Northern Ireland (Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan) Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-21
Topic: Law and Crime
William Trimble (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, on what he has done over a number of years in this area. He was heavily involved with the Independent Monitoring Commission, which played a significant role in accelerating the move away from paramilitarism and enabling the institutions to be recreated on a more stable basis. That would not have happened but for the work of the International Monitoring Commission. Indeed, if the IMC had been in existence before the summer of 2002, as some of us were trying to bring about, I do not think that the institutions would have collapsed in the autumn in the way that they did. That is the context that one should put the IMC in It was a very bad mistake to wind up the IMC so quickly. Had it been there, things would have been somewhat different. I understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice: just bringing back the IMC as it was would not be appropriate because we are in a slightly different context. But within that different context, we want to see that the new body will be just as effective in the contribution that it makes. That means looking a little more closely at some of the provisions here The noble Lord’s amendment refers to reporting by the IMC, which he wants to happen more frequently. The way for the Minister to achieve that is very simple. In that first clause, he should set out the words used in the so-called fresh start agreement. That agreement says in its paragraph 5.1: "The body will: report annually on progress towards ending continuing paramilitary activity" Then it continues, "(or on such further occasions as required)" That is all the Minister needs to do. He can table a simple amendment that would carry out the exact terms of the agreement that the Bill is supposed to be implementing. It solves the problems that have been mentioned just as long as no one tries to put too tight a construction on the phrase "as required". I suggest that one does that without adding to the language in the fresh start agreement itself Part of the reason for saying that we should make sure that the language does not go too far, is that when we look at how the commission will exercise its functions as set out in Clause 2, something strange happens to the language used. It says: "In exercising its functions, the Commission must not do anything which might … prejudice the national security interests … put at risk the life or safety of any person" Of course, national security and risks to persons are matters to which people should have regard in a situation such as this and bear in mind carefully, but how will the words "must not do anything" which could engender prejudice or cause a risk operate? How is the commission to construe that phrase? It is something that could create a chill in the commission’s operations so it would have to think, "Is there any risk attached to what we are doing?". At what level does the risk become something where it must not do anything to bring it about There may be a way out of this. Trying to rewrite this clause is not something we can do easily in the time available to us, but there is a way to put this on a better basis, and that is in the provisions for the Secretary of State to issue guidance about the exercise of the function. That might use language that provides a better balance than the words before us here. Mention of the guidance raises the question: when will it become available? Will it be available before Third Reading? If it is not ready then, will it become available in a form that will enable this House to give it some scrutiny? These are matters about which we would like to hear from the Minister, and he will bear in mind that our Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has recommended that the guidance should be treated as a legislative instrument subject to negative resolution. That will enable scrutiny to take place here, so having it come out in a way that means we cannot look at it and then relate it to the overall objectives of the commission should be avoided if at all possible. I look forward with interest to what the Minister has to say on this point.