Police (Northern Ireland) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Laird, for introducing the Bill, as it is always useful to revisit these issues. We on these Benches have spoken about our concern at the 50:50 recruitment policy, and we are particularly concerned at the effect that the policy has had on ethnic minority candidates for the police. Anecdotally, in 2003 my honourable friend the Member for Montgomeryshire visited various community groups from a number of ethnic minority communities in Northern Ireland. Members of the Indian community told him how the 50:50 quotas had discouraged people from ethnic minority communities from applying to the police. Because of the way in which the legislation is worded, candidates from ethnic minorities are considered in the non-Catholic pool of applicants, which is still larger in number than the Catholic pool. Some from ethnic minority backgrounds are reluctant to report hate crimes that are carried out against them as they believe, rightly or wrongly, that the police officer may not fully understand or empathise with their situation. They would feel more comfortable talking to a police officer from a similar background to themselves. I am therefore pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Laird, has tried to address that issue in Clause 2. It is something that the Government must turn their minds to. It is important that in trying to help one group the Government do not disadvantage other minority groups. Having said that, it is important to recognise that this recruitment policy has been effective in increasing not just the number of recruits from the Roman Catholic community, but the number of applicants. Prior to the recommendation from the Patten report being implemented, the highest percentage of applicants from Roman Catholics stood at 22 per cent. We now routinely see 36 per cent of applications coming from that part of the community. However, I am a little concerned that the figures seems to have stabilised and that we are not seeing further growth year on year, especially since across Northern Ireland the percentage of Catholics from the target age group is 44 per cent. Does the Minister agree with me that if Sinn Fein joined the policing board, and actively engaged and supported policing structures in Northern Ireland, this figure could rise further? We also have concerns about putting all other applicants together. Will the Minister consider looking at how we can ensure that those we need to recruit as a matter of urgency are highlighted separately as a percentage, thus enabling the clear concerns of the minority ethnic communities to be addressed? There is clearly some work still to be done. Therefore, I think the time is not quite right to repeal the recruitment measures we have talked about today. Although this is far from the ideal solution, I believe that the political situation in Northern Ireland is currently far too fluid to make such a change.