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Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

The heart of the Bill is the section dealing with the proposed devolution of policing and criminal justice. The Opposition agree with the Government that it is right that such matters should in due course be devolved to politicians directly accountable to the people of Northern Ireland, but we need to be clear about the basis on which that will happen. Several interventions in the Secretary of State’s speech showed that there is concern among Members on both sides of the House about precisely how the Bill’s order-making powers might be applied in future. I think that the Government are right to transfer lead responsibility for national security from the police to the Security Service, but it will not be easy to define the boundary between strategic matters and operational matters. By the time policing is devolved, the House will need to have a clearer view than we are able to take at present about matters of accountability and, in particular, the extent to which the Northern Ireland Policing Board and the police ombudsman are to have jurisdiction over matters that touch on terrorism or national security. The details of secondary legislation on the devolution of policing must make it clear that, in performing their daily responsibilities, the Chief Constable and the Policing Board will remain independent of Ministers in the Executive. That independence is critical if the police are to continue to make progress in gaining cross-community support throughout Northern Ireland. As both the Secretary of State and I know from visits to cities in Northern Ireland, it is very impressive to hear from local commanders how they are gradually extending what we would regard as normal policing to parts of Northern Ireland that have not had anything remotely like normal policing for the past 30 years or longer. We need to accept a third point. The devolution of policing and criminal justice is a desirable objective, but it cannot occur until every political party that appoints Ministers to a devolved Executive has accepted the legitimacy of the police and the courts and is prepared to support those institutions. Support for the police, the courts and the criminal justice system is not an optional extra; nor is it some magnanimous concession that should entitle those offering it to a political reward. I want devolution to be restored in Northern Ireland and I want it to extend in due course to policing and criminal justice, but that cannot happen while the republican movement in particular denies the legitimacy of the courts and the police and is willing to let vicious crime, even murder, go unpunished rather than encourage its supporters to give evidence to the proper authorities. In case anybody thinks that I am interested only in the misdeeds of republican paramilitaries, I should make it clear that I make no moral distinction between republican paramilitaries and their loyalist counterparts. The Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force are the bane of the communities whose interests they claim to defend. Loyalist communities need investment, jobs and better education and training, and they need to be rid of drug dealing and the protection rackets. The grip of paramilitary groups is the biggest single deterrent to economic revival and urban regeneration. I welcome the effort being made by some men within loyalism to get the paramilitary gangs to decommission their weapons and put themselves out of business, and I am sure that the Secretary of State and I agree that the sooner that happens the better for everybody concerned, especially people on loyalist estates in Northern Ireland’s cities. Although I do not make a moral distinction, there is a key political distinction between loyalist paramilitaries and the Provisional IRA. The parties linked to the UDA and the UVF have minimal electoral support; they have no chance of holding office in any devolved Government. By contrast, the provisional republican movement, through Sinn Fein, would be entitled to ministerial office including, as things stand, the position of Deputy First Minister and in time, in all probability, some responsibility for policing or criminal justice. We all have to accept that we cannot have Sinn Fein back in government with their Ministers sharing in the administration of justice while the provisional republican movement refuses to recognise the courts or the police. Such a state of affairs would be grotesque. Before the devolution of policing and justice can occur, as proposed in the Bill, we need to see tangible evidence that republicans have made a practical and an ideological commitment to support the rule of law.