European Communities (Employment in the Civil Service) Order 2007

My Lords, I was including both categories—the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service and Permanent Secretary positions. Clearly, such people would fit the criteria of having access to information and having responsibilities for the security of the state that would bring them within the framework of the decision of the Secretary of State. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, may have views about various office holders from time to time that may be somewhat different from my own, but let him not chide me about the issue with regard to the rugby match on Saturday, because I am Welsh and therefore in the very happy position of not being tangled up in that particular collision, although I am greatly interested in it, I might add. The provisions will create the clear obligation on a Secretary of State to look at posts that need to be reserved because of the sensitivity and responsibility that they involve. In doing that, we are not doing anything different from the other countries in the European Community that likewise have a clear idea of the posts that are of high enough significance to require to be reserved for their nationals because of security considerations and the safety of the state. So it is all one on that matter. The noble Lord has the right to chide me on my lack of clarity or even overdue clarity at Question Time a couple of weeks ago, so I reassure him on that point. Of course, these issues are of great importance, but the motive behind the order is not in any way, shape or form to truckle to our European obligations. It is not a motive forced on us from elsewhere—very far from that, although we are keen to observe our European obligations. It is our motivation to try to improve the quality of our Civil Service when we saw an inordinate number of posts—largely in one department, as it happens—entirely restricted from any application from a foreign national, simply because the rules derived from a time that I described in my long historical analysis at the beginning of the debate, for which I apologise. We seek to rationalise that to make the Civil Service better and more competent and give people fair opportunities—the same opportunities that we expect British nationals to have if they reside and work in European countries to deploy their talents if they seek jobs in the civil service. Our motivation is to do that while bearing in mind exactly the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, and the other two noble Lords who contributed to the debate: we should have due regard to reciprocity and fairness as well as to the significant posts on which our nation puts great responsibility. Those posts are the reserved posts—I emphasise that the decision taking on that is the responsibility of the Secretary of State. The order is clear on the criteria for those posts, and I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, in particular in that regard. On Question, Motion agreed to.