CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 360-i

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

NORTHERN IRELAND AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

A BILL OF RIGHTS FOR NORTHERN IRELAND

Monday 16 March 2009

Senate Chamber, Stormont, Belfast

MR THOMAS DUNCAN, MS ANN HOPE,

PROFESSOR COLIN HARVEY and MS VIRGINIA McVEA

MS FIONA McCAUSLAND, MR PATRICK CORRIGAN,

MS SARA BOYCE and MS PAM TILSON

Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 67

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee

on Monday 16 March 2009

Members present

Sir Patrick Cormack, in the Chair

Mr John Grogan

Mr Stephen Hepburn

Dr Alasdair McDonnell

Mr Denis Murphy

Stephen Pound

David Simpson

________________

Witnesses: Mr Thomas Duncan, Commissioner, Ms Ann Hope, Commissioner, Professor Colin Harvey, Commissioner, and Ms Virginia McVea, Head of Legal Services, Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, gave evidence.

Q1 Chairman: Could I welcome you to this public session. Mr Duncan, are you going to lead?

Mr Duncan: I am going to lead.

Q2 Chairman: Could I welcome you and your colleagues and say how much we appreciate your coming to give this evidence in public. Could I ask you if you would like, just briefly to introduce your team?

Mr Duncan: Yes, certainly. First of all, can I say thank you for hearing us this morning, giving us this opportunity to speak to you, and to apologise for our Chief Commissioner who is out of the country at the moment on Commission business. She sends her apologies and her good wishes as well. Can I just introduce, from my left, Professor Colin Harvey, who is a Commissioner; Ms Ann Hope, who is a Commissioner; and Ms Virginia McVea, who is a senior member of our legal team at the Commission.

Q3 Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. You are all very welcome. Before I begin the questioning, is there anything that you would like to say by way of opening statement?

Mr Duncan: Yes, I would like to make a short statement of two or three minutes perhaps to set the scene for your discussion and to allow us to go on.

Q4 Chairman: Of course.

Mr Duncan: Basically, we go back to the Good Friday Agreement, which of course was in April 1998. The Good Friday Agreement laid down the guidelines for the formation of the Commission and defined its mandate for the advice which we were to produce on the Bill of Rights. For those of you who wish to refresh yourselves on that mandate, the mandate is expressed on page eight in our document of advice. The date of formation of the first Commission was 1 March 1999. The Human Rights Commission has the Chief Commissioner and nine part-time Commissioners. The first Commission was under the chairmanship of Professor Brice Dickson, who was Chief Commissioner. In the process of their deliberations on the Bill of Rights the first Commission had widespread consultation with all of the NGOS, including the Human Rights Consortium, which was founded in 2000, and they also consulted with interest groups. They conducted a series of independent surveys amongst the public culminating in 2004 which showed that 87% of respondents in Northern Ireland supported a proposed Bill of Rights. The first Commission concluded its work on the Bill of Rights in 1995 with the production of a document outlining its conclusions and ideas in the form of a handover document and this document was entitled Taking Forward a Bill of Rights. This document was for the new Commission to consider. A largely new Commission was formed on 1 September 2005 with a new Chief Commissioner, Mrs Monica McWilliams. We then had to consider the handover document, but our first decision was to further develop these ideas and integrate the thinking of the new Commission into the logic of it. The Bill of Rights Working Group was formed to advance this aim. Over the course of time we have continued consultation with NGOs, political parties within Northern Ireland, church leaders, human rights spokespersons from major parties at Westminster, Irish Government officials, the Northern Ireland Office and various interest groups. We even had advice from Judge Albie Sachs who co-authored the South African Bill of Rights and who had first-hand knowledge of its outworking. All political parties in Northern Ireland supported the logic of a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland, albeit with differing views as to what it should contain. The St Andrews Agreement in 2006 reaffirmed the intention of the Government to actively promote the advancement of human rights and committed it to establish a forum to advise the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission in regard to the content of the Bill of Rights. Meanwhile, we continued to develop further views of the Commission and opinions expressed were noted during various consultation exercises. The Bill of Rights Forum was then created and began its work in December 2006 under the chairmanship of Chris Sidoti to advise the NIHRC about what they thought should be in the Bill of Rights. The Forum consists of 28 nominees from NGOs, civic society, churches, unions, business and the political parties. The Forum completed its advice and presented it to the Commission on 31 March 2008. At that stage, therefore, the Commission had completed the development of its own ideas and also had the benefit of the views of the Forum as to the content of the Bill of Rights. The Forum work was the final piece in nine years of consultation. The Bill of Rights Working Group then began to draw all the threads together. A series of tests was devised by the Commission after legal advice and consultation on the application of its mandate in the Good Friday Agreement. This allowed each proposed right to be tested to ascertain if the proposed right met certain defined parameters. This test and the parameters are outlined on pages 177-178 of the Commission's final advice to the Secretary of State. For example, the first test was: "Is the case made that this proposed right arises out of the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland?" There were seven guidelines to this test alone before a conclusion was reached for each proposed right. Advice was sought from lawyers upon the application of the test to each proposed right and the inclusion of it, or otherwise, within the Bill of Rights advice. During this stage discussions were maintained with the Northern Ireland Office, the political parties and interest groups to make them aware of our methodology and, indeed, this methodology was published in June 2008. Discussion after 54 meetings of the Working Group was concluded at the end of November 2008. At almost the final stage, two of the Commission members indicated that they wished to record their dissent from the report. There was, in fact, no minority report presented at the conclusion of the final meeting of the Working Group and both dissenting Commissioners declined the offer to have their views included in the minutes of the meeting when their dissent was first voiced, the minutes which would be available before the handover date for the advice of the Commission. The views of the two dissenting Commissioners are, however, in the public domain. The advice was presented to the Secretary of State on 10 December 2008, a 198 page document. The Northern Ireland Office will shortly produce their consideration of our advice, we think in the spring, and we were told that there will be a 12 week consultation period. We hope then that legislation will follow at an early stage. The Commission continues to engage with political parties and MPs to clarify our advice, including having a hearing in recent weeks at the Joint Committee on Human Rights at Westminster. We have also had a meeting at the Offices of the First and Deputy First Ministers. The Joint Committee on Human Rights at Westminster has made proposals for a Bill of Rights for England and Wales, to which the Government have responded, and we await the Green Paper to be published some time around Easter. In conclusion, gentlemen, we believe that we have produced a document which adheres faithfully to our mandate, honestly reflects the mass of consultation involved, has a sound process and methodology and has a validity based upon the usage of the best available domestic and international legal and professional advice. The people advising us over the period are listed in Appendix 6 in our advice. We believe that the advice, if enacted, will provide within Northern Ireland a platform to help take us away from our contentious past and help to build a confidence and new-found trust amongst all our people in our form of government and in the various public bodies. We believe that the Bill of Rights as proposed in our advice is for everyone who lives in Northern Ireland, be they old or young, male or female, orange or green, Caucasian or non-Caucasian. If you live in Northern Ireland I would say it is for you and it is for me. Finally, we believe that the Bill of Rights will offer a support and protection to all those in our society who are most vulnerable to abuse of their rights as human beings. There are many around us who are vulnerable because of age, health or circumstances. We note that those bodies and organisations which represent those vulnerable groups of people have soundly endorsed our advice to Government and we note also with satisfaction that there is a fair degree of favourable response to our advice. Gentlemen, that concludes my comments.

