evils. It is worth pointing out that new clause 20 and even new clause 12 would probably not be before us if a certain new clause that was tabled by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) on behalf of his party had not fallen in Committee. That new clause sought—I will put it plainly—to drive a coach and
horses through section 46 of the 2000 Act by deleting it entirely. The new clause sought to give the Chief Constable discretion to
- "take such steps as he determines appropriate to encourage applications by persons currently under-represented in the police support staff."
- "persons forming part of a social group by virtue of their sex, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation who at the time of consideration by the Chief Constable are under- represented".
I return to 50:50. I have been listening carefully to the debate. I have great sympathy with what the hon. Member for East Londonderry said and with the points that were made by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. Naturally, I support my Front-Bench spokesman, and I heard him say clearly that we are making a choice between evils. However, I entertained a moment of nostalgia when the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire said that there was at one point a coalition of interest between our party, those on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench and those Members from the Unionist parties who drew together closely to oppose 50:50. Since our support for 50:50 is temporary, I trust that soon we will be able to reform a coalition along those lines. I look forward to that day.
Jane Kennedy: The provision would enable the Chief Constable to bring into the PSNI a specified number of officers with specialist policing skills in areas where he is able to demonstrate that the service is suffering a significant shortfall: for example, in detectives. This exceptional mechanism could only be utilised where certain criteria, established by the board, have been met, and where there is unanimous approval for its use from the board.
These exceptional arrangements will be available to the Chief Constable for two years, starting from the date when this Bill receives Royal Assent. I must reiterate that this proposal is intended purely to alleviate the Chief Constable's current, and hopefully short-lived, resourcing problems in respect of skilled constables. In no sense does it reflect any departure from, or dilution of, the 50:50 recruitment arrangements recommended by the independent commission, which continue—despite the nonsense said in the Chamber today—to operate very successfully, and which will remain the norm for recruitment at the rank of constable.
Amendment (a) would enable these measures to be activated with the approval of only a majority of the Policing Board, rather than with unanimity. The board has, as I have said, shown maturity on this and earlier occasions in achieving unanimity in respect of difficult and sensitive issues and I have no doubt it will be able to do so in the future. The detail of this exceptional mechanism has been the subject of lengthy and painstaking consideration by the board, and it has
expressly requested that its unanimity be a precondition for use of the measure. The Government are eager to honour the board's wishes in this regard, and I would invite hon. Members not to go against the express wishes of a cross-community, all-party Policing Board that has arrived at a solution to this particular and immediate problem.New clause 8 would require my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, if requested to do so by the board, to make an order suspending the 50:50 provisions, either if the required numbers of police trainees or police support staff could not otherwise be appointed or if the number of serving officers was below complement at the time of consideration. That power already exists in legislation.
The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) said that the level of applications had fallen off. He is wrong. The level of applications from Catholics has remained constant at around 35 per cent.; that is very favourable by comparison with previous recruitments. Why is the measure needed? It is not because of any failure of the 50:50 recruitment measures. One of the impacts of the voluntary severance scheme has been to leave specialised areas of the PSNI seriously short of experienced officers at constable rank; I have already given the example of detectives. We are considering a temporary expedient that will remedy a problem recognised both by the Chief Constable and the board. It is in no way a reflection on the 50:50 arrangements.
The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford also asked about the waiver of training requirements. My hon. Friend the Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon)—who, I am bound to say, is the only Member participating in the debate who has actually read the Government's new clause—made it clear that the recruiting of specialist skills for a specific purpose requires experienced officers from other police services to apply. I want to take hon. Members back to the new clause.
The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford said that a specified number of persons who have a specified policing skill would be sought. The new clause makes implicit the requirement for unanimity; therefore we could not conceive of a Sinn Fein or republican element manipulating the measure. It is simply nonsense to suggest that that would occur.
Jane Kennedy: The hon. Gentleman might want to contain himself for a moment. I shall come to his party's position in a moment, if he will allow me.
The new clause makes it clear that we are expecting experienced constables to apply, under the measure, from other forces across the United Kingdom. To require them to undergo the training currently expected of new entrants to the Police Service of Northern Ireland would therefore be nonsense. The Government have said on several occasions during the passage of the Bill that the possibility of a limited exception to the 50:50 provisions to alleviate the current skills shortage was under consideration by the Policing Board.
As we signalled in Committee, the new clause before the House today has the board's unanimous support, and I want to pay tribute to the commitment of its members in putting forward the proposal. I know that, for some, it challenges deep-seated views, but it is a sign of the board's maturity in addressing the real issues facing the Police Service of Northern Ireland and enabling it to become still more effective and efficient. I had hoped that hon. Members around the Chamber would have welcomed the measure in that same spirit, and with generosity. Instead, what have we had this afternoon? The official spokesman for the Conservative party took 50 minutes of the House's time to demonstrate his complete inability to understand a measure that every member and political party on the Policing Board has not only understood but effectively drafted for the Government's consideration. The Liberal Democrats argued that they had adopted an intellectually and morally superior position on the matter. Quite frankly—
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