Official Report: Tuesday 02 June 2015

Mr Durkan (The Minister of the Environment): With your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, in compliance with section 52 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, I wish to make the following statement on the nineteenth meeting of the North/South Ministerial Council (NSMC) in environment sectoral format, which was held in Armagh on Wednesday 13 May. The statement has been agreed with Minister Kennedy who, along with me, represented the Northern Ireland Executive. I chaired the meeting. The Irish Government were represented by Ann Phelan TD, Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government (DECLG).

Ministers had a discussion on the review of the agreed NSMC work programme for the environment sector and noted that an interim update will be provided to the 5 June 2015 NSMC plenary meeting. They also agreed that an update paper on the matter will be brought to the next NSMC environment meeting. Ministers also agreed that collaboration on the drawdown of EU funding for environmental projects and research will continue to be a high priority.

The Council noted that the first phase of the air quality research study has been completed and that the key findings have been noted by Ministers. The interim report was shared with a group of key stakeholders, and that will inform the next phase of the study. A copy of the interim report has been placed in the Assembly Library.

Ministers noted the establishment across both jurisdictions of a collaborative evidence programme known as ShARE, enabling stakeholders to deliver evidence to underpin their activities as regulators to derive maximum benefit from the funding and resources invested.

The Council noted that the all-island research project into the environmental impacts of unconventional gas exploration and extraction is ongoing.

Ministers noted that a joint €72 million INTERREG VA programme has been adopted by the EU Commission covering the terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments. The Council noted that the EU Commission announced the opening of the LIFE 2015 programme on 1 June 2015 and, in preparation for its launch, potential applicants to the programme from both jurisdictions attended the LIFE application training course in Dublin.

They also noted that the official launch of the Northern Ireland Horizon 2020 strategy took place on 31 March 2015 at the Commission's offices in Belfast and that the cross-border roadshow event on the Horizon 2020 societal challenge 5 programme was held at the end of May 2015.

The Council noted that the carrier bag levy, introduced on new single-use carrier bags by the Department of the Environment on 8 April 2013, was extended on 19 January 2015 to low-cost reusable carrier bags. Ministers welcomed the introduction of the Food Waste Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2015, which were made on 22 January 2015 and will restrict the amount of food waste being landfilled.

The Council noted that the DOE consultation on a quality action plan for recycling, which incorporates proposals for a material recovery facility code of practice, closed on 6 March 2015. Ministers noted the proposed reform of waste enforcement and the establishment of three lead authorities for waste enforcement in Ireland.

Ministers also noted the proposed regulatory changes to be introduced by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government to provide for regulatory controls on type 8 plants and the successful coexistence of those and composting plants in the overall waste treatment infrastructure in Ireland. The Council noted the intention of the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government to introduce a full producer responsibility initiative for tyres and waste tyres. It also noted that DOE officials are working with DECLG officials and that that will assist the DOE in considering the desirability and feasibility of introducing similar proposals in the North.

The Council noted that two illegal waste landfill sites will be addressed in the repatriation programme during 2015. It also noted that both Environment Ministers and their Departments are continuing to target resources at joint enforcement action against illegal operators, which includes the exchanging of intelligence and information on problem areas and carrying out coordinated inspections.

Ministers expressed continuing concern at the impact of fuel laundering and stressed the importance of closer cooperation between agencies to tackle the issue. They agreed that relevant officials would provide an overview of the issues at the next environment NSMC meeting.

Ministers welcomed the publication in Northern Ireland of the consultation documents on new draft river basin management plans (RBMPs). The Council noted that the consultation on the timetable and work programme for the development of the second-cycle RBMPs in Ireland closed on 31 January 2015 and that the responses are being considered.

Ministers also welcomed the continued cross-border collaborative work on the development of the river trusts, including the provision of funding by Ireland to the Rivers Trust organisation in Northern Ireland to assist with the development of river trusts in Ireland, including the development of a new cross-border river trust in Inishowen in County Donegal.

The Council noted that DECLG has given its support, in principle, to a DOE proposal to seek INTERREG funding for a cross-border pilot initiative to provide electronic signs that give real-time data on bathing water quality in certain designated bathing areas. The Council also noted the initial engagement between DRD and DECLG to discuss areas in the water sector that offer opportunities for mutual cooperation.

Ministers welcomed the continued coordination on the Clean Coast and Coast Care schemes and noted the success of the symposium that was held in November and involved representatives from both jurisdictions. The Council noted that the 2015 awards for beaches in each jurisdiction were announced in May 2015.

It was agreed to hold the next environment meeting in autumn 2015.

Ms Lo (The Chairperson of the Committee for the Environment): I thank the Minister for his very comprehensive statement. I am very pleased to hear of the many issues that were discussed. Certainly, there are very good opportunities for cooperation and collaboration between the two jurisdictions. Will the Minister outline some of the key findings of the interim report on the air quality research study? Moreover, when will the final report come out? Does he anticipate any legislative changes coming from the recommendations?

Mr Durkan: Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. I thank Ms Lo, Chair of the Environment Committee, for her question. The research that the Member referred to is still under way, and the interim report marks the end of just the first phase of the research. The interim report, which is available in the Assembly Library, sets out the context of the study and presents information on air pollutant emissions, health impacts, the fuel market, fuel poverty and measures that have been used in other member states to address the problem of air pollution from households burning solid fuels. Much of this information is already available in the public domain, and it was indeed the subject of a debate here several months ago. I will be presenting the key findings of the study once the second phase has been completed and a final report produced. I very much expect that to be later this year. I do not want to pre-empt the outcome of the second phase by predicting whether legislation will be required, but, in her capacity as Chair of the Environment Committee, the Member will certainly be kept abreast of proceedings.

Mrs Cameron: I thank the Minister for his full statement this morning on many issues, and I welcome the introduction of the food waste regulations. What is his Department doing by way of working with the 11 new super-councils to ensure that all the bio waste that can possibly be collected is collected for recycling across Northern Ireland?

Mr Durkan: I thank the Deputy Chair of the Committee for her question. It is very important that the Department work in collaboration with the 11 councils. I addressed this issue in a previous Question Time to another Member. It is important that there is consistency across the new councils. I suppose that that has proven difficult where you have an amalgamation and a reduction from 26 to 11, where councils with different practices and policies are being stuck together.

Currently, there are three waste management partnerships in the North. We have Arc21, with which the Member is very familiar, the Southern Waste Management Plan (SWaMP2008) and the North West Region Waste Management Group. I have gone on public record to say that I believe that we should have one management group or one overseeing body dealing with waste management right across the North, and I believe that that would lead to greater consistency across all the councils.

Mr McElduff: Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. I thank the Minister for his statement. Is the Minister at liberty to pinpoint the location of the two illegal waste landfill sites, which are to be addressed in this calendar year? Can he also outline the scale of the problem at both locations?

Mr Durkan: I thank the Member for that question. I am at liberty to disclose the locations of these sites; unfortunately, however, I do not have the detail right here. It is, as usual, along the border. I will certainly get the exact locations to the Member before the close of play today.

In total, 17 sites have been identified, with an estimated total of 273,000 tons of waste to be removed or repatriated from North to South. A total of 10 of those sites have been completed thus far, and, this year, we hope to do sites 11 and 12.

Due to budgetary constraints, I suppose, they have gone for the low-hanging fruit, so, of those 17 sites, it is safe to say that the 10 that have been cleared so far are those that present the least problem. However, it is important that those two sites be cleared this year, which will leave five sites remaining, and that we work together to ensure that they are repatriated on schedule by 2017.

Mr A Maginness: I thank the Minister for his detailed and worthwhile report on the environment and environmental issues. I note in the report a reference to the drawdown of EU funding and a commitment to collaborate. Will the Minister enlarge on that and indicate whether there is match funding between North and South for European funding? Is there any further development that might be useful in dealing with a wide range of environmental issues that affect us both North and South?

Mr Durkan: I thank the Member for that question. There is, indeed, a good degree of collaboration between North and South in the drawdown of European funding. There is a variety of reasons why there has been a lower overall drawdown of competitive EU funding here than in the South. That is why it is important that we work with them and learn from them.

First, as a member state, Ireland has direct access to more opportunities for engagement in Europe, and, while much of that is now offset by European task force structures, formally the Barroso task force, differences remain. I referred to the largest funding source, Horizon 2020, which totals about £80 billion across the EU. Some 70% of drawdown is by higher education or university establishments. Unfortunately, we do not have too many of those here — some might say that we do not have enough. In addition, here in the North, we have a limited number of companies that engage in R&D. There were only 535 here last year. For the majority of the other funding programmes, drawdown has to be match-funded, so a project proposer must be able to provide a percentage contribution — up to 45% — from its own resources.

On the positive side, my Department is funding the Northern Ireland contact point for Societal Challenge 5 in the Horizon 2020 programme, which includes climate action; environment; resource efficiency; and raw materials. My Department has also provided limited support to a small number of projects, but, given the current financial situation, I am unable to commit to any new funding. That again underlines the importance of working with companies and with other jurisdictions in order to maximise the funding that we can draw down from other sources; notably, in this instance, Europe.

Mrs Overend: I thank the Minister for his statement. It was pleasing to see that the interim air quality report has been completed. Considering that 42% of households in Northern Ireland are in fuel poverty, does the Minister still agree with me that the banning of certain types of coal and other solid fuels may exacerbate the problem? Can the Minister inform us how he plans to engage with the industry?

Mr Durkan: I thank the Member for the question. As I said, that was the subject of a debate here a few months ago during which many Members raised the issue of fuel poverty. The interim report, as well as being placed in the Assembly Library, has been shared with relevant stakeholders, including people working on fuel poverty and some representatives of the industry.

I share the Member's fears about the potential impact of a ban on certain household fuels; however, it is imperative that we see what the next phase of the study brings and that, should any change be required, it is managed in a sensitive and sensible manner.

Mr Middleton: I welcome the statement from the Minister. Can he give any indication of the long-term costs associated with illegal waste at the Mobuoy site in Campsie and what action he is taking to recover the costs from the perpetrators?

Mr Durkan: I thank the Member for his question. There was an earlier question on waste that had been illegally disposed. The Member's question refers to a well-publicised site in our constituency. I am firmly of the opinion that the polluter should pay. Unfortunately, to date, the polluter has not paid. The taxpayer has paid, through my Department. Indeed, to date, in the region of £1 million has been spent on managing the waste deposited at that site. An eye-watering figure of over £50 million for the total clean-up was put out there, most notably in the Mills report, although that would involve removing all the waste from the site. A range of options is currently being looked at by the Department and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, with the help of external experts, to manage the waste on the site in a way that will represent least risk to the environment and best value for the taxpayer.

Mr Rogers: I also thank the Minister for his statement and welcome the ongoing cooperation between North and South, particularly on the movement of waste and fuel laundering. What areas will be considered by the Department in the review of the North/South programme?

Mr Durkan: I thank the Member for his question. It is important that we keep the work programme under almost constant review. DOE is considering, for example, extended scope for discussions and joint working in current NSMC work programme activities on important topics such as habitat and species protection, biodiversity and climate change. DRD, as I indicated in my statement, has also advised that opportunities do and will exist for collaboration in the area of water and sewerage services.

Mr Campbell: Hopefully, the Minister will not have a marathon session to cover today, as I understand he successfully concluded one the other day. He will be aware of the number of fuel laundering plants that have been uncovered, and there is an emerging perception that fuel launderers simply wait until the fuel has got into the ground and then report it to the authorities. In other words, they get a clean-up done at no cost to them and a cost to the taxpayer. What is he doing to ensure that is clamped down on and ceases to be the standard procedure for fuel launderers?

Mr Durkan: I thank the Member for his question. I, too, hope that we are not here for a marathon session. However, having had a brief look over the Justice Bill, I would not be surprised if we all are. It might be more painful than the marathon I completed on Sunday.

Fuel laundering is a huge issue. It causes not only great damage to our environment but to our economy, and it costs an awful lot of money to clean up. Over the past three years alone, my Department has spent over £900,000 cleaning up after fuel launderers and, while DOE and NIEA are not responsible for enforcement or legislating — the enforcement body is HMRC, along with the PSNI — we are charged with cleaning up after these criminals.

The point that Mr Campbell makes about these fuel launderers leaving out their rubbish in the way that you or I might leave out our milk bottles for the milkman to collect is a good one, and it is why my officers are working with their colleagues in HMRC and the PSNI to find these fuel laundering sites, clean up the waste left behind and, most importantly, ascertain where it has come from. The Environment Agency is helping to deter, disrupt and prosecute offenders where sufficient evidence can be found.

Unfortunately, to date, we have not been great, collectively, at finding that evidence and getting prosecutions. As well as work being done by the NIEA, the transport regulation unit in my Department continues to focus on taking action in cases involving hauliers who used illegal fuel or transported illegal waste.

Mr Elliott: I thank the Minister for the update. He mentioned the research project that is being carried out between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland on fracking. Have any issues of concern been raised with the Minister in relation to the company involved in carrying out that research project?

Mr Durkan: There have indeed been some concerns raised about one of the companies involved in carrying out research in that project. I have to say, however, that they are not concerns that I share.

Mr I McCrea: Following on from my colleague's question about fuel laundering, the Minister may be aware that there has been an increase in the number of fuel laundering sites in my constituency, in Draperstown specifically. Whilst I welcome the fact that there has been one arrest in that respect, many people involved believe they are beyond the law and are free to carry out the activity without fear of arrest. Can the Minister ensure that the agencies involved are doing everything they can to ensure that they pick it up early, when the information is given to them, and that arrests are made, rather than waiting until, as my colleague said, the damage is done, people are away and someone else picks up the tab?

Mr Durkan: I thank the Member for that question. Unfortunately, I am not in a position to ensure that arrests are made. That might be a question better placed with one of my ministerial colleagues. However, the fact that there have been so many questions on fuel laundering underlines its importance. It is an issue that I will raise on Friday at the NSMC plenary session in Dublin.

Mr Speaker: Thank you. I am sure that the Minister of Justice will be surprised that he has arrest powers.

Mr Speaker: I call the Minister of Justice, Mr David Ford, to move the Consideration Stage of the Justice Bill.

Mr Speaker: Members will have a copy of the Marshalled List of Amendments detailing the order for consideration. The amendments have been grouped for debate in my provisional grouping of amendments selected list. There are five groups of amendments and we will debate the amendments in each group in turn.

The first debate will be on amendment Nos 1 to 5, 20, 40, 43 to 46 and opposition to clauses 7, 8, 9 and schedule 2 stand part, all of which deal with committal and court process reform. The second debate will be on amendment Nos 6, to 11, 17, 19, 21 to 29 and 68, which deal with administrative schemes for protection, disclosure and information sharing relating to vulnerable groups. The third debate will be on amendment Nos 12, 16, 49, 51 to 67, 75 to 78 and opposition to clause 86 stand part, which deal with regulation-making powers, technical and miscellaneous amendments. The fourth debate will be on amendment Nos 13 to 15, 18, 30 to 33, 35 to 39, 47, 50, 69, 70 and 72, which deal with criminal records, evidence-gathering and evidence-handling. The fifth debate will be on amendment Nos 34, 41 and 42, 48, 71, 73 and 74, which deal with offences.

Valid petitions of concern have been tabled in relation to amendment Nos 34 and 50. Each will therefore require a cross-community vote. I remind Members who intend to speak that, during the debates on the five groups of amendments, they should address all the amendments in each group on which they wish to comment. Once the debate on each group has been completed, any further amendments in the group will be moved formally as we go through the Bill, and the Question on each will be put without further debate. The Questions on stand part will be taken at the appropriate points in the Bill. If all that is clear, we shall proceed.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Dallat): We now come to the first group of amendments for debate. With amendment No 1, it will be convenient to debate amendment Nos 2 to 5, 20, 40, 43 to 46 and opposition to clauses 7, 8 and 9 and schedule 2 stand part. These amendments deal with committal and court process reform. Amendment No 1 is mutually exclusive with clause 7 stand part. Amendment No 2 is mutually exclusive with clause 8 stand part. Amendment No 4 is consequential to amendment No 3. Amendment No 44 is consequential to amendment No 43.

Mr Allister: I will speak to amendment No 1 and the other amendment in my name and some of the others in the Minister's name.

My amendments and opposition to certain clauses focus on the important issue of committal in criminal proceedings; that is to say the process by which someone is returned for trial in the Crown Court, a process that is conducted within the Magistrates' Court but which, nonetheless, is an inherent component part of the trial process and therefore is as entitled to the application of the provisions of article 6 towards a fair trial as any other part of the trial process. Yesterday, we had a debate in the House on the whole subject of human rights and the application of the European Convention on Human Rights, and one of those key rights is the article 6 right to a fair trial. That, of necessity, also extends to ensuring that the committal process is equally fair.

I will just take a moment to outline the current provisions of the law, which have stood for some decades. They provide that before anyone is committed for trial before their peers in the Crown Court, this committal process has to be gone through whereby the essence of the evidence against someone is presented in written form in a set of committal papers. A magistrate then reviews those papers, and there is an opportunity at that time for the defence and indeed, in some circumstances, for the prosecution, rather than simply proceeding on the papers of the case, to have selected parts or all of the evidence called to be heard in the Magistrates' Court. The purpose of that, of course, is to test the validity of the evidence if that is the desired tactic being deployed, because one can only be returned for trial in this jurisdiction if the court is satisfied that there is a prima facie case against the person. The House will recognise that that is distinctly different from the ultimate test in the Crown Court: before one can be convicted, there has to be proof beyond all reasonable doubt.

Of course, in the committal process the threshold is substantially lower; it is that there is a prima facie case against that person.

In our current system, we have the option of what is called a preliminary investigation (PI), whereby evidence can be called before a magistrate to assist him or her in deciding whether there is a prima facie case. The system more prevalently, almost overwhelmingly, used is what is called a PE. It is a quirk of language. We call it a PE, but, in fact, it stands for preliminary inquiry and, in the legislation, it is spelt with an i as you might expect. Quite why it is called a PE might be a matter of some speculation, but it is deployed to distinguish it from a PI, which is a preliminary investigation at which evidence is actually called. With a PE, the evidence is simply assessed on the papers.

In most cases, overwhelmingly, the accused and the prosecution are satisfied with the process proceeding on the papers by the PE route. There might be a number of reasons for that from the defence perspective, including the fact that the threshold that I have mentioned is low: you have only to show a prima facie case; it is not the business of showing beyond all reasonable doubt. Secondly, more often than not, the defence would wish to keep their powder dry on the evidence that is coming down the tracks at them and not cross-examine witnesses at the first opportunity in the Magistrates' Court, because to do so would flag up the defence's detail, tactics and approach. Therefore, in the terms that I have used, more often than not, the defence would want to keep their powder dry for the Crown Court trial.
In consequence, under article 34 of the Magistrates' Court Order, there is the capacity to have a little bit of both, PIs or mixed committals, where you do not have all the evidence called, as in a preliminary investigation, but selected portions of the evidence are called on request in what is called a mixed committal. It is a right that exists but which is very sparingly used. Answers from the Minister demonstrate that, in the last year, there were but 56 occasions on which there was either a PI or a mixed committal. The Minister will tell us what percentage that is of the many hundreds of cases. I do not have the figure to hand, but there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of returns for trial in that same year and, out of that, a minuscule number — 56 — were held by way of PI or mixed committal.

Of those 56, 18, approximately one third, were not returned for trial. That is to say that the magistrate, on hearing the evidence, decided that there was not even a prima facie case. The consequence is that the public purse was saved the cost of 18 full-blown trials. The Minister is much exercised, understandably, about the cost of the criminal justice system, but here is a system through the committal proceedings that, as one of its knock-on effects, has the consequence of potentially saving the system money. On last year's figures, a third of those cases were knocked out at that stage and we were saved the cost of a major trial. I would have thought that that was no mean consideration for the Minister. Of course, the greater consideration is the quality and availability of justice: the availability of a fair trial.

Let us just pause and realise that in this jurisdiction, according to what this Bill wants to do, a citizen can and would, in every case, end up on trial in the Crown Court without a single statement against him ever being sworn or a single witness against him ever being heard, and would be committed simply on the committal papers. Let us consider further how committal papers are accumulated and how they come about. They come about very simply by that arm of the prosecution investigative service, the police, interviewing the witnesses, writing down the statement of the witness, presenting it in as cogent and persuasive a way as possible, one might think, and the witness signing the statement. The witness never takes an oath to say, "this is the truth" and is never at all tested to see if it is the truth, but the papers presented in that fashion are then compiled and, on that basis, that individual is returned for trial.

At the beginning, I mentioned article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the right to a fair trial. Of course, in most of continental Europe there is a very different system, where committal takes place in front of an investigating magistrate who actually probes, asks questions and interrogates the witness. The product of that is a committal where evidence has been tested. In our system, such as the Bill wishes to impose in every case, there is no facility for that. I have already indicated that in the vast majority of cases, everyone — prosecution and defence — is content with that. The defence are content because, usually, they want to keep their powder dry on these issues because they recognise that you only have to show a prima facie case.

There are a minority of cases, however, which are of themselves inherently weak, very often because they rely on a flawed witness — a broken reed. You will never read in a set of committal papers anything that indicates to you that this is a flawed witness. The statement will always read persuasively. I do not think I have never read a set of committal papers where it jumps out of the page that this is a witness that you could not believe. The defence might well know matters about that witness which, if they were before the magistrate, would cast that evidence in a very different light. The only way they can ever get that before the court in committal proceedings is to ask for that witness to be called and cross-examined to demonstrate that that witness is not a witness of truth. There are cases where that is the only evidence — of course, in most cases it is more than one — and if that is the only evidence then the magistrate, as in these 18 cases out of 56, will quite properly say that he cannot return the accused for trial because it does not reach the standard even of a prima facie case, and that the proceedings need to end. In doing that, the public purse makes a saving.

It is to preserve that facility for that tiny number of cases that I move these amendments.

I move them in the context of accepting the general premise of what the Bill wants to do on committal proceedings. The general mode of progress should be PE — no evidence, just the written committal papers. I accept that premise, but why would you want to exclude something that is not exploited, as we have seen from the numbers, and can save money in the longer term? More importantly, it can deliver justice at the earliest possible stage. Why would you want to deny that to those we represent: our citizens? If they are charged with a criminal offence, surely they are entitled to expect that we will have protected that facility.

The purpose and purport of my amendments are to say, "Yes, let the general norm be preliminary enquiry, where you simply do it on the papers, but let there be the safeguard — the failsafe — that the defence can seek to persuade the magistrate that, in the interests of justice, he should hear a particular witness. If he hears that witness, justice might be better served."

Mr McCartney: Will the Member give way?

Mr Allister: In a moment.

Let us embrace the norm that the Minister wants to embrace, but let us keep open the exception, which is on the basis that the magistrate would have to be persuaded that it is in the interests of justice for a PI or a mixed committal to take place. That is the right and sensible way to go on the matter.

Mr McCartney: The Member's first amendment mentions the interests of justice, and he has just spoken about it. It was said at Committee on a number of occasions that there should not be investigation at that stage in sexual cases. Does the Member agree that, in the particular case of sexual offences, it may not be in the interests of justice to call a witness, particularly the victim?

Mr Allister: I see the point that is being made, but I have to try to relate it to the principle that there are cases of all types and descriptions. I do not think that sexual cases necessarily are any different, although they are much more sensitive. There are cases where the evidence is shallow and comes from a flawed source, and where the probability is that, upon trial, the case will collapse. The real question is this: in those circumstances, why wait for that? Why put everyone through that? Why not take the opportunity of testing the matter at the first opportunity, where it might well fail even the prima facie test? That could happen in a sex case as well as a non-sex case. It is not a very straightforward or easy issue, but, if the amendment passes, there would be a facility to the House at Further Consideration Stage to consider that matter further. I might take a view on it and the greater number in the House might take a different view, but you will never get to take that view if you simply accept the Bill as it is. Therefore, by accepting these amendments, you leave open the door to consider that possibility.

Mr Elliott: I thank the Member for giving way. I am interested in the first amendment that has been referred to. I am looking for the Member's assessment of:

Is there any definition around that? How is it defined? Are there any criteria around it?

Mr Allister: The phraseology "the interests of justice" is not at all foreign to our criminal law, and I think that the magistrate will be well able to apply it. Yes, there is a certain generality to that, but the essence of how I would see this evolving is this: the norm is your preliminary enquiry and committal on the papers, but if, for example, the defence knows that the primary witness is an utterly flawed witness and expects that witness to crumble on cross-examination, the representatives of that defendant, if this was the tactic that they decided to take, would open before the magistrate a submission to the effect that, "Because of facts a, b and c, which we believe must be put to this witness, you might well find that this witness is unbelievable and unreliable, and, therefore, in the interests of justice, you should allow that exercise to proceed so that you, the magistrate, can be satisfied that there is in fact a prima facie case." It would be for the defence to demonstrate and satisfy the presiding magistrate that it was in the interests of justice for evidence to be called.

I think that we can trust the district judges, given their experience, enough to know when a proper case of what is in the interests of justice has been made out before them and to decide on that course of action. Otherwise, everyone, no matter how flawed the witness might be though looking good on paper, will forever be returned for trial. In the past year we have seen, in the minuscule number of cases where evidence has been tested — 56 — that the case fell apart in 18. There did not need to be a trial, and the state was saved the cost. That would more than cover the cost of the corresponding PI.

In fact, I think that PIs are unlikely to be used very much at all. In my own experience, the mixed committal was far more readily used because no one really had an interest in a full-blown PI where every witness, the police mapper and everyone else was called to give evidence. One wanted to get to the core of the issue and go for the witnesses that really mattered. Therefore, mixed committal is far more likely to be the mechanism deployed. It is a very measured approach to this issue. It accepts that the norm should be a return on paper, but it keeps the door open in the interests of justice so that the process might not be burdened with cases that, in other circumstances, would not be proceeding and that, in the interests of justice, should be tested.

That is the essence of the thinking and the logic behind these amendments. I trust that that recommends itself to the House. As I say, it is very modest and very measured in its approach. The House would be doing the right thing, and not doing any great violence to the integrity of the Bill, if it was to accept it. It is taking the best of the present system and stitching it into this Bill so as to give that added layer of protection in circumstances where it is justified, but putting the hurdle, essentially for the defence to cross, to get to that point. At the moment, one, as of right, can say, "I want a mixed committal. I want a PI." That would be removed by these amendments, You would have to cross the hurdle of demonstrating that it is in the interests of justice. Who in the House should be opposed to doing something in the interests of justice? I would have thought no one, and therefore I fail to see the difficulty in that regard.

I should explain that amendment No 1 deals with preserving the exceptional right to a PI, and amendment No 2 deals with preserving the exceptional right to a mixed committal. Since schedule 2 removes from our legislation all references to preliminary investigations, you have the amendment to oppose clause 9 and to oppose schedule 2 so that, of necessity, those references remain in our legislation.

I will say a few words about a couple of the Minister's amendments. Amendment Nos 43 and 44 deal with clause 79. The Minister wants to amend that clause so that it will read:

I suggest to the House that, wittingly or unwittingly, that now embraces the work of juries in the Crown Court, because juries are persons exercising functions in relation to criminal proceedings in the Crown Court. Are we really saying in this House that we want to have a statutory obligation on a jury to reach a just outcome as swiftly as possible? I do not know how many jury charges when I have not heard the judge, at the end of his charge, say to the jury, "Now, ladies and gentlemen, the case is over to you. You take as long as you need to reach a just decision." Are we now going to say that the jury is going to have to be told, "You reach a just decision, but do it as quick as you can"? I think that would be a very foolish road to head down. Therefore, I think that the Minister needs to look at what he is seeking to do in clause 79. Certainly, to my reading, persons exercising functions in relation to criminal proceedings will include the jury.

Mr A Maginness: Will the Member give way?

Mr Allister: Yes.

Mr A Maginness: It is on another point, but I sense that the Member is about to conclude. Has the Member any comment to make on clause 11, "Direct committal: indication of intention to plead guilty", or, further to that, clause 12, "Direct committal: specified offences"? Is the Member content with those clauses? Are they affected directly or indirectly by your amendments?

Mr Allister: I am grateful to the Member. I do not think that either is affected by my amendments because, where the accused has an intention to plead guilty, it is hard to imagine circumstances in which he would have an interest in the calling of evidence and the hearing of the accusations against him, so I do not think that that is likely to apply. Likewise, the clause relating to specific offences is probably something that I am content with. I am sure that if this were a justice Bill I was writing, it would not be written like this, but I recognise that I am only one voice in the House and that I have to tread warily in trying to encourage the House towards a view that I might take on some matters. I think I have attempted to be measured in the approach I have taken to committals in the hope of bettering the Bill, as I would see it. So, I have not ventured further than that with regard to other clauses.

If I may, I will finish on the point that I was putting to the Minister about the juries. I might have my own issues with clause 79, but if it is intended to be directed at professional persons exercising functions in relation to criminal proceedings, that would exclude the juries, but that is not what it says. Maybe that is the answer for the Minister, if he thinks there is a problem there. I raise that and trust that the Minister will respond. I trust that he will also respond, in a considered way, to the genuine concerns that I have raised in the House about the committal process and that, rather than rush headlong into throwing out everything on committals and going on a paper exercise solely, he will recognise that there are advantages to retaining, in a very restrained form, the facility to have the mixed committal, or, indeed, the PI, in the interests of justice.

Mr Ross (The Chairperson of the Committee for Justice): With your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, before addressing the amendments, I wish to make some general remarks about the Bill.

The Committee welcomes the Bill, particularly as it seeks to improve services and facilities for victims and witnesses. A number of its provisions and a number of the amendments brought forward by the Minister are as a direct result of the findings and recommendations of the Committee's inquiry into the criminal justice services available to victims and witnesses of crime, which was completed back in 2012.

The Committee also supports the Bill's other main aims, which are to speed up the justice system and to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of key aspects of it. As well as the main clauses, the Committee also considered a wide range of amendments provided by the Department of Justice, both at the start of the Bill's Committee Stage and during it, some of which relate to provisions in the Bill, while others are on unrelated matters. The Committee also considered two proposals for amendments from the Attorney General for Northern Ireland and a proposed amendment from Mr Jim Wells, which he had provided when he was a member of the Justice Committee.

Given the wide range of policy areas covered by the provisions and the proposed amendments, the Committee spent a considerable amount of time undertaking detailed scrutiny, and it sought a wide range of views to assist in its deliberations. Written evidence was sought from interested organisations and individuals, as well as from the Department of Justice and the Department of Health. The Committee received 52 submissions and a significant number of petitions and responses from individuals on the amendment that would restrict lawful abortions to National Health Service premises. The Committee took oral evidence from a wide range of organisations and officials from both Departments. The Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecutions also attended to assist the Committee's consideration of specific issues.

I put on record my thanks to the members of the Committee for their contributions to the discussion on, and consideration of, the Bill at Committee Stage. The detail in the Committee's report demonstrates that we considered all aspects of the Bill and the range of proposed amendments in a full and thorough manner. I also thank all the organisations and individuals that provided very useful written and oral evidence and the Department of Justice officials, who provided additional information and clarification throughout the process. Of course, I also put on record my thanks to the Committee staff, who ensured that members were in a position to fulfil their obligations to scrutinise the Bill.

I turn now to clauses 7, 8 and 9, which would abolish preliminary investigations and mixed committals, and the amendments by Mr Allister to introduce new clauses 7A and 8A, which, as he outlined, are intended to retain preliminary investigations in some limited circumstances, in what he described as the "interests of justice". There was a divergence of views in the evidence received by the Committee, with the PPS and Victim Support Northern Ireland both supporting the Department's proposed changes but ultimately wanting to see committal proceedings abolished altogether, while the Law Society is of the view that the proposals are flawed.

The Law Society does not support the assertion that committal proceedings slow down the process, and, whilst it indicated that it understood the concerns expressed about vulnerable witnesses, it highlighted the point that special rules already exist to ensure that they are not unduly subjected to the stress of having to give evidence. It expressed the view to the Committee that a more measured approach would be for district judges to have limited discretion to allow the calling of key witnesses where they believe that it would be in the interests of justice to do so, and that appears to be what Mr Allister is seeking to achieve with his amendments.

In contrast, however, Victim Support told the Committee that the experience of being cross-examined on one occasion is highly stressful for victims and witnesses and that to be required to give evidence more than once compounds the anxiety and is contrary to the interests of justice. That is a point that the Deputy Chair made in an intervention to Mr Allister. It has long been a firmly held opinion that the abolition of preliminary investigations and mixed committals would represent a significant step in addressing some of the considerable trauma and distress experienced by victims and witnesses of crime during the court process.

The PPS also welcomed the proposed changes, believing that they could result in an eight- to 10-week saving in the trial process.

The PPS views the committal process as a luxury and a historical anomaly that no longer exists in other parts of Great Britain, and which is expensive to the public purse not only in the extra cost to legal aid but also in the burden it places on the PPS. The director highlighted that defendants will retain the right to challenge the sufficiency of the prosecution’s evidence through the Crown Court’s no bill procedure pre-trial, or through the trial process itself, and viewed the proposals as rebalancing the process and providing greater protection for victims and witnesses. He also provided examples of cases where committal had added considerable delay to the progress of the proceedings or impacted negatively on witnesses.

Mr Allister argues that PI can save the public purse, but we also heard arguments that were the opposite of that. When the Committee considered this part of the Bill it noted that, whilst the proposals aim to streamline the procedure for moving business from the Magistrates’ Court to the Crown Court, and are expected to result in some improvement in efficiency, the Department’s stated primary driver for abolishing preliminary investigations and mixed committals is to reduce the impact on vulnerable victims and witnesses.

From its inquiry into the criminal justice services available to victims and witnesses, the Committee is fully aware of the concerns raised by, and the experiences of, victims and witnesses in relation to having to give evidence twice. Members also appreciate the excessive length of time it takes for many cases to be completed and the need for reasonable measures to be taken to streamline the system.

The Committee noted that figures provided by the PPS indicated that very few defendants who were the subject of committal proceedings were not committed for trial. In 2013, out of a total of 2,289 defendants, only six were not committed for trial by a district judge. This represents approximately 0·3% of defendants who were the subject of committal proceedings. In 2014, four of the 1,938 defendants who were the subject of committal proceedings were not committed for trial.

Given the benefits to victims and witnesses, the evidence, which indicates that very few defendants who are the subject of committal proceedings are not committed for trial, and the fact that under clause 7 district judges will retain their existing power to decide whether a prima facie case against the defendant is disclosed by the evidence and can discharge the defendant on the basis that no such case exists, the Committee agreed that it is content with clauses 7 to 16. One Member, Mr Maginness, indicated that he had some concerns, and I am sure he will outline them during his contribution this morning.

The Committee also supports amendment No 3, which will allow for the direct committal of any co-defendants who are charged with an offence that is not a specified offence so that, in the interests of justice, all defendants can be tried at the same time.

I move on to Part 6 of the Bill, which will expand provision for the use of live video link facilities in courts, prisons and psychiatric units, and to amendment No 20, which the Minister is bringing forward. The main issues raised in the evidence received by the Committee focused on wider issues relating to the use of live links generally, particularly with regard to children and young people and their ability to understand and participate in proceedings and give informed consent, and the ability of a defendant to access legal representation and communicate with their legal representative. Indeed, it is an issue that formed part of a discussion at a recent justice seminar that the Committee held in this building.

Committee members are aware of the current use that is made of video links with little or no evidence of problems arising and, when considering the proposals to expand their use, noted that there are statutory requirements that the person must be able to see and hear and to be seen and be heard for a live link to take place, otherwise the hearing must be adjourned. It is the responsibility of the courts and the judiciary to ensure and monitor compliance with those requirements.

In relation to the impact of live links and the ability of children to understand and participate in proceedings, the Committee noted that consultation with the judiciary in the past indicated that, from their perspective, a live link facility whereby the child can speak directly and more visibly with the bench can assist the contribution they make, and an on-screen, face-to-face exchange can be more effective than when the child is sitting more remotely in a busy and possibly intimidating courtroom.

The Committee sought further information on any consultation that had been undertaken with young people on their experience of live links and their views on the proposed changes. The Department advised that staff and six children in the juvenile justice centre, all of whom had experience of using live links, had been interviewed and were very supportive of the system. There was a generally high level of satisfaction, and reasons given for preferring live links included that it is less intimidating, more convenient and private, does not require the child to speak or stand in front of everyone and that care workers can be there to help. The Department also confirmed that, in conjunction with the Courts and Tribunals Service and the Office of the Lord Chief Justice, it will produce guidance for the courts, legal representatives and defendants on their new arrangements for the use of live links for certain hearings at weekends and public holidays, before the provisions are commenced.

The Committee also explored the estimated savings to be made by extending the use of live links and noted that the use of live links for first remand at weekends and public holidays would reduce 330 judicial days to around 52 days.

Given the benefits of extending the use of live links, the assurances provided by the Department regarding the various legal requirements set out in statutory frameworks for the use of them, which operate under the authority and supervision of the courts and judiciary, and the fact that the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety had requested the provisions in respect of persons detained in hospital under mental health legislation, the Committee agreed that it was content with clauses 44 to 49. The Committee did, however, question whether clause 46 required amendment to provide the same safeguard as is provided in clauses 44 and 45, which places a responsibility on the court to adjourn proceedings where it appears to it that the accused is not able to see and hear the court and be seen and heard by it and where that cannot be immediately corrected. As a result of that, the Minister has brought forward amendment No 20 today.

I now want to briefly comment on amendment No 40, which relates to clause 78. Together with clause 77, it provides legislative support to a non-legislative scheme being developed to provide a structured early guilty plea scheme in the Magistrates' Courts and the Crown Court. The Department informed the Committee that, on the advice of the Attorney General, it intended to bring forward that amendment to remove a regulatory-making power in subsection 3 of clause 78 that has been identified as being of no practical benefit. The Committee agreed that it was content with that approach.

Noting the purpose of clauses 77 and 78 and having sought reassurances regarding the protections available for children and vulnerable adults and the assistance provided to people with communication difficulties, the Committee also agreed that it was content with clauses 78 and 79, although several members outlined concerns and reservations regarding the duty to be placed on solicitors, with views expressed that it is unnecessary as, in practice, a solicitor would inform a client of the position anyway; it could potentially create problems and conflicts between solicitors and clients; and would not deliver efficiencies.

I will move on to clauses 79 and 80 and amendment Nos 43, 44, 45 and 46. Those clauses introduce a statutory framework for the management of criminal cases, and, through regulation, the Department of Justice will be able to impose duties on the prosecution, defence and the court that will set out what must be completed prior to the commencement of court stages. The Department can also impose a general duty to reach a just outcome as swiftly as possible on anyone exercising a function in relation to criminal proceedings. I listened to the contribution from Mr Allister. I am speaking on behalf of the Committee. I do not think that the Committee's understanding of what "swift" meant was that it should be rushed through the system. We just meant that we did not want to have unnecessary delay. That is certainly my understanding of where the Committee was coming from on that issue. The Department has included those provisions in the Bill in response to the Justice Committee's recommendation in its inquiry into the criminal justice services available for victims and witnesses that case management should be placed on a statutory footing as a means of tackling delays in the system. All the evidence received by the Committee on those provisions recognised the serious problem of delay in criminal proceedings and the negative impact that it has on victims, witnesses and defendants, especially children and young people, and support was clear for measures to address avoidable delay, including statutory case management.

Having sought the advice of the Assembly Examiner of Statutory Rules regarding the range of powers in the Bill to make subordinate legislation, the Examiner drew the attention of the Committee to the regulation-making powers in clause 79(2) and clause 80 on the grounds that both clauses are at the core of the Bill's main purposes and are therefore significant for that reason and as they are likely to and intended to have a major impact on the conduct of criminal proceedings. The Examiner considered whether the regulation-making powers in clauses 79 and 80 should be subject to the draft affirmative procedure but was satisfied that they could be left subject to negative resolution if there was a built-in statutory requirement to consult the Lord Chief Justice, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Bar Council and the Law Society given that, if the regulations are to be workable in any proper and meaningful way, they will need to have a major input from those involved. The Committee referred the matter to the Department for consideration, and the amendments today address that issue and a proposal by the Attorney General that the general duty to progress cases should be placed in the Bill rather than providing a power to make regulations to do so.

One issue that was consistently raised during the Committee's inquiry was the adverse impact that the length of time it takes for cases to go through the criminal justice system has on victims and witnesses, many of whom are unable to move on while they wait for the process to be completed. Whilst recognising the complexity of the issue, the Committee noted that avoidable delay in the criminal justice system was not new and, in its view, has been going on for far too long. Given the detrimental effect that it has on victims and witnesses, as clearly demonstrated by the evidence received in the inquiry, the Committee believed that substantive action was required.

While delay is a common complaint with regard to the entire criminal justice process, one of the key frustrations for victims and witnesses is the length of time that court cases take and the number of postponements and adjournments that frequently occur. The Committee was of the view that a statutory case management scheme would be beneficial and have an overall positive effect in addressing delay and, ultimately, the experiences of victims and witnesses and, therefore, recommended to the Minister that that should be taken forward in the next available piece of justice legislation. The Committee, therefore, welcomes and supports clauses 79 and 80 and the proposed amendments that aim to address avoidable delay in criminal proceedings.

Mr McCartney: Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. In the wider concept of the Bill at Second Stage and Committee Stage, we were very supportive of the main principles of the Bill because it is designed to improve the operation of the justice system by improving services to victims and witnesses who find themselves in the court system. Part of that was speeding up the efficiency and effectiveness of justice. In that particular context, we are very supportive of the idea of a single jurisdiction, although the Committee said that, in the operation of that, it did not want to see any disadvantage given to people in terms of travel, particularly for witnesses and victims. The Committee made its views known and wrote to the Lord Chief Justice to see how that operation and consultation process will be carried out.

Similarly, we were supportive of the idea of prosecutorial fines for low-level offenders, up to a maximum of £200, as an alternative to taking people into the court system. In all the evidence that we have heard, it appears that sometimes the longer people are in the system, the harder it is for them to get out of it. We were mindful that, in the past, there were issues around the collection of fines, and we said that we did not want the impact that more fines were being imposed. That creates problems further down the line, but that is something that the Committee will look at when the fines and enforcement Bill comes forward.

Another major part of the Bill as it goes through its various stages is about how we treat victims and witnesses. The victims' charter and many steps such as the care unit are all very significant steps forward in doing that properly. Indeed, many of the things in the Bill were part of the Committee's inquiry into victims and witnesses. Speaking on behalf of my party colleagues, we got a good insight from that inquiry and from meeting many of the groups that work with victims and witnesses and the whole system. Indeed, we saw many of the gaps in the system, and the Bill goes some way now to begin to fill some of those gaps. I know that it is an ongoing process, and that is to be welcomed. Indeed, we will turn to that when we talk about the amendments tabled by Jim Allister.

I will turn to that part of the Bill now. At Committee Stage and throughout, we have always been broadly supportive of, if you like, refining or reforming committal proceedings to help speed up the process of making trials take place quickly and within a reasonable time frame. Mr Allister outlined that. Over a long time, committal proceedings have evolved to a situation where the overwhelming majority of cases now proceed straight to trial, with an agreement of what will be contained in a trial process.

It was brought to the Committee's attention that a small number went between PI and mixed committals. I think that there were 56, but 18 did not return for trial. That gave us some cause for concern. We heard that when we were conducting our inquiry into victims and witnesses; indeed, when representative groups and the Prosecution Service came before the Committee, they outlined the situation. That is why I asked for the intervention to define the interests of justice. There was a feeling among groups that putting a person, particularly a rape victim, through the process of cross-examination twice was unfair. Sometimes, even though the person who went through the process was a very credible witness and would have come through the first run, so to speak, of the cross-examining process, the Public Prosecution Service and victims' groups said that their resolve was weakened by the process, and that they found the second attempt or second run at a trial very daunting.

Jim Allister talked about the best of the current system being kept but then, obviously, to put in some protections. In some way, I think that that goes a long way to ensure that you do not have a system where, when a person is charged, it is a trial and there is no testing for prima facie status anywhere in the process. In that situation, it is worth considering those amendments. I think that the offer was held out that if "the interests of justice" becomes the framework in which the magistrate, from a defence or a prosecution point of view, can put forward a proposition that it is not in the interests of justice to proceed, then the magistrate could take that into consideration. I accept the point that it is sometimes difficult to say that in all rape cases or all particular cases, but the experience of the groups is something that will assist us if this goes through this stage. I do not want to make that assumption either way. However, it would be helpful if what is meant by "in the interests of justice" could be defined at Further Consideration Stage.

It is worth noting that, in the small number of cases among the thousands of prosecutions in any given year, only 56 went to that stage, but 18 did not proceed, and that is over 30%. That, in itself —

Mr Allister: Will the Member give way?

Mr McCartney: I will.

Mr Allister: First of all, can I correct the figure? I did the maths wrong. There were 74 recourse to committal; 56 were returned and 18 were not. Sorry; I misled the House, and I apologise for that. That is according to an answer from the Minister to Lord Morrow a few weeks ago.

On the issue of the rape victim and the undesirability of putting the rape victim through giving evidence twice, I would have thought that that itself would be a consideration that the magistrate would apply when applying the test of "in the interests of justice". I would have thought that that was something that went into the scales in deciding what is in the interests of justice. Yes, I am more than open to further refinement of that at Further Consideration Stage but, already, it is probably something that would go into the scales of deciding what is in the interests of justice.

Mr McCartney: I accept the figures, but the rejigging is still a high enough number to be worried about.

Mr Ford (The Minister of Justice): I appreciate the Member giving way, because there seems to be a little confusion about the figures. I have the figures for the number of cases not committed, which were sent to the Justice Committee by the PPS in March. It had originally been suggested that 51 cases out of 1,743 were not committed in 2013; in fact, as Mr Ross said, only six out of 2,289 were not committed in 2013, and only four out of 1,938 were not committed in 2014. It seems that there was a bit of confusion, because there were other reasons — for example, when cases were withdrawn or a caution was accepted. Those kinds of issues have made the difference. However, we are talking about minuscule numbers that proceeded to full hearing and that were not committed.

Mr McCartney: I thank the Minister for that. I want to take up on the point, particularly in the case of rape. I accept that any magistrate, when he is considering the threshold around the interests of justice, will have that in mind. Again — this came out very clearly in our inquiry and in evidence given to the Committee — that often puts off a person from even coming forward as a witness when they know that there is the possibility that they will be cross-examined twice.

That is why I am looking for some sense that exemption is there. Perhaps then, in the interests of justice, if the defence felt that the witness was not a good one, it could be examined in that context. What we are looking to see, particularly to protect a person who has made the allegation of rape, is the magistrate going in with the threshold and it being up to someone to convince the magistrate that it was in the interests of justice for them to be called, rather than the reverse. That is the important caveat that we would put in. It is with that in mind in particular that we are supportive of these amendments, so that at Further Consideration Stage, there can be a second run at trying to get this right.

Most of us accept, and the Minister has given the figures, that it is a small number, but it is an important part of a trial process, and we have to be very, very careful that we do not just wipe it out without giving some consideration to the fact that there are many cases in which a person has not gone through the unnecessary procedure of going to trial. We also have to ensure that the right to a fair trial is not simply legislated away.

The Chair covered amendment No 43. The Bill talks about coming to:

Perhaps the Minister will address that, because if there was any sense that a jury should do something swiftly rather than justly, it just needs to be cleared up procedurally. Go raibh míle maith agat.

Mr A Maginness: I listened with considerable interest to all the contributions, particularly that from Mr Allister in relation to preliminary investigations. I also take the point that we are trying to modernise our system and make it better and that we want to be innovative. That is all very well and good, and, in general terms, I support that, but I have to remind colleagues that we are making law, and we are making changes that are substantive and fundamental to the whole trial process. Obviously we are talking about pre-trial, but it ultimately affects the trial process nonetheless.

Once you make changes, they are permanent: you do not go back. The history of the criminal process in Northern Ireland, in Ireland generally and in Britain shows that it has stood the test of time in many respects. It is of great value, and it is something that we should not forget about. Once we interfere with the process, we could do irreparable damage to it. I say that as a health warning more than anything else, but when we are considering changes that are quite fundamental, we should bear that in mind.

During the course of discussion in relation to committal proceedings, I expressed misgivings to officials and colleagues on the Justice Committee in relation to the changes that were being proposed. The committal proceedings are an important filtering process that allow the defence, the prosecution and the court at large to test appropriately the strengths or weaknesses of the charges that people are faced with. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that that is an important process. I know that the notion now is that you can get rid of something that was described by the PPS as a historical anomaly. You can get rid of that, and you can describe it as that, but there is a contemporary value to a historical legal development.

Mr Ross: Will the Member give way?

Mr A Maginness: Yes.

Mr Ross: You mentioned how it was an effective filtering mechanism. Will the Member accept, given that the numbers are so low for the last two years that figures are available for, that there is an argument that, if it is a filtering mechanism, it is not perhaps a very good filtering system?

Mr A Maginness: It is an interesting point that you raise, and it is a point that was raised by the PPS and, indeed, the Department of Justice. People did talk about minuscule numbers. In a way, you can turn that argument around and say that the amendments that Mr Allister is putting forward to retain, at least vestigially, the committal proceedings in the interests of justice does not really affect the situation as greatly as the Department or the PPS have suggested. If it is so small and so minuscule, why interfere with the process to the point of extinction? I am not against, as it were, reforming the committal process, but it is the extinction of the process that worries me. At least, there should be some residual power given to the court to test the evidence if it is truly in the interests of justice.

Mr Ford: I appreciate the Member giving way. He talks about not extinguishing the process. In fact, that is exactly what happened over a decade ago in the Irish jurisdiction and in the England and Wales jurisdiction. That is not what is being proposed here, although there was a strong body of evidence that we should have moved to complete extinction. We will be maintaining PEs and, therefore, we will be maintaining the bulk of the process that has been abolished in the two most equivalent jurisdictions already.

Mr A Maginness: I do accept the point that the Minister has made. It is a valid point and a point of some strength, but I do say to colleagues in the Chamber that, whilst we can reflect on the experience of other jurisdictions, we have to make up our own minds ultimately in this jurisdiction, doing the best that we can to preserve what I think is valuable in the system. The Minister —

Mr Dickson: Will the Member give way?

Mr A Maginness: Yes.

Mr Dickson: Following on from the point that the Minister has made regarding reform and ultimate removal of that, particularly in England and Wales, the first stage came in 2001 and the removal came in 2013. There is no body of evidence of the detriment that perhaps you and Mr Allister are proclaiming may happen here. Therefore, there is a substantive body of evidence — likewise in the Republic of Ireland — that is demonstrating to us, in this particular case, about cautious reform. You are right to say that the law should be reformed cautiously, but, on the basis of 2001 and 2013, this seems to be a caution that we should be prepared to take today.

Mr A Maginness: Again, I understand the strength of Mr Dickson's point, but I think that we have to balance our own experience with the experience of others.

I believe that we have to be cautious in relation to something as sensitive as a criminal trial. I err towards being cautious and I remain to be convinced that the English experience is as smooth as the Member suggests; and I am not saying that facetiously.

The Minister made a point about committal proceedings, and I accept that this would not see the end of those proceedings. There will still be preliminary enquiries, but the preliminary investigation and mixed committals will be abolished, or repealed, as a result of this legislation if it is passed. That is the stated aim of the Department, and the departmental officials were quite forthright in saying so. I am not so certain that this is the destination to which we should be going. This is being seen as an intermediate stage on the way to achieving that.

I think there is still value in having a form of committal proceeding. In the circumstances and context of what Mr Allister is proposing, the Minister's aim would be achieved to some extent, insofar that the committal proceedings would be reformed. There will be very few preliminary investigations, but they will be looked at rigorously by the court in the interests of justice. I think it is important, in those circumstances, that the House takes that into consideration and believes there is value in keeping that failsafe mechanism in our current legislation. Therefore, I think that Mr Allister's proposals are to be preferred to those that the Minister has suggested, and we will be supporting Mr Allister's amendments.

Having said that, I recognise, as the Committee Chair said, that arising from the Committee's investigation into victims and witnesses, there is an important need to be protective of witnesses, particularly those who are vulnerable. Further provisions may have to be made for those vulnerable witnesses; but I do not think that it is beyond our capacity to create a situation whereby vulnerable witnesses in particular are further protected during the course of preliminary investigations, on the rare occasions on which those investigations would take place.

If there are various pre-trial issues that would normally be dealt with at a committal level that are not dealt with, there may be a greater preponderance, when something comes to trial, of no bills or applications to the Crown Court judge to deal with matters that should properly have been dealt with at committal level. You cannot call witnesses to examine those issues at that stage, nonetheless there could be further hold-ups in the smooth running of a Crown Court trial. That would be disagreeable and not intentional, but it could happen as a result of the changes proposed by the Minister. I ask the House to take that into consideration, because the aim of this legislation is to speed up the process, not delay it further, and that is a very laudable aim.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I welcome the single jurisdiction, although we have had county court divisions in Northern Ireland for many years, and it is a pity to lose them. We are losing a bit of our history but, nonetheless, given the efficiencies arising out of a single jurisdiction, perhaps we can overlook that little bit of history. Mr Allister is, of course, the Traditional Unionist Voice, but I was minded when he was speaking that he might well now be called the "Traditional Legal Voice" in this House. It is important that we look at changes to our system. The proposal in relation to prosecutorial fines is worthy, and it is important that we move in that direction and be innovative and imaginative in what we do; I welcome that.

I refer the House to clause 78. Amendment No 40 relates to 78(3). I am unhappy with clause 78. I think that it is unnecessary. It imposes a duty on solicitors to advise clients about early guilty pleas, and this will be a statutory duty imposed on solicitors. I do not think that it is necessary. Any solicitor worth his salt will advise his client on an early guilty plea. It is unnecessary for this House to impose a further statutory duty on the solicitor. It could also complicate the relationship between the solicitor and the client. Clause 78(5) says:

I do not know how such a tribunal would deal with this matter. It seems to me that there are certain matters between a solicitor and client that are indeed privileged, and it could well be that, where there is a dispute over whether the solicitor gave this advice, there would be breaches of privilege. Whether or not that happens, it complicates the relationship between the solicitor and the client. This clause could have unintended adverse consequences. I ask the Minister to look seriously at withdrawing the clause, which does not in any way add usefully to the role of a solicitor in a criminal trial. It really is ill thought out. I quote:

I am not certain, Mr Deputy Speaker, that it is really necessary. It just overcomplicates things. It is almost a bureaucratic response to the courtroom situation that will not help resolve matters.

I know what it is intended to do, but I am not certain that it is the right thing to do in all circumstances. I am tempted to oppose clause 78 standing part of the Bill, but I would like the Minister to look at it seriously, because I do not believe that there is any great value in it.

I have nothing further to say about any of the other amendments or about this section.

Mr Elliott: We have got to a stage with the Bill at which the Committee has looked at it in some detail and a number of other, almost unexpected, amendments are coming forward. That is what democracy is about and what this place is about. It is about listening to those issues and to people's concerns.

On this particular group of amendments, I entirely understand where the Department is coming from in its attempt to streamline the court system at an early stage. I respect and understand that. Mr Allister proposes interesting amendments. The Department's proposal is to take that opportunity for the defence to bring forward its case at an early stage completely out of it, whereas Mr Allister's proposal appears, from what I hear, to be a halfway house between the two. It still gives that opportunity for defendants —

Mr Ford: I am grateful to the Member for giving way. The Department's proposals do not remove the opportunity for the defence to put the case; what they remove is the opportunity for the defence to cross-examine witnesses. The key point, as I understand it, both in the Committee's first report on victims and witnesses and in its consideration of the Bill, was the pressure that can be put on vulnerable victims and witnesses.

Mr Elliott: I thank the Minister for that intervention and information. I accept that point, Minister; I have no argument with it. I listened to Mr Ross, who, quite rightly, put over the view that the witnesses appeared to support the Department's proposals and felt that it was quite difficult in the sense of maybe having to give evidence on two occasions. Obviously, it would be overly burdensome. However, if I remember rightly, the Law Society did not feel that the proposals were right and was opposed to them. We cannot take everything that the Law Society says in general terms as gospel, but I am just putting the point down that, in fact, there was opposition to the proposals as well.

It has been an interesting debate, and I have to say that I have a lot of sympathy for Mr Allister's proposals in that respect, as I feel that they have merit. I will listen intently to what the Minister says about them and to what Mr Allister says in his winding-up speech — just to keep them on their toes — to convince my colleagues and me of the proper route to go down.

I want to move on to clause 78, which Mr Maginness interestingly touched on. It is an aspect that I raised several times during Committee Stage. Mr Maginness and I have slightly different points, in that he spoke about the early guilty plea and the onus on solicitors to inform their clients of that. I understand that, but my point was that someone has to give that advice. I felt that, if it has to be the solicitors, I do not have a major issue with it.

My main concern with clause 78 is the pressure that there will sometimes be on the client and defendant from an early guilty plea. Indeed, I raised it on several occasions. Some defendants may feel under huge pressure to say, "OK; I'm going to get away with a much more lenient sentence if I put in an early guilty plea", and that is the advice that may be given. The solicitor will be under no obligation to say — and should not say, I assume — that if you are definitely not guilty you do not put in an early guilty plea. However, I know from speaking to many defendants in the past that they have even felt under pressure as it is to put in an early guilty plea when they are adamant that they are not guilty.

It is quite easy for people who are standing on the side to say, "Well, look, you should not plead guilty if you are definitely not guilty." If a defendant is looking at the difference between a four-year custodial sentence and maybe a much more lenient sentence, they do feel under that pressure. I know that from speaking to defendants in the past. Maybe I differ slightly on the reasoning around it, but I have always had those concerns about clause 78.

Mr Allister: Will the Member give way?

Mr Elliott: I am happy to give way.

Mr Allister: I suggest to the Member that there is another consideration to which this clause gives no regard, in practical terms. More often than not in the course of a trial and the criminal process, a key component can be the eventual delivery of disclosure in a case, which can be quite truncated and delayed. The eventual delivery of disclosure in a case can cast an entirely new light on certain pertinent issues which touch upon the relevant sentence, yet this compulsion under clause 78 to herd people towards the earliest possible plea may be something that, in fact, does not do justice to the situation. If and when there is disclosure, which despite all the promises does not often meet the time frames, it can cast the matter in an entirely new light and leave someone very much wrong-footed in terms of what they did or should have done.

Mr Elliott: I thank the Member for that intervention. It was not an aspect that I had particularly looked at, but it obviously brings a new angle to the entire debate around clause 78.

I will listen to the debate on Mr Allister's amendments as it moves on. I just want to put on record that I am minded at this stage to favour them because they bring balance to the law itself. However, we did go through the entire Committee Stage in discussion on this. I think that we need to return to clause 78. Like Mr Maginness, I am of a mind to oppose it here today. I will listen to the debate further.

Mr Dickson: Perhaps I will make a few opening remarks first of all. The Bill marks the third Justice Bill that has been brought forward by the Department and the Minister as part of reforming our justice system and, indeed, making it fit for the 21st century. In those circumstances, I would like to commend the Minister for this and express my support for the process of reform and my opposition to those who wish to derail that.

Like the Chair of the Committee, I place on record my thanks to staff in the Department of Justice, to those who came to give evidence to the Committee, and to the Committee staff for the incredible amount of work that they put into assisting us to prepare the report.

Group one refers mostly to the reform of the committal and court process. We have heard arguments in respect of this. Mr Allister's amendment will oppose the reform of the committal system and seek to retain some form of mixed committal. We must recognise that the origin of this clause was, in fact, the consultation with those who have profound experience of the justice system, as the Committee Chair pointed out, as victims.

In the current system, victims and vulnerable people are often compelled to experience the trauma of giving evidence twice; once at PI or mixed committal and again at the trial itself. I do understand that Mr Allister may have concerns, perhaps suggesting that these are important in the interests of justice. I fully understand that position, but as I am very sure he is aware, it is the trial that determines the innocence or guilt, not the committal proceedings.

As the Minister has indicated in a number of interventions, and as I hope others will take into account when coming to their view in supporting this today, a preliminary inquiry will still be undertaken by a magistrate, with the inbuilt safeguards to ensure that the defendant is sufficiently represented. In fact, defendants may even be able to make a submission to the court personally. If it is found that there is insufficient evidence for a trial, the defendant can be discharged at that stage. I am satisfied that the Minister's plans are sufficient to safeguard the rights of victims and defendants in that area. Therefore, I will not be supporting Mr Allister's amendments.

I welcome amendment No 20, which relates to the provision to enhance live-link facilities in our courts. That will help ensure that offenders are able to see and hear the court during the trial, and vice versa; otherwise, the trial will be adjourned. Other departmental amendments will ensure that the Bill works more efficiently regarding early guilty pleas, and that will avoid delay in criminal proceedings. I intend to support those amendments.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Dallat): The Business Committee has arranged to meet immediately after the lunchtime suspension. I propose therefore, by leave of the Assembly, to suspend the sitting until 2.00 pm. The first item of business when we return will be Question Time.

Mr Principal Deputy Speaker: Question 6 has been withdrawn.

Dr Farry (The Minister for Employment and Learning): My Department plays a full and active part in the delivery of the Executive's Bright Start initiative, particularly in relation to the recruitment and development of the childcare workforce. Since 2011, my Department has provided funding support for 355 employees to commence training in childcare learning and development qualifications across 205 settings at a cost of over £300,000. Level 5 training for managerial staff in childcare settings will become a mandatory requirement in 2016 and, as a result, my Department will no longer provide funding support. This is because increasingly limited resources are targeted at encouraging employers to upskill their staff beyond the legislative or mandatory requirements that they must meet.

All further education colleges provide a range of high-quality full-time and part-time childcare courses at a variety of skill levels. In the last academic year, childcare-related provision accounted for over 2,500 enrolments across Northern Ireland. In addition, Stranmillis University College provides a degree course in early childhood studies and the Open University in Ireland provides a range of degree courses in early years and in childhood and youth studies.

My Department's employment service supports clients seeking employment in the childcare sector and offers a range of services to meet employers’ recruitment needs. Vacancies in the childcare sector are regularly advertised on our recruitment website and employment service staff have recently worked with childcare providers Employers for Childcare in the delivery of job fairs. These events promoted childcare as a career and offered opportunities for industry-related training and employment opportunities. In the past year, my Department's Bridge to Employment programme has assisted 19 people into employment in the sector through customised training related to the skill requirements of specific vacancies. The careers service can also provide advice and guidance for those who wish to work in the childcare sector.

Mrs Hale: I thank the Minister for his very detailed answer. Given that we are in times of increased austerity, will he tell the House how his Department is encouraging males, in particular, and individuals from minority communities into the sector?

Dr Farry: It is worth stressing that all our opportunities are open to people across the community irrespective of their gender or their ethnic or religious background etc. Obviously, where there are particular areas of under-representation we are always very keen to encourage more applications. We often talk about the under-representation of females in certain areas, and the Member has asked questions on that particular theme in the past. The reverse also applies in other areas. We want to make sure that we maximise the talent pool to our best advantage as a whole. There are also particular opportunities through the apprenticeship strategy and the forthcoming youth training strategy. Again, gender considerations will be built into those areas to ensure that we have a balanced representation of people coming forward into new opportunities.

Ms McGahan: I thank the Minister for his responses so far. What initiatives has he taken with employers in the childcare sector to encourage participation in the Steps 2 Success programme?

Dr Farry: The Steps 2 Success programme is for people who are unemployed. We have a number of contractors who, in turn, appoint subcontractors. They are there, based on an outcome-focused approach, trying to getting people into employment. They will be looking for every opportunity that exists and will provide the relevant training and encouragement to people to take up those opportunities. No doubt where they see growth in opportunities they will be incentivised to move in that particular direction.

Mrs Overend: Does the Minister believe that there is currently sufficient childcare provision to enable parents to take up part-time training courses or employment?

Dr Farry: I thank the Member for her question. That is a slightly broader issue than our approach to supporting training for childcare. However, looking at some of the different programmes that we are bringing forward, we are very conscious of the issues that participants may be facing, and childcare may well be one of those. Perhaps the most recent example that we can cite is the economic inactivity strategy, where we have recognised that, in terms of the inactive population, one of the target groups is those with family commitments. Often, that will predominantly be females with childcare responsibilities. We are looking to see how we can provide innovative solutions to encourage people who are interested in working but perceive barriers to overcome those barriers and participate fully in the labour market.

Ms Lo: Minister, I was speaking with Employers for Childcare this morning about the shortage of childcare workers. It told me that there is a great shortage; it cannot recruit enough qualified childcare workers. Apparently, trying to get qualifications is very expensive; it can be up to £1,200 per course to get people qualified. Is there —

Mr Principal Deputy Speaker: I ask the Member to come to her question.

Ms Lo: — any possibility of helping or subsidising those courses?

Dr Farry: We are looking a range of different provision. One of the interesting developments that will be coming forward shortly is the outcome of the review of youth training. In particular, we will be looking to see how we can support and incentivise training for people leaving school at 16 or other young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who have not accessed employment or do not yet have the qualifications to do so. There will be particular opportunities under that strategy in the field of childcare.

Dr Farry: I very much welcome the introduction of the John J Sweeney scholarship at Ulster University's international conflict research institute. The scholarship is open to all US citizens who have been offered a full-time place on Ulster University's MSc in applied peace and conflict studies and who are members, or have a familial connection to a member, of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). This fully supports my Department's stated aim to increase the numbers of international students studying in Northern Ireland. It is a coup for Ulster University which will further enhance the institution's international standing. This is the first year of the scholarship, and my officials have been informed that there are already 18 applicants for this year's intake.

Mr Ó Muilleoir: Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-LeasCheann Comhairle. Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire fosta. Thank you, Minister. Given the recent appointment of Tom Moran as chancellor of Queen's University, how can we encourage increased interest via the diaspora in our universities? John Sweeney was, of course, an eminent member of AFL-CIO. Is there a way in which we can join together to encourage other labour unions to support scholarships at our universities?

Dr Farry: First of all, I very much welcome the appointment of Tom Moran. It is an excellent appointment. I have already written to congratulate him in that regard. Our universities have to be very much outward-facing. They are not here as universities servicing a local market; they are part of Northern Ireland's wider outreach to the world. They should be seen as global players in their own right.

We have some very particular challenges at present with the very regrettable cuts that we have had to pass on to universities. We are seeing a situation where we are losing places. Our universities will be very keen to encourage more and more international students; that has been a long-standing commitment, not least in terms of our current higher education strategy. However, we also have to be very mindful of offering opportunities for local students. There is a very real danger of the displacement of students out of Northern Ireland to Great Britain or the South of Ireland, or, indeed, people not going to university at all.

For sure, we can do a lot more around scholarships. If more scholarships come forward, including from local businesses or major investors in Northern Ireland, that will, in itself, create opportunities. For example, we have a new scholarship programme in computing and engineering that has about 20 places on offer. That is moving in that direction, but we need more of it. However, scholarships, in and of themselves, cannot make up the shortfall and the pressures that the sector is, very sadly, facing at present.

Dr Farry: Preparing our young people for the jobs of the future is a priority for my Department and the Executive's Programme for Government. That includes the provision of training in the performing arts. Although Belfast Met's Tower Street campus will no longer offer dance and drama courses beyond the end of the current academic year, students currently enrolled at Tower Street will be able to continue and complete their studies at the college.

Belfast Met has been working closely with South Eastern Regional College (SERC) on options that might be offered to those wishing to commence performing arts courses from September 2015. The £12 million investment in the new SPACE facility at SERC's Bangor campus will offer students wishing to pursue a career in this area a wide range of high quality courses that will be delivered in a world-class learning environment. The courses will mirror those currently delivered at Belfast Met. SPACE includes rehearsal and production studios and a theatre that can permit the staging of professional productions. Performing arts courses will also continue to be provided at SERC's Lisburn campus. Other colleges, including Northern Regional College's Ballymoney and Newtownabbey campuses, offer a range of performing arts courses from level 2 through to level 5. Students will be able to apply for courses commencing in September.

Mr B McCrea: That is all very well, Minister, but it does not really address the issue. The performing arts associations have issued a statement; I am sure that you are aware of it because Dan Gordon has been quite vociferous. Bangor is too far away for many people, and it does not offer the specialist courses that the industry needs. People would like to know what you are going to do about it.

Dr Farry: The first remark to make is that we are getting very close to a sense of parochialism in that, if it is not in Belfast, it does not work. I am surprised that a Member for Lagan Valley, who actually has performing arts offered in his constituency in Lisburn, is buying into the argument that, if it is not in Belfast, it cannot work. We have colleges across Northern Ireland delivering performing arts courses very successfully. If you take the logic of what is being said to its conclusion, if it is not in Belfast, it does not matter. That is a terrible message to send to the other five colleges and, indeed, students who are functioning there.

I am sure that the Member is very much aware that we are going through an unprecedented level of cuts in Northern Ireland. I would not like to see any courses being cut, but the sad reality is that we are passing on a £12 million cut to the FE sector this year. I know that the Member is not responsible for the Budget mess that we find ourselves in, but I would like to think that he would at least acknowledge the context in which the colleges are operating and their need to take some very tough decisions. The fact is that this particular decision by Belfast Met has a very clear mitigating factor in the context that we have a brand-new, state-of-the-art facility coming online in Bangor in September. It is 13 miles from Belfast. If we are suggesting that, if it is not on people's doorstep, they cannot function, we are in very real danger of missing the point, not least given the fact that we have a Northern Ireland of six counties and six FE colleges.

Mr F McCann: Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-LeasCheann Comhairle. Can the Minister give a breakdown of the current labour market information pertaining to specialist performing arts?

Dr Farry: I am happy to write to the Member to give an indication of any figures that we have on file from the employment service on some very particular vacancies that may exist. We are also developing in conjunction with Ulster University a skills barometer that will give us much better real-time information on where there are emerging opportunities in the economy. I am not diminishing whatsoever the importance of performing arts to the future of our economy and, indeed, the wider creative industries. They are of absolute importance, as are many other subjects.

I say particularly to the Member, given that he is from Sinn Féin, that the answer to the dilemma that we find ourselves in very much lies within the power of his party and the SDLP to adopt a different approach to the Budget madness that we are facing. The singular approach around welfare has already had major knock-on consequences. Unless we have a change of course, we are going to see this situation deteriorate even further and end up with people asking similar types of questions but not actually joining the dots as to why certain things are happening.

Mr Lyttle: I have had the privilege of visiting the Belfast Metropolitan College Tower Street facility. In what is clearly a vibrant learning environment, I met acting and dance students from Belfast, Donegal, Austria and America, some of whom have already performed in shows like 'Vikings' and 'The Fall'. What would the Minister say to students and professionals who genuinely believe that it is a wrong decision by Belfast Metropolitan College to apply a 100% reduction to this provision and who are genuinely concerned and have reasoned arguments that the provision at SERC Bangor is not an appropriate alternative?

Dr Farry: People should visit Bangor. Indeed, I think, 20 students took the opportunity, only this past weekend, to go down to talk to local staff, view the emerging facilities and see for themselves the real value of the investment that is being made in students for everyone across Northern Ireland.

Dr Farry: The relevant training and skilling of the workforce is vital for local economic development. That applies not only to the transport and logistics sector but to all sectors of our economy. My officials work with businesses, universities and colleges to identify, plan for and meet workforce development needs though a range of curricular provision, from entry level to foundation degrees.

I have commissioned the Northern Ireland Centre for Economic Policy to develop a Northern Ireland skills barometer. That will indicate where there are skills gaps, where they are emerging and where they are forecast to emerge over the medium and longer term. The barometer will help to shape all areas of skills provision.

The Ulster University delivers a BSc(Hons) in transportation and a master's degree in transportation planning. The university is also planning to introduce a specialism in logistics/supply chain management as part of its business studies programme. The Northern Regional College provides two courses at level 3 for transport managers. In the academic year 2013-14, there were six enrolments, and there were nine in the current year. That course will be available for the forthcoming academic year as well.

Recently, my officials met representatives from the sector to discuss how they can work more closely together. That includes liaising with the employment service to assist in filling some current vacancies, and with the Careers Service on the promotion of the sector within schools. The Department is willing to work with and support the sector, wherever possible.

Mr Hussey: I thank the Minister for his response so far. In your response, Minister, you made reference to the BSc(Hons) degree and the MSci in transport planning at UUJ. Is it not the case that those are going to be stopped? Is that not very short-sighted?

Dr Farry: As I said to Mr McCann, a moment ago, a whole host of things, which, on the surface, seem very short-sighted and nonsensical, are happening, but we are in a situation where, in the forthcoming year, we will be taking £16 million out of higher education and £12 million out of further education. Universities are going to have to take some very difficult decisions. The decisions that were taken were those for Ulster University to make. It is its job, not the job of the Department, to determine which courses are offered and which are not. The universities are seeking to rationalise the courses that are on offer. In that way, they are better placed to maximise the number of opportunities for students in Northern Ireland. I appreciate that there are particular consequences for the sector from those decisions. We are in discussions with the sector, and opportunities may well emerge to address those particular high-skilled demands. In particular, I draw your attention to the apprenticeships strategy and the fact that we have money under the change fund for pilots. To my estimation, that type of course, particularly given its vocational nature, would lend itself very readily to a higher-level apprenticeship. Through that course, we may actually see the needs of the sector being not only addressed but addressed in a more efficient and effective manner.

Mr Campbell: Will the Minister undertake to examine such issues as the one that was brought to my attention in my constituency, in which a private sector company, an expertise of which is training people for HGV courses, has found it extremely difficult to compete with other companies whose practices are not as in-depth and comprehensive as theirs? Some allegations were made about dealings that were not entirely in keeping with legislation that restricts companies like the legitimate company that came to me.

Dr Farry: I would be very happy to take a look at the issue, if the Member could drop me a line or an email to set out some of the issues. Some of the factors will be whether we are talking about an entirely private sector situation or about some degree of public-sector involvement. The potential way forward, the Member suggests, would be set in the context of the contracting of a lot of the skills offer that we have and the provision within FE and higher education. I am more than happy to look at the points that the Member has raised.

Mr Dallat: I am sure that the Minister agrees that transport and logistics is not exactly a new phenomenon. Indeed, it probably dates back to the days of the red flag. Will the Minister explain to us why he is only making plans now for the development of this and why these subjects are not integrated across a range of degree courses, so that we can catch up with the rest of Europe, which is light years ahead of us in training people for transport and logistics?

Dr Farry: The issue probably predates the red flag; people were transporting things before the motor car was invented. We have historical provision. The situation is evolving, and I have explained why that is the case. At the same time, under my watch, we are developing a new approach to vocational training, in the apprenticeships strategy and the strategy on youth training. If the Member wants to go down the avenue of asking, "Why is this only being done now? This is not rocket science", I would remind him that his party held this Department in the first mandate of the Assembly, from 1999 onwards, and there was no revolution in vocational training — if I can use the term "revolution" when we talk about transport — at that particular time, but it is now being addressed.

Dr Farry: My Department has a wide range of measures to address youth unemployment in Foyle and will be implementing the new initiatives from 2015-16 to improve opportunities for young people across Northern Ireland.

The youth employment scheme was introduced to help those aged between 18 and 24 to develop skills, compete for jobs and sustain employment. In the Foyle and Lisnagelvin jobs and benefits offices' catchment areas, a total of 1,200 young people participated between July 2012 and March 2015. To date, over 400 participants have moved into subsidised or unsubsidised employment. A refreshed youth employment scheme will be introduced from June 2015, subject to funding being available.

The main employment programme, Steps 2 Success, is delivered by EOS NI in the Foyle area. Steps 2 Success is available to all eligible jobseekers, irrespective of their employability need or age. Clients who are in receipt of jobseeker’s allowance and aged between 18 and 24 will be mandated onto the programme after nine months on benefit.

I recently introduced Into Work Training Support, enabling clients to undertake short training courses to improve their employability. In addition, enterprise allowance, a new measure of support for clients seeking to start their own business, was made available from April.

The Department is leading in the development of the United Youth programme. The target group for the pilots beginning in 2015-16 are those aged between 16 and 24, who are not in education, employment or training.

We are also undertaking a review of youth training. It is planned that the new proposed youth training system will be available to all young people aged between 16 and 24, facilitating progression into an apprenticeship, further education or sustained employment. A series of pilot initiatives will be implemented during the current financial year, prior to implementation in full in the next year.

Mr Middleton: I thank the Minister for his response and welcome the new initiatives and those that he already has in place. Will he advise what conversations or engagement he has had with other Departments about getting out the message as to how young people can get involved in these initiatives?

Dr Farry: We have certainly encouraged other Departments to offer opportunities, and I am pleased that all my ministerial colleagues understand the logic of that. We have also spoken to arm's-length bodies and to district councils about offering placements. However, in the current financial context, we have a situation where there is an inevitability about a lot of the public-sector organisations wishing to shed staff. In that context, opportunities in the public sector are going to be very limited or, indeed, next to impossible. We have to have a wider discussion around the continued problem of youth unemployment. The Member will be aware that, in 2012, the Executive came forward with a major package of funding over three years to fund the youth employment scheme. Sadly, given the context around the Budget, it was never going to be viable for the Executive to renew that particular pot, so we are now in a situation where, from existing resources — there is even a question mark over those, as the Member will be aware — we are trying to offer a more limited package of opportunities in direct interventions to help young people.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: Go raibh maith agat. I thank the Minister for his answers so far. I noted that he said that of the 1,200 young people who participated in the youth employment programme, 400 had moved into subsidised or unsubsidised employment. Can the Minister break that figure down further and give us an indication of how many moved into quality or sustainable employment?

Dr Farry: We are happy to come back to the Member with the precise figures, but it is important to bear in mind the range of different job opportunities out there for young people. Some will be of a permanent nature and some will be of a temporary nature. All are of worth, and it is important that we do not create some sort of hierarchy or dismiss opportunities. It is very important that we encourage young people to get that experience because it allows them, in turn, to progress to other opportunities, or to go back into further education or higher education. The worst possible situation is that we get defensive about opportunities and end up with young people being left on the shelf so that their education or training goes rusty. If they have not invested in skills, they will very quickly be overtaken by other cohorts of young people coming through. They would then face a life of unemployment or economic inactivity, so it is very important, for a whole range of reasons, that we encourage people on that journey.

Mr Eastwood: I thank the Minister for his answers thus far. Of course, the Foyle constituency has the highest levels of any type of unemployment in all the Westminster constituencies. That was the case long before the welfare discussion, or crisis, as the Minister likes to talk about. What progress are we making in increasing the maximum student number (MaSN) at the North West Regional College, which will, of course, be essential in trying to tackle youth unemployment and underemployment?