Q5 Chairman: Well, I am quite relieved because that is the longest three minutes I have ever heard in my life, I must say!

Mr Duncan: Yes, but there were things to be said.

Q6 Chairman: Yes, and they have now been said, so I am not going to ask your fellow Commissioners to add to that otherwise we will get no questioning done at all. Nobody for a moment could accuse you of not being thorough and diligent in the work that you have done, and nobody could accuse you of not taking infinite pains to try and produce a document that would be acceptable right across the communities within Northern Ireland, but it is equally clear that you have not produced such a document because there are still very real differences of opinion, particularly among what one would loosely call the two major communities. How are you going to go about addressing these cross-community differences? On the one hand, if I can be very general in this, you have got a unionist community that is entirely in favour of having a Bill of Rights but wishes it to be fairly tightly and clearly drawn, and you have another community that would like it to be much more all-embracing. How can you reconcile these two, some people would say, diametrically opposed views to a Bill of Rights?

Mr Duncan: If I could speak in advance of my colleagues and maybe some of them would like to come in on that as well. Basically, we would say that there are as many opinions as to what should be in the Bill of Rights almost as there are stars in the sky and there will never be a situation where you will produce a Bill of Rights which will suit everyone. We, on the Human Rights Commission, adopted an apolitical stance and took an honest and sound judgment from what we as individuals, not representing any political party as such, felt should be in a Bill of Rights. We are prepared to stand by that and allow our advice to go into the political debate and consultation which follows. Of course, we were aware at all stages that we would never please every political party, I do not think there is anything that has ever been written in Ireland that pleases every political party, but nevertheless there are factors within our document which we feel are sound and we believe we did what it said on the tin and fulfilled our mandate to the best of our ability. All we can say is that we have put on the table the best of our thinking and it is then for others to judge and the Northern Ireland Office will produce their own deliberation and then this will go out to consultation.

Q7 Chairman: Since you delivered your own advice to the Secretary of State, the consultative group, the Eames-Bradley Group, has delivered its report. Your recommendations on what you call "effective investigation of all violations of the right to life relating to the conflict in Northern Ireland", how do these in your estimation accord with the recommendations of the consultative group?

Mr Duncan: I am going to ask Virginia to comment on our view on the Eames-Bradley Report and the background to it.

Ms McVea: If you will suffer me giving an explanation, it will not take long. Since the time of its inception the Commission has advised Government that the past needed to be dealt with in Northern Ireland and when we came diligently to consider our mandate, international standards and the Convention, we realised that the right to life had indeed been articulated, a great deal had been ventilated in relation to investigative standards and partial independent, effective investigation brought promptly. What the Commission identified as supplementary was that any mechanism that was going to come into effect in Northern Ireland had to be human rights compliant itself. Arguably the McKerr decision in the House of Lords had ramifications for Northern Ireland that were unparalleled anywhere else in relation to the number of unsolved killings that remained on the police books here, so to speak. We would argue that those have yet to have the investigation function fully applied to them. In relation to Eames-Bradley, therefore, whilst the Commission is currently preparing a response, that was the advice we gave, that we regarded Government's creation of the consultative panel as an acknowledgment of what we had long called for and we made submissions to that group.

Q8 Chairman: Do you support their central recommendation on a Legacy Commission?

Ms McVea: The Commission as a body has not made a statement on that, so it would be improper for me to put it on the record. We do support the identification of a need for a mechanism. We have articulated in venues, such as the Council of Europe through the Committee of Ministers, that the package of measures the Government has put in place is not satisfying the requirements of the right to life and, therefore, something additional is required.

Q9 Chairman: But you have not come to any conclusion on the specific recommendation of a Legacy Commission?

Ms McVea: No.

Q10 Chairman: When will you come to such a conclusion?

Mr Duncan: That is on the agenda for our next monthly meeting.

Q11 Chairman: When will that be?

Mr Duncan: Sometime in mid-March. I cannot remember the exact date.

Q12 Chairman: It is the middle of March now.

Mr Duncan: Sorry, the middle of April.

Q13 Stephen Pound: I do not want to give too much weight to the dissenting voices amongst your Commissioners that was referred to, but Lady Daphne Trimble has identified an issue that is of considerable concern to many of us and it can broadly be described as the question of whether you are moving away from the universality of human rights to the localism of human rights. There is an issue as to whether you are actually constructing a template for the future or a tool to address the issues of the past. For many of us there does seem to be a certain dichotomy in here where human rights stop and start between Larne and Stranraer and you have additional ones at one end of the ferry and not at the other, to put it crudely. I understand the difficulty of disaggregating issues in the north of Ireland but I would be very grateful if you could explain on the record why you feel you need a different Bill of Rights in this part of the United Kingdom.

Mr Duncan: The reason we feel that we need a different Bill of Rights, first of all, is because it was in our mandate and the Good Friday Agreement said that there should be a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland which would recognise the peculiar circumstances of Northern Ireland. We have consulted in Westminster, not just with the Government as such but shadow members of the Cabinet as well, to hear their views on whether a separate Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland should be ---

Q14 Stephen Pound: I think they are probably members of the Shadow Cabinet rather than shadow members. Many of my Cabinet colleagues are shadowy, but they are not usually described as such!

Mr Duncan: Whatever you want to call them. Basically, the view that kept coming back to us was that a separate Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland was entirely appropriate. What we have done is fulfilled our mandate as best we can and produced a Bill of Rights which is all-embracing for Northern Ireland and we will see what happens when the UK get their act together on the Bill of Rights and responsibilities.

Q15 Stephen Pound: I appreciate that point, Sir, and we have been talking about this for about 36 years which was when there were some of the first references. Do you see a direct read across with a Bill of Rights in England and Wales to the Bill of Rights in the north or do you think it will be a permanently different one? Surely the logic of that is we are moving away from universal human rights, which I profoundly would hope is something that we would all accept as a universal right.

Mr Duncan: There is nothing that is set in stone and there is even talk of where the Human Rights Act will go in the future and so on. We feel we have produced an advice based on our thinking at this point in time.

Q16 Chairman: Do you face up to the logic that if what you are recommending comes to pass there will actually be a different interpretation, to take Mr Pound's words, in Stranraer from Larne, and a different one again in Dundalk? Do you accept the logic of that?

