Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

I am most grateful for the contributions, and to the noble Lord for raising the issue. I was present when he raised the issue on Monday, but at Question Time we cannot have debates like those in Grand Committee. I have no doubt that we shall return to the matter on Report. I shall give a considered response and answer some of the points raised, but the one thing that I dare not do is get involved in comments relating to any particular case or scheme. The fact of the matter is—and the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, is quite right in saying this—that the onset of a degree of normality and, I hope, the successful devolution of power in Northern Ireland on Monday will turn the spotlight on to normal activities and processes.This is certainly one of them. The next stage after this would be the devolution of policing and criminal justice at some time in the future—I do not have dates, or anything like that. The fact is that this will be a hot issue, and it has to be one that everybody is very comfortable with, because people were not comfortable with the concept of restorative justice when it was first raised, even in England. It had to be explained by example and provision. The noble Lord, Lord Trimble, said that schemes and designs that fit the mainland may not be applicable in Northern Ireland, because of the history. As the noble Baroness has just said, it works both sides of the community. The community-based schemes are voluntary bodies which, in common with residents groups and other organisations in the voluntary sector, operate lawfully, independently and without regulation by the statutory sector. The schemes are primarily involved in seeking resolutions to issues of concern to local residents—for example, in the areas of neighbourhood mediation, community development and capacity building, race relations and provision of positive activities aimed at diverting youths from engaging in anti-social behaviour. Where their work does engage the statutory sector is in their role in mediating reparative interventions between the perpetrators and victims of low-level crime in the local community. This represents only a small proportion of their overall workload. The work of the schemes has developed to deal with issues of low-level criminal offending. For this reason, the Government published a protocol last month—I think that it was 7 February—setting out standards with which community restorative justice schemes must comply, including direct contact with the police and a strict inspection programme by the Criminal Justice Inspectorate. The protocol already delivers the intended purpose of the proposed new subsection (2) of the noble Lord’s new clause. The protocol was developed following extensive public consultation with all interested parties, including the political parties and organisations within the statutory, voluntary and community sectors. The draft protocol, on which we consulted, was also the subject of a thorough investigation by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in the other place. That report endorsed the draft protocol as the basis for encouraging the development of community restorative justice schemes and the building of confidence in them and did not make any recommendations relating to the statutory regulation of the schemes. The Government now firmly believe that in this finalised protocol we have a structure which will provide for effective engagement between community-based schemes and the criminal justice system in dealing with low-level offending in a manner which will command public confidence in the process. Without that, they will not work.