UK Parliament / Open data

Policing and Crime Bill

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for responding. Some of his responses have made me even more concerned, so I look forward to hearing what he has to say. I hope that it will be a full account. The noble Lord, Lord Cope, talked about nibbling away at the CTA. That is exactly what we think will happen. I do not think that this is just me being paranoid. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has written an extremely good briefing paper on the proposed common travel area reforms from August 2009. It is a pretty thick document. The commission has serious concerns about this clause. Saying that the Crown dependencies are not concerned about this any more is entirely wrong. Yesterday, they were very concerned and it is miraculous to me that overnight their concerns can have been calmed. They talked about the Memorandums of Understanding between the Crown dependencies that were promised. They were hardly consulted on this proposal, but that is what they want. They really ought to be given the proposals and the consultation that they ask for and which they required yesterday. I hope that the Minister will not fob them off with some of the stories that they talk about, because these roles can be interchangeable; there is no question about that. You cannot ask someone to say one thing one minute and then say, "Oh well, actually, I did not see that but now I am exercising my powers in this way". It is quite ridiculous. I have listened to what the Minister has said. I will withdraw the amendment at this stage, but we will definitely come back to this on Report to see what more the Government have to say. I hope that he will consult widely and thoroughly.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
713 c674 
Session
2008-09
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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