Mr Duncan: Dundalk has a Charter of Rights.

Q17 Chairman: I am well aware where Dundalk is. The point that I am making is do you accept the fact that the logic of your argument would create a situation where there was a different interpretation of rights in those three places, two of which are within the jurisdiction of Her Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom and the other is within the jurisdiction of the Government of the Republic? I am not saying that this is good or bad, I am merely saying do you accept that is the logic of your argument?

Ms McVea: The Commission took the view if that ended up being the result that that was in keeping with the Constitutional Settlement and devolution itself. As far back as the 1970s with the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights there was a recognition of what they referred to as the "special needs" of the people of Northern Ireland. Throughout its work, considering its mandate, the Commission has been mindful, as I think all are, of the special needs of the people of Northern Ireland. What we were also aware of as we went through the Convention, supplementarity and international standards, was that everyone could potentially benefit, and we make no apologies for the fact that if in other parts of the UK people want to benefit from some of these rights, in our opinion that could only be good thing. That is something to be decided by Government. We have complied with our mandate.

Q18 Stephen Pound: Surely, again, the logic of that is you are recasting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. If you are saying there are additional human rights here which you have drawn attention to, surely the rest of the world should be enjoying those.

Ms McVea: I do not think we would be dissuaded by that. That is the difficulty with human rights, there are international standards out there and we are seeking to improve what is available in individual states.

Q19 Chairman: What do you say to the argument of those who would say that basic human rights can and should be clearly and simply defined and should be universally applicable and the sort of argument you are advocating is more like a codification of good behaviour?

Professor Harvey: Again, could I just reaffirm the basis for this was in our mandate in the Belfast Good Friday Agreement and we were working to that. I would also point out that we launched this document on 10 December 2008, which was the 60^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, underpinning our commitment to that. You will find in the document consistent references in many parts of it to "everyone", again emphasising the universality of the rights in it. An important part of our mandate was about supplementing the European Convention on Human Rights and international human rights law and international standards are not all contained within the European Convention on Human Rights. The Convention contains some significant civil and political rights, and has gone slightly beyond that in some respects through judicial interpretation, but the sum of international human rights law is not just contained in the European Convention on Human Rights and as part of our process we clearly identified areas within our mandate where the Convention could be supplemented to, in a sense, achieve the sort of universality of protection that you are talking about.

Q20 Chairman: Does that not devalue the very concept by being so diffuse?

Mr Duncan: It is important to point out that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognised civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights and, in a sense, our document is in tune with that very aspiration, that all the generations of rights should be brought together in one document, a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland.

Q21 Mr Murphy: Surely, therefore, it would be easy to draft a UK-wide Bill that would cover everything that was required in Northern Ireland and the benefits would then be spread throughout the UK?

Professor Harvey: Could I respond to that? I think the Government and others made it quite clear that there is no necessary contradiction or tension between a UK-wide approach and a particular approach in Northern Ireland which draws very much on our particular circumstances. I think that has been fairly widely recognised. While we are the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and our mandate relates to Northern Ireland, and we have argued for the rights we have proposed, we feel that our debate is very much in tune with the UK-wide debate that is happening across the political parties in the UK around a Bill of Rights. The Joint Committee on Human Rights at Westminster in August of last year proposed a document which contained details on a Bill of Rights for the UK. While very focused on Northern Ireland for very obvious reasons, we have a mandate and have tried to stick to that mandate in providing advice for Northern Ireland, but we feel that many of the things we are discussing are very much in tune with debates that are happening across the UK.

Q22 Mr Grogan: Mr Duncan, you said in your introduction that you had quite hard and specific tests as to what rights to include and there had to be some element of Northern Ireland specificity. I can see looking down the list of rights you have proposed - freedom from violence, exploitation, harassment, right to identity, language rights - you could argue that, but is it more difficult to argue that there are distinctive rights that need to be enshrined in that when it comes down to environmental rights and economic and social rights?

Ms Hope: It is officially acknowledged that grievances amongst large sections of the population in Northern Ireland in relation to discrimination, exclusion, poverty, particularly in the areas of employment and housing, were prime factors in the conflict in Northern Ireland. That relationship between social and economic grievances and the conflict was recognised by the Government at the outbreak of the conflict and Lord Cameron made specific reference to them in his Commission Report. If we were to look at the particular circumstances in Northern Ireland, remembering that this Bill of Rights is a Bill of Rights addressing issues in a society that is coming out of conflict, then, as far as we were concerned, social and economic rights had to be part of that. In fact, it is one of the confidence building measures that would be contained in the Bill, not least to say the abuses that took place around those particular rights would not happen again, so they should be very much in a Bill of Rights. Additionally, if you look at what your own Joint Committee on Human Rights has said at Westminster, they have also included social and economic rights in what they would like to see in a Bill of Rights for the UK. In fact, I think we are now in tune with what international standards and international thinking are about. Civil and political rights, if you like, were the rights that were normally included in Bills of Rights, but more and more current Bills of Rights are including the social and economic rights as well.

Q23 Mr Grogan: And environmental rights?

Ms Hope: And environmental rights. I take it you have had a look at the website and we would need to include those as well. For us, the Bill of Rights is not just about addressing the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland, it should be a forward looking document and one of the main considerations, now we have had civil and political rights, we have gone on to the next generation of rights, social and economic, and there is another generation of rights, which is environmental rights, and we need to address those as well.

Q24 David Simpson: Many people I speak to in the business world and different organisations, their opinions would be that human rights legislation and equality legislation is coming out of our ears in Northern Ireland and their belief would be there is hardly any other part of the United Kingdom as rigidly governed in relation to this legislation because of the background of Northern Ireland between the two communities. I see that it has taken some eight years to produce this and maybe you could give us some explanation of that. On the point that the Chairman raised earlier on in relation to agreement on this, when it comes to publication of your report and your document that will go forward to the parties, if there is discussion, whether it be in this House or wherever, and there is no agreement, is it dead?

Mr Duncan: Basically, and I think maybe everyone should comment on this, as far as we are concerned, we set out to fulfil our mandate and produce an advice on the Bill of Rights and it now goes into the political domain, if you like.

Q25 Chairman: That is fine, you have done your duty and nobody for a minute could impugn your credentials on that front, but Mr Simpson asks a simple question: if there is not political consensus effectively in Stormont among the political parties following devolution, is this dead or will it carry on?

Mr Duncan: You are asking us a question which we do not know the answer to because the governing body, if you like, that controls all this is the Westminster Government through the Northern Ireland Office and they will undoubtedly listen to what the debate in this building will produce and if the debate in this building comes out that there is no consensus for what should be in the Bill of Rights then it goes back to the Northern Ireland Office and through that to the Government to decide on where they go. You are asking us a question that we have no control over.

Q26 Chairman: Thank you for putting that on the record.

