Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

The Minister seeks to disagree with the Lords amendment and provide an alternative Government amendment. After listening closely to the Minister’s comments, I have tried to distinguish between the two amendments on offer, and I am not sure that I can fully do so. I am reminded of the old advert for Campbell’s soup, ““The difference is in the thickness””. It is not clear to me that the difference can be justified by the Minister’s reference to the inspector’s powers to make recommendations being implicit elsewhere, so that they do not need to be made explicit in the Bill. In earlier debates, the Government were at pains to say that they were trying to use the Bill to make things explicit in legislation that were already in case law, as established by the Shuker case. We are now being told that we ought to make pains not to make things explicit in legislation when they are implicit elsewhere. In relation to the previous amendments, a number of Members asked questions about the Government’s intentions or assumptions as to where the relevant powers would lie after the devolution of justice and policing. Is it the Government’s assumption that the Secretary of State’s powers in the two different amendments will transfer to a Minister of Justice in Northern Ireland on the devolution of justice and policing, and that such a Minister will provide the register of community-based restorative justice groups, or might that power also remain with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland?