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Police

First, I congratulate the Minister on his elevation during recent Government changes and I welcome the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to his place for the first time. In the past three weeks, I have been able to visit five of the eight new Police Service of Northern Ireland district commanders and I have to say that the message from all five was very similar: policing in Northern Ireland is, as the Minister stated, moving into a new phase. They all said that since the Sinn Fein ard fheis of the end of January they had seen signs of greater engagement by republicans in policing, that there had been contact to a lesser or greater extent between Sinn Fein representatives and the local police and, most encouragingly, that they were gradually extending the reach of single officer patrols as well as foot and bicycle patrols in parts of Northern Ireland where those practices have not been possible for far too long. It is only fair to add that those commanders also said that progress had been slower than in January they had hoped it would be and that the local republican leadership had shown itself more willing to engage with the local police service in some parts of Northern Ireland than in other parts. There remains quite a way to go before policing in Northern Ireland resembles ““normal”” policing in the sense that the Minister or I would recognise in our respective constituencies. It was put to me that it was important to reconstitute the district policing partnerships as soon as possible because that would provide an institutional framework to encourage the participation of republicans in supporting policing and also make possible a greater understanding by the republican movement of the way in which police officers are constrained by the law and by the myriad systems of accountability that apply in Northern Ireland. Overcoming that genuine ignorance of policing in a democratic society on the part of the republican movement has to be a high priority. I have a number of questions and reservations about the legislation, but I want to say in advance that both the Police Federation for Northern Ireland and the Superintendents Association of Northern Ireland have said that they would not wish any problems associated with the order to be pressed to outright opposition in the Division Lobby. Let me deal first with the criteria for disqualification. As the Minister said, the order will bring the arrangements in Northern Ireland into line with those that currently apply in respect of police authorities in England and Wales. Surely the Minister would acknowledge that the situation in Northern Ireland—largely on account of the Province’s history—is very different. It is quite right that the parent legislation makes it clear that a police officer cannot serve as an independent member of a district policing partnership, but it would be possible, at least in theory, for someone who has been convicted of a very serious terrorist offence in the past or for someone who did not have such a conviction but who intelligence evidence suggested might have been a member of a proscribed terrorist organisation to serve as a member of a DPP. It would thus be possible in law for someone believed by the police or intelligence services to be a member of the Provisional IRA or one of the other paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland to be eligible for nomination as an independent member of a DPP. It is right that we should at least hesitate and pose some questions to the Minister about whether the safeguards are adequate to prevent something like that from happening. Clearly, we have to look at the legislation alongside the draft code of practice recently published by the Northern Ireland Office into the way in which independent members of the DPPs and sub-groups are to be appointed. The particular question that I would put to the Minister is whether, at the point in the process where the Policing Board comes to consider the nominations put forward by local councils, it will have access not just to records of criminal convictions, but to intelligence information about ongoing paramilitary involvement or connections of those who have been nominated. If not, I believe that it should have such access. When it comes to the judgment by the Policing Board about the overall balance of the DPP in each area, how important does the Minister believe it is for political balance above all to be attained? Clearly, under the legislation and the code of practice, the Policing Board has a responsibility to seek to balance membership of the DPP not just on political grounds, but on grounds of gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, religious faith and so forth. I have no quarrel with that as a principle, but in the context of Northern Ireland it is crucial that the overall political balance between the two traditions should be viewed as of overriding importance in the make-up of the DPP within each local authority area. I was grateful for the Minister’s somewhat opaque response to my intervention on the question of sub-groups. I understand that the matter might well be the subject of continuing discussion by all parties. It would seem somewhat peculiar for the Chief Constable to have reduced the number of police districts in Belfast to only two, but for there to be four DPP sub-groups. I have a question for the Minister that relates to political balance. He will correct me if I have misread the order or the code of practice, but my understanding is that the duty of Belfast city council when making the nominations and of the Policing Board when it selects those who should serve on a sub-group will be to ensure that a political balance is maintained that is broadly reflective of the politics of the city as a whole. What is not so obvious is a corresponding duty in respect of the membership of each sub-group to reflect the political balance in each of the districts that the sub-group represents. Let us consider a map of Belfast. It would clearly not make for good community relations in already difficult circumstances if, for the sake of argument, we were to end up with no Unionists from the west of the city, or with no nationalists or republicans from the east. I hope that the Minister will be able to point me towards an element of the code of practice or the legislation that I have overlooked, which would provide such a safeguard, or perhaps use words that the board of the city council might draw on when it comes to interpret its duties under the legislation. Why are we talking about sub-groups only in relation to the city of Belfast? When the parent legislation was drafted and enacted, we were living in a world in which Northern Ireland had 26 police districts rather than eight. It now has much bigger and more diverse police districts. While I can see the advantage of a single DPP committee covering the whole area, I also fear that we might put at risk the sense of the people in the enlarged police district that they have any say in how policing is carried out. We are talking about rural and urban areas being put together in the same police district. Can we, for example, be certain that a district that is centred on the city of Derry will have space on the DPP for men and women who represent the rural communities in that district? I want simply to express the hope that the Government will keep this legislation under review, and that they will consider whether the pattern of a single DPP for each enlarged police district is working out in practice as they hoped and intended. I hope that they will also keep an open mind on the possibility of introducing other arrangements to ensure that there is genuine community involvement in, and support for, policing. Bringing about that support and involvement and creating an understanding that the police are accountable to all people in Northern Ireland on an equal basis are fundamental to creating the shared society that the Government and the Conservatives wish to see.