Professor Harvey: What the process has demonstrated, and it has been a lengthy process launched in 2000, is that there is a diversity of opinion on what should be in a Bill of Rights. In one sense that is a healthy sign because in such a significantly constitutional document it would be worrying if there was not a diversity of opinion on what should be in it. I think what the Commission has taken great heart from as part of this process has been that the political parties and across all communities have taken the view that there should be a Bill of Rights, which is a positive thing to note, but there is a diversity of view in relation to what its content is. As Tom has underlined, we were charged with providing advice and we look forward to the extensive debate to come in which we will be defending our proposals which we feel are credible and authoritative which provide a persuasive way forward. We will be arguing and debating and trying to persuade those who remain sceptical. We fully acknowledge that the process has made clear that there is a diversity of opinion on content but agreement that there should be a Bill of Rights.

Q27 Mr Hepburn: Just two questions. You said that the Working Group consulted widely on the document that you produced and you mentioned consulting with political parties, NGOs and other groups. I would be interested to find out if you consulted with trade unions that represent workers and working people in both communities, such as Unison, the health workers and local government workers' union and the teachers' union. Were these organisations consulted and what sort of response did they bring back?

Mr Duncan: The unions had a voice in the Forum, which was providing advice. Over the years we have consulted with anybody who has really wanted to talk to us or meet with us and they have been proactive in this by inviting people to talk to us. Over the years there has been consultation, not necessarily at Commission level but maybe at Chief Commissioner level with the various trade unions involved in Northern Ireland.

Q28 Mr Hepburn: They have been positive towards the work that you have been doing?

Mr Duncan: Yes, I think the general view is that they are positive.

Ms Hope: In my previous existence I worked for the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and one of my responsibilities was the Bill of Rights. The Commission has not gone out to consultation on this particular document because we think the amount of consultation that has already taken place has been enough and we have heard all these voices. I was one of the people who organised the consultations throughout the trade union movement in Northern Ireland on the previous documents and while we responded to everything that was in both documents we particularly responded to the social and economic rights chapters. That was and still is a positive response. In fact, when this document was produced the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions wrote to the press commending the Commission on the document, particularly on the social and economic rights in it. Yes, they have been consulted.

Q29 Mr Hepburn: My second question is on the list of rights you have identified. I notice that you have got rights for sick children, social rights, including rights to health, standard of living, social security, accommodation, they are very wide-ranging dealing from work to health rights, but what I cannot understand is even though you mention children you do not mention education. Has education been put down as a right? I do not want to get into the domestics of the Northern Ireland education system because it is ---

Chairman: Better steer clear of that, I think.

Mr Hepburn: --- for the devolved Assembly to sort out itself. It does come to mind that Northern Ireland, whereas it has some of the best education systems in the world, also has some of the worst in the UK, so why was education not mentioned?

Mr Duncan: We have education mentioned.

Ms Hope: It is page 38 of our advice.

Mr Hepburn: It is not mentioned in my briefing document.

Ms Hope: Also, pages 91-93 explain more fully why we have those particular rights in.

Chairman: Covered at some length, yes.

Q30 Dr McDonnell: I have two questions and one may be simpler than the other. The first one is your recommendations appear to suggest that on women's rights in terms of equal participation of women in political and public life there was the principle of positive discrimination and there was some dissent from that by one of your Commissioners? Is that a true assessment? Are you suggesting that there should be positive discrimination where there are deficits?

Stephen Pound: We would be grateful if you did not draw attention to the fact that the Committee consists of seven men as present here today!

Chairman: I was just going to correct you. The Committee has four women.

Ms Hope: Colin wants to speak on the equality provision. The Good Friday Agreement itself, the Belfast Agreement, did include a statement saying that the participation of women in public life was one of the things that needed to be addressed given that under-representation. We have not, I understand, in our advice recommended quotas, et cetera, but we have recommended actions that would address that. What those actions are are up to the legislators of the parties themselves. We do have a strong equality clause. Colin, do you want to speak on that?

Professor Harvey: Drawing on our mandate, the mandate asked for us to draw on international instruments and experience. What international human rights law makes clear in the equality context is that there will be a need for positive action in certain contexts and that is an example of it.

Chairman: I think I must just put on the record, in case there is any misunderstanding, that there are four ladies on this Committee, it just so happens that they are not here at the moment, three of them for reasons of indisposition sadly. We do have four ladies on this Committee. Your second question, Dr McDonnell.

Q31 Dr McDonnell: Thank you, Chairman. One of the other questions that I worry about is while legislation would be vested at the moment in the Secretary of State, as we travel down the road there will be some devolution locally here. How do you see us retaining a balance? How do you see us balancing the House of Commons element of management, the Secretary of State's responsibility, with some of the responsibility that would devolve to our Local Assembly? My question really is how can we ensure that would be functional if we are coming from two different angles?

Mr Duncan: Basically the Bill of Rights is a reserve matter and is initially the responsibility of the Westminster Government. In terms of devolution, we have suggested within our advice that there is a mechanism by which it is not set in stone forever and the Bill of Rights in the future could be changed by a cross-community vote in this House here and that would be directed towards Westminster that we would change what the Bill of Rights so said. Additionally, within the actual outworking of a Bill of Rights within Northern Ireland there is a very clear suggestion as to what the role of the Northern Ireland parties and the Northern Ireland Assembly would be in that we are proposing that there would be a similar, as exists in Westminster, committee on human rights which would look at future legislation and see if it is human rights-proof, to raise human rights issues and carry forward the logic and extension of the Bill of Rights. There are lots of other factors which are in favour of the outworking of the Bill of Rights here and within the Assembly we have a programme of government and targets which are set and within the areas of rights which are progressively realised that provides a sound methodology to assess whether the rights so stated are being addressed and realised. There is a very clear pathway for the devolved administration here.

Q32 Chairman: Mr Duncan, can I just ask you a question about co-operation across the border. We are conducting an inquiry into cross-border co-operation and in the context of that inquiry we have had informal discussions with the Commissioner for Human Rights in Dublin. What sort of contact have you had and how practical would it be to have a code that applied both sides of the border, bearing in mind we have had very clear evidence from both sides that in such issues as child protection absolute compatibility is thoroughly desirable and there are people working on both sides of the border on the issue of sex offenders and so on to try and make that so? Could you say a word about your work in that context?

Mr Duncan: Basically, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission meets on a bimonthly basis with the Human Rights Commission in Dublin. We raise all sorts of issues. We talk about some of the things that you have talked about. We have expressed concerns about child protection on both sides of the border where there is a very clear difference of control and understanding as to how it should apply. We talk about that and issues which cross the border and recognise no border, such as trafficking, racism and so on. We are beginning to talk about a charter of rights for the island of Ireland which, again, is part of the Good Friday Agreement. We have these meetings where we alternate between Belfast and Dublin, we have them regularly and discussions are ongoing about some of the things you have mentioned. The charter for the island of Ireland is part of our mandate as well and that will begin to gather a head of steam in due course.