Dr Farry: First, I concur with the Member that there are major structural issues in relation to unemployment and economic inactivity, which is the hidden form of unemployment, and that both are particularly high in the Foyle constituency. It is a bit of a stretch to jump into the issue of MaSN and the potential expansion at Magee — [Inaudible.]

Dr Farry: — but let me stress that we are processing the business case and waiting for revised information to come forward from the strategy group. If we are to see the expansion of MaSN, we need to have the funding to do that. I am happy to bid for that, but we have to have a sense of reality about it. I mean —

Mr Eastwood: That is not what I asked you.

Dr Farry: — we are talking about a situation in which we will need recurring money, in excess of £29 million or £30 million every year, to facilitate that. That is on top of the very deep cut to higher education that we already face.

I hear the Member mentioning from the sidelines that that is not what he asked. He asked whether there was any progress on increasing MaSN. There is no point in increasing MaSN if you do not have the money to back it up: it is an utterly futile and pointless gesture to make.

Mr Principal Deputy Speaker: I ask the Member that when he asks the Minister a question, he allows the Minister to answer without being interrupted.

Dr Farry: Mr Principal Deputy Speaker, with your permission, I wish to group questions 7 and 14 and request an additional minute for the answer.

The latest published figures indicate that, at the end of January this year, 461 apprentices from the South Antrim constituency were undertaking Apprenticeship NI-funded training in a range of subject areas. Engineering has the highest programme occupancy in any single area, with 88 apprentices. Of the overall number, 228 apprentices are working towards level 3 apprenticeship framework qualifications, including 46 undertaking level 2 en route to level 3, and 233 are working towards level 2 apprenticeship framework qualifications.

The Department is in the early stages of testing higher level apprenticeships as part of the implementation of the new strategy. Between 2013 and 2014, those opportunities were taken up by 106 people across Northern Ireland. However, it is not possible, at this stage, to break the figures down to a constituency level. Seven high-level pilots are under way across five occupational areas including professional services, ICT, engineering, accountancy and life sciences, and off-the-job training has been tested by four further education (FE) colleges, including the Northern Regional College (NRC). They are working with employers including Schrader Electronics, Acute Engineering Surveys (AES) Ltd and Michelin to deliver an engineering apprenticeship.

In total, there are now over 120 higher-level apprentices working with 46 different employers across Northern Ireland.

Mr Principal Deputy Speaker: That ends the period for listed questions. We now move on to topical questions. Question 1 has been withdrawn.

Dr Farry: I thank the Member for her ongoing interest in the area. As she will know, we conducted an audit on further education provision across Northern Ireland in those areas, and we are trying to preserve things in the face of pressures in the sector, and, indeed, in other sectors, at present.

The issue of transitions is being discussed at Executive subcommittee level. It is one of the topics that was discussed by the Bamford committee dealing with mental health and learning disability issues, and an action plan has recently been agreed across Departments on how to co-ordinate services better. There is a range of different players involved. My Department has a role to play in further education. There is also a role for the Department of Education in planning better for transitions, for the Department of Health in day-centre provision and for DRD on transport facilities. Work is under way with Departments to try to ensure a more coordinated approach, but it is important to bear in mind that, as with everything at this stage, we are hampered by a lack of finance.

Ms McGahan: Go raibh maith agat. I thank the Minister for his response. What engagements have you had with South West College regarding post-19 special educational needs in Fermanagh and South Tyrone?

Dr Farry: As the Member knows, the college is extremely proactive in almost every area of its work and is very much part and parcel of the community. We have had ongoing discussions with the college on the whole spectrum of its activity. Like others, it is trying to do its best in very trying circumstances to ensure that it can continue to deliver. It is conscious of issues around trying to ensure that there is a level playing field for provision across all areas, and, in that regard, it is not any different from any other college, given that there are always issues around ensuring that there is equal provision in different parts of Northern Ireland. It is almost impossible to provide that, given the nature of geography and funding limitations.

Mr Principal Deputy Speaker: Before I call the next Member, I want to say that Hansard is having some difficulty with the mics. Members should direct their mic towards them when speaking. Thank you.

Dr Farry: A number of different initiatives are under way, and, as the Member will know, it is important that we seek to develop more and more collaboration on high-level research. A global phenomenon is what is expected. Several years ago, I signed an agreement with Richard Bruton, my equivalent in the Republic of Ireland, for a partnership between Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and my Department to support collaborative funding for research on a North/South basis. Indeed, we announced a number of such projects during May. The Member is hopefully aware of that, and we can provide further details if she wishes to receive them.

The Executive are very keen that we maximise the drawdown from Horizon 2020, and some very challenging targets have been set. The collaboration that we do, particularly around the SFI-DEL investigators programme partnership, gives us a very strong foundation on which we can then move into Horizon 2020. Other collaborations are already happening in that regard, and, of course, given that it is European funding involved, they are very keen to push collaboration between different jurisdictions.

We are very hopeful that there will be some very strong progress on Horizon 2020 over the coming months, and I urge the Member to look out for that.

Finally, I stress that we are privileged to be part of the US-Ireland research and development alliance, which is an agreement between both jurisdictions on the island and the US State Department. That sponsors a number of collaborative projects. We are seeking to build upon all our different strengths and to make a much bigger impact.

Ms Boyle: I thank the Minister for his response. Can you detail any specific areas of research taking place under the programme? How are they advancing? Go raibh maith agat.

Dr Farry: We will send on a copy of the press release and associated information that will list all the programmes that are happening. I will not attempt to list all the areas off the top of my head, but the Member will be aware of the general priorities that we have for research, particularly life sciences, cybersecurity, agriculture, agrifood, nanotechnology and other areas of life sciences. Those are areas where we believe there are strengths on both sides of the border. We are very keen to build on existing strengths, but we will ensure that the Member has the full list of projects, who is undertaking them and the institutions involved with them.

Dr Farry: It is not a form of reconstitution as such because we are going through a process of gradual incremental change, but there are a number of governor posts that we will seek to fill in the coming weeks. That is at a fairly advanced stage. Given the nature of public appointments, as the Member will well know, I, as Minister, simply sign off on the specification at the outset of the process and then I have no role until recommendations come forward to me from the panels that study the applications for me to make the final appointments. We are not at that stage just yet, but my understanding is that that will be with me in the next few weeks.

Ms P Bradley: I thank the Minister for his answer. In the same vein to do with further education colleges — the Minister might have partly answered this earlier — with the transfer of community development and urban regeneration to councils next year, how does the Minister believe that colleges can collaborate with our local councils to tackle underachievement and low educational standards in their areas?

Dr Farry: I am happy to encourage that. In January, I hosted a dinner between the incoming chief executives of the 11 councils and the directors of the six FE colleges to spark those types of conversations. A number of initiatives are being pursued already in that regard at different speeds in different parts of Northern Ireland. I am hearing some very strong noises about the Northern Regional College and BMC. It is very proactive in that area with Belfast City Council, so, in the Member's area, that work is happening.

There is a very clear opportunity for community planning and urban regeneration for colleges. Also, when they are developing their community plans, skilling and upskilling will be key elements for what they are seeking to do on the economy, and they will quite rightly be looking to FE colleges to provide a lot of the solutions. We are encouraging FE colleges to be the first point of contact for businesses and, by extension, councils at a local level, appreciating that Northern Ireland is not homogeneous and that there are different specialities in different areas, so, again, that is an opportunity.

We also recently devolved what was formerly known as the Department's skills solution service to the FE colleges. Previously, when businesses wanted solutions to their training needs, they went to centralised services. We now take the view that that is better devolved through the FE colleges, where they already have a business development infrastructure, and it is best to build upon that and have that seen as the first point of contact for local businesses. So, we will reroute contacts back to the FE colleges with a stronger localised knowledge to engage with their local community.

Dr Farry: There are a number of different initiatives that we committed to doing. One is the potential pursuit of an application to the European globalisation adjustment fund. On previous occasions, I reported to the Assembly the parameters around which a bid needs to be made and the potential difficulties we perceive in trying to see how JTI would fit into it. Ultimately, it will be a decision for the Department for Work and Pensions in London on taking forward a bid, given that it is the national Government in that regard. Again, that is a discussion that we will have to have. That bid can be made only in the context of the redundancies becoming live. As the Member knows, they are still some time away. This is a rather unusual situation to come before us.

While not wishing to disrupt the factory's ongoing work, which is of importance and which, if anything, has been intensifying in recent months, there is a commitment from JTI to work closely with the Department and the Northern Regional College over a skills audit and to then see what additional courses can be put in place to facilitate the retraining of workers who are affected by redundancy.

Mr Frew: I thank the Minister for his very detailed answer. Will he give the House an assurance that he will continue to work and provide support to JTI employees and that he will also work, as he and his officials have been doing, with Invest NI and the council, which has now set up a working group on the issue?

Dr Farry: I am happy to give the Member that reassurance. I am conscious of the interest of the outgoing Ballymena Borough Council, which, if my lingo is correct, is now Mid and East Antrim Borough Council. I know that it is very keen to work with them. We also highlighted the potential for a critical mass of highly skilled workers, particularly with engineering skills, to come on to the market. As the Member knows, there are engineering companies out there that are keen to recruit. We are seeing what we can do to match workers coming out of JTI with opportunities. Again, we need to be conscious of the timescales in this, because we want to respect the company's ongoing business needs, but I am more than satisfied that there is a full commitment from it to work with us at the appropriate time to make sure that we fully implement the opportunities that are there to assist the workers.

Dr Farry: I welcome the Member's interest in the IT sector. It is a sector with huge potential for the local economy, and it is also one that has grown very significantly over recent years. Indeed, it never really experienced a recession as such, unlike some other areas. We have an ICT working group that brings together universities, colleges, Departments and the business community to map out the needs of the sector. Indeed, a meeting has been scheduled for a couple of weeks to review progress on that.

There is a global shortage of IT skills, so Northern Ireland is not alone in having that particular pressure point, but we have a range of different interventions that we are taking forward. We have seen a significant increase in the number of places at university and an increase in the interest and application rate to them. We announced the rebuilding of the Bernard Crossland Building at Queen's earlier this year to facilitate expansion in that regard. Notwithstanding the cuts that the higher education sector is facing, I am pleased that it has given a commitment to seek to protect narrow STEM subjects, which are of particular relevance to the IT sector.

We are also looking to develop higher-level apprenticeships in IT, and, again, one of our early works under the new strategy is a sectoral partnership on that. We also developed a number of different academies under our Assured Skills programme, working predominantly in the IT sector in areas such as data analytics, cloud computing and software testing. Again, that is proving a very good way of providing, in effect, a conversion course for young people to enter the IT sector.

Obviously, we would like to do more. What is important is that we that we have the resources to do more and that, through careers, we have a good throughput of young people who are interested in skills and careers in this area.

Mr Principal Deputy Speaker: I congratulate the Minister on his appointment and welcome him to his first Question Time as Minister. Question 12 has been withdrawn. We will start with listed questions.

Mr McGimpsey: Mr Principal Deputy Speaker, I join you in welcoming the Minister.

Mr Bell (The Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment): First, I thank you, Mr Principal Deputy Speaker, and Mr McGimpsey for the congratulations.

I am pleased that the latest figures demonstrate that the economic recovery is progressing. That is evident across both short-term and long-term indicators. The claimant count measure, which is best used as a short-term indicator, shows that the number of people claiming unemployment benefits has fallen for the twenty-eighth consecutive month, reducing by 20,500 over that period. The labour force survey, which is best used for examining medium- to long-term trends and making cross-country comparisons, is showing similar improvement, with the current unemployment rate at 6·2%, which is down considerably on its previous high. That same positive trend is also reflected job growth with nearly 30,000 net new jobs added to the local economy since the start of 2012. However, I do not want anybody to feel that I am complacent, despite those positive figures. All of us will recognise that we still have a number of labour market challenges to address.

Mr McGimpsey: I thank the Minister for quoting those figures. Can I quote him two other figures that he omitted? The figure for the economically inactive is the highest in the UK and is up 4,000 from this time last year. Most crucially, our rate of youth unemployment is also the highest in the UK, up 3,000 from last year. Will the Minister undertake to give the same deal to our young people as young people get in Scotland? In Scotland, when young people leave school, they are offered a place in education, training or employment. That way, we will not have an indictment on this House that young people in their hundreds and thousands leave school to go on the dole.

Mr Bell: The Member makes a strong point about our young people that concerns all of us greatly. In terms of economic inactivity, if you look at the European standard measurement, you see that we are slightly below that, and we are slightly below the figure in the Republic of Ireland. I fully accept the concerns that he has expressed.

It will be a joint approach by Minister Farry and me, in conjunction with DSD, the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety and Invest Northern Ireland. We have a strategy called "Enabling Success". That is what we want to do: enable success. To do that, we have to tackle what the Member rightly points out as the high level of economic inactivity here. The strategy will look at how we can reduce the persistently high levels of economic inactivity in Northern Ireland by helping economically inactive groups to make the transition towards and into the labour market. Key within those target groups are the long-term sick, the disabled and those with family commitments. In particular, I have in mind lone parents and carers.

The draft strategy was agreed at the Executive on 16 April and was published by the Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment and the Minister for Employment and Learning on 20 April. Implementation has begun on key points, but I will just give two because I am conscious of the time. We have worked on a competitive pilot testing process to test innovative ways to reduce inactivity, and work has begun to develop the proposed way forward for that process. Secondly, we are establishing and facilitating a strategic forum to oversee the delivery issues, improve coordination and increase public awareness of those who are economically inactive.

Mr Spratt: Can I too be associated with the remarks congratulating my friend the Minister on his new appointment? Since Northern Ireland has had an economic downturn across the whole Province and suffered job losses, what assessment does the Minister have for future job creation in the South Belfast constituency?

Mr Bell: The Member makes his point well, and I thank him for his congratulations. I suppose that South Belfast, like all our constituencies elsewhere in Northern Ireland, was impacted by the downturn. However, I am pleased to say that I believe that things are now moving in the right direction. For example, the latest figures show that there has been a sustained fall in the number of people claiming unemployment benefits in South Belfast since early 2013. That is a fall of almost 1,200, equivalent to a fall of approximately one third.

In light of both the Member's question and what Mr McGimpsey raised about the concerns for young people, it is particularly welcome that we see significant falls in the number of claimants amongst young people aged 18 to 24. They have fallen by more than 600 since the recent peak, and there have been improvements in the number of long-term unemployed — those who have been claiming benefit for 12 months or more. Those numbers have fallen by more than 300 since the recent peak. It is important that the Member raises his constituency, but, when we look at job opportunities and at addressing unemployment in South Belfast, we should not become overly localised. New jobs in any part of the city will create opportunities for people right across the city of Belfast and beyond. I look forward to further progress in those areas.

Mr Bell: First, I believe that the composite economic index provides us with a good short-term measure of how the local economy is performing, in the absence of GDP figures. However, to clarify, this measure does not drive growth; it measures growth. The latest results showed that local economic activity expanded by a relatively modest 1·1% on an annual basis. However, it is pleasing that the growth was driven by the private sector, which posted 2% growth over the year. The index shows that our production sector has been performing particularly well, with services also posting solid growth. While the construction sector is still facing difficulties, I welcome some emerging signs of growth in that sector.

Mr Sheehan: Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-LeasCheann Comhairle. Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as a fhreagra. I thank the Minister for his answer. I also offer my congratulations to the Minister on his recent appointment to his new role.

The economic index shows that local economic growth has been flat in three of the last four quarters. What proposals does the Minister have to ensure that we have sustainable local economic growth?

Mr Bell: I thank the Member for his congratulations. One of the key levers for growth — this is not only what I believe but what the Ulster University economic panel has told us — is to see us develop our corporation tax rate. We simply need a date for when we are going to develop a reduction, and we need the rate to give to businesses. The research is clear: there is a strong economic case for lowering corporation tax. Many Ministers, including the First Minister and deputy First Minister, worked hard to achieve that. If we are to follow the research and reduce the rate to 12·5% in 2017, let us for a moment consider the prize for local economic growth of where we could be: we could create almost 40,000 additional net jobs, and we could see our economy grow by 10%.

In particular, for the West Belfast constituency, I note also that there have been some improvements recently. On an issue that has been a theme in the House, the number of young people aged 18 to 24 who were claiming unemployment benefit in West Belfast has fallen by 900 since the peak.

That is equivalent to almost one half of all young claimants. We have to continue to provide job opportunities, particularly for those young people. Generally, the number of people claiming unemployment benefits in West Belfast since early 2013 has fallen by almost 2,000, which is equivalent to approximately one third.

Mr Dunne: I, too, congratulate the Minister. As a north Down resident, there is no doubt that he will do a good job. Will the Minister give his assessment of the economic impact and the need for political stability in Northern Ireland following the need for a decision on welfare reform?

Mr Bell: The more stability we have, the more we can drive forward the promotion and creation of jobs and build a wonderful future. I know that talks are under way, so I want to be diplomatic in what I say because I want to see those talks reach a successful conclusion and I do not want to see anything that would jeopardise them.

We should all remember where we were in 2011. We set a target to create 25,000 jobs. I was there when that target was lifted from 20,000 to 25,000, because I remember that the First Minister really wanted to drive job creation at that time. We are sitting today with 37,277 jobs; a 49% increase on the target that we set ourselves. We set ourselves a target to have £1 billion of investment, and we have got £2·7 billion of jobs investment; a staggering 167% increase on where we were. We set ourselves a target of £300 million in research and development, and we have delivered £520 million; a 73% increase. We looked for £28 million in the growth loan fund, and we have delivered £30·8 million.

Northern Ireland is very much open for business. We saw the most tremendous Dubai Duty Free Irish Open and the PRO12 rugby final. I spoke to hoteliers in Belfast who had completely sold out back-to-back and were struggling to get people accommodation. We have a great country with great sporting events and an economy that has the potential to grow by almost 10% and deliver some 40,000 new jobs. Friends, that is a prize that none of us can afford to lose.

Mr McKinney: I, too, congratulate the Minister on his recent appointment and I welcome the figures that he just reflected on. However, does he agree that the target figures that he mentioned for corporation tax will not shift us sufficiently from the 66% reliance on the public sector and 34% reliance on a weakened private sector to allow Northern Ireland to stand on its own two feet?

Mr Bell: Unemployment today is at 6·2% and, over the previous four years of this Assembly period, we have, for the vast majority of that time, had lower unemployment per capita in Northern Ireland than the rest of the UK. We have had significantly lower unemployment than the Republic of Ireland. If you take that 6·2% and add to it some of the things that we are trying to do, particularly around growing the tourism industry to a £1 billion industry by 2020 and improving on our golf tourism, think of all of the jobs that will flow from that.

Sometimes, it is important to look at what we have done and where we need to go. Look at the results of just the last year, and I congratulate my predecessor, Invest NI, the Enterprise, Trade and Investment Committee and all the people who worked so hard to deliver all this. In 2014-15, 13,829 jobs were secured. That was the highest ever. We created 9,410 jobs; again, that was the highest ever. We put in £1·4 billion of investment; the highest that we have ever done. We brought 25 new investors for Northern Ireland; again, the highest figure ever. We also got a customer satisfaction rate of 85%; the highest ever recorded.

Northern Ireland is very much open for business. Many of us saw, over the last couple of days, significant investors here for the sporting events taking time to look at what Northern Ireland has to offer. I tell you this: they went away very impressed.

Mr Bell: Under local government reform, local councils now have the responsibility for some local economic development functions. Invest Northern Ireland is a statutory partner in the community planning process and will actively work with a range of stakeholders to address the social and economic issues in the local area. Invest Northern Ireland is also co-funding the development of an integrated economic strategy for the council area.

Mr McCartney: Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-LeasCheann Comhairle. Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as a fhreagra. I thank the Minister for his answer. Indeed, I congratulate him on his recent appointment to the post. The Minister will be aware that the business start-ups that were administered through the local councils have been cut, particularly in neighbourhood renewal areas, where they were of some value. Has the Minister any proposals to alleviate that cut?

Mr Bell: It would be good to take a wee look at where we are for the Member's constituency; I did that in the research to answer his question. The number of new jobs brought to Foyle by Invest Northern Ireland has increased by 156% in five years, from 340 in 2009-2010 to 871 in 2013-14. I congratulate all those in the Foyle constituency who worked so hard to make that a success. Of the 2,496 jobs that were promoted in Foyle during the five years, 1,269 were in locally owned companies and 1,227 in externally owned companies. We have a good balance between locally and externally owned.

The Member raised the point of start-ups. Over the past five years, the regional start initiative (RSI) has offered support to 892 people in the Foyle constituency area, helping them to develop their business plan for a new business. In addition to the RSI, Invest Northern Ireland has offered £1·4 million of assistance to start-up businesses in Foyle over the last five years. Invest Northern Ireland support for business development and investment in the region has been targeted not only at job creation but at other business development activities, such as research and development and skills development. Really, it is all about targeting and underpinning business competitiveness to sustain jobs and eventually lead to what we hope will be growth and more employment opportunities in your area.

Mr Middleton: I thank the Minister for his answers so far and wish him well in his new post. Can the Minister outline — he touched on this in his previous answer — what investment in research and development is being made in the Londonderry and Strabane council area?

Mr Bell: I gave some of the figures for the new jobs that have been promoted. I also gave some of the figures for the start-ups and the investment that has gone in. We will continue with that, right across the board, in Foyle and in East Londonderry, where 904 jobs were promoted in locally owned companies and three in externally owned, while support was provided to 826 people in the East Londonderry constituency as well.

There is a good news story to tell about Londonderry and Strabane specifically. Unfortunately, I do not have a long time to tell it in; I get two minutes. Let us look at two particular areas in the Strabane and Londonderry area. Let us look at Waste Systems Ltd. It designs and manufactures equipment primarily for use in the waste and quarry industries. Since its foundation six years ago, turnover has increased steadily year by year. The company, currently based in Plumbridge, County Tyrone, has secured a number of awards and accolades in recognition of the innovative nature of the product, with virtually all sales being exported outside Northern Ireland. Two grants for research and development offers have been issued to support the development of equipment to separate light waste and stones from a biodegradable product.

The second one that I will briefly touch on is Seagate Technology Ireland. A major research and development project in the area was announced in October 2014. It provides the read/write heads for Seagate's final hard disk drive products. All output from the Springtown plant is supplied to other parts of the Seagate group, mainly in Asia-Pacific areas.

Mr Dallat: May I just add my congratulations to the Minister and tell him that I strongly believe in the old adage that a new brush sweeps clean. The Minister made reference to East Derry. Will he, being that new brush, agree with me that we desperately need an economic task force set up in the north-west to identify the strengths of the region but also to establish why there has been a dearth of potential inward investors to that region, which has been savaged over the last decade, with losses of jobs in industry, textiles and farming?

Mr Bell: I thank the Member for his congratulations. Certainly, if there is anything that we can do for the constituency, my door is open to do that. I will certainly try to encourage and push. Many Members in the House have sat with key investors from right across the world over the past week. They were over for the golf, and we used the time to talk to those investors. Karen McKevitt is shaking her head, and there are many others. We have to let business go where business goes, to a certain extent, but we will certainly try to look towards what we can do to support jobs and job creation.

It is important, because, in East Londonderry, the number of jobs promoted increased by 68% over the past five years. That went from 151 in 2009-2010 to 254 last year. As I said earlier to Mr Middleton, when you take a breakdown of the 907 jobs that were promoted during those five years, you see that, staggeringly, locally owned companies had 904 of those and externally owned companies only had three.

Over the past five years, the regional start initiative has offered support to 826 people in the East Londonderry constituency area to help them develop their plan to develop their new business. In addition to the RSI, Invest Northern Ireland has offered £0·8 million of assistance to start-up businesses in East Londonderry over the last five years. So, the door is open. Let us encourage to build upon what we know are very highly skilled and highly motivated people working in that constituency area.

Mr Bell: New hotel developments may benefit from capital support from Invest Northern Ireland if the promoter can demonstrate that the project is market-driven with the capability of attracting visitors from outside Northern Ireland and not displacing business from similar projects. New hotel projects offering at least 30 rooms may be considered for support. Invest Northern Ireland is happy to engage with any promoter who may meet the criteria for support.

Mr Wells: I join others in welcoming Mr Bell to his position, and I am sure that he will join me in congratulating the previous holder of the position. He is building on a very firm foundation laid by Mrs Foster, who achieved so much in that role. Will he accept that it really is very regrettable that a town the size of Downpatrick does not have a new, large, modern hotel at the moment, and that the issue of displacement does not arise because there is really no provision over a very wide part of east Down?

Will his Department continue to work with those who already have planning approval for a hotel in the town to ensure that this facility, which has been missing for so long, is brought back to the area?

Mr Bell: The Member makes two very good points. First, I thank you for your congratulations to me and my predecessor, Arlene Foster, who did an amazing job. Her record speaks for itself. More jobs were created in that four-year period than in any previous four-year period. We have more foreign direct investment per head of the population than anywhere else in the United Kingdom. The targets that I outlined earlier were passed significantly, which shows the level of competence and professionalism that Mrs Foster gave to the job.

If the Member has a promoter or developer who wants to see me about a hotel, I will certainly work alongside them. We have to keep to the rules that I laid out. It is the same for everybody right across the place. Over the past weekend, south Down in particular showed the very best of what Northern Ireland could be. Not only was it stunningly beautiful but it brought in some of the world's best golfers. Not only did the sell-out crowd of 107,000 behave marvellously but 1,100 volunteers, many from the south Down area and many others from golf clubs across Northern Ireland and further afield, gave of themselves to make that such a success.

On Saturday night, I had a difficult conversation about hotel accommodation with Gerry, Alison and their team, who did a marvellous job with Visit Belfast. We were at the Pro 12 rugby final, and, on the back of that and the hugely successful Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, you simply could not get a hotel space in the Belfast area. That, I think, that will add to the pressure to increase the number of hotels elsewhere.

Mr Hazzard: Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-LeasCheann Comhairle. I, too, congratulate the Minister on his new role. He referred, of course, to the success of the Irish Open. On the back of the recent Irish Open in Portrush, we have seen that whatever north Antrim can do south Down can certainly do better. Unfortunately, in recent years, be it through Invest NI or the tourism bodies, south Down has played second fiddle to areas such as Belfast and north Antrim. Will the Minister now pledge not just to wait for hotel developers to come to his Department and Invest NI but to proactively engage with people and business interests in south Down to build what can be a primary tourist resort not just in the North but in all of Ireland?

Mr Bell: I am more than happy to speak to anybody. The door will be open, and we will make time available. South Down is definitely riding high. Not only do you have one of the world's best golf courses, you have a population and volunteers willing to serve and develop the tourism industry there. I want to build on that. I want to encourage that. That is what this is all about.

I also put on record my congratulations to Minister Ford and Minister Kennedy. In all my life, I do not think that I have ever travelled as easily into Newcastle as I did on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The transport arrangements were fantastic. The security was low-key but brilliant.

A number of us were with South Down MLAs in Montalto House, and we spoke privately to key investors. I would love to tell you just who those people were because you would get an indication of the depth of their ability to promote jobs and boost the economy, but, due to commercial sensitivity, I cannot. Without exception, every person who visited south Down came away overwhelmed by the generosity of its people, its beauty and the fact that not only could you put on a world-class event but you could do so to a world-class standard. Anything that I can do to build on the legacy that the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open has left us — with 107,000 spectators, it must surely rank as the best ever, as far as I am aware — and develop the tourism offering, consider it done.

Mr Principal Deputy Speaker: That ends the periods for listed questions. We now move on to topical questions.

Mr Lyttle: I add my congratulations to the Minister on his recent appointment. I thoroughly enjoyed scrutinising and supporting his work in his former Department and look forward to working with him in his new post. I also add my congratulations to him and everyone involved with the successful Irish Open at the weekend, perhaps in particular to Rory McIlroy for being the ambassador that he has become for this region.

Mr Principal Deputy Speaker: I ask the Member to come to a question.

Mr Bell: I thank the Member for his congratulations. They are much appreciated. He did a tremendous job scrutinising me in my previous role, and I look forward to working with him in future, particularly for East Belfast, which is an area that I love. The one thing that Chris and I share with Rory McIlroy is that we are old school friends. I think that I am the oldest among the three of us, sad to say.

I will address your other point, but I want to address your point about Rory McIlroy first so that it does not get lost. The importance of Rory McIlroy cannot be overestimated. He came in as the world's number one golfer and used all his influence. I talked to many of the other golfers, and I know for a fact that he could have been doing a thousand other things, many of which would have been financially more lucrative, yet he set aside all of those, not only for the Rory Foundation but to bring a top-class list of golfers here. We are indebted to him for what he did.

As to where we need to go in the future, we need to create high-value jobs. I think that that is what the Member was referring to. We have to do that by investing in our research and development and our skills base and by looking to where the key areas for growth are. The Member mentioned tourism, and we are looking towards growing that to a billion-pound industry by 2020. A theme of the question was golf, and we are specifically looking to golf tourism. We are currently bringing in somewhere around £33 million from that, and we want to grow that to £50 million. With the successful Irish Open, a future Irish Open in 2017 and hopefully, if everything works out, the Open in 2019, we are on a trajectory to achieve that.

Mr Lyttle: I thank the Minister for his answer. What impact is the current impasse on welfare reform and the uncertainty over budgets having on the economy and the potential investment that he will be working to achieve in Northern Ireland?

Mr Bell: With talks under way, I hesitate to say anything that could be considered undiplomatic. However, let me say this: I am told that business relies on security and stability. Northern Ireland has been given a unique opportunity to govern itself through these devolved institutions. We have significantly surpassed many of the targets for jobs, investment, research and development and growth loan funds, as I outlined earlier. We have surpassed all of those. We have done that because we have a highly skilled and motivated group of people. We now attract more foreign direct investment per head than any other part of the United Kingdom. One of the key factors behind that is that a significant majority of all the businesses that have invested in Northern Ireland have subsequently reinvested. I can give a sales pitch, but, more and more, I point investors to people who have invested in Northern Ireland and have subsequently reinvested, because that is the ultimate vote of confidence in Northern Ireland, its people and their skills.

We have no option but to come to an agreement.

When we sit with the prize, what will people say if we lose that prize of up to 40,000 jobs and a 10% growth in our economy, something that is in our hands if we can reduce corporation tax? There are some significant businesses that I cannot name that work on a three-year cycle and are ready to start immediately increasing investment in Northern Ireland when we get a date and a rate for corporation tax. Friends, that is very much the way forward.

Mr Bell: Invest Northern Ireland cannot be congratulated highly enough. My predecessor took so much of that work forward. The facts bear repetition because they speak for themselves. When we sat down to create the Programme for Government, we asked Invest Northern Ireland to be strategic and to look for a realistic target that it could achieve. It told us that its target at that stage was 20,000 jobs. I remember that in those discussions with the Executive, and particularly with the First Minister, we said that we wanted a target of 25,000 jobs. We pushed that because we wanted to sweat every asset that we had.

Here we are, in Northern Ireland, with 37,277 jobs — almost a 50% increase on what was meant to have been a very difficult target to achieve. We need to continue with our levels of investment in jobs, and we have done that. We set the target of £1 billion, and I can say today that we have put £2·7 billion in place. That is a 167% increase on investment on where we were before.

One of the key drivers is research and development, for which we set a very competitive target of £300 million; we achieved £520 million. We have been talking to companies; I have been talking to them from early this morning, and they are particularly interested in R&D. We are looking at a 73% increase in R&D on what was meant to have been one of the most difficult targets. There have been difficulties with exports; I do not shy away from that. I will continue to push at that, but we all have to realise that, in exports, if the euro falls 15 points against sterling it will automatically create challenges for our market.

Mr Hilditch: I thank the Minister for his answer so far. Will he update the House specifically on the most recent figures for 2014-15?

Mr Bell: I will give some of them out again. I am happy to reiterate them because they represent the strongest performance that we have ever had. The headline results for 2014-15 show that 13,829 jobs were secured and 9,410 jobs were created — the highest number that we have ever achieved. It is fuelled by investment, and the investment that we made in 2014-15 amounted to £1·4 billion — the highest rate of investment that we have ever achieved.

We are constantly trying to source new investors. Success often follows success, and in 2014-15, 25 new investors, more than we have ever had before, came to Northern Ireland. The important thing is to ensure that the customers and the people whom Invest Northern Ireland serves are satisfied. The latest figures that I have for 2014-15 show that 85% of investors have recorded a customer satisfaction rate for the work that is ongoing. That shows that Northern Ireland is in a very healthy position, and the onus is on all of us to build on it.

Mr Bell: I thank the Member for his congratulations. I visited Belfast International Airport (BIA) as part of a tenth anniversary celebration of the United Airlines route, and it was very productive. When I looked at the number of people from not just the airline industry but the travel industry who were there for that celebration, I thought that it shows just what a critical role Belfast International Airport plays. I met Graham Keddie, and I have met him on a number of occasions subsequently at different events. We will continue to do what we can to support the airport's route development endeavours. We support the international airport through the provision of tourism cooperative marketing assistance for airlines that serve BIA. We also organise Northern Ireland-specific stands at the annual World Routes conference. The next World Routes conference takes place in September in Durban in South Africa.

I was delighted to announce last month that Belfast has been successful in its bid to host Routes Europe 2017. That is a huge opportunity for Northern Ireland, because that is a major conference that brings together decision makers from the airlines, airports and tourism authorities and that gives them an opportunity to negotiate and build relationships that will go on to shape the world's future air routes network. To have that in Belfast is a huge vote of confidence for Belfast. The number of people involved from all around the world will provide a significant boost for our economy. We will work with BIA to develop new routes where feasible.

Mr Clarke: I thank the Minister for that very fulsome answer. I am sure that, given that he is a Minister representing Northern Ireland, the Minister will, like me, be concerned at the flow of traffic leaving this area to go to Dublin Airport. I am sure that you agree with me that more needs to be done to promote Belfast International Airport and to prevent so many of our residents on this side of the border heading south. What more can be done to try to prevent that flow of traffic to Dublin and to keep people here in Belfast?

Mr Bell: My Department is in ongoing dialogue with our airports. We want to attract the routes to destinations that are currently served by Dublin Airport and that could be served directly from Northern Ireland. I think that all of us in the House would want to see direct access to destinations such as Germany, Scandinavia and Canada. That would provide increased choice for Northern Ireland residents, but it would also improve our linkages to important business and inbound tourism.

Support that we, as a Department, provide to Northern Ireland's airports is provided in a range of ways, including the tourism cooperative marketing assistance and organising the Northern Ireland-specific stands at the World Routes conference. We are also scoping the potential for a specific air route development fund for Northern Ireland.

The Member talked about the international airport. I was also delighted, in my first weekend in office, to fly back on the new KLM service from Schiphol. That is hugely successful for what it can offer. I was delighted to talk to many of the representatives of KLM, who gave me an indication that orders into the future were extremely healthy. The level of connectivity is key to growing our economy; having a direct flight into, in that case, George Best Belfast City Airport is huge for business. It gives us direct access to America and the Middle East through Schiphol, as well as return. I regard the continuing development of those air routes vital for our economy, and I intend to keep it fairly top of the in tray.

Mr Principal Deputy Speaker: Mr Trevor Clarke has given notice of a question for urgent oral answer to the Minister for Regional Development. I remind Members that, if they wish to ask a supplementary question, they should continually rise in their seat. The Member who tabled the question will be called automatically to ask a supplementary question.

Mr Kennedy (The Minister for Regional Development): I believe that the important, and very good, announcement I made earlier today on the commencement of phase 2 of the Coleraine to Londonderry rail project is very good news for the north-west and for railways and public transport. The path to today's announcement has not been straightforward, and it has not been without criticism, but I have remained committed to the north-west and to this project. Today is very tangible evidence of that commitment. We successfully delivered phase 1 on time and on budget. The second phase announced today will safeguard the future of the line and enable an hourly service to be run on it.

Translink's profile of capital spend for this project is one third in 2015-16 and two thirds in 2016-17. Translink's corporate plan includes this project in its plans for this year and next. I can reassure the Member that budgets are in place for this year. This project is a key Programme for Government commitment and, accordingly, it will be prioritised next year. I will make the funding available from my departmental capital budget. The Member will know that budgets have not yet been set for next year. As you are aware, the overall cost of £46 million is higher than originally envisaged, but it reflects the real market we are competing in. The project should be substantially completed by December 2016.

Mr Clarke: I thank the Minister for that answer. I also want to put on record my thanks to the Minister for briefing me and the Deputy Chair yesterday on this and other aspects of what is good news for the north-west.

The only bit I am trying to draw attention to today is in relation to the budget. The Minister has outlined the pressures he faces in relation to the £70 million of his capital budget. We went into this project with an estimated £40 million, so there is an extra £6 million in terms of the capital cost. Where is the Minister going to find that additional £6 million? The other alarming part is that his chief accounting officer and the chief executive of Translink have suggested that it does not represent value for money, but you have given them direction to go ahead with it. It is those areas that are concerning me today, Minister.

Mr Kennedy: I am grateful to the Chair of the Committee for his question. This has been a challenging project to deliver, and there have been issues that we have had to deal with. On the overall budget, as I said in my original answer, next year's budget is not fixed. However, the fact is that capital moneys will be allocated to the Department for Regional Development. I made it clear to both the Department and Translink that I see this as a priority scheme. It is a Programme for Government scheme and, therefore, has the priority of not only my Department and Translink but the Executive. I will make preparations for it on that basis.

I remind the Member that the caution of the chief executive of Translink and the permanent secretary of my Department was simply a consequence of their own financial responsibilities. They both agreed that to proceed with this project was the best thing to do, given its importance to the north-west and to transport generally. There is no dispute between me and my permanent secretary or the chief executive of Translink.

Mr Spratt: What has the Minister done in relation to the senior officials in the Department and the senior management in Translink who created the shambles in the first procurement process?

Mr Kennedy: I am grateful to the Member for his question. The Member will know that I instigated a PAR (performance assessment review) report, which is being made available to the members of the Committee for Regional Development. I am also indicating today that a copy of that report will be placed in the Assembly Library for all Members to consider. That deals with the issues.

The original problems were caused by a guesstimate, effectively, which was woefully underestimated at something in the region of £20 million. It is worth saying that this work could never have been completed — the work involved could never have been done — for that sum of money of £20 million. A more realistic assessment was carried out at my behest. We have moved to that situation, and we are now able to progress this important scheme. I think that it is positive as we go forward.

Mr Ó hOisín: Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-LeasCheann Comhairle. Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as a fhreagraí go dtí seo. I thank the Minister for his statement, and I welcome it absolutely. It would be churlish not to do so, but, as you rightly said, Minister, this has not been without its hitches. In fact, phase 2 of the project should have been finished at the end of this month, but it has been allowed to go on. I am worried about the fact that it will not be completed, substantially, by the end of December next year. I also welcome the publication of the project assessment review. I cannot see anything in it that the Committee should not have been supplied with at an earlier date. The one line in the statement that bothers me, in reference to the budget of £46·4 million, is that it has created a difficulty. Will the Minister expand on that?

Mr Kennedy: I am grateful to the Member for his question, and I acknowledge that he has welcomed today's announcement. This is a scheme that there have been challenges in. I believe that the timescale that we are operating to at this point is not that different from the timescale that had been previously hoped for and indicated. That is welcome.

In terms of the capital investment, when I arrived in this Department, the Coleraine/Londonderry line was on a life support machine. There had been insufficient investment, and it was ready, ultimately, for closure. I take pride in the fact that we were able to resurrect it. Lazarus is going to be alive and well here. I hope that that fact can be recognised. I take considerable pride in the fact that it was the Ulster Unionist Party that breathed life into the project and has made it viable. Into the future, people will enjoy the benefit and the additional connectivity that it brings between Belfast and Londonderry.

Mr Dallat: Mr Principal Deputy Speaker, we are talking about the railway, which Michael Palin described as one of the wonders of the world. This is a day for celebration; it is a day when we can all get together and say, "Success." Yes, the Minister is an Ulster Unionist, but I do not mind that, because, since he took over the portfolio, he has invested almost £70 million in this railway. He took it over when, as he said himself, it was on life support. Let us look to the future. Can the Minister assure us that his ambition to create a fit-for-purpose station at Derry which is able to accommodate the increasing number of people from the north-west who are choosing rail as a means of travel is still on target?

Finally, this is not just about the north-west; this is about the railway network of Ireland as a whole. It is a fabulous day for everybody.

Mr Kennedy: I am grateful to the Member for his complimentary remarks. I know that he, personally, has been a long-standing supporter of the retention and upgrading of the line and, in difficult days, has given support to the overall project. I thank him for that. The Member will know that the old Waterside station is a popular option for the potential new transport hub.

Translink is in the process of negotiating about sites and it will take forward a feasibility study. We will also be actively pursuing EU funding sources. There are not sufficient funds available to us to indicate whether it is possible at this stage, but we will pursue options whereby we can make that dream a reality too.

Mr Hussey: I, too, thank the Minister for his announcement. I know that it will be welcomed by my colleagues in the Foyle constituency and the citizens of Londonderry. I have two questions for the Minister. The first relates to phase 1. Has there been an upsurge in the numbers of the public using the line since phase 1 was completed? Secondly, can you give us an indication of when this project will actually start?

Mr Kennedy: I am grateful to the Member and thank him for his encouraging comments. In line with the success of rail in Northern Ireland and the major investment that my Department has put into it, I am pleased that this line has shown considerable increase in usage, even in the current circumstances. The number of journeys last year on the line amounted to something like 2·2 million, which is very considerable indeed and represents a 12% increase on the previous year. To those who doubt the wisdom of investing in this rail project, or indeed of investing in public transport, I think that that answers that. The public wants to use this system but we need to improve and upgrade it. Hopefully, in the future, we will achieve an hourly service because that is what the public needs and demands. The work will begin almost immediately, hopefully later this month, and it will continue through to successful completion by the end of 2016.

Mr Allister: Will the Minister clarify whether this commitment of £46 million encompasses everything that was to be done under phase 2, including the loop connection? If not, how and when is that to be provided?

Mr Kennedy: I am grateful to the Member for his question, and I am happy to confirm that the project includes the provision of the loop service in the Bellarena area. It is a comprehensive project that will meet in full the requirements of phase 2 of this important development.

Mr McNarry: Previously, I have asked the Minister to resign over his lamentable ministerial performances. In the light of him blatantly overriding, in cavalier fashion, advice from his permanent secretary and the Translink CEO by this intention to sink an overspend of £6 million into this project — some might say £26 million in real terms — which is not value for money as they have advised him, will he not resign forthwith?

Mr Kennedy: I am sorry that Mr McNarry has become the Victor Meldrew of this Chamber and can see nothing of a positive nature, particularly, it seems, from his erstwhile colleagues, but we will leave that aside. It might be easy to make hits like that from the luxury of Strangford, but when you need transport connectivity to be improved between Belfast and Londonderry, this is essential work. That is why it was a Programme for Government commitment by the Executive, why it is supported by the vast majority of Members and parties in the Chamber and why, though it has been challenging, we have been able to bring it to a successful conclusion. I have to say that I am disappointed in the ongoing tone adopted by Mr McNarry, which leaves him little more than a Poundworld version of Nigel Farage. [Laughter.]

Mr Easton: I welcome the Minister's statement. It is a good news story for Northern Ireland. In his statement, he mentioned that phase 2 will be substantially completed by 2016. Has it got the potential to go into the 2017-18 financial year? Have there been any other capital schemes that you have had to put back to find the extra £6 million for the project?

Mr Kennedy: I thank the Member for his welcome of the announcement and of the project itself. I very much hope that we can meet the target. Translink and, no doubt, the contractors will be working to achieve the completion date, which we outlined today, of the end of 2016. We have made provision in this financial year, and I have indicated that I am prepared to treat it as a priority in the next financial year. Hopefully that will resolve the issue of finance.

As for other commitments and capital projects, those are brought forward by Translink on an ongoing basis and will be considered in their own right, subject to the availability of funding.

Mr Speaker: Members will take their ease while we get organised at the top Table.

Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 20, 40, 43, 44, 45 and 46.

Mr Lynch: Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. Much of what I had to say was touched on earlier in the debate.

Mr Speaker: Order.

Mr Lynch: Regarding the PIs, the Member who moved the amendments made some very compelling points around the concept of "in the interests of justice". We all want a system that removes avoidable delays, however doing away with PIs completely may not be in the best interests of doing that. There was some debate around the possible exemptions if the amendment is passed, and that is something that the Committee can tease out in further consideration.

Regarding amendment No 20, put forward by the Minister, we support extending the range of matters that can be dealt with by way of video link. However, we must not undermine the effectiveness of the participation of the accused. Single jurisdiction is to allow better coordination of courts, judges and witnesses, thus speeding up the process. The switching of cases can also be in the interests of victims and witnesses, and we also welcome that.

Regarding clause 77, we raise concerns over the process of early pleas and would not want a situation where people unnecessarily plead guilty or vulnerable people are pushed into pleading early without full knowledge of the case and the implications.

Regarding clause 78 and early guilty pleas, I have some sympathy with what Alban Maginness raised earlier for solicitors via client relationship. We are not convinced that it is the statutory duty of a solicitor, and I look forward to the Minister's response and seeing whether he has some compromise position that can be agreed.

Mr Ford (The Minister of Justice): Before I respond to the points made in the debate, I trust I will have the same indulgence as other Members to make a few general points and to start off —

Mr Speaker: You are not even guaranteed that.

Mr Ford: The Deputy Speakers are so much kinder than you, Mr Speaker.

I would like to start off, initially, by thanking the Justice Committee for the very detailed work that it has done in the consideration of the Bill and progressing it to Consideration Stage today. In particular, I thank the previous and current Chairs — Mr Givan, who, unusually, is not here to hear me praise him, and Mr Ross, who is — and the Deputy Chair, Mr McCartney, who has been around throughout. I thank them for their support and commitment in ensuring that such a long and complex Bill with such a large number of amendments was properly scrutinised by the Committee.

It is worth noting that the policy content of the Bill at introduction and my proposed amendments to introduce new policy additions to the Bill have survived the Committee's scrutiny without any significant change, and I am grateful for its support for the vast majority of amendments. I take it as a measure of the success of the hard work that has been done by my officials and their dedication in ensuring that properly developed policy proposals were put to the Committee. Whether or not it is appropriate, I add my thanks to the Committee staff for their reciprocation of that work. There was just one aspect of the Bill that the Committee felt unable to support: the clause that deals with supplementary, incidental, consequential and transitional provisions. We look forward to dealing with that later.

Let me turn to the proposals by Mr Allister and his opposition to three clauses standing part, opposition to schedule 2 and his alternative measures as amendments. This measure was put forward by the Department with the support of the Committee in direct response to the views that had been expressed by victims' organisations about the impact on victims and vulnerable witnesses of often having to give traumatic evidence twice: once at the preliminary investigation or a mixed committal and again at the full trial itself.

Committal is the process that is used to determine whether there is sufficient evidence against a defendant to justify sending them to the Crown Court for trial. It does not determine innocence or guilt; that is the job of the trial in the Crown Court. Mr Maginness referred to the committal process as an important filtering process. When we see that 99·7% or 99·8% of cases progress through the filtering process, it does not seem to me, as it did not seem to the Committee Chair earlier, that there is much of a significant filter.

At present, as Members have said, committal can occur in two ways: either the preliminary investigation (PI), in which witnesses give evidence and are cross-examined, or a preliminary enquiry (PE), where the judge in the Magistrates' Court decides if there is sufficient evidence to commit the defendant solely on the basis of the examination of the papers. We also have mixed committals, which essentially are a combination of both approaches, with some people being subjected to questioning.

Mr Allister suggested that there would be a potential saving of resources in a number of cases — it appears to be a very small number of cases — that might not proceed to full trial if we continue to maintain PIs and mixed committals, but the reality is that they are, in themselves, resource-intensive. Frequently and generally, counsel are instructed, sittings have to be arranged and slotted into court timetables, witnesses have to be called and there is an estimate that it adds significant time to the process.

Clauses 7 and 8 would abolish PIs and mixed committals, meaning that all committal proceedings would take place by way of PE. It is worth noting, however, that, although it would be no longer possible to require witnesses to give oral evidence, there are safeguards built into the process that would protect the interests of the defendant. Mr Allister acknowledged that the vast majority of cases proceed by PE. In fact, what needs to be taken account of is that many of them will have started off as PIs and become PEs only during the process, with witnesses having been summoned and potentially vulnerable victims and witnesses subjected to a degree of concern. Then, on the day itself, they may not have to give evidence but will have had all the concerns about potentially having to do that. In the PE process, the defendant would still be able to make representations on their own behalf that could include making a submission to the court that there is insufficient evidence to return him for trial. The decision on the sufficiency of evidence is a judicial one, and, where the judge believes that the evidence is inadequate, the defendant can be discharged at that stage. Furthermore, as has been highlighted, if the defendant is committed for trial, he would still be entitled to make an application for a "no bill" to the Crown Court to be discharged before arraignment. Of course, as I said earlier, importantly, the Crown Court determines the sufficiency of all the evidence against the defendant in determining innocence or guilt beyond all reasonable doubt. Mr Allister's amendments would essentially retain preliminary investigations and mixed committals where they were required in what he has termed the "interests of justice", but I believe that the amendments are unnecessary because the safeguards that I have just outlined already uphold the defendant's rights to a high standard.

I listened carefully during this section of the debate to the comments from Mr Allister and Mr Maginness. At particular times, we need to take account of those in the House who have legal experience, but we do not have to go with them entirely. Mr Maginness described Mr Allister as representing the "Traditional Legal Voice", although from his words it is clear that there are two members of the "Traditional Legal Voice" in the House. For me, the fundamental question is this: do we go with the work that the Committee has done over the last five years on protecting victims and witnesses, or do we go with the "Traditional Legal Voice"? Mr Speaker, I know whose side I am on in that debate.

Mr McCartney: Will the Minister give way?

Mr Ford: I will give way.

Mr McCartney: I was part of the process in the Committee over those five years and do not consider myself as having any legal voice, but I think that there are merits in the amendments.

Mr Ford: I hear Mr McCartney say that he sees merits, but I see demerits. I see the danger that vulnerable witnesses and victims will be put into court twice and subjected to questioning. That does nothing to enhance the interests of justice. If it puts people off giving evidence at a Crown Court trial, it is damaging to justice, and that was the clear evidence from bodies such as Victim Support, an organisation with experience of supporting people in court.

All too often, as I said, the experience in the courts is that cases scheduled for PI or mixed committal proceed on the day as a PE without calling oral evidence because the evidence in the papers is not disputed. However, the distress to victims and witnesses who have been preparing to give oral evidence in difficult circumstances has occurred. I do not believe that the hardship faced by victims and witnesses in circumstances where they may be required twice, at committal and again at trial, to give evidence that is often — frequently — traumatic is in the interests of justice. The evidence has to be presented at trial; it does not need to be tested.

Mr Ross clearly highlighted the fact that the key issue for the Committee, from its first independent inquiry, has been to ensure that victims and witnesses are treated properly and fairly in the court system. Mr Maginness said that we might need to find some other way of protecting victims and witnesses, but none of those who have spoken against my proposals and in support of Mr Allister's amendments have explained to the House today what further protections there could be if we were to require vulnerable victims and witnesses to appear in court twice. We have no indication of how we will protect them, and nothing has been put forward today to suggest how that could be done.

The reality is that PIs were abolished in the Republic of Ireland in 2001. Abolition started in England and Wales that same year and was completed a decade later, and there is no suggestion that there has been a serious impact on the interests of justice in those two jurisdictions. We are not going as far as England and Wales. We are continuing to protect PEs, and we are continuing to give the circumstance that a judge will have to consider matters on the papers, and the defendant will have the right to put his case at a PE. That is significantly greater protection than is the case in the two most equal neighbouring jurisdictions.

I believe that clauses 7, 8 and 9 as proposed strike the appropriate balance between upholding the rights of the defendant and protecting the needs of vulnerable victims. Surely, that is the interest of justice that really matters to the people whom we represent. That is what we want to see, not people being subjected to the kind of cross-questioning that leads to some withdrawing their evidence before it gets to the Crown Court because of the way in which they have been treated.

We can talk all we like about district judges in the Magistrates' Court having to determine what is the interest of justice when it comes up, but I think it very unlikely that any district judge presented with a barrister standing up and saying, "In the interests of justice, I want a PI", will find it easy to resist such a pressure. There is little evidence to suggest that that kind of pressure is easily resisted. Therefore, what is being talked about today as an exception is likely to become the rule. In fact, it could even exist in a greater number than is currently the case.

I also noted one comment made by Mr Allister. I wrote it down, and I hope that it is accurate. No doubt, Hansard will tell.

He referred to the concept of a PI not questioning everybody and said that "One wanted to ... go for the key witnesses".

"Going for people" could have a couple of different meanings, and, sadly, the wrong meaning is what many who are victims consider to be the way in which they are treated by opposing barristers. If they have to do that once, they should not have to do it twice. On that basis, I ask the House to support clauses 7, 8 and 9 as they exist and schedule 2. I certainly will not be supporting amendment Nos 1 and 2, and I request the House to reject them.

Let me turn to some of the other amendments that are in the group.

Mr Elliott: Will the Minister give way?

Mr Ford: I will give way.

Mr Elliott: The Minister said that he will not be supporting Mr Allister's amendments. Does he or does he not believe that Mr Allister's amendments are a halfway house between what is currently in legislation and what is being proposed in the Bill?

Mr Ford: Mr Elliott asks an entirely reasonable question. It seems to me that what is being proposed by Mr Allister is, in effect, maintaining exactly the current position. The halfway house is what I am proposing: to keep PEs and not go the whole hog and abolish any committal hearing, as has happened in England and Wales, but instead remove the opportunity for PIs. That is the halfway house. That allows the defendant to make the case. The case has to be put on paper, but there is not the opportunity for witnesses to be put in a very difficult position twice in court, and that is the fundamental issue that I am concerned about: to protect vulnerable people from the effects of having to go into court twice, when they are the people who are dealing with traumatic situations.

Mr A Maginness: Will the Minister give way?

Mr Ford: I will.

Mr A Maginness: I am not suggesting in any way that the Minister is misleading anybody in the House, but to say that it is a halfway house is wrong, insofar as there is the total abolition of any exercise for testing, cross-examining or examining-in-chief a witness. That goes completely. Therefore, in that sense, what you are proposing cannot be considered to be a halfway house. Effectively, from now on in, if the clause were to pass, what you are proposing would be totally a paper exercise. Mr Allister is suggesting that that does not meet the justice of the case, as it were, so that, in fact, there is an opportunity — admittedly, a very limited opportunity — for a witness or some witnesses to be examined.

Mr Ford: I am afraid that I have to continue to disagree with "Traditional Legal Voice". As far as I am concerned, the papers are still examined and the defendant still has the opportunity to make representations to the district judge, and all that is removed is the opportunity to cross-question witnesses. That seems to me to be a halfway house when compared with total abolition. Mr Maginness said that we are abolishing the right to call witnesses, and he is absolutely correct in that. However, that is all that we are taking away from the normal committal procedures that have existed in this jurisdiction, as opposed to the complete abolition of committal procedures that exist in the two adjacent closest jurisdictions — the Republic and England and Wales. I am afraid that, whilst we might debate whether it is partial — 50%, 53%, or whatever — I believe that the procedures that I am putting forward are, in Mr Elliott's terms, near enough to the halfway house.

Mr Ross: I thank the Minister for giving way. The Minister, as I have, will have heard many Members talk about the absolute importance of putting victims at the heart of the criminal justice system. Is it not the case that what the Minister is proposing today came out of a piece of work that the Committee did after it had listened to what victims and witnesses told the Committee to do, which was to try to bring about a system of justice that protects victims from being traumatised — potentially twice — and going through a mini trial before the trial? Actually, Members pay lip service to putting victims at the centre of the criminal justice system. When it comes to having the opportunity to do that and to make changes that will stick up for victims, Members, if they support the amendments today, are not going to be doing that and are in fact not listening to any of the evidence that the Committee took during the past number of months.

Mr Ford: I could not put it better than the Committee Chair has put it. I noticed, whilst he was speaking, that the first Committee Chair, Lord Morrow, sat behind him. He will remember the work that was done in the first Committee, shortly after devolution, when the prioritisation of work by the Committee was on how we dealt with victims and witnesses. Work being done in the Department was taken over by the Committee, which produced a comprehensive report that the Department accepted and sought to put in place.

Unfortunately, if Mr Allister and Mr Maginness are listened to today, we will undo that work entirely and send out a very dangerous message. Since nobody else seems to wish to intervene at that point, let me seek to make progress and look at my amendments on the committal for trial provisions in Part 2.

Amendment No 3 inserts new clause 12A to supplement the existing provisions for direct committal in chapter 2 to provide for the direct committal for trial of any associated co-defendants. In evidence to the Justice Committee, the Public Prosecution Service indicated that, where a person is to be directly committed under clause 12, it would be necessary, in the interests of justice, to allow for the direct committal of any co-defendants who are charged with offences related to a specified offence so that all defendants may be tried together. As a consequence of new clause 12A, there are some minor textual amendments to clause 14, which are delivered by amendment Nos 4 and 5.

Similar amendments that include references to new clause 12A are also required to schedule 3 in a number of places. Those are amendment Nos 61 to 67, and I take it that they are acceptable to the House since they do not seem to have been mentioned.

A number of Members spoke about live links, and many spoke in support of amendment No 20, which relates to the Bill’s provisions to enhance live links in courts. That amendment places a requirement on courts to adjourn proceedings for failure to comply with certain orders or licence conditions, where the offender attending by live link cannot see or hear the court or be seen or heard by it and that cannot be corrected immediately.

The Bill provides for that safeguard in relation to committal proceedings in clause 44 and live links from another courtroom at weekends and on public holidays in clause 45. That is part of enhancing the operating of the court system, particularly taking account of the single jurisdiction. The amendment does not involve any change of policy: it corrects an oversight and ensures consistency with other live-link provisions in the Bill.

Amendment No 40 adjusts clause 78 regarding the duty on a solicitor to advise a client about an early guilty plea at the suggestion of the Attorney General. It certainly appears that in this case the Attorney General does not belong to "Traditional Legal Voice", because his advice was to go with clause 78 and this amendment and not oppose it, as was advised by our two in-house barristers. The Attorney General helpfully commented on the clause to suggest that, as it already sets out the nature of the duty on the solicitor together with the penalty for non-compliance, clause 78(3), which provides that the Law Society must make regulations with respect to the giving of advice, could be omitted.

Mr Maginness spoke at some length against clause 78(4), and there may be issues there that we could reconsider at Further Consideration Stage, but he did not seem to make a case against the entire clause. There is no doubt that if we wish to encourage people to make early guilty pleas when they are guilty and to avail of the benefits that will result from doing so, it is important that we make it absolutely clear to their legal representatives that they have a duty to inform those who are charged with offences of the position that they are in. Indeed, too often we see cases where pleas of guilty are entered at the door of the court, with all the cost that that has for the justice system. In such cases, there are no benefits for the defendant if matters have been postponed to that date.

So, the clause is part of the Bill as a result of a suggestion that was made by the Justice Committee when this policy was examined and my officials briefed it in 2012. In addition, Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland previously commented that such a provision would be helpful in encouraging early guilty pleas. It is a matter that is well worth consideration, and if there are details, particularly about clause 78(4), that Mr Maginness wishes to discuss with me between now and Further Consideration Stage, I am happy for that to happen.

The final amendments in the group are amendment Nos 43 to 46, which make adjustments to the regulation-making powers in clauses 79 and 80 to reflect comments and advice from the Examiner of Statutory Rules, following his scrutiny of the Bill’s delegated powers memorandum.

Clause 79 and clause 80 provide that the Department may make regulations to impose a general duty on persons exercising functions in relation to criminal proceedings to reach a just outcome as swiftly as possible and to make regulations in relation to the management and conduct of criminal proceedings. The Examiner questioned whether two sets of regulations were, in fact, necessary and suggested that the regulation-making powers be combined. The Examiner also suggested that the case-management regulations might be made following consultation with the Lord Chief Justice, the Public Prosecution Service, the Law Society and the Bar Council.

Mr Allister expressed concerns about the possible effect on juries and asked whether this was something that would put pressure on the way that juries considered verdicts. Like Mr Ross, I do not believe that that would be the effect of this regulation. It is most certainly not the intention, but I am happy to give the House an assurance that I will examine the matter further with my officials. If there is a need for an amendment to deal at Further Consideration Stage with the specific issues of juries, I will bring that forward, subject, of course, to Executive approval, unless the Committee does it for me. The fundamental point that Mr Allister or certainly one Member made about ensuring that professionals should be subject to that requirement is absolutely right, because it is part of the process of speeding up justice.

The amendments that are proposed to clauses 79 and 80 are intended to give effect to the Examiner’s comments, and I am grateful to him for his suggestions. I believe that they move us into a better place, subject to the proviso of that subsection 4, which I will happily look at, if it is subsequently required.

In the context of this group, I am happy to commend the amendments in my name to the House, but I ask Members to reject the proposals that are put forward by Mr Allister, as I do not believe that his amendments are actually required in the interests of justice, and I fundamentally believe that there is a very real danger that, by putting pressure on victims and witnesses, they could damage the interests of justice.

Mr Allister: This has been a good and informative debate. I am grateful, as a single Member of the House, that the amendments that I tabled have been discussed in the manner in which they have and that they appear to have gained some traction during the discussion. I regret that the Minister does not seem to have caught the mood of the House in that regard and still clings to propositions that I think many in the House are now questioning.

I think that one's confidence in the Minister's grasp of the issue was considerably undermined when he told the House in answer to Mr Elliott that, in fact, the effect of my amendments was to maintain the current position. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am staggered by the Minister's lack of knowledge of the import of section 31 of the Magistrates’ Courts Act. Under the Magistrates’ Courts Act, the starting point is a PI, and section 31 says that, if the prosecution requests a PE and the accused does not object, a PE takes place. So, the current position is that the accused has a veto on a PE, and the norm is a PI unless everyone agrees otherwise.

Mr Ford: I appreciate Mr Allister giving way. My point was that, in circumstances where a district judge is presented with a barrister saying that, in the interests of justice, they are looking for a PI, my belief is that that is very strongly likely to result in a PI being held, because it will be extremely difficult for any judge to resist something that is claimed in the interests of justice. Whilst I acknowledge that the starting point, which is Mr Allister's point, may be different, the practical effect will mean that there will be virtually no difference from the present stage.

Mr Allister: I think that the Minister is now raising a different point. That is not the point that I am dealing with. The Minister said that the effect of my amendments was to maintain the current position. I am making it plain that the current position starts on the presumption of a PI, and only if the accused does not object can it proceed to a PE. That is light years away from both the Bill and my amendments, because the amendments are premised on the presumption that you will have a PE and nothing else. Only in circumstances where the defence could make a case for something else and persuade the presiding judge of the need for that in the interests of justice would you have something other than a PE, a committal, on the papers. That is light years away from the current position under the Magistrates' Courts (Northern Ireland) Order 1981. Therefore, it is wrong for the Minister to suggest that these amendments want to only continue the present position.

As to having a barrister or solicitor say to a judge that, in the interests of justice, they want a PI or a mixed committal, and that the judge will simply roll over; well, I have probably been in more courts than the Minister has, and I have yet to meet judges who would just roll over like that. They will be searching, they will be wanting to be persuaded on those issues, and they will not be easily persuaded. To simply put in the legislation that something is required in the interests of justice does not mean that, if a solicitor or a barrister were to stand up and say that to the magistrate, it would be accepted. The professional legal representative would have to lay out a case, argue why it is against the norm, in the interests of justice, and convince the court. That is not an easy process, because the presumption is against: that the norm is a PI committal on the papers. What I am proposing is radically different from what the Minister sought to represent it as.

I want to pick up a few other points made in the debate. The Chairman of the Committee indicated that this was very much the desire of the PPS. I am sure that it is. I am sure that the prosecuting authorities would like to cut out this vital part of the criminal justice system, but justice is not just about the prosecution. Justice is also about the defence. I think that some Members in the debate have lost sight of the fact that, when the state is involved in the process of bringing someone to court, which could result in that citizen losing their liberty, then there are big issues at stake. It is not just a matter of saying that we are interested only in the prosecution and that, if the prosecution says that this is the way to go, that is good enough for us.

Equally, it is not the case that we are interested only in the perceived victim of a crime. Yes, victims of crimes are very important, but the whole thrust and purpose of the criminal justice process is to see whether they are victims, whether there is a crime, and whether someone who is accused is guilty. To steamroll over that and say that we must abandon any protections for the defence, or that we must ignore all of that in the interests of victims, might be understandable at one level, but it is disproportionate in its application.

This House, this Justice Bill and this Justice Minister need to have regard to all within the justice field. That includes the citizens of this community who stand on the wrong side of the prosecution and who are being prosecuted. You cannot simply say that you are only interested in devising a system that protects and promotes the interests of the prosecution. If you do so, then you arrive at a criminal justice system that will bring itself into disrepute. People who are then convicted will have cause to ask, "What sort of a system was it that convicted me?".

The system has to be foolproof and protective of the interests of all in order to be a worthy system. I totally understand the need to protect victims, but you also need a criminal justice system that protects the interests of all, including those who are innocent until proven guilty. That is something that some people are very quick to forget. We all — whoever we are, whatever we are accused of — are innocent until proven guilty, and there can be no shortcuts. There should be no shortcuts in the process that eventually delivers a due verdict of guilty. Once you start making shortcuts, you undermine our criminal justice system, which lies at the heart of society, ensuring that the innocent are protected and the guilty do not go free. It seems to me that there has been such a rush to abandon some of these tried and trusted processes that we are in danger of losing sight of that.

Mr Dickson told us, "You still have your PE." At the risk of repeating myself, what is a PE? A PE is a presentation of the prosecution case, unfiltered and unchallenged, including witness statements written at their height by police officers to present the case in the strongest possible light, with no one ever having sifted or tested any of it. That is what you get served up in a PE: the papers in that form. Provided it shows a prima facie case — just a prima facie case — you are returned automatically for trial. Someone else said, "You can make a no bill application." Well, a no bill application rests on precisely the same premise, namely that there is not a prima facie case, the only difference being that it is a Crown Court judge rather than a magistrate who decides. He decides it on the papers, not on the hearing of evidence.

The Minister gave figures on cases to Lord Morrow in a recent written answer. I heard him quote other figures in interventions, but they do not seem to square with the figures he gave in that reply to AQW 44580/11-15, where he said that of 78 PI mixed committals in 2014-15, 18 resulted in no return. A quarter of the cases did not result in return. That is a quarter of that minuscule number of cases, and some would say to this House, "Never mind the fact that there was not sufficient evidence to return them for trial. Just return them anyway." I do not think that is a right and proper approach to justice in any society. If you have built into a system the preliminary hurdle of a PE/mixed committal/PI, such as we have had, then you should be slow to wash it all away.

The House has the opportunity in these amendments to take a measured, modest middle road and say that, yes, the norm is a committal on the papers — a PE — but if the interests of justice cry out for a testing of evidence, because there is a prima facie case that a witness may well be a liar, with convictions for perjury or whatever, then rather than brush that under the carpet, the magistrate should be able to be persuaded that he needs to hear that witness if he is to know whether he would do the right thing in returning the defendant for trial on the say-so — the untested, unsworn say-so — the mere written statement of such a person, when he has before him evidence that challenges that person's fundamental bona fides. Surely the magistrate should be in a position to say, "Right, we need to hear that witness, and I will decide, as the magistrate, whether that witness is believable." That happened recently in a case in Craigavon. A prosecution was brought and a witness known to the defence to be riddled with inconsistencies was prevailed upon through the mixed committal process to be cross-examined. The evidence fell apart, and three people who were going to be returned for trial were, rightly, instantly discharged. Yet, the Minister would say to us, "Never mind all that; just commit them for trial." That is wrong, and I believe that it is wrong for the House to hand away that basic but very modest shield, which protects against situations such as that. That is why I say to the House that it is right to go for the retention of that modest aspect of mixed committals and PIs.

Mr Elliott: I thank the Member for giving way. There has been some discussion throughout the debate on this group around vulnerable witnesses, and I wonder whether the Member has given any thought to that. He replied to Mr McCartney at an earlier stage, but I wonder whether he has given any thought to vulnerable witnesses and how that could be built into his proposals.

Mr Allister: Yes, I have been giving some thought to that. I am not sure that I have got the answer, but I reiterate a point that I made to Mr McCartney, which is that you only get to that point if you approve the amendments and then try to improve on them at Further Consideration Stage. If you reject the amendments, of course, there is no protection whatsoever for recourse to mixed committals for anyone.

On the question of how you would protect vulnerable witnesses from the ordeal, and yes, it can be an ordeal, of possibly being cross-examined twice, it might be possible at Further Consideration Stage — I am sure that the Department would be more than capable of coming up with language that would capture the spirit of this — to add to the amendment as it presently stands, which states that it:

It may be possible to add a rider to that to the effect that, in the case of a vulnerable witness, that could happen only in exceptional circumstances, so that you would have two hurdles for the defence to cross if they were seeking to have a mixed committal. You would have the hurdle of demonstrating that it was in the interests of justice. I make the point that I made to Mr McCartney: the condition of that witness would itself be a matter informing the balancing exercise on what is in the interests of justice. It might be possible to supplement that further by making it plain on the face of the Bill that only in very exceptional circumstances would there be an expectation that a vulnerable witness, defined in whatever manner, would be subjected to this process, if that is a genuine concern. For some, it might be. I think that it is not beyond the ingenuity of the Department, if these amendments pass and if there is a feeling in the House that a little more needs to be done in that regard, to find wording to that effect. I certainly think that there are possibilities there.

Mr Douglas: Will the Member give way?

Mr Allister: Yes.

Mr Douglas: Earlier, the Member mentioned that the prosecution would keep its powder dry. Will you just explain to the House what that means?

Mr Allister: In fact, I said that the defence would keep their powder dry. It might be surprising to some that, since the presumption in the Magistrates' Courts Order is of a preliminary investigation, namely the calling of evidence, there is such acquiescence in there just being a committal on the papers in 98% or 99% of the cases.

There could be a couple of reasons for that. One might be that since the threshold to be returned for trial is not that you can demonstrate proof beyond all reasonable doubt, but just that you can demonstrate a prima facie case, that is not very hard to do. The defence might well take the view that they can ultimately win the case by showing that there is not proof beyond reasonable doubt, but, on these papers, there is a prima facie case, so there is no point. Or they might take the view that if they have the witness called and cross-examined now, and do not succeed in stopping the case at this time, they will have forewarned the prosecution witnesses as to their line of attack and therefore it might be more prudent for the defence to keep their powder dry. That is what I meant. That is one of the reasons why, though the premise of the Magistrates' Courts Order is that PI is the starting point, in reality, there are very few PIs; because of those considerations. I think that the Minister said that 99·8% of cases progress to trial. If that is so, what is he afraid of? If these amendments are so minuscule in their impact, what is he resisting? I really do find it hard to believe that anyone would think that it was a retrograde step to write into legislation that something can be done "in the interests of justice". Is it not the interests of justice that we want to serve in our criminal justice system?

Mr Ford: I thank the Member for giving way again. A few minutes ago, he mentioned vulnerable witnesses, however defined. I wonder whether he could give us some thoughts as to how they might be defined in the context of a Magistrates' Court hearing.

I will digress by way of an example. Some four and a half years ago, while I was Minister of Justice and had faced a certain amount of questioning in this place, I was a witness in a civil case in the High Court. I must say that even in that context, as Minister of Justice, I felt just a little vulnerable when I was being subjected to questioning by an opposing QC. I am not sure, however, that I would have qualified as "vulnerable" in any sense of the term. I acknowledge that we are talking here about preliminary hearings in criminal cases, not civil cases. I wonder what thoughts Mr Allister, who says that a vulnerable witness could be however defined, might have about the definition.

Mr Allister: I would have thought that the definition might be rooted in one or two alternative possibilities. You might root it in the nature of the charge, be it incest, a serious sex charge or whatever. You might root it in facts which could be put before the court about the actual vulnerability of the witness. That might include medical evidence etc. There are possibilities on which, if Members of the House had concerns about that, the Department could assist in how you would frame that. Those seem to me to be the two avenues that you would look at; the type of case it is, because there seems to be most concern about the serious sex cases, or the nature of the personal circumstances of the witness themselves.

My own view, for what it is worth, is that all of that can be adequately catered for in the test "in the interests of justice", but if the House thinks otherwise, at a future stage, namely the Further Consideration Stage, it can refine that further. Personally, I think that "in the interests of justice" is wide enough to enable arguments to be made by the prosecution. It is not just the defence who have a say in these applications: the prosecution equally has a say to go for a mixed committal, for example. The prosecution equally would be able to bring forward reasons why it would not be in the interests of justice. That might include the matters that are taxing some people's minds in this debate.

If we are talking about something being hedged around by the prerequisite of everything being done in the interests of justice, what we are fearful of? That is the essence of the amendments: that you could only depart from the norm of your committal on paper by the PE process in the interests of justice. Surely our criminal justice system should, above all else, be serving the interests of justice. On that basis, I recommend the amendments to the House.

Mr Speaker: Members should note that, as amendment No 1 is mutually exclusive with clause 7 standing part, should clause 7 stand part, I will not call amendment No 1. Before I put the Question, I remind Members that we have debated Mr Allister’s opposition to clause 7, but that the Question will be put in the positive as usual.

Mr Speaker: Members should note that, as the Questions on clause 8 stand part and amendment No 2 are mutually exclusive, should clause 8 stand part, I will not call amendment No 2.

Mr Speaker: We now come to the second group of amendments for debate. This group comprises amendments proposing administrative measures to protect and make disclosures or share information in respect of vulnerable groups. Schemes proposed would allow the police to disclose previous patterns of offending to members of the public about domestic violence and child sexual offences and allow interagency sharing of information to better victim support and safeguarding.

With amendment No 6, it will be convenient to debate amendment Nos 7 to 11, 17, 19, 21 to 29 and 68. Amendment No 10 is consequential to amendment Nos 7, 8 and 9, amendments Nos 22 to 29 are consequential to amendment No 21, and amendment No 68 is consequential to amendment No 11.

Mrs D Kelly: I beg to move amendment No 6:

Mrs D Kelly: I am pleased to move the second group of amendments and to welcome this opportunity to outline the SDLP amendments regarding domestic violence. I would like to begin by putting on record my thanks to Women's Aid Northern Ireland for its advice on and insight into the tremendous work that it does to help victims of domestic abuse and for their help in tabling these amendments. I would also like to express sincere gratitude in particular to Aoibhinn in the Bill Office for her hard work and support in helping to draft these amendments and also, of course, to our own party policy staff.

Domestic abuse can affect anyone regardless of socioeconomic status, gender, religion, age, race or sexuality. However, whilst there are increasing reported incidents of males suffering domestic violence and people in same-sex relationships also suffering domestic violence, the vast majority of victims of domestic abuse are women and the perpetrators men.

Domestic abuse thrives on happening in private, but it is a matter of public concern. On average, here, in Northern Ireland, five women lose their life to domestic violence each year. PSNI statistics indicate that 27,628 domestic violence incidents and 12,720 abuse crimes were reported in 2013-14. In fact, Mr Speaker, an incidence of domestic violence is reported to the police every 19 minutes. That works out, on average, at over 400 incidents per week. It is estimated that one in four women will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime, and it accounts for approximately one fifth of all recorded violent crime in Northern Ireland. I repeat: one fifth of all recorded violent crime is committed by someone the victim should be able to trust, and often in the place in which the victim should feel safest of all — their home.

Victims and survivors of domestic violence may endure the most horrific sexual and physical violence. According to police statistics, there are, on average, 35 previous experiences of domestic violence by one victim before they actually make that call for help.

In England and Wales, it is estimated that two women die at the hands of a former or current partner. They are women like Clare Wood, for example, whose murder triggered the introduction of Clare's law in England and Wales. It is a domestic violence disclosure scheme that we want to see established in Northern Ireland. I think we have to ask ourselves why women here should not have the same protections afforded to them as women in other regions in these islands do.

I think it is fair to say that the majority of people now recognise that domestic abuse is not exclusively sexual or violent. It can be psychological, involving controlling and coercive behaviour, and it can involve financial manipulation through denying someone economic independence. That is intended to make someone feel utterly hopeless and worthless. Mental and emotional torture that reduces a person to a shadow of themselves is abuse in itself, but, as well as that, it often precedes violent and physical abuse. Indeed, one would say it is characteristic of the grooming that many women experience before that first physical attack.

Whilst attitudes around domestic violence have progressed, they have not progressed far enough. When faced with incidents of domestic abuse, many people ask, "Why doesn't she leave?" rather than, "Why does he do it?", or even, "How does he get away with it?". Only last week, I dealt with a case, in my constituency office, of domestic violence. I am sure each of you, in your constituency offices, have had to help victims get rehousing, psychological counselling or help with their financial circumstances.

We in the SDLP saw the Bill as an opportunity to introduce the provisions that would provide greater protections for those suffering domestic violence and those at risk of domestic abuse. Our amendments would see the introduction of domestic violence protection orders and notices and, indeed, Clare's law in Northern Ireland.

Our first amendment, amendment No 21, was drafted to ensure that prosecutorial fines could not be issued in lieu of appearing in court for a domestic abuse offence. Such fines would not only belittle the seriousness of domestic abuse, but, possibly, harm someone who is a victim of financial abuse and who, ultimately, would face this cost, and it would make the implementation of a disclosure scheme more difficult. If the Minister can assure us that domestic violence offences will not be subject to prosecutorial fines, we are satisfied that this does not need to be included in the Bill.

Mr A Maginness: That is amendment No 6.

Mrs D Kelly: Sorry, that refers to amendment No 6, the first amendment in the group.

I will elaborate on our other amendments. A domestic violence protection notice enables police to ban a perpetrator from returning to their home and from having contact with a victim of domestic abuse for up to 48 hours after —

Mr Ross: I thank the Member for giving way. I come at this from a sympathetic point of view, and I just want to tease out an issue which I think is relevant, particularly when we talk about domestic violence protection orders. I know that the wording in the amendment is on "reasonable grounds" but this is quite a big power that allows the police to potentially remove somebody from their home before they have been convicted of any offence. The Member has rightly pointed out that not all domestic violence is sexual or violent abuse, so I wonder where she sees the threshold or the need for any evidential base for the police to issue such an order, and how we ensure that these sorts of things are not abused by people who, potentially, could be in a difficult relationship which is not actually suffering from domestic abuse. It could, potentially, be abused as a way to remove a man from a house.

Mrs D Kelly: Thank you for that intervention. The introduction of these schemes in England and Wales has been piloted, in particular, in three areas in England. There is a very helpful Home Office report available, which looked at the schemes and evaluated them. Almost 6,000 such orders were applied for, and only two were turned down. The constable who is called out to the scene has to get the domestic violence protection order approved by a senior officer — that is, a superintendent. The order is only used where there are no other enforceable restrictions available to the police, so I believe that there are safeguards, and it ought not to be willy-nilly.

In addition to the evaluation report following the pilot schemes in England, it was recommended that training should be provided for police officers and magistrates in applying such schemes. It is my hope and, I am sure, the intention of the PSNI and the Department of Justice to ensure that such training is provided. I have spoken to police officers in preparation for today's debate and in tabling the amendments, and the police would welcome having these resources available to them to better protect women in society, so I am satisfied that there are adequate safeguards.

The domestic violence protection notice lasts for 48 hours, and then application has to be made to the Magistrates' Court for a notice lasting up to 28 days. The whole intent behind the notices and orders is to support victims who might otherwise have had to flee their homes and to give them a breathing space to access support and consider the options available to them.

If it helps Members to set it in some form of context, in the year 2013-14, over 700 families had to be rehoused as a consequence of domestic violence. The introduction of these orders would mean that the perpetrator is the person who has to leave the home, and not the family. In addition, that time allows the victim to access Women's Aid or other support services to help them make the decision that is right for them for their future well-being and that of their family.

In 2010, Criminal Justice Inspection undertook a review of the way that domestic violence and abuse cases are handled by the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland, and it made a number of recommendations, including the introduction of domestic violence protection orders and notices, so it already has the support of the criminal justice inspectorate in Northern Ireland.

In March 2014, a domestic violence disclosure scheme, more commonly known as Clare's law, was rolled out across England and Wales. In February 2009, Clare Wood was violently murdered by a former boyfriend, George Appleton, who had previous convictions for the harassment and assault of former partners. Ms Wood had contacted the Greater Manchester Police in the months leading up to her death, to report that Appleton had caused criminal damage, harassed her, threatened to kill her and sexually assaulted her. Clare's law enables the police to disclose information to an individual who has asked police to check whether a new or existing partner has a history of domestic violence or, indeed, a violent past. Police will subsequently consider disclosing information if their checks find that this individual may be at risk of domestic violence from their partner.

It was reported in January 2015 that 3,760 applications for disclosure had been made in England and Wales, and at least 1,335 warnings issued, only 10 months after the scheme was launched.

We want to see a similar scheme launched in Northern Ireland to make it harder for perpetrators to reoffend.

I am very pleased to report, following consultation with all the parties, that a number of Members have expressed their support for the intentions behind the amendments. Implementing domestic violence protection orders (DVPOs) and domestic violence protection notices (DVPNs) would make a real difference to the lives of people affected by domestic violence, including, I should remind the House, children living in those homes. Local research has found that there are some 11,000 children living with the reality of domestic violence every day in Northern Ireland. Having this scheme available to us would help to move the social perception of domestic violence on.

I met the Justice Minister on 21 May and had a very productive discussion. I was pleased to find that he is supportive of the amendments but was advised that the wording of the drafts requires further tweaking. Likewise, his officials advised that the introduction of Clare's law will require a public consultation, and that he fully intends to do that. To give the Department time to come back and meet these principles, I have agreed not to formally move the amendments at this stage if we receive a ministerial assurance that amendments regarding domestic violence protection orders and domestic violence protection notices will be introduced at Further Consideration Stage, which I expect should be forthcoming. Likewise, I will not move the amendment regarding Clare's law if we receive a ministerial assurance that a public consultation is being brought forward.

I will move on to the other amendments in the group, which are about prevention, protections and disclosure relating to vulnerable groups. I will speak very briefly on the amendments because I am sure they will be spoken about in detail by the proposers, the Minister and members of the DUP. The SDLP is largely supportive of the amendments. Amendment Nos 7 to 10 relate to clause 33 on victim statements. The proposed amendments will extend the scope of a victim statement in certain circumstances to include how a victim's family has been affected. The SDLP is supportive of those amendments. The SDLP is also supportive of amendment Nos 11 and 17 in relation to disclosures. Amendment No 11 inserts a new clause on disclosure for purposes of victim and witness support services and victim information schemes. Amendment No 17 also inserts a new clause in relation to Department of Justice disclosures to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Both I and my colleagues in the SDLP are supportive of the DUP amendment that would be similar to Sarah's law. The amendment would provide guidance for agencies to consider disclosure of information in relation to relevant previous convictions of any specified sexual or violent offender where it is necessary to protect a particular child or children from serious harm. I am sure that the proposers of the amendment will speak on it in much more detail, but it is an amendment that we in the SDLP support. Amendment No 68 proposes to insert a new schedule in relation to witness support services and victim information schemes. My SDLP colleagues and I support that amendment.

I would like to close by returning to the SDLP amendments in relation to domestic abuse. I have been extremely heartened by the support that the Department and other parties have expressed for the amendments and look forward to working with other Members in the future to tackle domestic violence and abuse in our society. I truly believe that DVPOs, DVPNs and Clare's law will help to bridge a gap in how we tackle domestic abuse. Thank you.

Mr Ross (The Chairperson of the Committee for Justice): First, I want to cover Part 4 of the Bill, which improves services and facilities for victims and witnesses by providing for the establishment of statutory victim and witness charters and providing a statutory entitlement to be afforded the opportunity to make a victim personal statement, through amendment Nos 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.

As I highlighted earlier, these clauses and amendment No 11, which introduces a new clause and schedule to the Bill to create information-sharing powers for the purposes of victim and witness support services and victim information schemes, are as a direct result of the findings and recommendations of the Justice Committee's inquiry into the criminal justice services available to victims and witnesses. The evidence that the Committee received during the inquiry clearly demonstrated that engaging with the criminal justice system as a victim and/or a witness or as a bereaved family is a daunting experience that can entail encounters with a number of criminal justice agencies and voluntary sector organisations from the time that the crime is reported, through the police investigation, the prosecution decision-making process, the court process, sentencing and beyond. The evidence also illustrated the significant difficulties that victims and witnesses face with the criminal justice system and the criminal justice agencies, and their experience of the process was, and still is, often frustrating, demoralising and, on occasions, even devastating.

The cooperation of victims and witnesses in the criminal justice process is vital to achieving convictions and ensuring that justice is done, and it was the Committee's strong belief that much more could and needed to be done to redress the balance and ensure that an effective and appropriate service is provided for them. The Committee therefore made a number of recommendations to the Minister, including that a victim and witness charter providing statutory entitlements for victims and witnesses in terms of information provision and treatment should be introduced; that a formal system for the completion and use of victim impact statements should be introduced; and that a more effective mechanism through which victims can automatically be provided with timely information based on an opt-out system rather than the current opt-in system should be developed.

The statutory charters created by the Bill will set out the services to be provided by criminal justice organisations, the standards that should apply and how victims and witnesses can expect to be treated. They are intended to make the criminal justice process less daunting and more responsive to the needs of victims and witnesses of crime. They will apply regardless of a victim's relationship to the accused or offender, and family members of the victim are also entitled to access support services. There is also a right of complaint to an independent body, and the Committee has sought assurances from the Department regarding the mechanisms in place to monitor compliance with the charters. There was widespread support for victim and witness charters in the evidence received on the Bill, with Victim Support indicating that, in its view, the victim charter will have a demonstrable impact on the experiences of victims and witnesses of crime in the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland.

The creation of information-sharing powers by way of amendment No 11 to provide for a more effective mechanism through which victims can automatically be provided with timely information about the services available to them in the form of victim support services, witness services at court and access to post-conviction information release schemes was also broadly welcomed, as was placing victim personal statements on a statutory footing and thus providing an opportunity for a victim to explain the impact of an offence or alleged offence. Amendment Nos 7, 8, 9 and 10 will allow a victim or a bereaved family member to include, in a victim statement, the impact a crime has had on other family members, and the Committee views that as a useful and welcome addition.

The Committee fully supports clauses 28 to 35 and amendment Nos 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11, and I commend the Minister for listening to the Committee, accepting its recommendations and implementing them through this legislation.

I will touch briefly on amendment No 17, which inserts a new clause to facilitate the exchange of information between Access NI and the Disclosure and Barring Service for barring purposes. The Committee noted that a wide range of stakeholders, including voluntary organisations that work with children and the Department of Education and Department of Health, welcomed the proposal. Given that it provides an additional safeguard for vulnerable persons and ensures that legislation on vetting and barring is operated consistently across the United Kingdom, which is important, the Committee supports that amendment.

I now want to move on to clause 17, which relates to prosecutorial fines, and amendment No 6, which Mrs Kelly and the SDLP have brought forward today. The evidence received by the Committee on that part of the Bill acknowledged that providing options such as prosecutorial fines to deal with low-level offences outside the courtroom frees up police and prosecutor resources, as well as court time, that can be better used to deal with more serious offending. Wider issues regarding fine collection and enforcement were raised. The Committee will have an opportunity to consider those in more detail in the next justice Bill, which is due shortly, and that will hopefully address at least some of the concerns.

Specifically, in relation to prosecutorial fines, the main focus was on how they will operate in practice. The Committee considered a range of issues relating to the operation of prosecutorial fines, including whether additional safeguards were required in the Bill to prevent the fines being used for repeat offenders or for serial or serious offenders. The Committee felt that it was entirely appropriate, to get public confidence, that those were used for minor offenders. Women's Aid advised the Committee that it was firmly of the view that the fines are not appropriate for domestic violence offences and, if used, could deter victims from coming forward.

In response to the concerns raised, the Department outlined that prosecutorial fines will operate within detailed Public Prosecution Service guidance that will form part of the code for prosecutors and will stipulate the circumstances in which a prosecutorial fine may or may not be offered. The guidance will be subject to consultation. The Department was of the view that this provides a more flexible approach than including further provisions in the Bill and is consistent with the principle of prosecutorial independence. The Department also confirmed that it did not envisage that prosecutorial fines would be a suitable disposal for offences of domestic violence or other serious offences, and any instances of such a fine having been issued previously to an alleged offender would be taken into account when making future decisions. In its view, repeat fines should not be offered, except in the most exceptional and meritorious circumstances.

Having considered the information provided, the Committee agreed that it was content with the provisions in the Bill for prosecutorial fines, but we want to see the draft guidance that the PPS will develop to ensure that it adequately addresses the circumstances and frequency with which prosecutorial fines can be considered and offered to an offender. Members may, however, feel that, rather than relying on the PPS guidance to prevent the fines being used for domestic violence offences, Mrs Kelly’s amendment would provide a safeguard in the Bill. Although I noted the comments that she made and, as long as everyone is supportive of ensuring that it would not be appropriate to offer prosecutorial fines in those circumstances and that it is part of the guidance, that is probably assurance enough for most Members.

I now want to touch briefly on the amendments that Mrs Kelly has tabled to the Bill to bring in domestic violence protection orders to replicate the position in England and Wales. Whilst the Committee has not considered the amendments, the issue of domestic violence protection orders arose when we were looking at the clauses relating to violent offences prevention orders (VOPOs). I directly questioned the Department on whether violent offences prevention orders are designed to deal with domestic violence offences and whether there was an argument for the introduction of domestic violence prevention orders as well. The Department explained that the legislative proposals for the VOPO had been developed with the needs of victims of domestic violence in mind. It had been made offence-based and not sentence-based, and the threshold of qualifying offences was lowered intentionally to include the offence of assault occasioning actual bodily harm where the offence takes place in domestic or family circumstances, because of concerns raised during and post public consultation around the issue of tackling domestic violence.

The Department, however, acknowledged that, while VOPOs will provide some additional protections for victims of serious domestic violence, there remains a gap for the immediate protection of victims in the short term. The Department indicated that further consideration of how best to ensure that type of protection would form part of a broader consultation on a range of domestic violence initiatives to take place in 2015-16 as part of the implementation of the new domestic and sexual violence and abuse strategy and subsequently confirmed that it was considering consulting on domestic violence protection orders. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the proposed amendments, which could provide greater protection against domestic violence offences.

I will now turn to amendment No 28, tabled by Mrs Kelly, Mrs McKevitt, Mr Maginness and Mr Eastwood, and amendment No 19, tabled by my colleagues Mr Frew and Lord Morrow. Both amendments would introduce similar disclosure schemes, mirroring or improving on existing legislation already here in Northern Ireland or across in Great Britain, often referred to as "Sarah's law", in the case of my colleague's amendment, or "Clare's law", in the case of the SDLP amendment. Neither of the amendments was discussed by the Committee, so I make my observations on this in a purely personal capacity. I wanted to first of all congratulate SDLP and DUP colleagues for tabling the amendments. Whilst I would caution against anyone thinking that these measures alone will keep women and children safe, I support the principle behind both amendments and appreciate the motivations of those who tabled them.

I will look at amendment No 19 first. We know that, whilst they are popular with the public, some people dismiss such laws and are highly critical of them. Indeed, there are examples of how legislation aimed at protecting vulnerable people can go terribly wrong. We do not have to look too hard to find Megan's law, which was one of the initial types of disclosure schemes that operated in the United States, when a series of laws was introduced in the early 1990s after the horrific rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl, Megan Kanka. These required law enforcement authorities to make information available to the public in relation to registered sex offenders. In some US states, it means that offenders' crimes, names, photos and even addresses are published online for the public to view. The information is often published in local newspapers or in pamphlets delivered door to door by some neighbourhood associations. That type of unfettered disclosure led to vigilante-type attacks on individuals and properties. Individuals or gangs tracked down offenders or alleged offenders, which, in some cases, even resulted in murder. I am sure that many people would have little sympathy for those who have violated young children, but this law becomes particularly dangerous when people take the law into their own hands and hunt down those who have the misfortune of having the same name as or looking similar to a registered sex offender or who live in an address previously occupied by a paedophile. Sometimes, when emotions run high and people are highly charged, they act before they think.

In the aftermath of the murder of Sarah Payne, when tabloid newspapers in the UK named and shamed those whom they suspected of being child sex offenders, there were, of course, vigilante gangs hunting down paedophiles in the UK. At that time, one of the worst cases of mistaken identity, which would be amusing if it were not so tragic, was the case of the young doctor in Wales who had her home attacked and spray-painted with the word "paedo" after being named in her local newspaper, which described her as a paediatrician. We need to be responsible, and we need to strike the right balance when it comes to disclosure legislation. Largely, in the United Kingdom, I think, we have done just that. We have learnt from the early experiences of the disclosure of information and made recent legislation that much better.

In the UK, the sex offender disclosure scheme, known almost universally as "Sarah's law", following the tragic murder of Sarah Payne in 2000 — it is referred to as "Mark's law" in Scotland, following the murder of Mark Cummings in 2004 — is greatly improved legislation, certainly compared with its US equivalent. It certainly provides the blueprint for today's amendment. The main difference is the way in which the information is disclosed. Unlike the US, where information is published online for everyone to access, parents in the UK have to go to the police to enquire about someone who is close to their child and ask whether they have been convicted of a child sexual offence. The police then determine whether to release information to the concerned parent. Whilst that is a valuable tool and something that I hope the Assembly supports today, we need to examine safeguards to ensure that the information disclosed is appropriate and the individual in receipt of the information uses it responsibly — otherwise, we could end up in the same position as the US. I know that Mr Frew has given particular consideration to the issue and intends to outline that when he speaks on his amendment shortly.

I also welcome the fact that the Department has indicated that it supports the amendment and is willing to work with Mr Frew to ensure that the legislation is implemented in a way that improves public safety and does not lead to unintended consequences. That is good, in that it ensures that we will have good law. I further welcome the fact that the Northern Ireland law would go further than the law in Great Britain by including a wider range of offences that could be disclosed. Of course, that measure alone will not prevent children being at risk. It will offer parents and guardians some comfort, but we also need to ensure that potentially dangerous sex offenders living in the community are effectively monitored by the Probation Board and legal authorities. Therefore, I hope that, when we discuss budgetary issues in the House in the future, Members will be keen to encourage the Minister to ensure that the Probation Board is adequately funded to carry out that vital work.

Similarly, the SDLP amendment that seeks to introduce Clare's law — as the Member said, it was introduced after the murder of Clare Wood in 2009 — could and should have a positive impact. However, it must be crafted correctly, as the Member who tabled the amendment acknowledged, and, in order to receive broad support, it must be introduced in conjunction with other measures that keep women safe from potentially abusive partners. I understand that the domestic abuse charity Refuge opposed Clare's law. I also noted remarks made by Karen Smith, who is the CEO of another domestic abuse charity, Nia. She warned that Clare's law carried a serious risk of giving women a false sense of security and pointed out that most instances of domestic violence are never reported to the police. If a woman is told that her partner has no history of domestic violence, she may be lulled into trusting her partner when previous abuse had not been recorded by the authorities. I say that not in any way to rubbish the amendment but simply to alert Members to the fact that legislation alone does not solve some of the most distasteful examples of abuse in our society. Without appropriate accompanying support, they may not be as useful a tool as they should be. I suspect that the Members who tabled the amendments would not be at odds with those comments either.

In both cases, I urge the Members to work in collaboration with the Department and charities to ensure that any legislation passed makes a positive difference. I trust that the Assembly will support measures believed to help to deliver greater protection to vulnerable people.

Mr Lynch: Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I support all of the amendments tabled by the SDLP. I welcome the fact that the Member who tabled the amendments has met the Justice Minister to explore some of the measures that she has proposed.

I agree that this is an opportunity to legislate to tackle the very severe crimes of domestic and sexual violence in this part of Ireland. We will be doing a disservice to vulnerable groups if we allow the Bill to pass without closing gaps and tackling violent offenders.

I recently met Women's Aid in Enniskillen, and the Member opposite from my constituency, Tom Elliott, was with me. Regarding the degree of domestic violence that exists, it was a learning experience. Dolores Kelly outlined some stark statistics, and, across the island of Ireland, about 100 women have died at the hands of partners or ex-partners over the last 10 or 15 years. If it was happening in any other way, there would be an outcry.

The degree of domestic violence that takes place in this day and age is unbelievable. Women's Aid was at capacity and needed more resources to cope with the people whom it was meeting on a daily basis and arriving at its door. Dolores Kelly is right: we as politicians have had people arrive at our offices at all times of the morning and afternoon. I am happy to say that we have a good working relationship with Women's Aid in Enniskillen.

As legislators, we should be doing all that is possible to tackle the perpetrators of this grave crime. It is in that context that I welcome the series of amendments that the SDLP tabled. They will offer a new tool — namely, domestic violence protection orders and domestic violence protection notices — to police officers who are responding to domestic violence. Those have been rolled out through a number of pilot schemes in England and Wales. Initial examination of the schemes was positive. However, there are challenges, and I will read some of them out. I am not knocking the new tools completely, and they will be valuable to us as we move through further legislative stages.

The challenges include the absence of sentencing guidelines for breaches, the lack of a clear outline of the court process, difficulty in defining success, and complexities and bureaucracy. Those are things that we can learn from. Bureaucracy and time pressures were major barriers to the widespread use of DVPOs. A reluctance to use them was heightened by a lack of understanding. Dolores Kelly mentioned that there is a need for police officers to be trained in that area. I was reading in a document, which I got only in the past 24 hours — thanks to Mrs Kelly — that some police officers were not taking training up as it was a nuisance. That is something that all police officers need to be aware of.

I want to mention the good work that was done in the Committee on victims of and witnesses to crime, and I commend the Minister for moving forward some of the key recommendations, as the Chair mentioned, such as the victims' charter, which gives victims the opportunity to make personal statements. Hopefully, those things should improve victims' experience of the criminal justice system.

Amendment No 68, which was tabled by the Minister, is to be welcomed. It provides for disclosure of information by both the police and the PPS to bodies that are providing support services for victims and witnesses. Regarding the introduction of violent offences prevention orders (VOPOs), the Committee acknowledged that there is a gap when it comes to violent offenders who are a risk to the public. Similar to sexual offences prevention orders (SOPOs), the proposed measures can be a tool for managing those who pose a risk to society at large. Sex offenders and violent offenders will have to notify specific personal details to the police for the duration of an order determined by the court, and these measures should be welcomed.

Although to the Member who moved the amendments I may have seemed very critical, I think that there are lessons for us to learn. I look forward to the later consideration in the Committee. It is a serious problem not only in the North of Ireland but throughout Ireland.

Mr Elliott: I welcome the opportunity to debate these amendments, or rather, to discuss them. There is not a huge amount of debate involved in this grouping. Nevertheless, it is very important, and I welcome Mrs Kelly's proposals on domestic violence issues. One thing that has concerned me for many years is that there is no offence around domestic violence, although I suppose that these proposals go some way to putting one in place. There may not be a specific offence, but at least domestic violence protection orders are being put in place. I accept the Member's issue around not moving the amendments and trying to regulate them or put them in a better perspective, but I do welcome them in the round and welcome and support the principle behind them. I see no difficulty with them from the Ulster Unionist perspective.

By and large, a lot of these amendments are very good and positive and have the potential to make matters a great deal better for people who are involved in domestic violence relationships. I hope that they make society better because anything that we can do in that respect is welcome. I listened to Mr Lynch talking about visiting Fermanagh Women's Aid. I suppose that Women's Aid throughout Northern Ireland is no different. You probably hear the same stories and the same difficulties that arise in those areas. I put on record my thanks and appreciation to Women's Aid for the work that it carries out because it is an excellent service, and it provides that service irrespective of what background you come from. I know that it is always a difficult issue when I raise the matter with Fermanagh Women's Aid of how some other organisations help and support it. The one group of organisations that it always highlights that could do a little more is the Churches. It has said that there is potential for Churches and religious organisations to support and assist it in many ways. I hope that the amendments from the SDLP will assist all of that.

Amendment No 19 is around Sarah's law. I welcome the principle and the proposals around that, and I look forward to it being taken forward as well. I want to touch quickly on amendment No 68, which is on the sharing of information. Again, it focuses on victims' information schemes. That can only be positive and good. There is quite a lot of detail in that amendment, which proposes a new schedule. I welcome the opportunity for victims to avail themselves of that better information because that is the one aspect in the legal and court systems that victims are quite often critical of. They say that they do not get a reasonable level of information.

Mr Deputy Speaker, if you do not mind my saying it, it is a bit like going to another place that I am now elected to. Sometimes, the information that you get is not always helpful and may be limited in the areas that you require it for. Maybe going there, it is easier to ask than it is for victims to come forward to the Court Service to try to find out what they need to know. I welcome that amendment, and, by and large, I think that the amendments in this group are less controversial than some of the others.

Mr Dickson: I agree with Tom Elliott that the amendments in this group are less likely to be controversial but are, nevertheless, highly important when it comes to dealing with these matters. They relate primarily to prevention, detection and disclosure in relation to vulnerable groups. I support these amendments. I commend Mrs Kelly and the SDLP for the work they have done and I know that work with the Minister will be ongoing to conclude this matter in a satisfactory way.

As others have done, I pay tribute to the work of Women's Aid, and indeed to the other women's support organisations that exist in every constituency across Northern Ireland, for their work in the east Antrim area.

I welcome the amendments to clause 33, which allow for victims of crime to convey the impact of the crime on themselves and their families through victim statements. The rationale for considering that crime does not impact only on the person most directly involved is that we have social connections with others around us, which mean that we can be profoundly affected by a family member becoming a victim of crime. I support the principle of incorporating the experience of the victim of crime but, ultimately, it is up to the judge, having heard all the evidence, to pass sentence as he or she sees fit. I am content that the Department has left it to the judge to decide whether to take such a contribution into account. This helps to ensure continued confidence in judicial independence in these matters.

I also welcome the addition of clause 35A and schedule 4A, which are common-sense additions to the Bill and will make a fine difference to many victims of crime by ensuring that they are better informed, as Mr Elliott said, about the services available to them and will provide support as they progress through the judicial system.

I particularly welcome Mr Frew's amendment. I confess that, originally, we had some concerns, not with the policy aim, but that the range of information that could be disclosed might be too broad and might extend beyond that for which, for the best of intentions, it was designed. I am delighted that Mr Frew and the Department have been able to work together in this area to ensure that the amendment is effectively incorporated into the Bill, ultimately enabling the police and parents to protect children from individuals who could cause them harm. I therefore support that amendment and further departmental amendments that will come forward to refine this, not forgetting the work that Mrs Kelly has been doing in these matters. I support these amendments in group 2.

Mr Frew: I will propose and speak to amendment No 19, which deals with new clause 43A. Before I move on to that, I would like to say that I broadly welcome the work done by the SDLP on their amendments regarding the domestic violence protection order. I feel that there may be work to be done, and I sincerely hope that it can be done in the interim to allow successful amendments to be made and come into effect in the Bill. I wish Members all the best in that, working closely with the Minister, of course. I certainly support that in principle.

I move on then to the DUP amendment sponsored by my colleague Lord Morrow and me on what will be the Northern Ireland equivalent to Sarah's law. Sarah's law was passed in England after the tragic murder of Sarah Payne. It became known as the child sex offender disclosure scheme, launched in England and in Wales in 2010. Since then, there have been just under 5,000 requests made for information and disclosures, and over 700 disclosures have been made. That certainly tells me that there are 700 people who have been given information that could go some length to protect children under their care. There is an equivalent scheme in Scotland — Mark's law — which, of course, the Chairman of the Justice Committee mentioned earlier. That scheme is called Keeping Children Safe and is also a very important piece of work.

Whilst we all support the principle of Sarah's law and Mark's law in GB, we have to be mindful of the facts and how it would fit into Northern Ireland. That is why I pay tribute to the Minister and his officials, who have worked with me and Lord Morrow to ensure that we have an amendment that is fit for purpose and that fits Northern Ireland and the rigours and regulations that are in place here. Of course, the Minister will reserve the right to amend it, as he sees fit, in the Further Consideration Stage. I give him a commitment that I will work with him over the coming days and weeks to ensure that we can get something that is fit for purpose and best to meet the needs of and protect the children in Northern Ireland.

Mr B McCrea: I am grateful to the Member for giving way, and I commend him for bringing the amendment. I just wonder whether he can provide a little bit of clarity. I will read it out here:

I just wonder about the thinking behind the inclusion of the word "consideration", if the Member would be so kind as to elucidate.

Mr Frew: I thank the Member for his intervention. I will get to the detail of the wording of the Bill later in my contribution, but, of course, he will know that, in some cases, information should not and will not be disclosed. That consideration should be with the people who are the experts on that, namely the PPANI agencies. It is very important that they retain the management of it and the right to disclose, or not to disclose, if that may be the case.

Of course, the scheme proposed in the amendment goes further than in GB, because, unlike the child sex offenders disclosure scheme in England, it includes not only child sex offences but sex offences, domestic violence offences, violence and hate crime offences — all of the PPANI-specified offences. That is vital, because then it becomes much more holistic and widespread in the proper sense because it will afford even greater protection for children and it will allow as many people as possible to apply if they see fit. If they are concerned or suspicious about a person, or the activities of a person, they will be able to apply. Of course those are all serious crimes. It is a wide spectrum of crimes. They range from the highest seriousness to the lowest risk, so it is important that people retain the right and the power to disclose and not to disclose.

I also pay tribute at this stage to the NSPCC, which has worked alongside me and Lord Morrow, advising us on best practice and measures, informing us of the current arrangements already in place and assuring us of the work that it and other agencies within PPANI do that helps to protect and safeguard our families and children. I also pay tribute to Lord Morrow of Clogher Valley for his assistance in supporting the amendment and helping me. The House will know that Lord Morrow has been asking questions of the Minister on this very issue for a long time, and I am glad that he is able to come on board with me as we propose this amendment.

I would also like to thank the Bill Office for its work and assistance throughout the last number of weeks, and for helping and assisting me where and when it needed to. It is a very good office that does tremendous work, usually all behind the scenes, and silently works away.

The crux of why we need this, Northern Ireland's equivalent to Sarah's law, is that there is no doubt that this is a really serious issue that many in society and society itself grapple with. Certainly, sometimes, it falls short of the requirements that are needed to deal with these serious issues. There is absolutely no doubt that we and the agencies within PPANI cannot stop crime. It is as simple as that. We have to ensure that we can manage, resolve and deal with crime to the best of our ability. Measures have to be in place to ensure that that is the case.

Of course, we know that there are some 1,200 convicted sex offenders being managed in our communities and region. In my policing district — the old H district — there are 118. That information came from questions that my colleague Lord Morrow asked the Minister. People are living in our communities who have maybe served time in prison for very serious offences. They need to be managed and monitored to ensure that they do not pose a risk to children and vulnerable people. We also know that just under 500 sexual offences cases are going through the courts at this time. That information was, again, gleaned through a question from Lord Morrow. Of course, cases will range from the most serious to very low-risk, which nonetheless is crime. That is something that, at first, alarms me but also assures me that there is detection out there. I am sure that some of those cases, as they go through the court process, will be resolved in one way or another with people being put behind bars for a long time.

Mr B McCrea: I am grateful to the Member for giving way. He might help me. He mentioned PPANI. Given that he quoted the figure of 1,200 cases going through the courts, does he have any information on the different categories: 1, 2 and 3? It would be useful to put in perspective the quantum of people whom we are trying to manage. If he has that information to hand, it would be really good to hear it.

Mr Frew: I thank the Member for the intervention. I do not have that information to hand. He goes some way to proving the point that it is not just sex offenders whom we need to worry about; it is actually the risk that they pose. There will be many sex offenders who have served their time and their punishment and will be a very low risk or no risk to members of the public, particularly children. He raises a valid point, and I will come to it at a later stage.

We also know — this is important — that many cases of sexual or physical abuse, particularly of children, go unreported and undetected. Often, the abuse is carried out by family members and others who are known to the victims. That should not be lost on the House. This amendment will not solve that. We have to make sure that we do everything that we can to assist those victims and the people who are involved in PPANI to deal with the issue and get as many of those people as possible brought to justice and, more importantly, protect the victims in those families. They are so vulnerable. They may well even be listening to the debate today. I plead with those people to come forward because help is available and they should avail themselves of it.

The amendment would amend previous legislation, the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2008. It would insert into that Order further items. Basically, it would state:

As I said, that would be added to the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2008. That Order provides:

It is vital that agencies have decent lines of communication so that they can share information that may be relevant to the cases and individuals they are working with. That is basically what PPANI does. That is why the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2008 is very important and is relevant to the amendment that we are discussing.

The document 'Guidance to agencies on public protection arrangements' is issued by the Minister of Justice under article 50 of the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2008. The guidance states:

All those bodies are now linked and communicate with each other. It is more than that; they have to relate to and go with that guidance. It is important that they give effect to that as it leads to greater protection for our people and most definitely for our children. Of course, with that document, there is already a vehicle through which disclosure can be made. It is vital to get that across.

Before I touch on that, I will talk some more about the arrangements within PPANI, because it is important that the House understands what PPANI is and what it does. The agencies involved in PPANI have worked very closely to protect the public in Northern Ireland and take their responsibilities very seriously. It is chaired by the Probation Board NI. The arrangements came into force in 2008 and have been subject to positive inspections by the Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland. The strategic management board of PPANI comprises senior representatives from the police, the Probation Board, Northern Ireland prisons, Health and Social Care, the NSPCC and the Government, and it meets four times a year. Through local area public protection panels, it provides the framework for local operational cooperation.

All convicted sex offenders are subjected to a static risk assessment on conviction that uses a scoring matrix to give an initial indication of risk. Where an individual is assessed as medium- to high-risk, they are subject to multi-agency assessment and risk management. All offenders have a designated risk manager who is normally someone from the police or the Probation Board Northern Ireland. Ongoing or existing disclosures are overseen by local area public protection panels in a multi-agency way, and risk is increased according to ongoing assessments using a range of domains. Through the use of an internationally recognised dynamic risk assessment tool, part of the assessment will always look at the issue of disclosure. The PPANI agencies support the use of controlled disclosure as part of a risk management plan and, in doing so, follow the principles set out in the Minister of Justice's statutory guidance. This takes account of legal and procedural requirements in relation to the principles overseeing lawful disclosure. Controlled disclosures are made in Northern Ireland — I stress that they have been made in Northern Ireland — as part of risk assessment and management. They may be made to third parties — for example, people in positions in churches or community groups, relatives or carers — where it is necessary to protect the general public. The decision to do this must be based on compelling risk and will be taken by a senior police officer of Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) rank in consultation with other PPANI agencies.

It is vital to stress, once again, that we have had disclosure in this region. However, I propose that it becomes a two-way mechanism, a vehicle through which members of the public can get information that will help family members, guardians and carers to manage the risk to their family. We all know that, at times, people ring our constituency offices to say that they have heard a rumour, which then spreads like wildfire. I have had experience of cases in which that has led to instances of mistaken identity. People have been assaulted or had their property damaged because of rumours and innuendoes and all sorts of information going out in all directions. People are genuinely worried, concerned and fearful for their children and the children in their care.

We propose that that mechanism goes two ways, so that members of the public who hear concerns and rumours can apply for that information, which must be child-centred. They must be responsible for children. This is not a nosy neighbour charter, nor is it some vehicle that the press can use and exploit. I would not propose it here if it was. Some of our media outlets have been reckless and sensationalist with some of the information around this serious issue, and that has led to people being attacked. Any attack on any person or property is wrong: if you break the law you should expect to be subject to the law. That applies to anyone in this society.

I believe that this will go some way to relieving the pressure and removing the vacuum that leads to misinformation and wrong information. It will also mean that, if there is a disclosure, those receiving that information have a responsibility to use it for the sake of their children and the people whom they care about. It is not for them to disclose that information in a reckless way to other members of the community who then may take the law into their own hands. That is not what this is about. That in itself will be an offence. It is right and proper that, when people are armed with information that will help them manage the risk to their family, they do not divulge it. There is absolutely nothing to stop other members of the community applying for information about the same person or similar people in an area. It is important that that two-way system works.

This will also help PPANI because it could work as an early detection system.

There is no doubt about it: PPANI and the strict guidelines that I talked about earlier, which were issued by the Minister in 2008, work well. I would go as far as saying that ours is probably the best system in the United Kingdom and better than systems in other places in the world, but it is not failsafe. Sometimes, people slip through the net and issues go awry. That is why this could also lead to an early detection system.

Why would people apply for information on someone else to be disclosed? I believe that people would use the mechanism when they had suspicions about someone — maybe someone is acting suspiciously or people are talking about them. Is it not better that PPANI hears of their concerns? Is it not better that people can apply for disclosure on those individuals? Is it not better that they are able to risk-manage their children as best they can? If it comes back that there is no issue with a person, is that not better than people wondering, people being concerned and frightened, and unreasonable people taking the law into their own hands? It would then become a bigger issue than the rumour mill in the local pub, shop or youth club. That is why this law is essential for Northern Ireland.

I will go through some of the issues. We will not ignore the arguments against; we will go through them. Some say that this may lead to more vigilante-type attacks, but we know that such attacks happen now on the streets of our towns, villages and cities. It happened in my constituency only last month. A lot of attacks have been cases of mistaken identity. This law, under which disclosure would be made only when necessary to protect a child or children, would, I believe, remove that risk. If people knew exactly what the truth was and were armed with that information, they could make informed choices about what they did in the future — where their children went and what they did. To me, that is very important.

It is important that responsible people get to hear that information. Why is it that parents are the last to know? If we can share information between agencies, whether it be the NSPCC, the police, the Probation Board, the Prison Service or the education board, why can we not disclose that information to responsible parents? They are the ones whom we task with bringing on society and bringing up their children in a responsible manner.

We know that there are social networking sites that name and shame sex offenders and child sex offenders. Our newspapers have also been irresponsible, and that has led to attacks. People's names have been issued in papers, as have their addresses or areas. It is very important that the media, even tonight, as they report on this amendment, take a responsible approach. I plead with the media to ensure that they understand this thoroughly.

There is already frustration and fear among the public, and I believe that the disclosure scheme will go some way to alleviating that pressure. Of course, many who have been punished and sanctioned for committing sexual offences may well have reformed and been rehabilitated. In that case, they will pose little or no risk to the public. It is all about risk; it is not about cautions or prosecutions on a list. That is very important when you look at that amendment. If PPANI is involved in the administration of this, which it will be, and, if the PSNI has a very major say, if not the final say, on it, they will be able to consider each and every individual case, which is right and proper. However, it will not only be convictions. The words "relevant previous convictions" may also mean findings and cautions that relate to the offender's specification in guidance under article 50. The amendment could therefore go some way to assuaging the fears of our people.

This may be a negative argument, but we also hear that it could lead to a flood of requests coming in. It might do. People could point to the flood of requests in England, Scotland and Wales, and that might well be the case here. However, the aim of the scheme is to give parents, carers, guardians and all other interested bodies, parties and people a more formal mechanism for requesting information about a person who has or may have contact with their child or be close to them, if they are concerned that that individual is a child sex offender, a sex offender or a violent offender. As I say, this should not be used as a nosy-neighbour charter, as a revenge weapon for someone who has a grudge or by the media. However, I believe that it cannot be used for that because PPANI will be the one administering it with the PSNI.

Mr B McCrea: Will the Member give way?

Mr Frew: Yes, I will.

Mr B McCrea: I am sorry for interrupting all the time, but you bring up some interesting points. This has just occurred to me: is there any notification? If a person has requested information about person x, does person x get to know that someone has made that request?

Mr Frew: I thank the Member for his contribution, because that is a very important point. In many cases, that is the procedure. Even now, in many cases, if PPANI proposes that people should have information disclosed to them and is managing and monitoring the sex offender, it will have approached that sex offender to say, "Why are you here? Why are you doing this? Why are you in this relationship? You should not be in a relationship. We need to tell your new partner — the single mum — that her and her children may be at risk". That is what happens at present in many cases. In many cases, that is the right thing to do, because, although we have to manage and monitor these people, we have to make sure that they do not reoffend. That is key here. That is the reason that we need to make sure that this is managed properly and appropriately. That is why, at times, it is good and proper to disclose to the sex offender or the person who may pose a risk to family members.

People have also argued about striking a balance between the need to protect the public and enabling people who have served their sentence and rehabilitated themselves to move on positively with their life. This is not putting a mark on anyone for the rest of their life if they are totally rehabilitated, have reformed and have moved on positively. This is all about risk, and the level of risk that they pose to a child under someone's supervision.

People have also argued in the past about an onus or responsibility shifting away from the state and on to ordinary members of the public. I do not believe that that would be the case, as responsibility will still lie with the PPANI agencies. That argument misses the point somewhat, in that this is all about information-sharing. It is all about arming parents and members of our society who care for children with that information. Of course, as was said earlier, not all sex offenders pose the same risk. Again, it will be determined on a case-by-case basis and by a number of factors. It is already in use in PPANI. Many individuals are not known about, nor do they have criminal convictions. Those individuals will pose the highest risk in our community. That is why I am mindful of the fact that, even with this law, there needs to be education and awareness. Members of our public need to be able to assess, judge and monitor for themselves the people in their communities. If they are fearful, they can apply for this scheme.

In closing, Mr Deputy Speaker, the child protection disclosures will not solve crime; they will not end child abuse or sexual crime. Giving the public information about individuals' previous crimes and risk levels is just one part of this very complicated jigsaw. It is vital that sex offenders serve long and sufficient prison sentences.

Like all parents, we, of course, believe that prison is the best place for those who harm children and commit serious sexual crime. However, all prisoners are released eventually, so they have to be thoroughly risk-assessed and rehabilitated before they are released to understand that what they have done is wrong. Then, they need to be managed and monitored for a long time, with constant reassessment. I am dedicated in the pursuit of keeping children, and all our citizens, safe; that is my motivation for this amendment. How can it help? It can help by making sure that parents are among the first, not the last, to know, and they can use that information to assist them in keeping their children safe.

I am delighted that the majority of Members who spoke did so in favour of the amendment. I hope that the amendment goes before the House tonight and is passed. I give a commitment, as will my colleague Lord Morrow, that we will work with the Minister in the days and weeks ahead to make sure that this amendment becomes law and provides safety and assurance for the parents, teachers and carers of our society and community, and that the youngsters, young people and children whom we want to protect will be given a greater degree of protection.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Beggs): Members, this section has been running for approaching three hours, and it seems to me an appropriate time to have a break. So, I propose, by leave of the Assembly, to suspend the sitting for about 20 minutes. Actually, we will come back at 6.30 pm sharp, when the next Member to speak will be Raymond McCartney.

Mr McCartney: Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I will concentrate most of my remarks on amendment No 19, tabled by Paul Frew and Lord Morrow. I have just a couple of wider remarks in relation to the group of amendments that we are debating. My party is broadly in support of the Minister's amendments. We will support his amendments on victims, witnesses and other aspects of disclosure.

I remarked earlier today that the Committee's inquiry into victims and witnesses informed many of these amendments and, indeed, a big thrust of the Bill. From an earlier part of the discussion, I hope that, as we come to define what we class as a vulnerable witness or a witness who should be exempt at a particular stage of trial proceedings, the inquiry and some of the work that we have done will inform that as well.

My colleague Seán Lynch dealt with the amendments tabled by the SDLP, and I note that when Dolores Kelly was speaking she mentioned that she may not be moving some of the amendments, in light of a commitment from the Minister to a process of consultation. That is to be welcomed because the wider we consult and the more scrutiny there is, the tighter the legislation will become. That point applies to amendment No 19, tabled by Paul Frew and Lord Morrow. Even when Paul Frew was speaking today, you could see how the information was becoming wider. Perhaps we missed out because it was not tabled earlier so that it could have gone through the Committee Stage. All of us would then have been in a better place to know the issues. You made the point about how sometimes this is presented in the media, and I noticed in the commentary over the last 24 hours that you can see how there can be a tendency, although not in any malicious way. It nevertheless narrows down what the amendment is trying to achieve. Last week, Mr Frew spent some time with Seán Lynch and me explaining the content of it. We appreciated that. He was very precise when he said that he wants this classed as "child protection disclosures" rather than, as he said, some sort of wide hunt to find where certain people live and how they live out their lives.

Mr Frew: I thank the Member for giving way. He is right, and I thank the Member for the support of his party for the amendment. It specifies sexual or violent offenders. "Specified" means that it is within the remit of PPANI. That is why it is wider-reaching than just child sex offenders, because of course children can be harmed by more than just child sex offenders. It is a broader remit. I am quite content with that because they are all within the PPANI arrangements, and all those types of offenders will be monitored and managed by PPANI.

Mr McCartney: I thank the Member for that intervention and the information. At its core, most of us are reasonably content that something is put in place to provide additional protection for children, never mind whether they are vulnerable or not. Most of us support that, and the broad thrust of this is around that, so that is why we agree in principle. Certainly, and perhaps in the commentary and other contributions this afternoon, there may be some place at Further Consideration Stage to tighten up what we believe may be gaps, but that is something we can come back to. I say that in light of some of the commentary over the last 24 hours, but what has been said here today has helped to close that particular gap.

One of the big parts of this for us is that people are asking what should be disclosed, when it should be disclosed, how it should be disclosed and who it should be disclosed to. That is important, because the Member talked about PPANI and what they already have in place. They have a good system in place. I think that most people are happy with what they do. As the Chair said, no matter what protections you have in place, it will not, in every situation, prevent further crimes from being committed. You are trying all the time to try to close that down.

When he was introducing his and Lord Morrow's amendment, the Member talked about working alongside the NSPCC. That is the appropriate way to go about this. It has it at its core, even in its briefing document for Sarah's law. The idea of safeguarding a child is at the centre of all that it does, so that was the right approach. It even talked in the document about the idea of a regular independent evaluation of the work that is being carried out. That is something that we can maybe put to it as we go forward. The Member talked about situations where it could be abused or overused. Maybe that is not the right phraseology, but you want this to be taking place in a situation where it is about protecting children. People have real fears, and, when they have real fears or real doubts, they have a process that they enter into.

Mr Frew: Will the Member give way?

Mr McCartney: I will indeed, yes.

Mr Frew: The Member makes a very salient and good point. I would be all in favour of a review of this because, in the PPANI guidance and the actual legislation, it asks to be constantly reviewed. I think that not only the child protection order but the PPANI arrangements should be reviewed to make sure that they are fit for purpose and that the standard operating procedures are used. That is best practice all round the world.

Mr McCartney: The Member's amendment refers to article 50 of the Criminal Justice Order. Specific within that is the idea of consultation and using the agencies and the experts in the field to continually provide guidance so that it is refined. I welcome the fact that this will be strict and that, when a person receives the information, they will be bound by legislation and cannot disclose it. In other words, if someone gets information on an individual, damning as it may be, they then cannot share it, because, as you said, the potential for vigilantism or sensation in the media is increased as a result of that. The Member touched on the fact that this is already in place. People can go to PPANI and find out certain information. You do not want someone to be able to use this maliciously in the rumour mill. They could ask for information on the person and the person has no record at all, but the person might then say, "I tried to find out information about such and such." People might say, "Well, why would somebody ask about a person if there was no reason to do it?" The person might be totally and absolutely innocent of any offence. We have to make sure that that is done.

The Member touched on the idea of balance and risk being at the heart of it. When you have risk and balance at the heart of it and guidance from the experts, I think we have the basis to proceed. We are broadly supportive of the amendment. Saying that, as the Member said, between now and Further Consideration Stage, much like Mrs Kelly has offered to the Minister, if this could be tightened up so that we do not end up bringing in legislation and there being unintended consequences, we will be broadly supportive of the amendment.

Lord Morrow: I rise to speak primarily on amendment No 19, standing in my and Mr Frew's names. We have no hostility towards the other amendments in the group. I think that I overheard the Minister say that a little bit of fine-tuning may still need to be done around the clause and the amendment, and that is understandable. As one who has steered a Bill quite recently through the House, I am quite aware of what fine-tuning sometimes means. I have that experience, and I think that I am the better because of it. I understand that this one will have to go through that mill again and even come out better at the other side, but we do not have a problem with that at all.

We do not have any problem with Mrs Kelly's amendment, and I hope that she, too, will reach a satisfactory conclusion with it and come back to the House with it. I think that she will find that we here on these Benches are ready to support it because we see great merit in it and we hope that it makes it into the Bill eventually and onto the statute book.

The amendment to the Justice Bill in my name and that of my colleague Mr Frew, I believe, is very important. I believe that it will enhance the Justice Bill and Northern Ireland will be a better place if it eventually reaches the stage where it becomes legislation.

I have an overarching concern for the protection of victims of crime and the prevention of further victims, and I make no apology for that. I am sure that anyone who follows questions for written answer will be aware that I often put down questions in relation to the fate and welfare of victims, and I make no apology for that; hence our efforts here today to try to bring in an amendment to the Justice Bill.

In an ideal world, there would be no victims of crime, but since no such world exists — quite the contrary — the very least that we as legislators must do is to protect and prevent. It is incumbent on us. We have a moral and legislative duty to look after victims of crime at whatever phase, whatever age group or whatever their position is in society. Children are, by default, vulnerable. They depend on adults to guide and nurture them and protect them from harm. They are utterly reliant on adults for safety and survival. They also rely on adult judgements. When the adults in question are not aware of danger, we have to ask the question, "What then?". How can an adult be expected to ensure the safety of a child if they themselves are oblivious to the risk. I believe that is where Sarah's law becomes a necessity.

The wave of revulsion following the horrendous case of eight-year-old Sarah Payne was universal, and I am sure that no one in this House is unaware of that particular situation. That a child could one minute be out playing with her siblings and then be snatched by a sexual deviant to act as his plaything before being brutally murdered caused widespread abhorrence. It later emerged that her murderer had a previous conviction for abducting and sexually abusing another eight-year-old girl five years earlier but was free to roam the countryside uninhibited, ultimately finding his next victim in that little girl, Sarah.

Something had to be done. That challenge was taken up by Sarah's mother, Dr Sara Payne, who fought a gruelling campaign for disclosure, thereby allowing those caring for children to make informed choices to ensure safety. I pay tribute today to Dr Payne and her work. Having suffered a tragedy too awful to comprehend, she sought to ensure safeguards for other children to prevent a similar fate to that of her daughter. I believe that demonstrated overwhelming strength in the face of such horrific circumstances, and, as was to come during her campaign, adversity. However, she prevailed, and she succeeded.

I have been lobbying for the introduction of Sarah's law in Northern Ireland for two years now. During that time, I have had setbacks, on most occasions chiefly because of a fear of information, which has been discussed again and understandably so, being passed erroneously, leading to vigilante-type attacks, but, in latter days, things have begun to change, and I welcome that, too. I lay the credit for that with my colleague Paul Frew, who discussed the issue with me and started to drive it forward.

I am proud, of course, to be the co-sponsor of the amendment. We both agreed that disclosure in the correct circumstances could allow parents and carers of children to risk-manage potential situations of danger or threat. The Minister, while not entirely unsympathetic in the early stages, reiterated his concerns on the potential of community reprisals. That was not lost on us, but the whole principle of Sarah's law centres on controlled disclosure, and that gives us confidence to know that information is released carefully by the PSNI and only to the people who are directly responsible for a child's safety. I think that it is important to say that.

A genuine application for disclosure will have the child in question at the centre of the equation. It is ironic that a person applying for a job that would bring them in contact with children or vulnerable adults is required to undergo a check with Access NI that discloses all previous convictions to prospective employers, who are duty bound to protect the information imparted. The process enables employers to ascertain whether the applicant is suitable for the position and thereby adhere to risk management and ensure that their own safety policies are secure; yet a parent or a primary carer, the first point of contact for a child, does not have that straightforward screening process to allow for risk management consideration.

Coupled with the restrictive regime currently in place and a lack of awareness on the right to ask for disclosure, Northern Ireland has been lagging behind. The existing scheme in England and Wales is known as the child sex offender disclosure. What we are proposing today will be known as the child protection disclosure, making the child and their welfare the nucleus of the scheme. I have conducted significant research on sexual and violent offenders residing in the community, and I am not exaggerating when I say that some of the case studies have been quite horrific and horrendous. I believe that several of those cases could have been prevented if parents and carers had been aware of previous issues. I remain unable to ascertain how many requests for disclosure under the current scheme in Northern Ireland were made since its introduction and, of those, how many were granted. I am still in the process of trying to obtain those figures.

There was much media consternation asking why we should introduce legislation that is apparently already there, but it would appear that they are not reading the amendment or do not understand the breadth that we are intending to cover. Let me make it clear, if I can: the current Northern Ireland equivalent of Sarah's law permits only the disclosure of a previous sex crime against a child. It is very limited in scope and differs in range. To underscore that, I quote a reply to a question for written answer that I submitted to the Minister. In March this year, I asked what challenges or difficulties would be faced by introducing or enforcing Sarah's law in Northern Ireland. I got this reply:

That was not a satisfactory reply, as the issue of child safety did not even feature and focus was entirely on the offender or perceived offender. I believe that justice should be victim-centred, not offender-tailored, and it is not the first time that I have said that in the House — justice should be looking after the victim primarily.

However, positive engagement did follow, and shortly after, it became clear that the Minister acknowledged that the current process could be altered and enhanced. With the Minister's support, we seek to widen the parameters and, therefore, create a stronger defence against risk. We want to see all crimes of a sexual or violent nature flagged up and considered.

Our amendment seeks to reduce the risk to children from a number of angles, including the potential for domestic violence. I will give a very basic example: as the law stands, parent a can inquire about a person who they believe has shown concerning behaviour towards their child. If the person in question has no convictions for child sex offences, parent a, providing they have been granted disclosure, will be told that there is nothing on file. However, the person in question may have convictions for violence or aggressive behaviour, which could still be classed as a risk to the child. Therefore, our amendment permits the violence conviction to be taken into consideration within disclosure, with the safety of the child being the overall driver.

I also emphasise the issue of awareness. In my ongoing correspondence with the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, which championed Sarah's law in England and Wales, there was great concern about the awareness of the law and how it was incumbent on the agencies to ensure that people were fully aware that the scheme exists. I place on record my thanks to the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, and in particular to its director of research and policy, Donald Findlater, who has been of tremendous support in this matter.

Awareness is clearly the key, so I will do my bit by stating the following: everyone with responsibility for a child's welfare has the right to ask. Let me emphasise that: they have the right to ask. The lead agency in our case — the PSNI — is the only body with the capacity to ask, "Who has the right to know?". We do not seek to gainsay the decisions of the PSNI in relation to a refusal of disclosure, but it will have sound reasons for doing so, which will be explained to the applicant.

Initially, the Minister was reluctant to alter current legislation, but, following engagement with my colleague Paul Frew, common ground was found, and the Minister accepted that more could be done, and we very much welcome that. That engagement has produced an extremely worthy amendment that incorporates not only the principles of Sarah's law but more. I thank the Minister and his officials for engaging in a very positive way. I have to be careful because I have found myself coming into the House on many occasions and congratulating the Minister. I look at him, and then I look at myself and ask, "Who has got it wrong here?".

Mr Ford: Will the Member give way?

Lord Morrow: Right, I better do that.

Mr Ford: I thank the Member and would like to assure him that I find it equally embarrassing. [Laughter.]

Lord Morrow: At least we have something in common: we are both embarrassed.

Sincerely, I thank him for being constructive. His staff have also been very constructive on this issue, and we very much appreciate that. I thank the other parties in the Assembly Chamber that today indicated their support for this amendment. I realise that there is some tweaking to be done here and there, but that will be carried out, and we will come back to the House when that has happened.

I want to mention a particular case that came to my attention only today. It involves a child being sexually abused over a period by a sex offender with multiple convictions. It is not a historical matter — it is recent and happened in Northern Ireland. I cannot help but think that, if disclosure had been applied for and the information known, in this instance, and in others like it, the child involved would not have become another victim.

I had other stuff to say, but much of it has been said, and the hour is getting on. In conclusion, let me repeat what others have said, which is that legislation on its own will not be sufficient. There is not a Member in the House who does not accept that, and those of us who tabled the amendment come from that position, too. Legislation on its own is not the cure. We recognise that, but having effective legislation in place can be a real deterrent in times when it is needed.

Mr Douglas: Like the previous Member to speak, Lord Morrow, I will to try to be as brief as I can. That said, Mr Deputy Speaker — where did he go?

As I was saying before you joined us, Mr Principal Deputy Speaker, I will try to keep this as brief as I possibly can. Hopefully, my speech will be as good as your handover.

I have about 22 pages here, but I will try to keep it down to 20 if I can. I am only joking.

As a member of the Justice Committee, I welcome the debate. I want to focus on the amendments relating to domestic violence. As I said, it is a timely debate. All that we have to do is look at our television screens. We hear it in our communities, and we read in the media about the horrors and the impact of domestic violence on too many families in our communities. First, I support in principle the work done by Mrs Kelly and her colleagues in the SDLP and, indeed, their amendments on domestic violence. I welcome them and will certainly support them in principle. Moreover, I pay tribute to two other colleagues, Mr Frew and Lord Morrow. I will support Sarah's law and, indeed, Clare's law, which Dolores Kelly mentioned.

Mrs Kelly clearly outlined the horrors for women who experience domestic violence. One of the things that we have recognised over the years is that it affects all aspects and every area of society. I suppose that, in the past, it was always about disadvantaged communities and people who were living in poverty or whatever, but domestic violence affects the whole community across Northern Ireland. Mrs Kelly reminded us that Women's Aid is at full capacity. It is a wonderful organisation, and, when we talk about austerity measures and big cutbacks, it is the sort of organisation that we should support day in, day out for the work that it does on domestic abuse and domestic violence. Like many others, I pay tribute to Women's Aid for the work that it does on a 24-hour basis, but there are other organisations as well. Mr Principal Deputy Speaker, you will know of two of many in east Belfast: the Cregagh women's centre does excellent work with women, as does the recently formed Pitt Park Women's Group on the lower Newtownards Road. I see the work that they are involved in with women and children and the positive impact that they can have on the lives of so many people. I think that the women who work with victims of domestic violence will support the Bill. They will say that this is a good news story for them and the work that they do. I have been involved in community work for 25 years, and I have seen at first hand the impact of domestic violence on families. It is not just about women but about their children, their friends and the break-up of families — the horrors that Mrs Kelly outlined.

I also want to highlight something else, and maybe the Minister will address it. I am not sure whether I am on the right track here, but does the Bill deal with domestic violence against men? Over the years, a number of men have come to me, even since I opened up my office on the Newtownards Road four years ago. Some of those men tend to come in when they have a few beers on them and have a sense of Dutch courage. It is horrendous. One man who came to me said that he was suffering serious domestic violence daily but his biggest fear was his partner's three brothers, who were quite hard men in a sense. It was the fear of them rather than the fear of retaliating. He did not want to retaliate; he loved his partner. Maybe the Minister will look at that and confirm whether the Bill will address those issues. I am not sure what the scale of this is, and I think that it is much more difficult for men to admit that they suffer domestic violence.

As Mrs Kelly said, one in four women suffers domestic violence at some stage in her life. That is a terrible statistic, and it is indicative of the breakdown of society. Again, I ask the Minister to look at that. For me, the amendments will definitely improve the lives of victims of domestic violence, and I hope and am assured that the Bill will help in the fight against domestic violence. I believe that these proposals will make a difference.

I conclude by welcoming the protections that the Department has outlined in the amendments, and I look forward to the broader consultation that, as the Chairman of our Committee said, will take place between now and 2016. Hopefully, it will form a new domestic and sexual violence and abuse strategy, something that we can get our teeth into and can plan for into the future. I look forward to the Minister's response to the amendments.

Mr Givan: I welcome the opportunity to speak to this group of amendments. I will speak specifically to amendment No 19 in the name of my colleagues, Mr Frew and the Lord Morrow, and amendment No 68, tabled by the Minister. At the outset, I acknowledge the thanks of the Minister in the group 1 debate for the work that I did in some of the Committee's scrutiny of the Bill when I held the role of Chairman. I appreciate that very much. I too pay tribute to the officials and the Committee staff for the support that they provided when I was there to ensure that we were able to do our job and do it well. As always, that has continued under our new Chairman, Mr Ross. The Committee demonstrates how MLAs can hold Ministers to account, scrutinise legislation and come forward with proposals that help to shape good law. It is testimony to the good work that often goes unnoticed in the broader public debate. We are often shrouded in crises — certainly that is very real at the moment — but good work goes on behind the scenes in the Committees, where members of all parties work collectively to get the best legislation.

I now touch briefly on amendment No 19. First, I pay tribute to Mr Frew and the Lord Morrow for tabling it. Any Member who tables an amendment is to be commended — I know that Mrs Kelly has done the same — as it requires significant work. Obviously, they have been able to do that, and it would appear to me that they will be successful today in their efforts to bring forward something for the good of society. I commend them.

It is important that in any society the rights of the child are paramount; that is at the heart of this legislation. The concerns of parents and guardians are to the fore in this, as it empowers them with the information to make sure that their child or whoever they are responsible for looking after is protected. The legislation will empower those with responsibility for children to make decisions for the good of the child whom they are concerned with. It also addresses the concerns of the community, which is very much exercised by the issue, and wants our children to be safeguarded and protected. Those are the three most important pillars of the legislation: the children, those with responsibility for children and the broader community at large.

Secondary in all of this are the rights of the predators who have carried out the most heinous crimes against children. Their rights should always take second place to the rights and needs of children. Sexual offenders, in particular, are some of the most deviant and manipulative criminals in our midst.

Given that we have in the region of 1,200 sex offenders in Northern Ireland, every one of us in our constituencies has to deal with the reality that there are sex offenders in our midst. It is right that we take on the public concerns that exist and try to address the issue.

The Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland (CJINI) did a report on the public protection arrangements for Northern Ireland and how sex offenders are monitored. It is true to say that that report gave an outstanding analysis of how public protection arrangements are carried out in Northern Ireland. That is a tribute to the different criminal justice agencies that are responsible for it, and it is worth putting that on the record; but I believe that more is required, and the amendment will provide further information through the disclosure being made, because it moves the right to privacy that the paedophile is currently afforded into the hands of the parents and guardians. This is a step that is worth taking. It will protect children, because the information will now be provided to those to whom it is relevant so that they are empowered to act.

In closing on this amendment, in my own constituency I have dealt with a family — obviously, I am not going to name them — who came to me in great despair because of an individual who had sexually abused their young daughter. That individual had served time in prison, had been subsequently released and was living in my constituency. Their fear was that the perpetrator, the paedophile, could offend again and that there was nothing they could do to warn others. They spoke to me about their desire to hold up placards outside community facilities where they knew the individual was residing and was going to shop. They wanted to be able to do that. Now, we do not believe that that is the right thing to do in our society, but they felt very concerned for others that the individual may well commit another offence.

Obviously, in the vast majority of these cases, because children are involved, anonymity is granted to the perpetrator in order to protect the child. The perpetrator is often afforded protection from the public knowing who they are. Again, the family felt very much aggrieved that, for obvious reasons, they did not want their daughter's name to be known publicly, but they wanted the public to know who the perpetrator was. However, the only way that that could be done was if they were to waive their right to anonymity.

Today, I will be able to go back to my constituent and say that, if there are concerns about that individual, the parents of children who may well live beside that person and who may well have concerns will now be able to go to the relevant authorities to seek information, which will be given to them. They will then be able to take actions to protect their own children. I know that this will be of comfort to that particular family whom I have been seeking to help for a number of years. That is what this is all about; protecting children and empowering parents and guardians to be able to take measures so that they are protected. I think that that is the right thing to do and I commend my colleagues for bringing it forward.

Briefly, I welcome amendment No 68, which is around agencies being required to disclose information to victims and witnesses of crimes. That will add to what is contained in the Bill around a victim's charter, something that the Committee has been pushing for a number of years now, on the back of a Committee inquiry that was carried out. Victims, who are often also witnesses in criminal offences, often felt that they were secondary to the whole process and that the PPS, the Police Service and others were more concerned about how the system was operating. The victims and witnesses often felt that they were not central to the process but were subservient to it. This further amendment helps to make the victims and witnesses central to going through the criminal justice system. I think it is a welcome amendment that should have our support.

Principal Deputy Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to make that contribution.

Mr B McCrea: For five years, I was the chair of the Policing Board's human rights committee. One of the best things that I ever got involved with — it is a funny thing to call "best" — was working with Women's Aid. We had a great seminar. Earlier, I heard Seán Lynch talk about the fact that the police occasionally need a bit of training for when they come across issues of domestic violence. That was one of the things that we were able to engage with and explain to people: that it was not just "a domestic", but a serious issue. I will not rehash the statistics. We all know them. It usually takes a considerable number of events to happen before the woman — and it is usually a woman — will come forward and make a complaint.

We looked at all sorts of issues about how to ensure that somebody, having made a complaint, follows it through. In fact, domestic violence is one of the few areas where you can actually prosecute without having the witness. I got some more experience. I know that this is not to everybody's liking, but I did manage to take a case through to the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of a lady who had suffered domestic violence. It was quite an education on how positive it was for her to deal with those issues.

What is really interesting for me is the fact that Mrs Kelly has brought forward a fairly comprehensive range of amendments. I accept, because she has accepted, that it may be that we need to look at the drafting of those matters. Nevertheless, it is a pretty good framework for something to be done on, and I commend her for it in general terms about how we make sure that those who are under pressure actually get support when it is needed. I will put it on record that I am a little bit disappointed that we cannot get into the nitty-gritty and talk about it now, but since we are going to look at it again and come back, that will be the time to really look at it. Congratulations on that; I hope that it will see some positive outworkings at Further Consideration Stage.

I will move on to information. I listened to Mr Givan talk about amendment No 68 on sharing information. The reason why I was not in my place, Mr Principal Deputy Speaker, was that I was checking whether I had misunderstood what was in the amendment. If I have, obviously the Minister or the proposer will get the chance to clarify it. It seemed to me on reading the amendment that there was specified information that bodies were allowed to give to other people, such as the name, address and contact telephone number, so that they could be provided with services. I am not sure whether it goes quite as far as Mr Givan was suggesting, whereby you would get more information during the process. If that is what is required, maybe that, too, will need to be looked at at Further Consideration Stage.

Certainly, I think that the most frustrating issue for any victim of crime is that it seems to take a long time for anything to be resolved. You sit waiting for information, hoping that somebody is doing something, and you are not sure whether anything is actually happening at all. The odd word to the wise about what is going on is deeply comforting. The problem, of course, for any criminal investigation is that if you are giving out information and trying to keep people informed, good and all as that is for the victim, you run the risk of compromising the investigation. Whilst I am supportive of agencies working together and getting support to victims, I would like to look a little bit further at the next stage at what exactly that amendment seeks to do.

Mr Givan: Will the Member give way?

Mr B McCrea: I will indeed.

Mr Givan: The Member is questioning whether amendment No 68 will actually help victims. I will just refer the Member to that amendment. Subsection 3(1) states that:

It gives the example of the "prisoner release victim information scheme". That is what amendment No 68 relates to. It is about sharing information that could be used to enable the victim to get more information.

Mr B McCrea: I am grateful to the Member for providing clarification. As I said, I did not have the chance to pick it all up. I note that the amendment runs to quite a considerable number of items, three pages of detail, and that that is but one element of it. I am sure that he would join with me in saying that, whatever information can be given to victims, at whatever stage, is a bonus for them.

Some have said that the rights of the victim should take primacy and that they should not in any way be equated with the rights of the perpetrator, which should be secondary. To be honest, I am not sure if that is not being a little generous. The issue with our criminal justice system is that victims of crime need to be absolutely front and centre. That is what a criminal justice system is for.

I will move on to a number of points on Sarah's law and Clare's law. I asked Mr Frew some questions on that issue, and I am grateful for the information that he provided. I want to say something about the way that this started off in my thinking. Mr Ross will probably not like this, but I thought that he gave a very good and balanced position. I was concerned about issues of improper disclosure, vigilantism and all those issues. He dealt with all those issues, and I thought that that was what was really good about the debate.

I then listened to Mr Frew going on. I was right there with him 100% on 80% of what he said, but I was not just so sure towards the end when he started to deal with who would have access to the information. That is probably just one of the things that we will tease out as we move forward to Further Consideration Stage. I asked about a couple of issues. To whom do we should disclose the fact that an inquiry has been made? If a parent has a concern about x, they will go forward and ask whether x is a problem. The answer that Mr Frew gave me was that that is absolutely right, that happens already and that if x is a problem he should rightly be talked to and it would be taken forward. The question that I was not sure was addressed and that maybe ought to be addressed is what we do if there were 4,000 people making an enquiry but x was not a problem and the inquiry produced a negative result. Do we build up the fact that lots of people had asked about x? There was a suggestion that it would be good if PPANI noted that there were suspicions about that person or whatever, but that would indicate to me that there would be some sort of a register of the number of times that an inquiry had been made. Is that what is envisaged under this rule? I am happy to take any clarification on that point. Maybe it is not the right time.

Mr Frew: I thank the Member for giving way. The Member seeks clarification and I happy to give it to him. In the current system, there is risk management and the monitoring and management of sex offenders. If an application is made, some of things that are assessed are whether it is child centred, whether it is on a particular child or children and the concerns around that. If that is the case, there will also be an assessment of whether the person who is applying is the right person to obtain that information.

If it is deemed to be such a risk that someone else should have disclosure of that information, it is within the gift of PPANI to disclose that information to them. It may be the case that the offender should know that they are doing something that is wrong, or not right, and that they should mend their ways. That is all about the management of sex offender or violent offender in every situation. As I said earlier, it could be used as an early detection system by PPANI whereby it might just safeguard some of its actions and monitoring and policing of those offenders.

Mr B McCrea: I thank the Member for the information. We need to look at the idea of an early warning system and consider how that might work. I gave Mr Frew a mark of only 80% because he started out so well talking about why this amendment was not going to deal with vigilantism, getting things wrong or putting out inappropriate information. That is the thing that needs to come out from this debate.

I have in front of me a piece of paper that says, "Does Sarah's law work?". I am rehashing some things that have been said by different people, including Mr Ross. It cites the appalling case of a Mr Ebrahimi, a disabled Iranian national who was subjected to a sustained campaign of victimisation and attacks because he was wrongly branded as a paedophile. He ended up being murdered. We talked about some other issues, including the story of the poor doctor who was forced out of her home because people misunderstood the description of her. The whole issue of vigilantism is really important.

I am not being critical, but as I drove into Stormont this morning, I listened to Frank Mitchell's show on U105. He was taking people's views, and one particular person thought that we should round all the offenders up and send them off to an island somewhere to deal with the issue. Lord Morrow is not in his place, but this is the point that he raised when the police were talking about this. If you want to manage these situations, you must not drive things underground. I asked a question about the PPANI categorisation. When I was on the Policing Board, I went to Carrickfergus and saw how the network operated when a particular situation arose. I do not know if these numbers are correct now, but there were 10 category 3 offenders, the most serious offender category, in Northern Ireland at the time. There were 1,200 general offenders, let us say 60% of whom were category 1 and 35% of whom were category 2. The really serious ones were category 3. If a person whom we know to be dangerous goes missing, the question for the authorities is this: do we alert the public and tell them that that person is no longer under our control, because that will cause panic, or do we try to manage the situation? I bring that up just to show that there is a pretty fine line in how we move forward on this.

Mr Frew: Will the Member give way?

Mr B McCrea: I will indeed.

Mr Frew: That brings me back to my point. The Member asked whether the sex offender or violent offender would be notified of a disclosure. That would be the subject of a PPANI assessment because there may be a case where there is a rumour and someone applies and the sex offender may have done nothing wrong at that point. It may, then, be wrong to disclose information that someone had applied for. That would all be in the PPANI risk assessment. To be honest, we could dabble in this all day and night and we still could not come up with a good enough conclusion or assessment. These are the experts and the PPANI agencies are the people who assess, monitor and police these matters on a daily basis. They are the ones who should assess every single case on its own merits.

Mr B McCrea: I am grateful to Mr Frew for clarifying that. I think that his instincts are correct, and I agree with him on many of the issues that he brings forward. I am not in any way trying to put down what he is attempting to do on this issue.

Of course, he is totally free to ignore me, but it is really good to get someone of his status in society trying to explain the more difficult things about how we manage sex offenders. The reason for bringing in amendments such as his is that we are able to manage in a wider framework.

One of the more difficult things that I had to do was to ask for more money because there was a lack of funding for houses in Belfast where sex offenders were housed. People said, "What on earth are you giving money to that for?". The simple fact is that if you do not manage a situation, if you do not know where people are and if you do not have some way of dealing with the situation properly, you drive it underground and you cannot deal with it. My request is that, when those who care about these issues are on the media, they do not give the short-term phrase, "We're going to really stamp them out and kick them out" and whatever, but that they say, "This is a complicated issue that people manage pretty well", as the report said, and, "but we need you to understand that it's not just as simple as being really hard on people, even though I understand that anybody identified in that way would, naturally, attract public opprobrium".

You will gather that this is not always my way, but it is about looking at the tweaking that needs to be done on this particular amendment. In fact, it applies to the other amendment as well. The reason why the Minister of Justice and Lord Morrow are in agreement but are slightly embarrassed may be that the amendment is fairly modest in its ambition. There are some things to be considered about what the consideration means. There are issues about when it is necessary for a particular member of the public to protect a particular child. I am not sure that I have the same interpretation as Mr Givan, but I accept that I could be wrong, about whether you can say, as a generality, "Look, there is a problem with this person in this area". All that I am saying is that it requires further work.

I conclude —

Mr Givan: I appreciate the Member giving way. Obviously, the amendment speaks about the guidance. Some of us may have particular views as to how best you can do this. Of course, you could have brought forward an amendment to put in the Bill specifically the circumstances where the information should be released by whom and to whom. I believe that it is better to do that through guidance because that provides flexibility for changing circumstances. It allows these issues to be addressed in the future as well without requiring primary legislation. I appreciate the opportunity to say that the guidance needs to be robust. I hope and trust that it will reflect the spirit of what the principles motivating the amendment are based on.

Mr B McCrea: I am grateful to the Member for clarifying the position. We do not always see eye to eye on things, but that is not necessarily bad; it is just an exploring of different positions. He mentioned a pretty tragic situation in his constituency, which also happens to be my constituency. One of the issues that I had to deal with was a family breakup, where certain allegations were made. Eventually, the family got back together again, which is a good thing. You just hope that the allegations do not come out because they would have caused more of a problem. When people are highly emotional, things can be said.

The issue in all this is to try to handle it sensitively and appropriately.

Mr Frew: Will the Member give way?

Mr B McCrea: Yes.

Mr Frew: On the point about sensitivity and handling it right, there is absolutely no doubt — it is certainly at the forefront of my motivation for this — that, even with the existence of the scheme and its implementation, there needs to be with it awareness-raising for the public about what the scheme is and how they could use it. That is not to advertise a scheme to get everybody to apply, but there has to be education around this. What I mean by that is that members of the public will be informed about how they can detect telltale signs that may lead to suspicion. If that were done correctly and robustly, it might sift out a lot of applications for disclosure that were not needed. The more specific requests for disclosure would be of great value and use in the operation of PPANI. This would also bring a sense of relief, assuage fear and take away the frustration of members of the public. It is all about awareness. It is all about educating the public so that they know what this scheme will do and how it will go about doing it.

Mr B McCrea: I believe that the Member's instincts are correct in this. I certainly support it, but I encourage him to understand that this is part of the solution, not the whole solution. This is a tough message to get out. If you are going to do the positive things and say that this will give some protection, you also have to explain to the general public that they cannot go around accusing people willy-nilly because you do not like them. A responsible attitude needs to be taken. The reason why I labour this point is because, when we write generalities into an amendment, there is sometimes a temptation for other Members to interpret it as they think they see it, which may not be the way that the original proposer intended.

I will conclude my remarks by saying that I am not convinced of the effectiveness of public naming and shaming, the 'News of the World' publishing photographs and saying whatever, or the pinning of names and addresses on noticeboards with the words, "You should be concerned about this person". It is not right, it is not effective and it leads to really bad outcomes. Having a controlled environment where —

Mr Frew: Will the Member give way?

Mr B McCrea: Yes.

Mr Frew: I am concerned by the Member's point about allegations. Let us be very clear that someone with that level of concern will make an allegation to the Police Service of Northern Ireland. In this scheme, they will apply for disclosure. There is a difference there. Let us be very clear that, if members of the public have an issue or a suspicion, they can go to the police straightaway. I worry about the terminology and language used in the House, because there will be media and, more importantly, victims watching.

Mr B McCrea: Maybe I got it wrong, but I thought that the proposer was saying that one of the key attributes of this amendment was that it would stop gossip in the pub — I think that that is what he said, but I am not sure so will have to check Hansard — or general chit-chat and that there was a more appropriate way of dealing with these matters. If I got that wrong —

Mr Frew: Will the Member give way?

Mr B McCrea: Yes.

Mr Frew: I do not think for one moment that this will stop chit-chat. I do not think for one moment that this will prevent people who like a good yarn from talking. They will talk, but the scheme will take away people's frustration and assuage their fear because they will be able to use it to apply for disclosure.

Mr B McCrea: We have probably had enough exchanges across the Chamber. My concern in all of this is efficacy. I was familiar with PPANI, I look at MASRAM and I have seen how people manage these situations. I have also seen negative outcomes when people made allegations that led to the wrong people being identified.

Mr Ross: Will the Member give way?

Mr B McCrea: Yes, Mr Ross.

Mr Ross: I appreciate that the Member has been trying to conclude for the last 15 minutes or so, but I think that this is an important point to make. He talks about people in the pub and communities, which almost creates the vision that we are talking about mobs or vigilante gangs seeking information. The focus of the amendment is on individuals who have guardianship of a child, whether they are a parent or a legal guardian, and fear that their child is in contact with someone who may be a sex offender. It is not so much about communities being able to find out this information. It is about individuals whose child is in close contact with that person. That is where the focus is.

As Mr Frew said, if information is disclosed to an individual, they must handle that information with confidentiality. I think that some focus will have to be put on how they deal with that information and the penalties should they disclose it inappropriately. It is more about individuals being able to access information than communities or mobs in pubs.

Mr B McCrea: I am desperately trying to conclude, but I am in agreement with Mr Ross on that. That is the way in which I would interpret it. I will have a look at it to see how it might work.

The issue that I am concerned about is this: if we make this into a huge situation and get people worried about a situation, how much harm are we doing to our society? The PPANI operation works really well. As Mr Frew said, it has been inspected and found to be exemplary. In fact, I think that he said that it is probably the best in the United Kingdom. This is a really good, working system, and I commend it. We have looked at what developments we might look at with the amendment at Further Consideration Stage. All that I have done is raise concerns that I have heard when listening to people. In particular, if there were 4,700 applications for notification, and 700 of those resulted in notification, what would happen with the other 4,000? We need to consider how we will manage this. I take it on board that what this is really saying is that, ultimately — I think that Lord Morrow said this — we have the right to request but only the PSNI has the right to inform. We need professional management of this, and we need to take the opportunity to send a message to the public that the situation with managing sex offenders or violent offenders, if you want to include them in this, is under control and is being managed properly and that people can rely on the system to work.

Mr Ford: We seem to have spent quite a time over the past while in discussion of matters on which there is almost total unanimity in the House on at least the broad principles of the points, although there has been general acknowledgement from a number of places that a certain amount of fine-tuning will be needed. I will therefore try not to take too much time, given that we are still on only the second group of five groups of amendments, and the night is moving on a bit.

I start by referring to amendment No 6 in the name of Mrs Kelly and her colleagues. I certainly understand the intention behind it, and I know that Women's Aid in particular raised a specific concern with the Justice Committee that a prosecutorial fine might be imposed in cases involving domestic violence. That concern is clearly shared by some Members. As has been acknowledged, the operation of prosecutorial fines will be underpinned by guidance that will be issued by the DPP and will set out the types of offence for which a prosecutorial fine is appropriate and suitable. It will be publicly consulted on, and it will form part of the code by which prosecutors will work. As has been made absolutely clear, prosecutorial fines are intended to be used for low-level offences committed by non-habitual offenders. I certainly do not consider that any offence of domestic violence could be suitable for the imposition of a prosecutorial fine. Indeed, the fact that it states in the Bill that the maximum prosecutorial fine will be at level 1 on the standard scale — the lowest level — is an indication of the kind of offence for which it is intended.

I am certainly supportive of Mrs Kelly's other amendments relating to domestic violence protection orders and domestic violence protection notices, which I will return to in a moment.

