Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I suspect that the noble Baroness has a sense from the tone of this debate, as in Committee, of how strongly your Lordships’ House feels on this issue. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, made the point that we have devolution, not disengagement, and there is a responsibility here for your Lordships’ House.

The noble Lords, Lord Alderdice and Lord Bew, made the point about the differences—not just cultural but practical—between the Northern Ireland Civil Service and the Westminster Civil Service. As a Northern Ireland Minister, I was struck by the far higher profile that senior civil servants have in Northern Ireland than they do here in GB. This is partly because, particularly when the Assembly has been suspended or there have been different governance arrangements, it has often been a civil servant who has undertaken the role that Ministers have here in defending or promoting policies and engaging with the public. So the difference is cultural and practical.

The timing of the Minister’s letter on this issue to noble Lords, dated yesterday and which I received today, is rather unfortunate. I appreciate that we have just had a recess, but it would have been helpful to have had the letter earlier; it may well have informed more of the debate today and the amendment that is being put forward.

There are a couple of points in the Minister’s letter on which I would like some clarification. I think that there is some confusion about what has been devolved and what is excepted. In her letter, she mentioned the debate in Committee and said that,

“many of the points made in debate related to the impartiality of the Northern Ireland Civil Service as a whole, which is of course a transferred matter”.

But the reason why there was a debate around impartiality was that we were discussing the role of the Northern Ireland Civil Service Commission, which is not an excepted matter. It was the role of the commission that brought about that debate. I think that people fully understand that the Northern Ireland Civil Service is devolved, but it is the role of the commission and its responsibility in ensuring the independence and impartiality of the Civil Service.

The point of the amendment and the whole tone of the debate is that, when the Northern Ireland Civil Service Commission is transferred, it is with the statutory understanding that it retains its remit for ensuring impartiality in appointments to the Northern Ireland Civil Service. I do not think that there was any misunderstanding in the debate in your Lordships’ House about what was transferred or excepted, but the reassurance was required, which was not really explicit enough in the Committee debate, that before being a devolved organisation there would be statutory protection on its remit for impartiality.

The Minister said in her letter that there would be further parliamentary scrutiny in both Houses, but the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, is relevant here—it would be secondary legislation. But she also says that she intends to bring forward an amendment at Third Reading. I think that it is a great shame that we do not have the amendment before us today, because it would have been helpful to your Lordships’ House to be able to discuss it today. What we will seek from her today is to understand exactly what that amendment would say. If the earliest time we see that amendment is at Third Reading, it is rather late in the day, and I am disappointed that we do not have that government amendment before us today. If she could clarify exactly what it will say and what the process of debate and vote will be, that would be extremely helpful to your Lordships’ House and might allay some concerns. I hope that she is able do that—but, to put it on record again, it would have been helpful to have that amendment today.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville (Con)]

My Lords, I mean no disrespect to the shadow spokesman for the Opposition in speaking immediately after her. I hesitated to speak in the debate because I had played no part whatever in the proceedings so far, but I detected some mild anxiety in the exchanges between the government Front Bench and the advisers behind me. Therefore, I reckoned that uttering for a moment might provide enough time for any matters of that sort to be resolved with total confidence.

Like many in your Lordships’ House, I was alerted to this problem by the original letter expressing concern about the difference between Northern Ireland and the rest of the kingdom at the moment in these regards. For reasons that are in no remote sense the responsibility or fault of the Minister, I was unable to attend any of the briefing meetings that she very generously provided for people interested in this Bill. It is possible, because I have not taken any part, that I have not received correspondence that may have come to other noble Lords.

Having listened to the debate this afternoon and read the debate that occurred in Committee, I have a sense of unease. I do not have a sense of confidence that all is well. We are rather late in the proceedings of this Bill to be dealing with these sorts of concerns. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to give a significantly clearer position of exactly where we are and why at this particular moment.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his amendment. I know from Committee, and this afternoon, that this issue gives rise to considerable debate, in which of course there is very wide interest. I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing the matter back on Report.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, criticised the timing of my letter. My letter was dependent on knowing on which aspects I had not been able to satisfy noble Lords following the debate in Committee. There were a number of other issues of debate that have not come back to us because clearly the debate produced a satisfactory response to what I had said. I was therefore picking up those issues which had been raised in amendments by noble Lords or which had been raised with me directly in that noble Lords had told me that they intended to table amendments on those issues. Therefore, having got a picture of what noble Lords were interested in and concerned about, I wrote in the hope that, by giving some advance notice, I would enable your Lordships to prepare your points for debate with an eye to what I was planning.

Returning to the points made this afternoon, noble Lords will be aware that this amendment is the same amendment that the noble Lord tabled in Committee. As I outlined then, while we have much sympathy with the concerns that underlie it, to which the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, has just referred, the Government cannot accept it; first, on the basis that it is technically problematic; and, secondly, because it will pre-empt a public consultation on the future devolution of the Civil Service Commissioners.

It is worth emphasising again that Clause 10 is concerned only with the appointment of the Civil Service Commissioners and not the wider Civil Service. There have been a number of references today, as there were in the previous debate in Committee, to the issue of the Civil Service as a whole. That is, however, a devolved issue, and therefore it is important that we bear in mind that we are talking only about the appointment of the Civil Service Commissioners.

Clause 10 does not change the current procedure for the appointment of Civil Service Commissioners for Northern Ireland. Appointments are currently an excepted matter, and the Bill proposes to make them a reserved matter, as is currently the case with the commissioners’ functions and procedures. But the Bill opens the possibility of responsibility for the appointment of the commissioners and their functions and procedures to be devolved at a later stage.

I recognise that noble Lords have concerns that the principle of appointments to the Northern Ireland Civil Service should be made on merit and through open and fair competition, and that this should be protected, as is the case with the Home Civil Service here. In Committee I made it clear that the Government are certainly open to the possibility of new statutory safeguards being put in place in the context of devolution. But as I indicated previously, attempting to write them in now would pre-empt a consultation on the future devolution of the commissioners, not least in Northern Ireland itself.

In any event, we do not have the time to put in place provision on the complex issues involved during the remaining stages of this Bill. Some of these matters, as I have said, are anyway a devolved responsibility on which we should not legislate without the consent of the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is unnecessary to make such provision at present because the House, along with another place, would have the final say over whether devolution should take place when an order to that effect was proposed.

On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, about the opportunities for the House to vote on a statutory instrument prior to devolution and that it would be a yes or no vote, the process for this is that the Secretary of State would bring an Order in Council to the House and the House can decide whether there are sufficient safeguards in place. If there are not, presumably the House would vote against that order.