Police (Northern Ireland) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am most grateful to noble Lords and the noble Baroness for taking part in the debate. I shall not detain the House for much longer at this time on a Friday afternoon. I want to say just that I am aware of the keen interest taken by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond. She has always been a very good friend of Northern Ireland, and she is particularly interested in policing matters both on the mainland and in Northern Ireland. Her point about ethnic groups was well made and I much appreciate it. But a point she made comes through very clearly when taken with the Minister’s remarks, many of which I did not quite fully understand. She referred to the use of the figures for women. Without a 50:50 system of discrimination, according to the Minister’s figures, the figures for female members of the Police Service have gone up to more than 20 per cent. Yet when it comes to 50:50 recruitment and discrimination on religious grounds, the number of Roman Catholics has increased to only 19 per cent. Doesn’t that put that argument to bed? Isn’t that QED time? Are we not talking here about comparing two different types of recruitment? One is a positive system of recruitment, the other is discriminatory; one is shown to have worked better than the other, yet the Government are determined to stick to the one which discriminates against people on the grounds of religion. I did not fully understand a lot of what the Minister said; I think some of it may not have been terribly relevant to the Bill. I did not fully understand his figures, but I endorse his point about more clarification. Let us get more of this information into the public domain. When we ask for information about how the recruitment is carried out and about the merit pools, the various numbers of people and the common marking system in the merit pools, we do not get it. Obtaining that information and placing it in the public domain may help people. I did not fully understand the noble Lord’s remarks about the number of people who have failed to enter the police force on the grounds of religion. I think the figure he gave was 551—let us say it is. That is 551 people in Northern Ireland who have been discriminated against on the grounds of their religion.