Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

I am sorry for the hon. Lady’s confusion, but if she looks at the Hansard report of the recent debates on the proposal for non-jury trials in fraud cases, she will see that my colleagues who were speaking for my party on that occasion made it clear that we felt that it was perfectly possible for the judge controlling a fraud trial, and for the advocates speaking on behalf of the parties in such a trial, to simplify their reasoning by using language that a jury could understand. We did not believe the Home Office arguments that a sensibly presented case would somehow be incomprehensible to a jury. The difference between that Bill and this one is that in this one we are looking at proposals that move us a distance away from the current situation, where the system of scheduled offences means that certain offences are assumed automatically to go to non-jury trial unless a decision is taken otherwise. We are also dealing here with a genuine risk that terrorist organisations could subvert the process of criminal justice. The Ulster Unionist party used to support emergency provisions legislation in this House, and I am sorry that the hon. Lady is today apparently changing her party’s line on that. I want to conclude by making a few remarks on the clauses relating to the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. Again, we will want to look at those clauses more closely in Committee. I have seen some of the commission’s initial comments on the Bill, and it is clear that it wants additional powers and that it dislikes the limits imposed by clause 14 in respect of national security and by clause 19 on events before 1 January 2008. The point that I want to make to the Government is a bit different: is there not a risk that by enacting these further powers we will end up with different commissions or different independent watchdogs with overlapping and duplicating jurisdictions? For example, the commission says in a number of documents that I have read that one of its chief interests is the plight of children who are detained in custody or immigration centres, but where will the boundary lie between the commission’s interests in that and those of the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People? Also, how will Ministers define the respective remits of the commission, of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons and of the Prisoner Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, each of which seems to have an interest in the same set of issues? When we set up independent watchdogs, it is important that we are clear about the responsibilities that they will exercise.