Given the detailed guidance and given that we might, if we were to start listing any offences in the Bill, list a large number of offences, it is more appropriate that we leave this matter to the guidance. Although I certainly agree with the intentions behind the amendment, I feel that it is better that we do not make amendment No 6 to the Bill. I trust that we can look at exactly how we deal with the consultation around the guidance. I hope that that will satisfy Members that that is the best way to proceed.

Amendment Nos 7 to 11 and 68 relate to provisions for victims and witnesses. Amendment Nos 7, 8, 9 and 10 make adjustments to victim statement provisions, which are known as "victim personal statements", to take account of comments that were made during the consultation on the victim charter about widening the scope of the provisions. They enable a victim, a parent, a bereaved family member or a family member acting on behalf of the victim to set out the impact that the crime has had. They will not be limited to the direct impact on an individual. It is likely to be relevant when there is an impact on a wider family circle, for example, with increased caring responsibilities. It will mean that a bereaved family member can set out the impact that the death has had on more than one family member, and I consider that that adequately provides for the views of family members to be appropriately reflected ahead of consideration by the court.

The amendments also provide that the use of the power may be reviewed, should there be a considerable increase in the number of statements, if it is deemed to negatively impact on the direct victim's statement, and they set out the provisions in the victim charter defining the close family member, which will apply for the purpose of the victim statement procedures.

Amendment Nos 11 and 68 create new clause 35A and new schedule 3A, which will allow us more effectively to advise victims about support services so that informed decisions can be taken. The provisions will enable the police and the prosecution service to pass victim and witness details to Victim Support, to the NSPCC Young Witness Service and to the victim information unit. Those service providers will be able to contact victims and witnesses directly to explain and offer their services. There are significant problems with the current system, and I believe that the changes will help to address some of them. For example, at the moment, two thirds of victims are not referred to Victim Support NI; around 20% of witnesses turn up at court on the day needing support but not having had any prior contact with the witness services provided by Victim Support or the NSPCC Young Witness Service; and only around a quarter of victims avail themselves of the victim information release schemes. That is an issue that comes to me fairly frequently when individuals or their representatives complain that they were not informed of the release of somebody who committed a crime against them. In many cases, it is because they did not register, perhaps in the confusion of the event. Allowing the direct referral will increase the chances that people will be made aware of that, and the changes are in line with the findings of the Justice Committee’s inquiry that victims were not using support services and that the capacity of organisations to provide support was reduced because of issues about passing personal information. The information shared will generally be the contact details of the victim or witness and the crime type. Taken together, I trust that the measures will improve victims and witnesses' experience of the criminal justice process and ensure that they can better access the support available.

In this group, I also propose amendment No 17 to insert new clause 42A to facilitate the exchange of information between Access NI and the Disclosure and Barring Service. Only one Member made any reference whatsoever to that. The powers are not new, but they replace existing powers that have a sunset clause at the end of this year and are therefore appropriate.

There was considerable discussion about new clause 43A, the amendment in the name of Mr Frew and Lord Morrow. I have already signalled to them — they have referred to it — my intention to support the clause, which will add to the existing disclosure procedures set out in the 'Guidance to agencies on public protection arrangements' that I issued in 2011.

It is important to say one or two things about the work of the agencies that seek to protect us all, particularly children. First, we need to acknowledge that the management of risk is not an exact science. It takes many forms, and the most important element is that cases are treated on an individual basis and risk is minimised through a combined approach, involving numerous risk management tools and, where necessary, utilising cooperation between relevant statutory agencies and voluntary bodies. We live with risk every day in many forms, only one of which is risk from offenders who have finished their prison sentence and returned to live in society. That is, of course, reality: we do not lock people away for ever. What we can do and what the agencies already work hard at is identify the possible risks that offenders in the community pose; assess the level of risk in particular cases; and take steps to protect each of us from harm. Much of that is done under the multi-agency PPANI arrangements: police, probation, social services, prisons and others, working together, where they can, to minimise the risk from offenders. In order to work as effectively as possible, the Department keeps under review, in cooperation with the agencies, a range of policy options that might be used in furtherance of risk management.

In broad terms, there is the legislative framework for multi-agency working, from which flows the departmental guidance on the PPANI arrangements, guidance that the agencies are required to give effect to.

In that guidance, we set out a range of ways in which the agencies should cooperate and carry out their functions in the most effective way to manage risk. One of those ways is through disclosure of conviction information about offenders in order to protect victims, potential victims and other people who may be at risk. That is part and parcel of the existing procedures under the comprehensive PPANI risk-management framework, and I recognise its contribution to the overall protection of individuals. Indeed, a number of Members have referred to the successful work done by PPANI: successful, but never 100%. Members have commented on the inspection reports by CJINI, which have highlighted the good work done by the PPANI agencies.

We looked at extending the disclosure provisions, but we have also had to look at the circumstances in which disclosure arrangements operate in Northern Ireland. The police have had concerns about widening the arrangements beyond the existing PPANI framework, and I have had to take note of their position.

We have also had some doubts about the overall contribution that legislative change, such as that made in England and Wales, might have to the objective of genuinely protecting children. Those concerns relate largely to how such a system might affect the balance of compliance with different risk-management strategies.

I am glad to be able to say that I fully support the clause, which was worked through with my officials and that the police believe will be a practicable operation. I understand that the NSPCC is also in favour of taking this step. It offers a reasonable way to build on existing disclosure arrangements and yet will still offer a way for individual members of the public, who have particular concerns about a person who has access to a particular child or children, to make those concerns known to the police and be assured that, if there is a need to disclose information to protect those children, it will be disclosed to a particular person. How the details will be operated will be provided for in the PPANI guidance. The police and other relevant agencies will be consulted.

I was also pleased to be able to agree that the disclosure of conviction information will be considered in relation to any offender who falls within the PPANI framework, which could potentially protect a child from violent harm as well as sexual harm: a point that has been made in comparison with other jurisdictions.

We also need one crucial, contextual point. Nobody should assume that this is a panacea to prevent all risks to children. It is clearly not that. The proposal addresses only one element of risk: that which comes from offenders with convictions for sexual crime or certain types of violent offending. It still needs to be said, very clearly, that most offending behaviour against children is much more likely to come from persons known to the child but unknown to the police. That is the sad reality of the society we live in.

Having said all that, I hope that this change will help to protect more children from harm. I have therefore indicated my support for the provision. However, with the advice of legislative counsel, I intend — and I understand that the Members who tabled the amendment will not object — to bring a number of minor technical amendments at Further Consideration Stage to ensure full legislative clarity. For the sake of Hansard, Mr Frew is nodding at that point.

On the issue of the further group of amendments —

Mr Ross: I thank the Minister for giving way. Given the debate we had on the proposals for Sarah's law and Clare's law, the interest there has been from Members — perhaps an interest in some of the more technical details — and that we cannot have a Committee discussion about this because we are past Committee Stage, would the Minister agree that, for both proposals, when he is working with Mrs Kelly and Mr Frew, it would be appropriate if DOJ officials came to the Committee to brief Committee members on the changes that are taking place so that we are better informed for the Further Consideration Stage?

Mr Ford: I am always happy to do my best to inform the Committee, and the Committee sometimes informs me back in a constructive way. The precise details of how this might be set up, given that we are on a tight timescale, will need to be worked out. In principle, I am very happy that the Committee has the opportunity for a meeting, even if those sitting in the Box at the moment are currently scratching their heads and wondering how it will happen.

I will turn, now, to amendment Nos 21 to 29, standing in the name of Mrs Kelly and her colleagues, on domestic violence protection orders and the associated area. I have considered the range of amendments they have tabled and, while I am certainly in broad agreement with those, and I fully accept the spirit of them, I consider that there are some elements of detail that need to be adjusted. I should perhaps add at this point, for the sake of Mr Douglas, that my understanding of domestic violence is that it is gender-neutral. It is sexual-orientation-neutral as well. While we need to acknowledge that the vast majority of domestic violence is inflicted by men upon women and children, we should not suggest that that is the entire picture.

I believe that the introduction of domestic violence protection notices and domestic violence protection orders will make an actual difference in the suite of public protection arrangements, and I have already raised them as part of the considerations in the consultation on the stopping domestic and sexual violence and abuse strategy, with a view to consulting in greater detail on those initiatives with key stakeholders during this financial year. However, I will not now do so as I firmly believe that DVPNs and DVPOs are required to help fill a gap in the provision of immediate protection of victims of domestic violence in the short term. I will, instead, bring forward alternative amendments at Further Consideration Stage with the support and, I understand, agreement of Mrs Kelly and her colleagues — for the sake of Hansard, she is also nodding — to allow for a more immediate introduction of DVPNs and DVPOs in Northern Ireland than would otherwise be the case.

On the specific amendment that deals with domestic violence disclosures — I think that it is amendment No 28 — I am also in broad agreement with the introduction of such a scheme. In this specific instance, and in common with the position in England and Wales, where such a scheme has been in existence since 2012, there is no legislative requirement to deliver such a scheme. Police already have the powers necessary to disclose such information. I propose to bring forward shortly a specific consultation on the shape of such a scheme in Northern Ireland, taking into consideration the outcome of the operation of the scheme in England and Wales.

In summary, I am quite happy to accept the principles of everything that has been put forward by Mrs Kelly and colleagues, and I hope that I have given an indication that guidance on the prosecutorial fines should cover the concerns that she had there. I am committed to action at Further Consideration Stage or in public consultation on the other matters that she has raised. I support the specific amendment that Mr Frew and Lord Morrow have put forward, subject to some minor tweaking — I believe that is the technical term — for Further Consideration Stage. I note that nobody said anything very much about my amendments, and I trust that the House will endorse them.

Mrs D Kelly: I thank all the Members who participated in the debate and gave their support to the principle and the import of all the amendments, notwithstanding any particular concerns around the disclosure schemes that all Members have referred to and the need to come back with some further information. For our part we have no difficulty with the Minister sharing whatever dialogue we have with him in bringing forward disclosure, which is more commonly known as Clare's law, with the Chair of the Committee and Committee members. We would welcome such information sharing.

It is true to say that all the amendments in this group are very much victim-centred and, broader than that, support the family of victims of and witnesses to crime. That shows that it is a good day for the Assembly, and one when a devolved institution is meeting the needs and concerns of the people who we represent here. It is a good news story, and I welcome all the support from all the organisations, many of which have been mentioned right across the Chamber, in the statutory and community and voluntary sectors for their information in getting the Bill this far and, more generally, for the work that they do in protecting us, our families and our constituents on an almost daily basis.

I believe that all Members who made a contribution spoke largely in support of all the amendments from our party; certainly those of the Minister were broadly supported. Indeed, whilst there were some concerns about the amendment in the names of Mr Frew and Lord Morrow, I think that those concerns will be allayed at Further Consideration Stage. I look forward to the outworkings of that.

Mr Ross: I thank the Member for giving way again. She will recollect that, during my contribution, I mentioned two domestic violence charities that opposed the introduction of Clare's law.

I do not know whether the Member will agree or not, but it might be appropriate if she made contact with those charities to see if some of their concerns could be allayed, because, ultimately, we have the opportunity not only to introduce Clare's law, but a better version of it. If there are areas in which they feel there could be more support around some of the legislation that might be required, we could end up with a better piece of legislation than GB. I wonder if she would be keen to engage with both those charities in the interim before Further Consideration Stage.

Mrs D Kelly: I would have absolutely no difficulty with that. I would be very pleased to liaise directly with those organisations but, in relation to that particular amendment, I am satisfied with the Minister's commitment this evening to have further consultation and, given the PPANI arrangements in relation to Clare's law here in Northern Ireland, it would have to come forward again to this House after public consultation. Therefore, I think that we will all have an opportunity to hear from those organisations. I had read some time ago — you prompted my memory — of their concerns but, in some of the papers that I researched, some of the concerns that they had rightly raised, I believed, had been allayed, maybe not with them, but, to my mind, they appeared to have been allayed.

I know that Members are anxious to get through the rest of the amendments, so I am sure that they will not mind if I do not mention them all by name, but just to say thank you all very much indeed for your contribution. I have said that the amendments broadly protect victims and witnesses of crime and should reassure the public that the concerns that they have raised with us as individual Assembly Members or collectively through campaigns and lobbying over the last number of years have been listened to and action has been taken. So, I am not going to repeat or rehash much of what people have said. It is a matter of record, and others will be able to research Hansard if they want to have a look at a particular individual's contribution.

I conclude by saying that, having listened to the Minister in relation to amendment No 6 and the reassurances that he has given around the guidance on prosecutorial fines, with the leave of the Assembly, I will withdraw amendment No 6.

Mr Principal Deputy Speaker: We now come to the third group of amendments for debate. With amendment No 12, it will be convenient to debate amendment Nos 16, 49, 51 to 67, 75 to 78 and opposition to clause 86 stand part. This group contains technical, consequential and minor drafting amendments and the Committee's amendments in respect of the regulation-making powers in the Bill. Amendment No 53 is consequential to amendment No 11.

I call the Minister of Justice to move amendment No 12 and to address the other amendments in the group.

Mr Ford (The Minister of Justice): I beg to move amendment No 12:

Mr Ford: This group relates to technical, miscellaneous and regulation-making powers. The majority of the amendments in this group relate to the Bill's single jurisdiction for County Courts and Magistrates' Courts powers, but the group will also provide the opportunity to debate the Chair's opposition to clause 86; the supplementary, incidental, consequential and transitional provision clause. I will first speak to the amendments and then return to clause 86.

Part 1 of the Bill creates a single jurisdiction for the County Courts and Magistrates' Courts in Northern Ireland by abolishing the current statutory County Court divisions and petty sessions districts. Schedule 1 supports the provisions by way of a large number of consequential amendments to primary legislation. Amendment Nos 55 to 60 make a number of amendments to schedule 1, which will supplement the list already contained within the schedule. These further consequential amendments will, primarily, remove references related to County Court divisions and petty sessions districts contained in legislation that has been made since the Bill was drafted, as well as some very old provisions. These further amendments are intended to complete the list of consequential amendments needed as a result of the creation of a single jurisdiction and, therefore, do not represent new policy. In addition, amendment Nos 75 to 78 make a number of supporting changes to the single jurisdiction elements of schedule 6, which deals with repeals.

Amendment No 49 is the only amendment in the group that takes the form of a new clause, clause 85A, which delivers a Justice Committee request to remove the need for an increase in the salary of the member of the Lands Tribunal to be made by an affirmative resolution order and to align the arrangements for determining salary with the non-Assembly procedure used to determine other judicial salaries. I doubt whether the Committee Chair, the Committee Clerk or the members will miss the opportunity to once a year debate a 1% salary increase.

Amendment Nos 12 and 16 are minor technical amendments to correct small drafting issues with clauses 37 and 41, while amendment Nos 53 and 54 facilitate the coming into operation on the day of Royal Assent of the victims information sharing and the sexual offences against children amendments debated as part of other groups here today.

Finally, amendments Nos 61 to 67 make a number of consequential amendments to schedule 3 in support of the direct committal amendments that were debated as part of group 1.

I want to spend some time speaking in support of clause 86 remaining part of the Bill. Let me first make some general observations about the Justice Bill, and I will then make two key points about clause 86 and provisions of that type. First, those provisions are not standard and must be seen in the context of the relevant Bill, and, secondly, I will comment on potential utility.

Clause 86 fulfils a particular purpose. Provisions of that type appear in other statutes when necessary, and I remain of the view that clause 86 is needed in this Bill. Indeed, I note that the debate on clause 86 has been grouped with amendment Nos 12 and 16. That enables me to note that those amendments, which are short, technical and important, are rightly being brought forward for consideration as matters necessary to give full effect to the policy intentions in the Bill. If we were to find the need for those after Royal Assent, and if clause 86 were not available to us, we would be in some difficulty: we would be seeking primary legislation for two minor amendments.

This Bill has over 80 substantive clauses — it will have more by the time this Consideration Stage is finished — that deliver policy objectives on a range of issues. This is a complex set of measures, made even more complex by the need to amend and repeal a very large number of statutory provisions in furtherance of the policy objectives in the Bill. To illustrate that, I draw attention to schedule 1 of the Bill, which makes the amendments that are necessary to give effect to the single-jurisdiction provisions. Taken alone, schedule 1 runs to nearly 30 pages and makes necessary amendments to over 100 separate statutes, involving many hundreds of specific changes. The earliest statute so amended dates back to 1842. The remaining schedules of amendments and repeals run to an additional 30-plus pages.

It is the clear responsibility of my officials and those working on the Bill to make every human effort to pick up the necessary amendments and repeals needed to give effect to the policy objectives. That is fundamentally right, as we intend those measures to form part of our law, and it goes without saying that my officials have made every effort to ensure it is both accurate and comprehensive. It is only right that all the matters that we wish to form part of the Act should be before the Committee and the Assembly to be scrutinised as a whole.

Clause 86, despite what may have been suggested by some people, is absolutely not a substitute for the effort required to get this right, but is a proportionate and necessary safeguard against the possibility, however remote and undesirable, that something has been missed.

Having observed the complexities of this Bill, I will make two points on the necessity for clause 86. First, provisions like clause 86 need to be seen in context because they are not standard. I would certainly not argue that all Bills should have that as a safeguard; it would not be necessary, nor would it accord with practice. Of the Acts passed in this mandate, most do not include a provision like clause 86. Indeed, not all of my Acts have a provision of that type, but some Acts do contain a provision like clause 86, and that will have been dependent on the context. Where an Act is complex, wide-ranging and amends or repeals other statutes to a large degree, a provision of this sort is wise and proportionate. A small Act like the Education Act (Northern Ireland) 2014 has a provision of this sort, and the context for that was, no doubt, the degree to which it amended other statutes rather than the five substantive sections contained in the Bill. Indeed, the Education Minister spoke most eloquently about the need for a similar provision in that Bill.

My Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 2011, the Inquiry into Historical Institutional Abuse Act (Northern Ireland) 2013, the Charities Act (Northern Ireland) 2013, the Legal Aid and Coroners’ Courts Act (Northern Ireland) 2014, the Education Act (Northern Ireland) 2014, which I just mentioned, and the Work and Families Act (Northern Ireland) 2015 all have a provision of that sort. Of the Bills introduced that have not progressed to Royal Assent in this mandate, four contain similar provisions: the Education Bill, the Reservoirs Bill, the Road Traffic (Amendment) Bill and the Pensions Bill. So, in context, more than 25 Acts and Bills in this mandate have not judged it necessary to include such a provision. That hardly supports the comment that I have heard being made, namely that such provisions are commonplace in devolved Administrations or that these provisions provide endless bites at the cherry.

To return to my point about amendment Nos 12 and 16, it is right that we remain vigilant during the course of a Bill and that we do not allow ourselves to rest on clause 86 as a desirable second-chance provision. It is not that at all, but it is a safety net, and a very important one. I have set out this detail to make the point that we do not and should not take an attitude that clause 86-type arrangements are standard. Clearly, they are not. They must be seen in the context of the specific Bill and judged in that way by the respective Committees and the Assembly as a whole. Given my opening observations on the complexities of the drafting needed to give effect to the policy objectives in the Bill, I remain firmly of the view that clause 86 is appropriate on this occasion.

My second point concerns utility, and there are two angles to that. The first concerns the way in which the clause is drafted; the second its potential utility in the future. I accept that clause 86 may look wide-reaching, and I fully understand why the Committee has given time to it. It is absolutely right that the Committee and the Assembly guard against sweeping powers and that the primacy of full scrutiny by the Committee and the Assembly is protected. However, clause 86 needs to be read very carefully. It is not a power for me as Justice Minister to do anything I like. I cannot use it to alter policy, and I cannot use it to dilute or disturb policy that I do not support. I cannot use it to frustrate democratic debate during the passage of the Bill. It could be used only in the limited circumstances set out in clause 86.

The building blocks in clause 86 are as follows: the first is that the power is permissive and limited to supplementary, incidental, consequential, transitory, transitional or saving provisions — these terms have meanings; and the second is that the clause is limited to the general or particular purposes of the Act, or in consequence of, or for giving full effect to, any provision made by the Act. These two building blocks must be read together and as a whole. I would have the ability to offer to the Assembly only an order that was strictly limited to giving effect to the intentions in the Act, and the order can relate only to the matters described in clause 86(1)(a) and 86(1)(b). This gateway is, in reality, significantly narrower than some of the interpretations that have been placed on it. The important third building block appears in clause 87(6): any such order would be subject to the affirmative procedure.

Clause 86(2) enables an order to amend, repeal, revoke or modify any statutory provision, and I understand why this may seem broad, but this is limited by the subject matter of the Act: the power can be used to deal only with that subject matter. If that test is passed, clause 86(2) enables the order to do what the Act would have done — amend, repeal, revoke or modify — had the issue been picked up at an earlier stage. The affirmative procedure means that it must be subject to the full, active scrutiny of the Assembly. I invite careful consideration of the totality of clause 86. I do not believe that it presents a wide-ranging power for me or that it goes beyond what is necessary to manage a small and particular risk that arises from the complexities of the Bill.

My second point concerns the utility of clause 86. In short, I have no plans to use it. I will be delighted if there is no reason for it to be used, but that does not render it unnecessary. It simply reinforces the fact that this is a safeguard provision. I have not used similar provisions in the past, and I have no plans to do so in relation to this Bill, but were it to become apparent that the Bill had missed an amendment or repeal and that this rendered the policy objective impossible to implement, or created a gap in the law in some particular circumstance, clause 86 allows me to offer to the Assembly — I stress the word "offer" — a fix. Without this, it would be necessary to await the next primary vehicle, which may be a year or more away.

I readily acknowledge that, if I were to offer such a fix via an order under clause 86, it would be for the Assembly to decide whether to accept it. The Assembly would, no doubt, weigh this most carefully and consider matters such as whether the order was properly made under the narrow gateways that exist in clause 86; whether the fix was in fact needed; and whether it might be preferable to await a primary vehicle. The Assembly would also have the opportunity to consider whether the policy objective was so important, or the circumstances created by the unforeseen gap in the law so concerning, vital and urgent, that it may be persuaded to pass the order.

I cannot therefore agree with the proposition that clause 86 should not stand part of the Bill.

Nor can I support the amendment proposed to clause 87(8). It would limit the scope of regulation- and order-making powers in the Bill by removing the words "incidental, supplementary, transitional and saving" provisions and replacing them with the words "consequential and transitional". The intention may in fact be to limit or alter the powers in clause 86, but it is not clear that it has that effect. Instead, it impacts on the other regulation- and order-making powers in the Bill. The Bill contains regulation- and order-making powers in Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9, and there are 14 such powers. Clause 87(8) as currently drafted enables those regulations and orders to do certain things in furtherance of the policy objectives to which the regulations and orders under the Bill attach. As with clause 86, a Bill as complex as this, which is rightly leaving detailed schemes to regulations, requires some flexibility. That is because, of necessity, the regulations will come forward after Royal Assent. We will have schemes and ideas in mind, but, until the Bill is finalised and becomes an Act, it is not possible to describe entirely the detail that we need in regulations.

Regulations are often the subject of further and separate thought and analysis, but they are always true to policy intention, to the regulation-making powers in the Bill and to the limitations laid down in the Bill. If they were otherwise, they would be ultra vires and would face being struck down. Our legislative arrangements enable regulations. They give effect to policy in a very real way and are an important part of how we deliver law into operation. Regulation-making powers therefore need to be right, but they need a degree of flexibility, perhaps even more than clause 86. If we need to make minor and technical adjustments via the regulations to deliver policy objectives, we have traditionally decided as a legislature that we should be able to do so.

The amendment to clause 87(8) is, for me, troubling. It disturbs the scope of regulations in general under the Bill. It removes key words that act as safeguards to the policy objectives, and I would now like to focus on the words that would be lost, as the impact of the amendment needs to be understood. The amendment would remove the word "incidental" and seeks, I believe, to replace it with the term "consequential". I do not see the benefit and would note that either term provides just a narrow opportunity for regulations and orders to give effect to policy objectives. The Supreme Court has noted the following:

The term "supplementary" would also be lost under the amendment. That is also problematic. Supplementary provisions are those that are required to supplement the provisions in order to make them work. Again, those are conditioned by the policy intent. It would not be possible for regulations to begin to introduce new policy or to take us away from the policy objectives in the Bill. In the case of Daymond v South West Water Authority, Viscount Dilhorne said:

The word "transitional" would be retained, and that at least would be welcome. For instance, the word is important to ensure an orderly transition between the law as it was before implementation of the new provisions and the law going forward. However, the word "saving" would also be lost through the amendment. A saving provision preserves the effect of an action or process ongoing at the time of the repeal of the existing legislation.

I therefore believe that we should tread most carefully indeed in matters such as this. Without great care and thought, the implications of the amendment cannot be fully understood and appreciated. I fully respect the Committee's intention to make sure that Ministers do not take powers unto themselves that are not needed or appropriate. I again appreciate the care with which the Justice Committee has scrutinised the Bill — care that, I believe, has been reciprocated in the work that my officials have done with the Committee — but I caution against running into a problem in this area. For that reason, I cannot support either the removal of clause 86 or the amendment.

Mr Ross: Given that the majority of the amendments in the group are technical in nature or consequential — to use that language — to other amendments being made, I intend to restrict my remarks in the debate to amendment No 49, which, as the Minister has just outlined, changes the procedure for the annual determination of Lands Tribunal members’ salaries, and to the Committee’s opposition to clause 86 and our proposed amendments. As we have learned in recent months, technical amendments can be interesting. They deserve quite a bit of scrutiny and examination, and that is certainly what the Committee has done over the last number of months.

Amendment No 49, which introduces new clause 85A to remove the need for an affirmative resolution statutory rule to determine the salary of the members of the Lands Tribunal, originated from comments made by the previous Chairman of the Justice Committee during a debate in the Assembly in September 2013 on the Lands Tribunal (Salaries) Order (Northern Ireland) 2013. As the Minister outlined, the Department is required to bring forward an order that is subject to the affirmative resolution procedure for the annual determination of Lands Tribunal members’ salaries. No other judicial salary is subject to Assembly approval. It affects the salary of only one individual, as the post of president of the tribunal is held by a Lord Justice of Appeal, who does not receive a salary for the post under the 1964 Lands Tribunal and Compensation Act. The rate of pay is set by the Review Body on Senior Salaries, which recommended a 1% pay increase in both 2013 and 2014. It is clearly not a good use of Assembly time to require a debate on the statutory rule, particularly when legal aid statutory rules making millions of pounds' worth of changes and affecting the entire legal profession are largely subject to the negative resolution procedure. For the reasons that I have outlined, it makes sense to align the procedure for determining Lands Tribunal members’ salaries with the procedure used to determine other judicial salaries. The Committee therefore supports amendment No 49.

I now want to set out for the Assembly the background and rationale to the Justice Committee’s opposition to clause 86 and the two amendments that we have tabled to clause 87. Members will know that good legislative scrutiny requires consideration of all parts of a Bill, including the provisions often described as technical in nature, which determine the effect of the legislation once enacted. They are usually found at the back of the Bill, and in the Justice Bill are contained in the supplementary provisions at Part 9.

When Department of Justice officials appeared at the Committee on 18 February 2015 to give evidence on the Bill, members took the opportunity to explore the exact purpose and effect of clause 86 and the extent of the powers that it provides to the Minister of Justice, much, I think, to the surprise of the officials at the time. The officials advised the Committee that the clause is a general construction that is used in lots of legislation to cover various eventualities, particularly in a large Bill such as this, where there is the potential for an issue to arise in a number of areas that might need some rectification, and indicated, as the Minister has today, that it is intended to address any minor points that might arise, rather than any substantive policy. On the face of it, that seemed reasonable, but, when the Committee pressed further regarding what limitations there were to the powers provided by the clause, the officials indicated that they would need to look at it in more detail and provide clarification in writing.

The Department subsequently wrote, indicating that a power to make supplementary, incidental, consequential and transitional provision, such as is provided by clause 86, is frequently included in a Bill that deals with complex changes in law in case difficulties that had not been identified in the legislative process arise. The Department described clause 86 as something of a safety blanket in case the operation of the legislative changes throws up some unexpected difficulty or to address necessary consequential changes that have inadvertently been overlooked during the drafting of the Bill.

Whilst the Department accepted that the power provided is widely drawn to take account of the fact that the precise circumstances in which it may be called upon cannot be determined, it outlined that, in its view, the purposes for which the power can be used are reasonably exact, given that clause 86(1) provides that the relevant orders must be used for the purposes of the Act or to make provision in consequence of or for giving full effect to the Act. It also highlighted that clause 87(6)(b) provides that any order made under section 86(1) that contains a provision that amends or repeals a provision of an Act of Parliament or Northern Ireland legislation will be subject to the draft affirmative procedure and cannot be made without Assembly approval, with other orders subject to the negative resolution procedure.

When the Committee considered clause 86, members continued to have concerns about the breadth of the powers provided to amend, repeal or modify primary legislation agreed and passed by the Assembly by way of secondary legislation.

Although some orders would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, the Assembly would have to either accept or reject the order with no opportunity to amend it. Despite the best intentions, secondary legislation is not always scrutinised and debated to the level of detail that primary legislation is subjected to. The Committee did not agree with the Department's assessment that the purposes for which the power could be used are reasonably precise.

The Committee noted that this type of clause can be a common occurrence, particularly in Bills of the size of the Justice Bill, but was not content with the wide-ranging powers it provided to make ancillary provision by subordinate legislation. The Committee is of the view that powers should be provided for an exact purpose rather than being so broad in nature and that, even though the affirmative resolution procedure would apply to some orders, as a consequence of clause 86, parts of the Bill passed by the Assembly could be changed or potentially reversed by the Department of Justice without the scrutiny the Bill itself has received. The Committee therefore decided to oppose the inclusion of clause 86, believing that its intention to remove this type of clause would send a message to all Departments to ensure that future legislation is well thought out beforehand rather than relying on extensive powers to fix things at a later stage.

Following the completion of the Committee Stage of the Bill, the Department of Justice wrote to the Committee on 20 May outlining that the Executive had discussed clause 86 on 14 May and that the Minister of Justice had undertaken to try to address the Committee's concerns. The letter advised that the Minister intended to include clause 86 in the Bill as a safety blanket in case the operation of the legislation threw up any unexpected difficulties. He noted the inclusion of similar provisions in other Bills. The Minister also indicated that he had no intention at present to make use of clause 86 but continued to believe that its inclusion in the Bill was essential.

The Minister suggested to the Committee that, rather than opposing clause 86, we might consider amending it so that the requirement for the affirmative resolution procedure was more clearly associated with the clause. This could be achieved by removing the requirement for the affirmative resolution procedure from clause 87 and placing it in clause 86. The Minister provided the wording of the necessary amendments to make the change. The Committee considered the proposal but noted that it did not address the excessive breadth and discretion that clause 86 afforded him, which is the basis of the Committee's concerns in relation to the clause. While his proposal was more presentational than addressing the key areas of concern, the Committee agreed to hear further evidence prior to the closing date for amendments for Consideration Stage to enable it to consider the matter further.

The Committee met on 26 May and heard further evidence from the Department on the rationale for keeping clause 86 in the Bill, much of which the Minister has outlined to the Assembly this evening. In essence, the Department advised the Committee that the provision is proportionate and necessary to manage the risk of something having being missed when preparing the Bill, as it covers a very wide range of old and complex legislative procedures. Apparently, one of the statutes amended by the Bill dates back to 1842. The Department indicated that not all of the justice Bills advanced during this mandate have included such a provision and believes that it is necessary in this one. The Department also provided examples of Bills from other Departments in which a similar clause had been included and was still of the view that, while, on the face of it, the provision looks very wide-ranging, it is very narrow when looked at in the context of the totality of the clause. The Department stated that it would not rely on clause 86 to cover any deficiency in the policy-making process and that the clause was not there to enable it to change its mind on the policy.

Members sought examples of when this type of clause had been used in the past and the likely circumstances that it would be used in with regard to this Bill. The Committee also sought clarification of the meaning of "supplementary, incidental, consequential and transitional" in the context of clause 86 and of why the clause could not be made more specific to ensure that any changes made under it are kept to a minimum, given that they would not be subject to the scrutiny that primary legislation receives. The Department responded by indicating that it understood that all the words had particular meanings, although it did not provide any further explanation of the meanings, and, if some or all were to be removed, it would need to seek further advice on the impact that that would have. The Department also confirmed that the provision enabled the Minister to amend any legislation, not just legislation relating to justice, but sought to assure the Committee that this would take place only if it were necessary to give effect to the policy.

The Committee found the further information provided by the Department in relation to clauses 86 and 87 helpful in assisting us to gain a better understanding of why the Department requires some sort of power to amend the legislation if it has missed something, particularly when it is looking at law dating as far back as 1842. However the Committee still believes that primary legislation should be well thought through beforehand and that the Department should have identified unforeseen consequences and legislated for them in the Bill rather than relying on wide-ranging powers to amend things later through subordinate legislation. The Committee appreciates that there is a need to have some capacity to amend the primary legislation in the event of something minor being missed, such as described by the Department in relation to schedule 1 and legislation stretching back as far as 170 years ago. However, we are still not convinced that the breadth and scope of power provided by clause 86 is required.

By opposing the inclusion of clause 86 and amending clause 87 as set out in amendment Nos 51 and 52, the Committee aims to provide the Minister with some flexibility and scope to make minor amendments by way of secondary legislation, such as those described by the Department, that may be required if something small has been overlooked. However, it will ensure that any wider changes or amendments will require further primary legislation that will be subject to the rigorous scrutiny that has been applied to the Bill.

I listened carefully to the case that the Minister made for retaining clause 86 and rejecting the Committee's amendments to clause 87. Whilst he has tried to provide assurances to the Committee and the Assembly regarding the use of clause 86 — or the lack of use of it, as he keeps pointing out that he does not intend to use it — I am still not convinced, and I suspect that other Committee members are still not convinced of the necessity for the broad powers that the Bill confers on him. Having similar clauses in other Bills is not in itself an argument to have it in this Bill. He also referred to the Education Minister speaking — I think that he said "most eloquently" — about the need for a similar provision in the Education Act (Northern Ireland) 2014. Clauses 86 and 87 are much more extensive in the powers that they provide. Indeed, if my memory serves me right, an amendment was tabled to the clause in the Education Bill, as there were concerns about the powers provided in that clause as well.

Having heard from the Department on a number of occasions, the Committee is still of the view that the power to amend primary legislation provided by the clauses is too broad and needs to be narrower. While the Department has recently engaged with the Committee on the issue, it is fair to say that, initially, the explanations and rationale provided to the Committee about the need for the clauses and the breadth of the power contained in them did not fully address the concerns raised.

While this may seem a dry debate about technical clauses, it is about much more than that. It relates to public accountability and the checks and balances on the Executive by this legislative Assembly. The primary legislation-making process gives time and resources to close consideration and proper and detailed scrutiny. Regulations, if made by affirmative procedure, only provide an opportunity for approval or refusal and cannot be amended, and negative resolution rules require a prayer of annulment before a debate takes place. I do not think that anybody would argue that secondary legislation receives the same scrutiny as primary legislation.

The issue of what are termed Henry VIII clauses — in other words, a clause in an Act that enables the Act to be expressly or implicitly amended by subordinate legislation — has exercised and is exercising other jurisdictions around the world. A paper delivered to the 2011 Australia-New Zealand Scrutiny of Legislation Conference pointed out that:

Their use appears to be particularly prevalent at Westminster, and I note that, in his farewell speech to the House of Commons, Sir John Stanley, of course a former Northern Ireland Minister during the Thatcher years and a Member of Parliament for Tonbridge and Malling from 1974 to 2015, said:

He went on to say:

That is where the quote ended. He is no longer a Member of Parliament and is an individual citizen.

Another example is provided by Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, who, at the Lord Mayor's dinner for the judiciary in 2010, indicated that his deepest concern was directed to the increased use of Henry VIII clauses. He stated:

Just for clarity, I am not comparing the Minister to Henry VIII, but I will continue with the quote. He said that:

— which allowed the King's proclamations to have the same force as Acts of Parliament — "was the ultimate in supineness." Supineness is a fabulous word. Lord Judge referred to a number of Acts that contained powers to make such supplementary, incidental or consequential provision, or such transitory, transitional or saving provisions:

To illustrate his concerns, he stated that, when these clauses are introduced:

The Committee has very properly and not unreasonably, in my view, scrutinised the purpose of clauses 86 and 87, and I pose this question: why should we get into the habit of allowing such clauses? The Committee has adopted a position that seeks to ensure that amendments to primary legislation by way of secondary legislation are minimised to what it considers those categories most closely connected to the Bill, consequential and transitional, to ensure effective scrutiny and accountability. The Committee believes that it has still provided sufficient powers to the Minister and the Department to address any minor oversights.

While clauses 86 and 87 are technical in nature, the argument around whether such clauses are appropriate in Bills is relevant to all Committees of the House and all Members of the Assembly as it is fundamentally about how much power Ministers should have to amend primary legislation by way of secondary legislation. I ask the Assembly, therefore, to support the Committee's opposition to clause 86 and its two amendments to clause 87 on the basis that I have outlined.

I believe that the Justice Committee has carried it out its legislative scrutiny function rigorously and has sent out a message to all Departments that every clause in a Bill, whether to give effect to policy or technical in nature, will be questioned, and they must be able to justify its inclusion in a Bill and the breadth of powers that it provides.

Mr Lynch: Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. You will be glad to hear that I will keep things short and not mention Henry VIII. The Minister made a robust argument that clause 86 should remain and was needed for a purpose as a safeguard. He said that it was a wise provision, that it was a safety net and must be seen in the context of the Bill. However, there were no plans to use the provision. I agree with the Chair, who has expanded much wider on the issue than any of us on the Committee would have known; he has covered it very well. I agree with his explanation and rationale, and the process through which the Committee dealt with the clause. Like him, I am not convinced either. I concur with him that it is a case of accountability.

The Committee sought clarification from departmental officials as to why they needed such wide-ranging powers, particularly after the Bill underwent detailed scrutiny, and in what circumstances it could be used. The explanation was that it was to fix a problem but there was no plan to use it. The Committee wanted to understand the need for a wide-ranging clause, given that the details should have been thrashed out in the first place. The Department should have accounted for unforeseen circumstances. After considering advice from the officials — the Chair has gone into much more detail than I have — we are agreeable to allowing flexibility to the Department to correct things that it may have missed but not to give it a power that is so wide that it can pretty much include anything that it liked. I support the Chair's position.

Mr A Maginness: I have very little to add to the learned treatise given by the very learned Chair of the Justice Committee. The only thing I would add is that Henry VIII is not the most popular person in history, particularly in Ireland, but he did introduce the harp as an official symbol for Ireland. He was king of not only England and France but Ireland. That is just a little historical footnote. We have been dealing with tradition and history all day today. I endorse everything that the Chair said in relation to this matter.

Mr Elliott: In the interests of harmony, I will continue with Henry VIII. I was really pleased to hear Alban Maginness giving such a summary. He almost said that maybe Ireland should be back under the United Kingdom's control. I think that that is what he was referring to, anyway.

I do not have a great lot to add, but I point out that, on clause 86, I have some empathy with the Minister. When the Bill Office came back to us, there was quite close scrutiny of the issue. We looked at a separate option that was brought back by the Department as well; it was a slightly changed wording. It opens a pretty wide hornets' nest for not only the Department of Justice or Bills that the Minister of Justice brings forward but other Departments. The Minister indicated that it is in other legislation, so there is a difficulty, because what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If it is kept out of this legislation, there are other pieces of legislation that need to be looked at.

