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Northern Ireland Bill

My Lords, I will be relatively brief since most of what I was going to say has already been said. Like everyone else, I welcome the Bill. We really want to see an Assembly back in Northern Ireland. I congratulate the Government on their efforts at achieving that during the past few years and on bringing this Bill forward. There has been great progress, but this Bill’s success in re-establishing the Assembly depends on Sinn Fein’s accepting the police and on its involvement or otherwise in criminality, on which I shall concentrate. The success of the Bill depends most of all on the way in which the Government acknowledge and play with their knowledge of criminality. The Government have cherry-picked successive reports on it. For instance, as Mr Hain said, the report states that,"““we have found signs that PIRA continues to seek to stop criminal activity by its members””." I totally back the IMC—it has done an amazing job, which when it first came into existence we thought it could not do. However, what I do not understand why, when we were talking about the decommissioning of weapons, it all had to be done in secret, but here we are just told that there are ““signs”” and the Government cannot even tell us what ““signs”” the IRA-Sinn Fein leadership is using to reduce the criminality. My information is that within IRA ranks the ““signs”” are much more words than any real action. As we have already heard, Gerry Adams has said that those who are caught should be taken to court and suffer the rigours of the law. What I have heard—which is fairly sound—is that it is being said in general, ““If you go about in a criminal manner, and you are caught, you are on your own””. That is very different from what we would like to expect from the leadership trying to dissuade people from taking part in crime. The same paragraph of the report said:"““We believe that some senior PIRA members may be playing a key role””." First, ““some”” and ““may be”” are somewhat indefinite. Secondly, if you go back a little, the report states:"““Some members, including some senior ones, are still involved””." There is a contradiction, not in what the IMC says, but how the Government interpret what comes out of it. I think that they should more readily accept what is obvious in the report to anybody who understands the English. They would gain more credibility. Along with that go such actions by the Government as those on 16 January when the Policing Board—I am no longer on it—had a confidential meeting. It did not remain confidential for longer than about five minutes, so I can say something about it. The confidential meeting was with the police, with all the crime agencies, the NIO and so forth. This statement appeared in the press afterwards:"““Ulster’s top detective told Policing Board members yesterday that the IRA was still engaged in organised crime””." The NIO Minister who maintains that the IRA is inactive sat just a few feet away from me. Security Minister Shaun Woodward, who has stated publicly that he believes that the IRA is keeping to its word over criminality, was at the confidential briefing. This is a serious own goal. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, mentioned in his speech, sadly, we must accept that certain things are still going on. I believe that the Government are failing themselves and us, and losing credibility, by not accepting that, while pushing Sinn Fein to take action—while pushing forward with this Bill, which I am wholly behind. I am not trying to say that just because of this criminality the Bill should not go forward. We will not get rid of all criminality and, secondly, it will be a slow reduction. I accept that, but I think that the Government’s angle is simply not credible among people in Northern Ireland. In fact, it gives far too much ammunition to a particular political party. I am not going to go through the figures for criminality and organised crime. Suffice it to say that counterfeiting alone is worth £140 million, which is £80 for every single person—baby, child, woman—in Northern Ireland. It is very big. If the Government are to say—I have heard them say it—that there is a reduction in criminality and organised crime, perhaps they would like to tell us how much the reduction is due to the IRA leadership. I will tell you: it is a nice, round zero. The reduction has taken place because of the security forces and of Customs and Excise on both sides of the border. You cannot honestly believe that the Sinn Fein/IRA leadership delivered ““Slab”” Murphy on a plate the other day. No—and it has not delivered anything else. Again, I am not saying that this is not a good Bill and that it should wait for these matters to be resolved, but if the Government stood up and said this kind of thing in Northern Ireland, they would gain a great deal more credibility than they have at the moment. This is very important. For opinions to change, we have to have a great deal more trust in the Government and a belief that they understand our position on this. I plead with the Government to do more to gain our respect. In saying that, I greatly support the Bill—it is tremendous that we have reached this stage—but let us have a bit of reality from the Government, not bluff from beginning to end.