Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000 (Renewal of Temporary Provisions) Order 2007

No—political parties are voluntary groups. We have a policy of not fighting against parties that are members of the Socialist International. It is as simple as that. That has always been the case. We make no bones about that; that is our policy; that has always been our policy. That is the policy in England, Scotland and Wales; it is the policy in Northern Ireland. There happens to be a party that is a member of the Socialist International there. I have not come here to debate this; I do not even know why this got raised. Nevertheless, I had to respond because I was not clear about the point being raised. On the issue of people expected to score higher—it will take me a while to go through this—the fact is that the selection procedure of all applicants prior to reaching the pool, because there is a more than one-stage process, as Patten underlined, is based on merit. There is no requirement for members of one community background to score higher or lower than another as part of the process to get into the pool. The 50:50 provisions only apply once people are in the pool. There is no secret about that. Of course, by the time people are in the pool, they have met the United Kingdom requirements to be a member of the police force. The other point was that it would happen naturally. I had to have this explained to me at some length, but that is not the case. If we consider the total numbers of the police force and its current composition, we know that there is a recruitment competition of only 440, so knowing what the endgame of the number of police will be with retirements and other movements, the best estimate is that it will be March 2011 before the 30 per cent target is reached. It is possible to make that calculation because the entry is fixed at 440 and the total number is fixed and we know the composition that we start with today. It cannot be done any quicker. The noble Lord, Lord Trimble, is absolutely right—two seconds before he raised the point, I satisfied myself on the answer—that if the proportion of applicants is 41 per cent, the highest it has been, and rising, it will not be long before it is more than 50 per cent. I will then make the same speech to members of the other community supporting the 50:50 in order to achieve the policy objective as I must make today. The same situation will apply; there cannot be any difference. That will not mean that we achieve the objective faster. I much regret that, looking at the demographics, if we approach March 2011 and the situation is still the same—I will come to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, about devolution—someone else will have to come to seek a temporary provision order for one year, because the target will be that close. I much regret that this is not a four-year order, but the legislation requires it to be for three years, because then it could be put to bed. That is the end date on these calculations with these entry numbers by which the policy objective of 30 per cent will be achieved. I will also cover the point about why the figure is 30 per cent rather than another one. A noble Lord has asked about that. At the present time—the post-Patten period—over 93 per cent of all Catholic applications have been unsuccessful. Let me make that absolutely clear. Only those who meet the UK standards have been appointed, and even then we have had to turn away a significant number of those who have met the standard because the demand is so high. I go back to the original point: there have been 440 entries on applications running at an average number in the competitions of 5,000, 6,000 or 7000, with the lowest competition at 4,400. We are looking to address the imbalance of the community background so that the police service is more representative of the community that it polices. That is what Patten said; it was accepted at the time and it serves no useful purpose for me to go over the history. Patten said that it was the most striking issue relating to the police and that it ought to be addressed. In respect of lateral entry which I referred to in my opening remarks, the wider degree of lateral entry as set out in the Explanatory Memorandum is based on the opportunity of opening lateral entry from other forces, not just the Garda Siochana. Entry is not narrowed to that one, it extends to other forces. I can also say to the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, that I have looked at the new oath. It is similar to the oath for the Police Service of Northern Ireland and it is certainly human rights compliant. If there is a point about it that the noble Lord objects to or if he feels that it fails in some way, I shall be happy to try to respond to that. Further, the oath can be converted to an affirmation so that the words ““Before God”” do not have to be used. I do not know whether that was the issue here, but I can confirm that it is human rights compliant and very similar to the PSNI oath.