Terrorism (Northern Ireland) Bill

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. I congratulate the Government on their sensible handling of the timetable for this legislation. This is one occasion on which there has been no issue of process, but there has been an issue of content. For that reason, I am sure that we can dispense with the business fairly quickly today, even though three important issues are up for debate. The first is the issue of the mode of trial. Right hon. and hon. Members will recall that in Committee we had a debate about the specific question of how many judges should sit on the committees known as the Diplock courts. At the moment, as we all know, it takes one judge to operate the Diplock courts. The new clause seeks to alter the way in those courts operate by increasing the number of judges from one to three. We had the option to table an amendment that would simply have repealed the entire Diplock court system, but we were aware that we would not have gained a consensus on that and also that there may still be a case for operating the Diplock court system because of the evils of intimidation and coercion that are well known in Northern Irish politics. However, Lord Carlile, who has informed much of our debate—the Government have listened to him considerably—suggested in his last report on the operation of part 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 that three judges of the Crown court should sit in such trials, rather than one. It is fair to recognise that Lord Carlile’s assessment that Northern Ireland judges apply rigorous standards to the quality of evidence in non-jury trials still stands, but he suggested that a three-judge court would command greater confidence across the communities, without diminishing the credibility of the court system that we are discussing. As we try to normalise Northern Irish politics and Northern Irish law, we believe that it is necessary to do all that we can to normalise the court system. So I agree with Lord Carlile that such a move would help to secure greater confidence in how the criminal justice system operates in scheduled-offence trials in Northern Ireland. We believe that the Government should seriously consider how best to move the situation forward and should certainly take on board Lord Carlile’s suggestion.