Mr Ross: Will the Member give way?

Mr Elliott: I am happy to.

Mr Ross: In fairness to the Committee, the nuclear option would have been to oppose clause 86 and give the Minister no flexibility at all. In fairness to Committee members, we decided to give the Department flexibility. We feel that we gave it enough flexibility to make the changes that may be necessary to change minor amendments, but we were not willing to give it the broad sweep of powers that perhaps it was asking for in the first place.

Mr Elliott: I accept that point. I was merely indicating that, while it is not an issue for today, I am sure that other Committees will be looking at the scrutiny of their Department when it brings forward legislation.

The Minister indicated in his opening remarks that he does not believe that there is enough flexibility in what the Committee has brought forward. After hearing from Mr Ross and others, I wonder whether the Minister has changed his mind to any degree or whether there will be a coming together in the interests of harmony on this group. I deliberated on this long and hard at Committee. I thought that the amendment from the Department may have gone some way to resolving the issue, but the Committee felt that it was still too wide and that it needed to be narrowed to some degree. On balance, there is probably enough remit in what the Committee has done to allow the Minister and Department to bring the amendments as and when they need to. I will wait for the Minister's remarks to hear whether he has changed his mind to any degree.

Mr Dickson: I also welcome the opportunity to speak on group 3, although perhaps "welcome" at this time of night is not entirely appropriate.

The amendments are mostly of a technical nature. A few elements caused considerable disquiet among some during Committee Stage, but I do not consider that to be warranted. Needless to say, I will support the Minister on this. I do not wish to strike a discordant note in the Chamber, and I doubt that I will be able to persuade others, but, nevertheless, we need to reflect on exactly what we are doing.

Clause 86, as has been indicated, is not unique in lawmaking. It provides the means for a Department to refine the law, ensure that it is efficient and purposeful, remove contradictions and make sure that it is fit for 21st-century use. The Bill, as many of us on the Justice Committee will be aware, is rather complex and wide-ranging. As has been referred to, it will deal with the repeal of some statutes that go back as far as the 1840s.

During Committee Stage, the Department admitted that the power could appear to be widely drawn, but, because of the precise circumstances that it may be called to, it cannot be determined. The Department further noted that the purposes of the power can be used as reasonably exact, and it drew attention to the fact that clause 86(1) provides that the relevant orders must be used for the purposes of the Act or to make provision:

the Act, and that, subsequently, clause 86(2) must be read in that light.

It is also indicated that clause 87(6)(b) provides that any order made:

will be subject to draft affirmative procedure and cannot be made without Assembly approval. That seems to me to be reasonable. All orders made under clause 86(1) will also be subject to the usual subordinate legislative procedures. This is a safeguard to ensure good law and is not unique in legislation. I, therefore, believe that it is vital that we ensure that the Department is provided with this safety net when implementing such a complex and important reform to our judicial system. It is for these reasons that I will oppose amendment Nos 51 and 52 and the removal of the clause from the Bill.

Mr Frew: This is probably a quirk of history, but, whilst it can be described in that way, we, as legislators, have to take it very seriously. I fully support my colleague Alban Maginness on his reading of history. I am not that intrigued by Henry VIII — I do not find him that popular a guy — but I certainly support the symbol of the harp in Ireland. That is something that I find immense pride in, especially as I wore it on my caubeen in the Royal Irish. It is indeed a symbol of valour and dedication to the bravery of the British Army throughout Ireland through the ages, so I can certainly support the harp if not Henry VIII.

Moving on before I am told off, Mr Speaker, this seems to me to be just too wide-ranging and to have too much scope. It allows the Minister, even with the best intentions, to do things with legislation that has been scrutinised in both the Chamber and the Committee. There is a principle here in that it may go some way to demeaning the role of scrutiny in this legislature. That worries me. As we move on with legislation, this may well become an issue time and time again. There is an onus on Ministers and Departments when they bring forth legislation to ask themselves this question: is this clause essential, and, if it is, why is it essential? If they ask that question of themselves, there may be an opportunity whereby a Bill of this nature — even a Bill as wide-ranging as the Justice Bill, and this is probably a good example — may be for only a specific or small part. You might find that there would be more support for and less worry and concern about a clause like this if it were restricted in that way so as to catch only part of a Bill. Even then, of course, there would be concerns around what the Minister might want or intend to do in the future.

To me, the whole point of being here as a legislator is being able to scrutinise. The first thing that we should look at when we are scrutinising Bills is the indirect consequences of those Bills. We should be mindful of that every day that we are in the House and every day that we scrutinise legislation in Committee. I have worries and concerns about this clause. As a principle, we need to look at it more carefully. When I asked questions on this matter in the Committee, the understanding of the officials who addressed my question was that this provision enables the Department to amend any legislation, even that not related to Justice. If that is the case, that is very wide-ranging. I believe that, if it is there to affect legislation that does not even relate to justice, it must be scrutinised carefully because that, in itself, may lead to indirect consequences that will affect our people daily. So, whilst this certainly is a quirk of history, it is a very serious point, and we are having a very serious and principled debate.

As the Chairman of the Committee said, question marks are being raised all around the world on the content of this clause, and now, of course, it has come to the Floor of the Assembly. It concerns me greatly. The scope and the breadth of the clause are immense. If it can affect legislation brought forward by other Ministers and Departments, which has been thoroughly scrutinised in the House, there is something badly wrong.

I will leave it at that because I know that the Chair has covered all bases on this clause.

Mr Ford: I am more than a little surprised at the lack of confidence amongst members of the Committee. The number of references made by all participants in this bit of the debate, except my good colleague Stewart Dickson, to scrutiny not being carried out properly if it was secondary legislation, is a little disappointing. Over the last five years as Minister, I have seen a Committee that has given full, detailed scrutiny to everything put before it by the Department of Justice.

I find more than a little bizarre the suggestion that, somehow, the Committee would be lacking and incapable in the unlikely event that we needed to invoke the provisions of clause 86 or clause 87, meaning that something would be sent to the Committee for scrutiny on the basis that it was subject to affirmative resolution and so would also need to come to the Assembly.

After all, in the last few years, the Committee scrutinised the salary paid to a member of the Lands Tribunal. It carried out that function prior to the matter coming to the Assembly and when it was debated here. So I am a little disappointed that the Committee that I thought capable of advising and assisting me appears to regard itself as incapable of scrutinising what comes before it.

We also need to be realistic about the kind of things that are here. The point was made that this would cover any legislation, not just justice legislation. No. This covers the potential for making orders dealing with amendments to any Act for the particular purpose of, in consequence of, or for giving full effect to, any provision made by this Act.

Of course, there is lots in the Bill that has nothing to do with justice legislation. The Married Woman's Property Act 1882, which is an amendment that falls in the addition to schedule 1, might just be classified as justice legislation, but I doubt that the Public Health (Ireland) Act 1878, the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 or the Open Spaces Act 1906 could be so described. None is justice legislation, but they are all mentioned because they make references to petty sessions districts or courts of quarter sessions. Despite the good work done in the Department before the Bill was published, and since, with further amendments coming through, because of the massive number of potential consequential amendments, all these issues could require primary legislation if we did not allow such provisions to go through.

It is slightly bizarre that the Committee has got itself so worked up by an academic who arrived from London knowing little about what happens in this place and who produced that kind of point. References to John Stanley and his experience here as a NIO Minister in the 1980s are completely outwith the way in which this place operates. There is absolutely no doubt that, for about the last 50 or 60 years, power in Westminster has moved from the House of Commons to the Executive. That is the reality. That is why, in 1998, our arrangements were set up in a completely different way. We have Committees that perform all the scrutiny functions that are carried out by different Committees in the House of Commons.

Standing Committees on Bills, as well as Select Committees on particular topics, have their functions combined in our Statutory Committees, where a level of expertise builds up, although I am not sure that it is necessarily the expertise that would have allowed Committee members to spot whether the Married Women's Property Act mentioned petty sessions districts.

Mr Douglas: Will the Minister give way?

Mr Ford: We have that expertise built up. We are not anything like Westminster, yet people are dragging in a frankly irrelevant reference from somebody who has been an MP there. I give way.

Mr Douglas: I heard the Minister say a couple of times that he was very disappointed, and we understand that. Perhaps he is taking this a bit personally. My colleague, the Chairman of the Committee, mentioned Henry VIII at one stage. I do not honestly believe that the Chairman was alluding to you; in fact, he said that he was not. However, might it not be the case that some Members are concerned that not you but the next Justice Minister may be a Henry VIII-type figure? Might we not be afraid of that?

Mr Ford: I am grateful for that consolatory remark. Frankly, about the only decent thing that was said by any member of the Committee, apart from Stewart Dickson, is that I am apparently not a tyrant like Henry VIII. When you get to the point where English kings are being praised by the SDLP and disowned by the DUP, heaven knows where we are getting to.

It is quite a serious point. Our structures are not those of Westminster. The Executive are not absorbing power from this place in the way that that has been clearly the case at Westminster. Our Committees have significant power and do their job in this place. On the basis that this is the same form of words as appears in other legislation, which deals with the necessity of catching matters that would otherwise create problems and require primary legislation, this is really not the right Bill to do this with. This Bill is so complex. It is one that, as I highlighted, has already about 30 pages of schedule 1, with another four being added by amendments before the House now, and there may even be one or two other points discovered before Further Consideration Stage. However, if they are not discovered before Further Consideration Stage, they have the potential to derail the Bill, if we do not allow things to be carried through as they should be.

When Members ask, "Is this clause essential?" or actually "Are these two clauses essential?", the answer is yes — not because I propose to use them but because they might be required. If an issue arose, waiting for primary legislation, given the time that it takes to get primary legislation through this place, is not the best example of how we would deal effectively with ensuring that the justice system gets reformed in the way in which it ought to be reformed.

Mr Ross: Will the Minister give way?

Mr Ford: We must ensure that we can move things on in a much better way to achieve the faster, fairer justice that we all want to see. I will give way.

Mr Ross: The Minister hits on one of the key points about primary legislation, but at least in primary legislation there is a facility for the Committee to take evidence from stakeholders and to investigate thoroughly an issue and, if necessary, amend the legislation. If decisions are taken by statutory rule, there is no time or capacity in the Committee to take evidence from stakeholders and no ability for it to amend legislation. That is why the Committee felt that it wanted to tighten the power. We have not taken the nuclear option of removing any flexibility at all from the Minister or the Department; rather, we have sought to tighten up the provision to ensure that we have as much control over decision-making as possible.

Mr Ford: I appreciate the Chair's point, which I was going to come to, about flexibility. The reality is that there is flexibility when Committees consider matters, if Departments put proposals before Committees and are willing to engage and discuss. Certainly, I accept that, at the point at which an order comes to the Chamber under the affirmative resolution procedure, there is no flexibility, but there is flexibility in the engagement that, I believe, has characterised the relationship between the Department of Justice and the Committee for Justice over the past five years. There is flexibility in the willingness to discuss different ways of doing things. There is flexibility, for example, in the way in which the victims and witnesses strategy was produced. That is an example of a Department that has engaged and has sought to be constructive in how it works and that, frankly, does not need to be hidebound in the event of possible difficulties coming up as we look at the extraordinarily complex issue of the number of existing Acts of Parliament that require amendment, modification or repeal.

That is where I think the Committee has got itself worked up into a lather about something that is entirely inappropriate for this Bill. It is entirely inappropriate for the structures that we have in this Assembly and the way in which we relate to legislation in this place. I wonder why. Tales of Henry VIII, of malpractice in Westminster and of conferences held in Australia and New Zealand do not suggest to me that people have actually confronted the reality of what happens in this place and the necessity to have clauses 86 and 87 in the legislation not because we want to use them but because we might need them. The idea that we would put a complex Bill like this through the House that could be derailed and require primary legislation in a year and a half's time because people are unwilling to allow the provisions that are specified in clauses 86 and 87 causes me considerable concerns. I certainly hope that the Committee will not press its proposal at this stage. I am happy that we continue to discuss the matter for the two weeks before Further Consideration Stage to see whether we can reach a better accommodation, but what is currently before the House from the Committee — removing clause 86 entirely and amending clause 87 — would not be good law, and I will resist it as it stands.

Mr Speaker: We now come to the fourth group of amendments for debate. The group deals with criminal records and the gathering and handling of evidence such as DNA, fingerprints and photographs. An amendment is also proposed in the group to allow the Attorney General power to summon evidence from health workers to support his power to direct inquests. With amendment No 13 it will be convenient to debate amendment Nos 14, 15, 18, 30 to 33, 35 to 39, 47, 50, 69, 70 and 72. Amendment No 69 is consequential to amendment No 14, and amendment No 72 is consequential to amendment No 38. Members will also note that a valid petition of concern has been received in relation to amendment No 50, so that amendment will require cross-community support. I call the Minister of Justice to move the amendment and to address the other amendments in the group.

Mr Ford: I beg to move amendment No 13:

Mr Ford: The group relates to criminal records, evidence gathering and evidence handling. The criminal records provisions of the Bill and the proposed amendments make changes to the Police Act 1997 to modernise and improve the arrangements for the disclosure of the criminal record checks carried out by Northern Ireland's disclosure service, Access NI. I would like to take a moment to thank Access NI for the work that it does in processing some 125,000 applications each year. It has had a particularly challenging period recently with the introduction of a new IT system, including online applications from 1 April.

Amendment No 13 makes a technical adjustment to the existing clause 39 to make it clear that the code of practice to which chief officers must have regard when determining whether information should be included in an enhanced criminal record certificate must be published. Amendment Nos 14 and 69 introduce new clause 39A and schedule 3B to make provision for the introduction of a review mechanism for the filtering scheme operated by Access NI since April of last year. This is on the basis of legal advice that provision should be made to allow an individual to seek, in certain circumstances, a review of their case where a conviction or other disposal has not been filtered from their certificate. Following careful consideration to the views of stakeholders, the amendment includes an automatic referral for cases only involving offences committed by someone under the age of 18.

Amendment No 15 makes an enhancement to clause 40, in the light of experience, to exclude a small number of applicants for enhanced checks in relation to home-based positions from the update service so as to avoid the potential for the unintentional disclosure of third-party information.

The final amendments in the group concerning criminal records are amendment No 18, which provides statutory cover for the storage of cautions and other diversionary disposals, and amendment No 70, which offers a small correction to amend a minor drafting issue in the criminal records schedule to the Bill.

Amendment Nos 30 to 34 relate to the violent offences prevention order (VOPO) provisions in Part 7 of the Bill and reflect specific comments made by the Attorney General around notification requirements of the offender and their compliance with the ECHR. The proposed amendments have been agreed with the Attorney General. Amendment No 30 makes changes to clause 65, which provides police with the power to take fingerprints and photographs of an offender at notification to verify their identity. The proposed amendment ensures that fingerprints are retained by police only if they are to be used to replace an existing set of poorer quality prints. In such a circumstance, the former set would be destroyed. It also provides that photographs taken at notification are destroyed once the offender ceases to be subject to notification requirements but allows the Chief Constable to apply to the court for an extension of photograph retention for a further two-year period from when notification has ended. A power of appeal has also been included to allow the Chief Constable or the offender to appeal against a court order given to police to extend the period of retention or a refusal by the court to grant an order.

Amendment Nos 31 and 32 make changes to clause 68, which relates to the retention of information from other Departments and the Secretary of State, such as passport information relating to the offender. The amendments ensure that the information is destroyed by the police once the offender is no longer subject to notification requirements but enables the Chief Constable to apply for an order to extend the period of information retention for a further two years from when notification has ended. It also allows the Chief Constable and the offender to appeal against a court order given to police to extend the period of retention or a refusal by the court to grant an order.

The final VOPO amendment, amendment No 33, is made to clause 70. That clause concerns power of entry and search of an offender's home by police that is needed for the purpose of assessing risk. The amendment ensures proportionality of any interference with third-party rights. The court, when considering the need for a search warrant, must be satisfied that it is proportionate in all circumstances for police to enter and search the premises in the case when the premises is resided in by a third party; that is, where the offender is staying at the premises but when it is owned by another person.

Amendment Nos 35 to 39 and amendment No 72 are a package of amendments associated with the new DNA and fingerprints retention framework as set out in schedule 2 to the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 2013. Implementation of the equivalent legislation in England and Wales has identified a number of gaps in our provisions that require correction to ensure that the overall regime achieves the desired outcome. The first of the amendments, amendment No 35, inserts new clause 76A into the Bill to amend the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 (PACE). That is to allow police to retake fingerprints and a DNA sample in cases where an investigation has been discontinued and where the material originally taken has been destroyed in accordance with the new biometric retention regime but where the same investigation later recommences, perhaps because new evidence has emerged in the case.

Amendment No 36 inserts new clause 76B to correct a gap identified in article 63G of PACE, which makes provision for the retention of DNA and fingerprints taken from persons convicted of an offence outside Northern Ireland. As currently enacted, article 63G would not permit the retention of the DNA profile and fingerprints taken from a person in Northern Ireland on the basis of a conviction recorded against them for a recordable, non-qualifying offence in England, Wales or Scotland. Amendment 37 inserts new clause 76C to make provision for the retention of DNA profiles and fingerprints, taken by police in cases where an individual accepts a prosecutorial fine in relation to the offence, for a period of two years.

Amendment No 38 inserts new clause 76D, which will substitute existing article 63N of PACE, which has been found not to have achieved the intended effect. Article 63N will now make it clear that DNA and fingerprints taken from an individual in connection with the investigation of an offence may be retained on the basis of the outcome of a subsequent offence, irrespective of whether that offence is linked to the one for which the material was first obtained.

Amendment No 72 makes an associated amendment to schedule 5 to the Bill, which deals with transitional provisions and savings

Finally, in respect of the DNA aspects of the group, amendment No 39 inserts new clause 76E, which will amend the relevant PACE provision to disapply the general destruction requirements for DNA samples in cases where the material falls under the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 and is relevant in evidence in court.

The last departmental amendment in the group is amendment No 47, which relates to clause 82 of the Bill. Clause 82 creates a new right for defendants to apply to the court for an order allowing access to premises for the purpose of preparing their defence or appeal. The premises will typically be the crime scene and, in the vast majority of cases at present, access is agreed between the parties. The Attorney General has suggested that the power should only be exercised to ensure compliance with article 6 of the ECHR. This adjustment to the threshold for obtaining an order allowing access to property is intended to ensure proportionality and greater clarity in the use of the power.

Let me turn to the final amendment in the group, which is amendment No 50, in the name of Mr McCartney and colleagues. It seeks to amend the Coroners Act (Northern Ireland) 1959 to grant the Attorney General extra powers to gain access to health and social care information about the direction of inquests. I understand that the provision was discussed at length by the Justice Committee during Committee Stage, with written and oral evidence taken from the Attorney General, DHSSPS and the Health and Social Care Board. Despite lengthy deliberations, the Committee could not reach an agreement to bring forward the proposition as a Committee amendment. Given the lack of consensus on the matter, I do not consider it appropriate for the Assembly to agree to the proposal without further consideration and policy development. The current statutory provisions that allow the Attorney General to direct an inquest are set quite wide, but how the medical information to which the Attorney General would seek access would be interpreted is unclear. For those reasons, and in light of the Committee's inability to reach a consensus on the proposal, I do not support the amendment.

Mr Ross: Hopefully, the Minister and I will return to harmony on this section of clauses and amendments. First of all, I will speak briefly on the clauses and amendments that aim to improve and modernise arrangements for the disclosure of criminal records by providing for electronic applications, portable disclosures, the issuing of single disclosures and an independent appeals mechanism, amongst other things.

At the start of the Committee Stage of the Bill, the Department advised the Committee of a number of amendments that it intended to bring forward, including one to create a review mechanism for the disclosure scheme to filter certain old and minor convictions and other disposals, such as cautions, from standard and enhanced criminal record certificates. That enabled the Committee to seek evidence on those as part of the Committee Stage of the Bill.

In the evidence provided to the Committee, there was broad support amongst stakeholders for the measures being taken to modernise and streamline the disclosure of information; the proposal for a review mechanism; and issues raised largely related to the disclosure scheme itself, the retention and disclosure of criminal record information regarding children and young people and the wider arguments in relation to whether under-18s should be able to apply to wipe the slate clean of old and minor convictions. Women’s Aid was, however, concerned that the review mechanism to filter old and minor convictions might lead to serial perpetrators of domestic violence slipping through the cracks and facilitate their abuse of future victims, and indicated that it is vital that records remain in such cases.

The Committee noted that the measures covered by clauses 36 to 43 and related amendments reflect many of the recommendations made by Sunita Mason in her review of the criminal records regime in Northern Ireland, and took the opportunity during the oral evidence session with departmental officials to explore a number of issues, including the delay in implementing portable checks due to a delay in the commencement of the update service operated by the Disclosure and Barring Service; whether, once available, they will speed up the process, particularly given the current delays in obtaining criminal record checks; how automatic referral to the independent reviewer will operate in practice; and the type of convictions that are likely to be removed by that process. Having considered the evidence received and the further information provided by the Department, the Committee agreed that it is content with the criminal records clauses and related amendments.

I turn now to amendment Nos 30, 31, 32 and 33. The Department advised the Committee during the Committee Stage of the Bill that it intended to bring forward a number of amendments relating to the verification of identity, retention of fingerprints and photographs, and power of search of third-party premises to the violent offences prevention order clauses to reflect improvements suggested by the Attorney General and concerns that he raised about European Court of Human Rights compliance. The main issues raised in the evidence received by the Committee on this part of the Bill covered the use of VOPOs in relation to domestic violence offences; whether there was a need for separate domestic violence protection orders, which the Assembly debated earlier; and whether VOPOs should apply to offenders under the age of 18. Noting that VOPOs are a risk management tool and a means of protecting the public, rather than a sentencing or punitive disposal, the Committee is content to support the clauses and the amendments.

I now want to very briefly address amendment Nos 35, 36, 37, 38 and 39, which introduce a number of new clauses to the Bill to make policy amendments to the biometric provisions in the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1989, which provides for the new DNA and fingerprint retention framework.

Having received information from the Department on the proposed amendments, the Committee noted that four of them aim to address shortcomings identified through early experience of operating the corresponding provisions in England and Wales and the other amendment will add a new article to PACE to reflect the introduction of prosecutorial fines in Northern Ireland. Therefore, the Committee agreed to their inclusion in the Bill.

I turn to amendment No 50, tabled by Sinn Féin. This would confer a power on the Attorney General for Northern Ireland to obtain papers and provide a clear statutory basis for disclosure in relation to the exercise of his power to direct an inquest where he considers it advisable to do so under section 14(1) of the Coroners Act (Northern Ireland) 1959. The Committee has given this detailed consideration, initially in the context of the Legal Aid and Coroners' Courts Bill and, more recently, as part of the Committee Stage of this Bill. The Attorney General asked the Committee to consider the amendment, albeit without the review mechanism and sunset clause, when it was carrying out the Committee Stage of the Legal Aid and Coroners' Courts Bill last year. The Attorney General outlined that the principal focus of his concern was deaths that occur in hospitals or where there is otherwise a suggestion that medical error may have occurred and indicated that he had experienced some difficulty in recent years in securing access to documents that, he believed, he needed.

At that time, the Committee indicated that it was generally supportive of the principle of the proposed amendment; however, it raised issues that required further consideration and scrutiny that could not be undertaken within the timescale for completion of the Committee Stage of the Legal Aid and Coroners' Courts Bill. The Committee agreed that, if an alternative Bill could be found in which the amendment could be considered properly, it would support such an approach. The Committee subsequently agreed that the Justice Bill provided such an opportunity and, when seeking evidence on the Bill, requested written evidence on the Attorney's proposal. The Committee also invited the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety and the Health and Social Care Board to give oral evidence, as they would be directly affected by the proposal, and the Attorney General also attended to discuss the matter.

Both the Health and Social Care Board and the Department of Health had concerns regarding the proposed amendment. The Health and Social Care Board highlighted the fact that there was no equivalent provision in England and Wales. In its view, the duty is already on trust staff to report unexplained deaths, there are sufficient safeguards in the current process and the present system is suitably robust to ensure that the interests of justice are properly served. The board also had concerns that the serious adverse incident reporting system is expressly intended not to be an investigation to determine fault or blame but rather to facilitate learning in order to prevent recurrence and that the granting of this statutory power to the Attorney General, where he has stated he would intend to exercise it to gain access to serious adverse incident documentation, could well have the detrimental effect of discouraging openness and transparency.

The board stated that, in order to exercise his power under section 14(1) of the Coroners Act (Northern Ireland) 1959, all that is required is for the Attorney General to have a reason to believe that the circumstances of the death make the holding of an inquest advisable. In the board's view, it is unnecessary for him to effectively carry out the same role as the coroner, who is the statutory authority to properly investigate unexplained deaths. The role of the Attorney General, according to the board, is to supervise the coroner and to intervene if he suspects or believes that there is some deficiency.

When the Department of Health officials attended, they indicated that the Health Minister had no objection in principle to the Attorney General having the power to access the information necessary to enable him to discharge his functions under section 14(1) of the Coroners Act (Northern Ireland) 1959 but believed that more policy clarity on the precise intent of the proposed provision and how it would be used in practice was required. The officials outlined a range of concerns regarding the rationale for the proposed amendment, the broad scope of the power and the implications, including additional administrative burdens on staff. The Department of Health also shared the board's concerns regarding the possible impact on openness and transparency in relation to the serious adverse incident process and emphasised that it is a non-statutory-based system to identify learning, not an investigative system.

The officials outlined a number of initiatives already being pursued to provide greater scrutiny around the process for certifying deaths in Northern Ireland and to strengthen and improve the current process and indicated that a full review of coronial legislation was likely, which would provide a more appropriate opportunity to consider the proposal. The Minister of Health subsequently wrote to the Committee providing further information regarding the look-back exercise of serious adverse incidents and the initiatives being taken forward to strengthen and enhance public assurance and scrutiny of the death certification process, which includes the roll-out of a regional mortality and morbidity review system and consideration of the introduction of an independent medical reviewer, similar to that being introduced in Scotland.

The Attorney General, both in correspondence and when he attended the Committee, set out the reasons why he believed he needed the statutory power that the amendment would provide to obtain papers and outlined a high-profile incident involving a health and social care trust that served to strengthen his view that a power to obtain relevant material was crucial to the public interest in ensuring a high standard of health care and investigation of incidents that result in the death of a patient. In his view, there appeared to be a gap in the potential investigation for accountability purposes, and the amendment is designed to close that gap. He also provided an example of a case in which he had requested details of a death and the relevant HSC trust had responded by questioning the legal basis for him obtaining the information.

The Attorney General did not believe that providing him with the statutory power requested would create a burden on the health service and stated that the amendment would ensure that one of the safeguards in place in the system, namely his power to direct an inquest, can be improved. The Attorney General also indicated that, contrary to the misapprehension of the Health and Social Care Board, the statutory power to direct an inquest is not limited to cases in which a coroner has already been informed of the death or has made a decision about whether or not to hold an inquest. He is able to direct an inquest where there has been a decision not to notify the coroner, and it would not therefore be sufficient for him to simply request that the coroner shares the documents he has received, as suggested by the board, to inform his decision. The Attorney General also noted the suggestion by the board that he may be able to direct an inquest without obtaining information and stated that, while the threshold of advisability is low, it would not be right to burden the coronial system with unnecessary requests.

The Committee considered this amendment, which includes a review mechanism/sunset clause, on a number of occasions, with some Members indicating that they were inclined to support it and others indicating that they had concerns about it. Key issues discussed by the Committee included the need to ensure information is provided when it should be, whether the amendment would assist or support that and provide what the Attorney General described as "a second pair of eyes"; the need for openness and transparency and whether the amendment would assist that or create a climate of fear or reluctance, thus diminishing it; whether it would assist people in difficult circumstances to establish the truth about the death of a loved one; the fact that SAIs were introduced as a learning exercise rather than an investigative system and that staff are encouraged to participate in them on that basis; and the process of change and new initiatives the health service is implementing.

At the meeting on 11 March, a proposal was put to take forward the amendment proposed by the Attorney General, with the addition of provision for a sunset clause/review mechanism as a Committee amendment. The proposal fell as it did not have the support of a majority of the members present.

Mr McCartney: Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. We will support the amendments tabled by the Minister. As the Chair outlined, they help the process of streamlining, particularly around convictions and other processes of disclosure.

I turn to the amendment tabled in our names in relation to what became known during Committee Stage as "the Attorney General's amendment". We tabled the amendment for two reasons. We honestly believe that the provision provides an appropriate and necessary level of public protection in relation to the power of the Attorney General, particularly in relation to inquests that arise out of deaths in hospitals.

The second reason was that, at the Committee, as the Chair has outlined, there was a discussion in which there was a fair degree of push and pull. When it came down to the vote on the last day — the result was five each — there were people who voted yes and no and throughout the process had reservations, doubts and fears. We felt that bringing the amendment here tonight would allow a wider discussion and let other Members be part of the process. In many ways, the petition of concern makes some of the arguments that we will make tonight a bit academic, but putting on the record our position serves a purpose.

Throughout Committee Stage, none of us, whatever way we came to the proposal by the Attorney General, was casting any doubt or making any observations on the professionalism of the people who work in the National Health Service, those providers. We all said, particularly when the people from the health and social care trusts were in front of us, that none of us was questioning that. Indeed, I think that most of us congratulated them on their professionalism.

The health board said that, in many ways, the amendment was unnecessary and that all of the relevant documentation was already being provided to the coroner. Similarly, with reference to an earlier part of this discussion, I think that when people say that something is unnecessary and that there is already provision to do this, you ask why they do not want to it happen. The Attorney General made a number of observations. He referred to it in evidence as "a second pair of eyes". He was not in any way casting any shadows or any doubts on the process as to when a coroner would deem an inquest necessary. He made the point very poignantly at the Committee where he said that there were people out there who perhaps do not have people to advocate on their behalf, and he said that he would provide that in that way.

The health professionals put forward the issue of staff reluctance to engage in adverse incident reports. Indeed, during Committee Stage, Edwin Poots, speaking as a Committee member, made the good point that sometimes health professionals are involved in operations that are very sensitive and that sometimes, in a sense, they take calculated risks that something can perhaps go wrong. He was mindful and fearful that too much scrutiny would perhaps leave health professionals where they would take a step back and perhaps not make decisions in light of that. On a number of occasions, he made the point that he could see why this was, if not necessary, something that he would not argue against.

On the issue of the risks that health professionals take, given that people were saying that the coroner had access to all of the documentation, I do not think that anybody was making the case that, because the coroner has the ability to have the documents, it was in any way preventing health professionals from doing the dedicated work that they do. However, unfortunately, there were, perhaps, in the past, circumstances where documents that should have been provided to the coroner were not. Perhaps we are in a better place now. When the health trusts were at the Committee, I raised a particular case. Again, I agree with what the health trusts were saying because, in the legislation as it is framed, there is a grey area. It says that it is only documents that are compellable for a High Court action, but it was found out, particularly during the O'Hara inquiry, that the trust had a report that, it said, was for internal use and was not compellable to the High Court. However, it revealed that there were issues with a particular child who, tragically, ended up dying that should have pointed up and should have been seen and, therefore, should have been acted on. However, because that document was not compellable, it was only found out through the inquiry. When that came out in the inquiry, the trust accepted that it was a document that the coroner perhaps should have had, but there was no legal imperative for it to provide it. I think that the point was made at the Committee and, indeed, at the inquiry, and the trust went on to admit negligence in that case.

It is in that type of scenario where you could have the second pair of eyes. If the Attorney General was asked on behalf of a family, this type of document could be brought forward more quickly, openly and transparently. I am not saying that death could have been prevented in this case, but certainly the family would not have been put in a place of further trauma. Secondly, it would ensure that documents that should be disclosed are disclosed in a meaningful way, rather than being hidden behind — maybe "hidden" is the wrong word — the fact that there is no legal imperative to do something. The point was made in Committee that, if a document in the hands of a trust could illuminate things and bring relief to a family, there is a moral obligation to release it in that spirit.

There is a suggestion that if this power was given to an Attorney General — not to the individual but to the office — they could perhaps overstretch themselves and use it in too many circumstances, which would itself put additional and unnecessary pressure on health care professionals. Now, the Attorney General was very clear that in recent times he has not used the powers that he has. If he has used them, he has done so infrequently. But if people felt it would be abused, putting undue pressure on health care professionals, a sunset clause would allow for a review after three years and then for it to be continued with the approval of the Assembly. That in itself would make it fail-safe. First of all, overuse would be detected through the number of cases, because it could be compared with the number that the coroner referred to inquest or, indeed, that the Health and Social Care Board itself surrendered for inquest. Secondly, if there was a need to either lower or adjust the powers, the sunset clause would allow for that. The policy — the Minister has said it — needs teasing out. You have the Attorney General asking for what is a second pair of eyes. Tonight, people will look on and ask, "Why would you not want a second pair of eyes?". We have a process that in the main is very open and transparent, but if we block this people might feel that we are hiding something. I do not think that is a good place for anyone involved in the process to go.

Mr A Maginness: I do not intend to speak for long on these matters. First of all, in general terms, my party supports the amendments tabled by the Minister of Justice. They are helpful and worthy of support.

Amendment No 50, which has been tabled by Mr McCartney and his colleagues in Sinn Féin, relates to a proposition by the Attorney General that the Committee had considerable difficulty in agreeing to. Eventually, no agreement was reached, and the proposition put forward by the Attorney General was not endorsed by the Committee. The arguments on both sides were well balanced, and the Chair of the Committee has outlined the arguments against, in the main, and Mr McCartney the arguments for. Both outlined them very accurately and very well, but I think that anybody listening to both contributions would come to the conclusion that there are issues on both sides and it is difficult to make one's mind up on whether to support the proposition of the Attorney General or not.

It was further complicated for me when my brother gave evidence to the Committee against the proposition that the Attorney General had put forward. Nonetheless, I put that aside and made up my own mind. My colleague Mr McGlone also made up his mind in relation to it, and we were still divided. Eventually, we considered that it was useful to propose a sunset clause, because one of the principal arguments against the proposition that the Attorney General put forward was that, if you changed the law and allowed this to happen, there could be an accretion in power and an interference in the system that would be adverse.

It was thought — I think Mr McCartney was right — to bring some sort of time limitation into it, that there could be a proper review and that a sunset clause would serve that purpose so as to analyse exactly how the amendment would work in practice and see that it would not, for example, overburden health officials, have an adverse impact on their performance or inhibit them in carrying out their proper affairs in relation to their professional duties. The determining factor in the SDLP supporting the amendment was, in fact, the sunset clause. However, it has all been rendered nugatory by the fact that there is a petition of concern. I am mystified as to why there is a petition of concern. Nobody has told me, and perhaps I will never learn in any event. It is an academic exercise, but, for the record, we would support it, given the fact that a sunset clause was quite properly added to the proposition. I conclude there.

Mr Elliott: Once again, I will limit my contribution to amendment No 50, which was originally proposed by the Attorney General and was defeated in Committee — there were equal votes, so the matter fell — but Mr McCartney has brought it forward again as his amendment. I can understand why. I want to make it clear that I do not always support the Attorney General's view on issues, but on this occasion he brought it back on a number of occasions and narrowed the aspects of the proposal in the amendment. I accept the argument from the health professionals and officials, including Mr Maginness's brother. They supported it in principle but did not like the detail and were not convinced, simply because they did not see the overall rationale for it. I believe that it genuinely would have been used in very limited cases.

I saw some cases through the Western Trust, particularly where young children had died because of certain things, and the families and their legal representatives had huge problems accessing information from the trust that should have been made available. I suppose that was the one aspect that convinced me: I thought that it would be a good opportunity to have that second opinion or third opinion that would have been able to access that information and, hopefully, help to progress that case for those families, irrespective of what the outcome was going to be. The outcome might not have been in favour of the families or what they were looking for, but at least they would have had the opportunity to access that information. That is why I felt it appropriate to support that proposal. Obviously, the sunset clause in it makes it even more attractive now as well.

I just wanted to put on record my thoughts and views behind it and why it is primarily a health issue. The Health Department and trusts would have to deal with the outworkings of it if it were to go through, although I assume that, with the petition of concern, it will not progress. I would like to have seen it go through. I would like to have seen it given those three years to see how it could have progressed and developed and whether it would have been of help to a number of families who are looking for that additional information.

Mr Speaker: I suggest that, with Members' agreement, after Mr Dickson finishes, it will be an opportune time to take a comfort break. I will then call the Minister to make his winding-up speech at about 10.00 pm.

Mr Dickson: I will certainly not hold Members back very long from their comfort break. I welcome the opportunity to speak on the fourth group of amendments, which relate primarily to criminal record evidence gathering and handling. The amendments are mostly for the purpose of tidying up this part of the Bill.

I would just like to speak for a short time specifically on the changes to Access NI disclosures. I am pleased to see further refinement of the filtering process that is now in place for Access NI applicants. This is a common-sense approach, making it more straightforward for rehabilitation and reintegration in the community and the workforce of people previously convicted of a crime. Amendment Nos 14 and 69 will allow for a review mechanism for the new filtering process, allowing an individual to seek a review of the filtering process if certain convictions or other disposals are included in their Access NI certificates. Furthermore, people who have offences included that were committed under the age of 18 will automatically be referred to the review mechanism. You must remember that many of these offenders have not been able to obtain a decent level of education and so would otherwise be unsure how to seek a review or deal with a complex application.

This is about making the justice system work for victims, but it is also about criminals with regard to reforming their behaviour, acting to rehabilitate people and giving them a true stake in society. Therefore, I support the amendments tabled by the Minister.

In respect of amendment No 50, I will not detain the House long. The arguments for and against have been made, and we have the petition of concern. I support the Minister in his view on this.

Mr Speaker: Members may now take their ease, a comfort break or whatever. We will suspend until 10.00 pm.

Mr Ford: In reality, there is very little on which to wind in this particular group. It is clear that the bulk of the amendments put forward by me, with the support of the Committee, are accepted. The only issue really is that of the provision of information to the Attorney General, on which concerns were expressed by some Members. I was amused to learn that there was a debate within the Maginness family circle. We should not all admit to problems in the family when we cannot agree a line, but it is clear that there was a finely balanced decision on that and that there are issues that perhaps need to be examined in a different way at a different stage.

It is clear that there are significant concerns amongst health professionals that what was being proposed was imprecise and did not entirely sit easily with their duties. It is also the case that we are looking to a reform of coronial law in general. I suspect that it might well be best for the House to consider whether a review of coronial law might be a better way of handling the issue of the powers of the Attorney General to request information from medical authorities than simply putting it into a Bill at this stage.

There are also clearly significant issues about how far back things might go. If we were talking about somebody who died at the age of 90, there are serious questions as to how far back into people's careers they could be expected to answer questions. There are real issues in terms of resources. We know from the limited number of inquests at this point, where the attorney requests medical information, that people are diverted in the health and social care system from the provision of services to their patients and clients to the provision of information to the attorney.

Given all the concerns that have been expressed on something that has not been consulted on substantively, it is difficult to see that we should move in that particular direction. I welcome the fact, however, that the other amendments in this group, most of which fall to the simple tidying-up process that the Department has been doing with the Committee, have shown, as the Chair said when he introduced his comments, a set of harmony. I trust that that is where we will be.