Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

I start by fully accepting the reasons for the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, on Monday. His amendments were succinctly put and clearly placed on the record. I did my inadequate best to answer his colleague who stood in for him, but if he is dissatisfied, we will naturally come back to them on Report. The Attorney-General dealt with a good part of the issues as well. I fully appreciate the motivation behind the two amendments. I do not think that the words ““hobble”” and ““shackles”” are appropriate and probably go too far. We think that the amendments would create uncertainty, whereas the system we have adopted gives clarity and certainty, as well as flexibility. We thought carefully about how to give the commission access to places of detention as part of its investigations. It would be possible to define places of detention, but we rejected this option. We were concerned that it would be more open to legal challenge and would create uncertainty for the commission and public authorities as to which places are covered by the legislation. We therefore decided to list all the possible places of detention that can be accessed, which gives us certainty and clarity. We have also allowed an order making power which would allow us to add to the list if any places have been missed or new places are established, which might be an issue. I do not foresee that, but it is possible that there could be new places that would not be subject to a definition, which is the reason for our approach. The commission is not an enforcement body, which must be at the forefront of our minds. Obviously, there are three debates to be had on this issue. However, it is worthwhile doing this because the noble Lord, Lord Lester, referred to it and the Government’s response. Seventeen bodies have inspected the Northern Ireland Prison Service, including joint inspections by the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons and the Criminal Justice Inspector; the Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland in its own right—that is, on thematic inspections; the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission; the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People; the Mental Health Commission; the Regulation, Quality and Improvement Authority; the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee; the Prisoner Ombudsman; the Interception of Communications Commissioners; the Equality Commission; the Office of Surveillance Commissioners, the International Red Cross; the United Nations Committee against Torture; the Adult Learning Inspectorate; the Health and Safety Executive; the Independent Monitoring Board; and the Health Promotion Agency. That is a substantial number of inspections, all of which have got a very important role, which is worth putting on the record. We used this approach because, clearly, powers to investigate access to prison and places of detention are very important and we do not want lots of legal arguments about places of detention before investigations take place. We have tried to list all the places. If any Member of the Committee thinks that we have missed any out, we would be very pleased to receive a note on that, so that we could consider them before Report stage. We have also built in the possibility, under new Section 26C(12), that the order can be amended to add other places if any have been missed or if new places are created.