Rules of the Supreme Court (Northern Ireland) (Amendment No. 4) 2005

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for introducing the Rules of the Supreme Court (Northern Ireland). But once again we are in the position of having to retrospectively agree to new rules because there was not time to obtain the approval of both Houses before the Recess. The explanation, of course, is that there were post-election difficulties establishing the new membership of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. So the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor used his power to bring them in. That having been said, we on these Benches are able to support Part II of the schedule. Indeed, we supported the Government on this part of the Bill when it was going through Parliament. The difficulties arise in Part III on the making of non-derogating control orders. I am sure that noble Lords will remember the all-night Sitting, although there are not many of them here today. We took on the issue of the Secretary of State having the power to make control orders. We believed then, as we do now, that the decision to impose a control order should in all circumstances be a judicial one, made in accordance with due process and with the necessary safeguards and guarantees against injustice. It is the perception of injustice which will inflame communities and increase the danger of creating more terrorists than we can control, either by imprisonment or by these orders. We are in an almost impossible position whereby we find that we do not object to the content of the rules but find the process of dealing with the reasoning and legislation behind them completely inappropriate. We are hamstrung by the process in the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 which enables the Secretary of State to take away someone’s liberty whether or not he or she is a British citizen. We will be told, I am sure, that the use of judicial review will counteract the need to concern ourselves overmuch with that process. But that will be a matter of seeing whether the Secretary of State has undertaken his duties properly according to law. Judicial review will not address the problems of deciding cases on their merits. Perhaps the Minister is able to tell us what the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has said about the rules. Has the Police Service of Northern Ireland been consulted? How are the orders to be enforced? Is it envisaged that the police will need extra resources to enable them to carry out those orders? How will the special advocates that the noble Baroness spoke about be chosen? We are still struggling with too much direct rule by feat. We all long for the Northern Ireland Assembly to be up and running as soon as possible so that the people of Northern Ireland can have their own voices heard in these matters and that they will be able to scrutinise their own legislation. Until that happy day, however, we must soldier on of course, but we had been led to believe that the Northern Ireland Office would come up with rather more substantive proposals for improving Northern Ireland scrutiny. While some very small improvements have been made—such as giving us advance notice of draft orders which are to come before us, for which we are grateful—that is not really very much help. Liberal Democrats have made proposals before, one of which was using the MLAs as a prelegislative scrutiny body, pending the reconvening of devolved institutions. But Her Majesty’s Government, I am afraid, pooh-poohed that. We believe that at least that was an imaginative proposal. Why can the NIO not show imagination and come up with significant improvements? It is very discouraging. I once again urge the noble Baroness to come forward, or to speak to her Northern Ireland Office colleagues, with serious and workable proposals which will show goodwill and ensure that the people of Northern Ireland see that we are scrutinising their legislation with the same depth in which we undertake any legislation in this House.