Q33 Chairman: Thank you. This Committee will have to decide whether it wishes to receive oral evidence from the two dissenting Commissioners, and that is a decision we have to make in due course and, of course, we will give them every opportunity to put in written submissions. Lady Trimble in particular has raised a number of what, on the face of it, seem to be very real criticisms of your report and the way you have operated. What would your answer be to this Committee?

Mr Duncan: In regard to whether they should be giving evidence?

Chairman: No, that is for our Committee to decide. How do you respond to the substance of Lady Trimble's criticisms which perhaps can be summed up by saying you are going far beyond the remit that you were given and to which you should have been working?

Mr Duncan: We said a moment ago there are as many different opinions as there are stars in the sky and Lady Trimble is one of those stars and she has her own opinions. On the Commission, we take the view that we do not agree with them and take the view that some of them are factually incorrect and, therefore, we stand by what we say and are prepared to defend what we say against what Lady Trimble has said.

Q34 Mr Murphy: Could I ask whether the Commission would agree to a UK-wide Bill of Rights provided it covered the points that are very specific to Northern Ireland?

Mr Duncan: The problem is that nobody in the UK seems to know where they are going at the minute. When we were talking to the Joint Committee a few weeks ago the message came back to us that we were light years ahead of them in our consultation and thinking. We even get the vibes that the Green Paper will not be very definitive but will be very general. A UK Bill of Rights sometime in the future when that comes about can take into account the status quo that exists in Northern Ireland.

Q35 Mr Murphy: You have no objection to that in principle?

Mr Duncan: I would say not, but we are fulfilling our mandate which is for a separate Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. There is nothing cast in stone.

Q36 Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. Could I come back to the document that is occupying our attention a lot at the moment, which is the consultative group's report. We are going to give our own report on that to Parliament in the course of the next two or three months. For reasons that I completely understand, and my colleagues would also understand, you have refused to answer on the question of the Legacy Commission, but what about their very emphatic view on future public inquiries?

Mr Duncan: As I say, we are not going to be drawn into pre-empting what our deliberations will be next month. I do not know whether you remember us sitting behind Lord Eames when he was giving his evidence to you at the last meeting. We listened to that and listened to the content and tone of the meeting and we think we will reflect on all aspects of the report and issue a statement in April.

Q37 Chairman: We would be very grateful, bearing in mind our own inquiries, for an early indication of your views because we would hope to be able to take those into account in formulating our own response.

Mr Duncan: That is reasonable.

Ms McVea: Our understanding is the inquiries that are currently running will have concluded by the time that any Legacy Commission would have been set up so, in effect, for those inquiries that is irrelevant. There is one outstanding inquiry in terms of Judge Cory's work and that is the Finucane Inquiry.

Q38 Chairman: Indeed.

Ms McVea: There is an offer on the table that the Legacy Commission would absorb that. That is a matter for response by the Finucane family. The human rights compliant mechanism that the Commission has continued to argue for, no matter what the package of measures are, the Government has had inquests and HET and inquiries and every one has been deemed by the Government to satisfy Article 2. We have said that has not satisfied Article 2 and also the inquiries themselves as previously run were raising concerns about Article 2. The things that we have already articulated would continue to apply. The Human Rights standard is our benchmark for Article 2 and how that is achieved.

Professor Harvey: Talking about our Bill of Rights advice, we do make a recommendation on the right to life. We do talk about violations of the right to life relating to the conflict in Northern Ireland being effectively investigated, but we do say in the Bill of Rights advice that any mechanisms established must be fully in compliance with international human rights law. Obviously we will be issuing a further response in April, but in the Bill of Rights advice we do speak to the right to life.

Q39 Chairman: Thank you. We are going to be taking evidence very shortly from the Human Rights Consortium. Would you like to give us your comments on the Consortium, how it is operated and what your relationships with the Consortium are?

Stephen Pound: Do not hold back in any way! Be full and frank!

Chairman: Just between ourselves?

Mr Duncan: I see smiles over my left shoulder here. We have always had a good relationship with the Human Rights Consortium.

Q40 Stephen Pound: Do you have a formal relationship?

Mrs Hope: We meet with them on a regular basis.

Mr Duncan: It is not at full Commission level, it would normally be a Commissioner, Chief Commissioner and maybe one or two others.

Q41 Stephen Pound: Is that good practice or is that enshrined in any sort of constitutional requirement?

Mr Duncan: It is just good practice and it is a furtherance of our logic of consultation because the only way to keep good relations with everybody in Northern Ireland is to keep talking to them.

Stephen Pound: Yes, to talk to them.

Mr Duncan: We are heartened by the fact that the Northern Ireland Human Rights Consortium is behind us.

Stephen Pound: Indeed they are!

Chairman: Literally, yes!

Mr Duncan: Behind us emotionally too on what we have said in the Bill of Rights. There might be one or two little nuances where they feel they would liked to have had in more than they would have liked to have out, but that is a healthy debate. We have good friends on the Consortium and I think they are still friends with us after our advice.

Q42 Chairman: In Northern Ireland, as we have been told so often, where everybody knows everybody else that is quite important.

Mr Duncan: Yes.

Chairman: Do any colleagues have any other questions for our current witnesses? No. In which case, I would like to thank you, Mr Duncan, Ms Hope, Professor Harvey and Ms McVea for coming and giving us your views. Obviously we will be taking these into account on three reports that we are working on. One is, of course, the cross-border co-operation, another is going to be on this issue of the Bill and whether there should be one and what it should contain, and we are also going to be seeing later today the Omagh Victims' Support Group and some of the things you have said this morning are relevant in that context. Thank you very much indeed, we much appreciate your presence.

Witnesses: Ms Fiona McCausland, Chairperson, Mr Patrick Corrigan, NI Amnesty International, Ms Sara Boyce, Children's Law Centre and Save the Children of Northern Ireland, Ms Pam Tilson, Signature, Human Rights Consortium, gave evidence.

Q43 Chairman: Welcome. I gather, Fiona McCausland, you are the Chairman leading the group, is that right? We did not know you were coming, but you are most welcome and we are delighted you are here to give evidence. Maybe you would like to introduce your colleagues.

Ms McCausland: We have Patrick Corrigan at the end from Amnesty International, Sara Boyce from the Children's Law Centre Northern Ireland and Save the Children, and Pam Tilson, who is working with the deaf community. I would ask Pam to start off and give a brief background on the Consortium.

Chairman: Before that, and obviously we are delighted she should do that, could I say that I have had the pleasure of meeting some of you on behalf of the Committee before and this is a relatively short session so I know you will bear that in mind because we do have to conclude this just before one o'clock. If you could bear that in mind in your brief introductory comments that would be helpful.

