The salary is based on judicial pay scales, as set out by the Ministry of Justice. I cannot off the top of my head tell the noble Baroness precisely what day his remuneration will begin, but I will get back to her on that. However, it is consistent with the MoJ’s judicial pay scales.
I turn to the amendments on criminal investigations, and first to Amendments 146 and 152 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton. Under the Bill, the only existing criminal investigations that will be allowed to continue will be those where a decision to prosecute has been reached by the time of the Act’s commencement, currently two months after Royal Assent.
As the noble Lord knows, it has long been the Government’s view that to allow too many existing processes to continue alongside the ICRIR’s establishment would dilute the commission’s credibility as the sole investigator of Troubles-related deaths and serious injuries, and the wider objectives of the legislation to encourage information recovery and—an issue on which many noble Lords have touched today—the truth of what happened. In the Government’s view, the legislation as drafted strikes the right balance between allowing existing criminal cases that have made significant progress in the prosecutorial process to continue while giving the ICRIR the space it needs to become established as the sole responsible body for these types of investigations.
The legislation does not prevent the new commission, once it is operational and subject to a request being made, resuming criminal standard investigations into deaths or serious injury which the police have been prevented from pursuing under Clause 34(1). As we have discussed many times in the past, the commissioner for investigations will have the full powers of a police constable.