Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

I have lost a bet I made with myself because I thought the words ““police ombudsman”” would be uttered less than 60 minutes into our proceedings today. Deciding what information is relevant is not straightforward. Our difficulty is that trying to draft something would dilute the forward-looking nature of the new powers. I shall take advice on this because I have not received any, but if there was a detention institution with a history like that in the example given by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, more than one other authority with enforcement powers would have been in and out of it with documentation to prove it. We are giving the commission the power to require information. The example given by the noble Lord is probably not a good one because I suspect that all the information that would be requested as background material would probably be in the public domain if there had been lots of suicides in a detention institution. There would have been investigations by the police, the prisons ombudsman and all kinds of other people. I shall almost pass the problem on to the noble Lord by asking whether between now and Report he can come up with an example that we can have a look at that does not dilute the forward-looking nature of the new powers. It is clear that there could be a case in 2008 or 2009 where there is something relevant before 1 August 2007. I cannot envisage such a case, but I can envisage they will arise. We want the powers of compelling to be forward looking. We have had a look at drafting this, but I am happy to go back to my colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office and point this one up. However, it has been looked at, and drafting something is not straightforward because any attempt to do so has seemed to undermine the forward-looking nature of the new powers. That is our dilemma and is why I fall back on the freedom of information legislation. I do not think it is a criticism for a public authority to have to use the freedom of information authority to get information. I do not see what the problem with that is. It is open to public authorities and individual citizens, and I do not see that public authorities should have carte blanche to obtain information outwith their powers when the FoI is there. If they can use it and activate the freedom of information legislation, I do not see that as a problem. A public authority using FoI to obtain information is not a failure of the system. It is a plus for it to use its existing powers and the freedom of information legislation and, after 1 August this year, to use its new powers to try to get all the information it requires for its inquiries. I fully accept that this is difficult. I cannot say that no case starting—or events occurring—on 1 August will have any connection with anything prior to that. It would be ludicrous to say that. There are bound to be cases in future that have some relevance before 1 August. The question is how we deal with the new powers in such a way that we keep the commission forward looking rather than backward looking.