Stephen Pound: Chairman, for the record can I state I am a member of Amnesty International but that will not in any way affect the statements I make. For the record, I think it is important to state that I am and have been a member for many years.

Chairman: Perhaps I should say that I am a subscriber to them.

Stephen Pound: If anyone else would like to join!

Q44 Chairman: Would you like to start?

Ms Tilson: Thank you very much, Chairman, for the opportunity to address the Committee today. As Fiona has outlined, we are here representing a range of organisations which are members of the Consortium, but we are here representing the Consortium rather than our individual organisations. The Human Rights Consortium was established in 2000 to encourage widespread community participation in the consultation process on the proposed Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. Its membership has grown to over 130 NGOs, trade unions, community and voluntary groups and represents a huge number of people from a diverse range of constituencies and communities across Northern Ireland. Some of the organisations are region-wide sectoral organisations, such as Disability Action, Save the Children, Age Concern and Mencap. Others are geographically-based community organisations, such as the Old Warren Partnership or the Federation of Community Groups in Newry or the Upper Springfield Development Trust. We have a wide range of membership from church-based and trade union organisations. The unifying factor in the Human Rights Consortium is a firmly-held belief that a strong and inclusive Bill of Rights can play a fundamental role in the creation of a better, most just, inclusive and shared Northern Ireland. The Consortium has helped put the Bill of Rights on the agenda of local churches, trade unions and civic society more generally and promoted dialogue with local political parties. Our aim has been to mobilise widespread popular and political support behind a strong and inclusive Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. Members, both as individuals and as a Consortium, have responded to the various consultations from the Human Rights Commission over the years. The development of the Consortium has really been in two phases: from 2000-2007 and from 2007 onwards. In 2007, the Consortium was able to attract funding from Atlantic Philanthropies to employ staff and fund activity. A board was established elected from amongst the Consortium members to manage both the staff and the budget. The Consortium from the outset has never taken a strong view on the context of a Bill of Rights, instead focusing on building widespread community support for the broad concept. The unifying factor in the Human Rights Consortium is a firmly-held belief that a strong and inclusive Bill of Rights can play a fundamental role in the creation of a better, more just, inclusive and shared Northern Ireland. Our work in 2005-06 focused on working to get the Round Table Forum established with representatives from political and civic society together to see where consensus might be reached on the scope for, and content of, a Bill of Rights. On 10 December last year, when the Commission, having looked at that report, handed over its advice to the Secretary of State that was another step on the road. As a Consortium we now want to see the Government making the consultation on their response to the Commission's advice meaningful and accessible. It must generate debate amongst the public and it must be more than PDF on a website. Public engagement with the process must be facilitated. We ask for your help in ensuring that this happens. We ask for your support in delivering a strong and inclusive Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland, and for your support in ensuring that it happens in the lifetime of this Parliament.

Chairman: Well, congratulations on your speed reading!

Ms Tilson: Patrick would like to say something.

Q45 Chairman: Yes, but we do have some questions so could I ask you to be very brief.

Mr Corrigan: I will be very brief and excise my comments. I will simply abbreviate them to this. One of the lessons which we draw from the public response to the very tragic events of last week is that just about everybody in this society wants to move forward, people do not want to go backward. We feel that a strong Northern Ireland Bill of Rights can be a cornerstone in the future of that notion of an equal society, a shared society, one based on peace and justice. It is important that such a Bill of Rights addresses the legacy of our past, as I think the recommendations from the Commission point us towards, that they deal with some of those narrower issues to do with the community divisions and the issues of particular rights conflicts that we have experienced here, but that it also offers a shared vision for what our future can be together addressing some of the issues that are common to all communities, whether green, orange or other, and address those everyday needs, the socioeconomic needs of people in this society as well. We do not wish to see a Bill of Rights that usurps the place of politicians, we value the devolved arrangements which we have here and we want to cherish that role, but we see a Bill of Rights as a normal part of the checks and balances of constitutional government and we think Northern Ireland should join that international mainstream in terms of having a Bill of Rights here, not just to address our past but also to help forge the future that I think we all want to see in this part of the world.

Q46 Chairman: Thank you. You heard the evidence given by the Commission who told us of their very good and cordial relations with you, and I am sure you feel the same, do you?

Ms McCausland: Yes.

Stephen Pound: It would be interesting if you said no!

Q47 Chairman: It would be very interesting. How far does the advice provided by the Commission meet your expectations? What, if any, specific rights that you would like included are missed out from their advice?

Mr Corrigan: If I can open very briefly and say that the Consortium, representing 130 different community groups, NGOs, trade unions, a very wide membership representing several hundred thousand people, within our diversity does not take a single view on inclusion of particular rights or how that content should be drawn. Broadly speaking, the Consortium as a forum for civic society, welcomes the advice of the Commission and thinks that it is reflective of the long consultation process that they engaged in both in their present form and in their previous constitution. We think that the methodology that they laid out, which we understand all Commissioners endorsed and there was no dissent from that methodology from political parties, and certainly not civic society, was well thought through and well applied. We welcome the proposals. We do think the proposals deal with the narrow circumstances in Northern Ireland but also the wider particular circumstances of this place and we would now like to see the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee giving consideration to that and in due course the Government without any undue delay going to the people with a public consultation. We know from our membership, which as I say is broad and cross-community in nature, and also from an independent polling that the Human Rights Commission and Consortium commissioned, that there is broad cross-community public support for a Bill of Rights and a strong and broad Bill of Rights, and we now wish to see that brought to the fore through public consultation.

Q48 Chairman: Can anybody add to that?

Ms Boyce: First of all, I would like to reinforce what Patrick said. Obviously we do not take a position on content but we were very supportive of the approach the Commission took and we feel that the advice in terms of how it has been laid out it is very clear to see how they have addressed the mandate that was given to them, the way they have broken it down and the methodology that is set out for everybody to see. I think there can be no question but that they have addressed each section of the mandate that was given to them, so that is very helpful. We are campaigning for a strong and inclusive Bill of Rights. What we mean by a strong Bill of rights is one of the elements of that would have to be social and economic rights protections because our bottom line is that the Bill of Rights must protect the most vulnerable in society, the people whose social and economic rights are most neglected, denied or restricted. We are very supportive, therefore, of the inclusion of provisions on social and economic rights in the Commission's advice.

Ms McCausland: I would like to talk to the support that there is in the communities as our Consortium is very broad-based and very equally divided between unionist and nationalist communities. The polls that Patrick referred to received a result of approximately 75% support for a Bill of Rights in both the protestant and catholic communities. That would also be reflective of our particular experience.

Q49 Chairman: What was the question asked when you got that amazingly high response? How many people did you poll?

Ms McCausland: "Do you support a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland?"

Mr Corrigan: I think, drawing from our own and the Commission's polling, there were straightforward questions such as, "Do you support a strong Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland", but there were also deeper questions around socioeconomic rights and named particular rights and dug a little deeper into people's views. We would be happy to forward to the Committee the more detailed findings of those polls.

Q50 Chairman: How many people were polled?

Mr Corrigan: I think just over 1,000, so standard operating procedure for independent polling.

Q51 Chairman: A thousand from each community or a thousand across?

Ms Boyce: Across the community.

Mr Corrigan: Across the community. That was commissioned from an independent polling organisation at a level of representation that they recommended, so we know it is a standard poll.

Q52 Chairman: You made a very important statement when you said it was 75% from the unionist community and 75% from the nationalist community. How can you be so sure if it was a cross-community poll? Did you have 500 of each? I am not casting aspersions on what you are saying, but if we are to take this seriously into account we want to know the statistical validity on which it is based.

Mr Corrigan: The polling was demographically representative, including along the green/orange community lines. Yes, the scrutiny of the survey holds up when one tries to dig a little deeper and find out did these views hold equal weight on both sides of the community and the answer is they did. Given that a Bill of Rights and human rights generally at a political level seem to be contentious, at a people's level, a community level, the polling would suggest they do not see it in that way and there is cross-community support out there even if at the moment there is not cross-party consensus of what the content should be.

Ms McCausland: I work for an organisation as a youth worker at the Old Warren Partnership in Lisburn, which is just outside Belfast, and it is a working class protestant community. We have been working on supporting a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland and working using human rights as a framework for our work since 1998. There is huge and historic support amongst the unionist communities as well as nationalist communities for human rights. We have used rights to change the area that we live in from being what was called the second least popular estate in Northern Ireland by the Housing Executive, the place that no-one wanted to live, to being one of the most popular in that city, and using rights to unify our community and being able to work with communities, nationalist, catholic, republican communities, such as the New Lodge, where we work together using rights as a tool to improve the housing stock and using rights as a tool working with Poleglass, another nationalist community, to bring SureStart into our area. We would not have had that fantastic scheme in the protestant Old Warren if it had not been using a rights-based approach and we could not work with Poleglass. I was brought up as British but I recognise other people in my country do not see themselves as that. We have used rights as a framework to be able to unify and work for the betterment of both communities across the divide. A Bill of Rights is important to us. While there are rights, the European Convention of Human Rights, this is special for our country because here we have a country where I have been brought up to be British, and that was just the way it was, and my neighbour across the street was brought up to think they belonged to another country, but using rights we can work together to form a new contract with the government of our country, which is Northern Ireland. That is why it is so important to people, particularly in working class communities, but that benefits the whole community right across unionist and nationalist and that is why it is so important.

Q53 Chairman: That is a very powerful argument for a specific Northern Ireland Bill of Rights and one that certainly we take most seriously, but what do you say to the dissenting voice of Lady Trimble and her colleague who thought that what was produced by the Commission went way beyond that and was not sufficiently specific to Northern Ireland? Lady Trimble was not arguing there should not be a Bill of Rights in Northern Ireland, she took issue because she felt that this went too wide and went beyond the specific and particular circumstances of Northern Ireland. I am not expressing a view, merely seeking to articulate hers for the benefit of your comment. What would you say to that?

Ms Boyce: Can I start off in answering. I have had an opportunity to read Daphne Trimble's note of dissent and if we are looking at the core problems or difficulties that she put forward in that she had with the final advice from the Commission, one of the big difficulties she saw was around the failure of the Commission to address in the mandate the mutual respect for identity and the parity of esteem issue as she saw it. When you go back and look at the way the Commission did approach this task and look in detail at the methodology, I do not think that criticism can be sustained because the Commission said all of these rights taken together, all of the provisions together in the Bill of Rights address that mandate in terms of mutual respect and parity of esteem. That was one of the issues. For us, the other issue that was raised was around social and economic rights. It is a matter of interpretation in terms of to what extent social and economic rights come within that mandate. The Consortium would very clearly see that social and economic rights must be addressed by the Bill of Rights given the mandate that came from the Agreement.

Q54 Chairman: Does Sara Boyce speak for you in that view of what I call the Trimble note of dissent?

Ms McCausland: Absolutely. We would see social and economic rights as particular circumstances of Northern Ireland, not necessarily that there is not deprivation in parts of Glasgow, Birmingham or Manchester but it is the way that deprivation has been played out. We are a specific area where we have two people recognising themselves as different nationalities and it is important that equality issues can be addressed in this special contract which we have worked together across communities to draw up, to be our special contract with government for our particular circumstances in Northern Ireland.

Q55 Stephen Pound: In some ways you represent the delivery element of the equation in terms of the evidence we have had from the Commissioners. Your people are very often the practitioners who deliver it. We keep coming back to this issue of local versus universal. One of the points you make, in my opinion quite rightly, is in reference to Traveller children. You talk about high infant mortality rates in Traveller children. From the point of view of the people who actually deliver, what human right would make a difference that does not currently exist for Traveller children without you impinging on their rights to have very large families and to keep mobile?

Ms Boyce: I suppose in relation to children and young people, Traveller children included, it is an area that the Children's Law Centre and Save the Children have been particularly focused on around the potential of a Bill of Rights to provide additional protections.

Q56 Stephen Pound: You have done a great deal of work.

Ms Boyce: Yes, the situation of Traveller children is absolutely unacceptable. You have infant mortality three times the rate among settled children. The levels of discrimination is something we would get coming in on our advice line to the Children's Law Centre, issues and incidents of discrimination against Traveller children. What we would be arguing for in the Bill of Rights is those standards that are set out in the international legal instruments, the UN Convention and the Rights of the Child primarily, that the standards, particularly the general principles in that Convention of best interests of the child and non-discrimination and right to life itself, but not just right to life, the interpretation of the UN Convention is development to the maximum extent possible. It is not just about survival, which is the case at the moment for a lot of Traveller children, it is to the maximum extent possible. What we would be arguing for in the Bill of Rights is the inclusion of those principles, but also provisions in the UN Convention around respect for culture which would also come in in relation to Traveller children.

Q57 Stephen Pound: There is almost an element of competing human rights. Sir Isaiah Berlin made that famous statement about the rights for the shark do not equal rights for the minnow. This is not the same issue here, but with travelling families how can we possibly extend those rights to them if by definition they do not wish to avail themselves of those rights as constraining their absolute right to live in freedom as they wish?

Ms Boyce: In my experience, and I am wearing the hat of having worked with Traveller children for about six years. All Traveller families I know would wish their children and themselves to have rights protections that do not currently exist. I do not know any Traveller family who would say they do not want additional rights protections.

Q58 Chairman: If the rate of infant mortality arises, as it does to some degree, because of their nomadic lifestyle, how do you square the particular circle that Mr Pound is talking about?

Ms Boyce: I think the onus and responsibility is on Government and what people would like to see coming out in terms of programmatic obligations in the Bill of Rights is for Government to fully respect and resource that nomadic lifestyle.

Q59 Chairman: Pay for it you mean.

Ms Boyce: What we have at the moment is criminalisation of the nomadic lifestyle under the unauthorised encampments legislation from a few years ago. It is widely accepted that we have practically no emergency provision for Traveller accommodation in terms of emergency halting sites and very little development of standard halting sites. That would be a first step. That is the fundamental underlying reason why Traveller infant mortality rates are so high, because of the living conditions. This is the problem that needs to be tackled and that is where we would see the Bill of Rights kicking in in terms of the protections it will provide.

Chairman: I think that is an answer that would be of interest both sides of the Irish Sea.

Q60 Mr Grogan: Just very quickly back to socioeconomic rights. What would be the essential rights you would be trying to enshrine in that area? Is it essentially to do with equality of access to employment, to training, to services and so on? What are you getting at essentially?

Ms Boyce: Are you asking in relation to Traveller children?

Mr Grogan: No, more broadly.

Stephen Pound: That is my hobby-horse and we have moved on from that. My hobby-horse and cart!

Mr Corrigan: We would look towards the Bill to create a level playing field for all, a safety net for the most vulnerable, and there would be a broad range of views within the collective Human Rights Consortium of the priority that particular rights or particular constituencies should be given. The Commission's advice on the particular additional rights that they identified in addition to the European Convention on the Human Rights Act would be the rights that there would be broad agreement around, so rights of accommodation, health rights, rights of workers. There would be a number of specific areas where we feel there is a requirement for additional socioeconomic rights protection. The role of the Consortium as a collective is not to do campaigning on the particular content of one right as opposed to another right, but broadly speaking we would like to see advances.

Q61 Chairman: I just want to ask you two things. It was quite clear from what our previous witnesses said that they paid enormous regard, and in my view rightly, to what the politicians here in Northern Ireland think. Without a reasonable consensus across the parties here in Stormont it is difficult to see legislation agreed and sticking even though it is, of course, the responsibility of Westminster Parliament. Do you go along with that view?

Mr Corrigan: As we identify, and as the international Belfast Agreement identifies, it is a Westminster responsibility to deliver the Bill of Rights and we look to the Westminster Parliament to do that as one of the final fulfilments of the Agreement. In terms of the kernel of your point, all of the parties, as you have rightly pointed out, have backed the principle of a Bill of Rights but there is some disagreement and diversity of viewpoint about the particular content that should be found within. All that we can do, I guess, is speak on behalf of the tens of thousands of people that our groups represent in one shape or another and represent what we think is the view of the majority of the population of Northern Ireland, ie they support a Bill of Rights, and a Bill of Rights worthy of the name, a meaningful Bill of Rights, one fit for the 21^st century. Part of our role is to continue to act as persuaders, if you like, to all of the parties to see a good Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. We note in the Commission's advice that they suggest particular responsibility in terms of the review process of how a Bill of Rights might be amended in the future, that there ought to be cross-party, cross-community agreement within the Assembly before Westminster would move ahead, but I guess we would say we would look to you as the guarantors of our rights first and foremost to legislate for this and ultimately it may be open to the Assembly to further debate this and lodge a view about how it might be amended in the future if Northern Ireland's particular circumstances change.

Ms Boyce: As a Consortium we have not got there in terms of looking at it politically that there is all cross-party and all-party consensus on the content of the Bill of Rights, although obviously there is on the principle of having a Bill of Rights, but if you look at the experience of the work of the Bill of Rights Forum, and we were observers as the Consortium and a lot of our members sat on the Forum, the level of consensus that was achieved in the seven working groups should not be underplayed or ignored in any way. There was very significant consensus achieved, I know, from the Children and Young's People Working Group, across all the parties, that were represented in each working group. Sadly, that high level of consensus was not maintained to the same degree when it went back into the plenary session but we are hopeful still greater consensus can be achieved and that is ultimately what we are looking for. It is a very high bar but we want the maximum extent of consensus possible. It is not going to be possible to get unanimity on every single provision in the Bill of Rights and we are going to have to accept that, but it is above party politics, it is at a constitutional level, and we need to keep that in mind.

Q62 Mr Murphy: Following on from that, is it your view, therefore, that a separate Bill of Rights would be preferable for Northern Ireland?

Ms Boyce: Yes, that is what we are campaigning for, a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland.

Chairman: That is the purpose of their campaign.

Q63 David Simpson: This is the same question that I put to the Commission. Would you accept that a UK-wide Bill of Rights would be acceptable if it incorporated the issues that you have raised?

Ms Boyce: We have no problem per se with a UK Bill of Rights. Obviously we have been monitoring and tracking that process but it is not something we have any position on. We want to see the Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland finalised, it is very far down the road. It is a very distinct process coming from the Agreement, so it is totally separate. Just one note of caution we would sound is we wish the Bill of Rights for the UK a fair wind but we would have concerns if it impinged negatively in terms of the process and timing.

Q64 Chairman: What you do not want is to see a delay, and I understand that.

Ms Boyce: Absolutely.

Q65 Chairman: We will take on board what you have said. We will be questioning the Secretary of State in a couple of weeks' time and certainly will be asking him some questions about this. We will reflect and may well make a report to Parliament. One thing we have committed ourselves to making a report to Parliament on in the fairly near future is the report of the consultative group. For reasons that we respect, and that you heard, the Commission felt unable to give an opinion on a Legacy Commission and on the fact that the consultative group has recommended there should be no further public inquiries. Do you wish to comment on either of those issues or are you in the same position as the Commission?

Mr Corrigan: As the Consortium we have no comment because we do not take a particular view on any of the content issues. If I may say briefly with my Amnesty International hat on, we welcome much of the Eames-Bradley report, a very serious piece of work requiring serious attention. However, we do have some concerns around their recommendation for a Legacy Commission and the potential for immunity leading to impunity for past human rights abuses, whether committed by state or non-state actors. We would caution the Committee about some of those particular recommendations from the consultative group, that we do not go down a road of offering immunity for past abuses in exchange for information or co-operation with a truth gathering process.

Q66 Chairman: You are making that comment wearing your Amnesty International hat?

Mr Corrigan: Yes.

Q67 Chairman: Probably it would be better if you were to send us a note of Amnesty's view which we will take into account. When I say "take into account", that does not mean committed to agree or disagree with, but truly take into account. Thank you all very much. We appreciate the points you have made. We particularly appreciate the powerful argument you made, Fiona McCausland, when you answered your questions. We will obviously reflect upon this as we deliberate further. If there are any other points you wish to put to us when you are conferring in private afterwards feel free to write to our clerk. Anything that he receives by the end of March will be in good time to be assessed.

Ms McCausland: I would like to thank you on behalf of the Consortium and the delegation for the time that you and your colleagues have given to us.

Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.