Police (Northern Ireland) Bill [back to previous text]

Mr. Moss: The hon. Gentleman can speak for himself. If he wishes me to endorse the view that the Irish are lovely people, I am more than happy to do so. Of course, southern Ireland is a largely rural society with strong family links. Also, people tend not to move around too much. But crime statistics for Dublin, especially on some estates, show a massive problem, especially with drugs. Mr. Andrew Hunter (Basingstoke): I am prompted to ask my hon. Friend to mention also the fact that what is termed organised crime is increasing faster than in the United Kingdom. That is a particular threat in an urbanised Republic of Ireland. Mr. Moss: I am surprised, Mr. Jones, that you have not intervened to say that we are out of order. I suddenly wondered whether we were debating a Northern Ireland Bill or a southern Ireland Bill. I agree with my hon. Friend. In cities, and especially in Dublin, serious crime is increasing to an extent that is causing concern to southern Irish Ministers in the Health and Home Departments. Amendment No. 69 is the one other that relates to subsection (7), which is about the amount of notice that a district council must give to the Police Authority to enable it to attend council meetings. Of course the word ``reasonable'' appears in virtually every clause in many Bills, but in this instance, the wording needs tightening up. That is why we need a specific time limit instead of reasonable notice. One month's notice would be adequate for the Police Authority to respond and discharge its duty to ``nominate one or more of its members to attend the meeting to answer . . . questions.'' It is a harmless and constructive amendment that would enable both sides to know the appropriate time. If a district council is concerned about policing in its area, it will want to speak to the Police Authority about it. A month's notice is fair and adequate to achieve the purpose. If the policing problems in a district council's area are serious, the council will want less to talk to the Police Authority than to get a message through the usual channels to senior officers of the RUC and the Chief Constable to enable them to deal with those serious problems. In that context, discussions with the Police Authority would be irrelevant and untimely. Community safety is a growth sector in public policing policy, not only in Northern Ireland but throughout the United Kingdom--and doubtless elsewhere. It seems logical to place a statutory duty on the Police Authority, in conjuction with the Royal Ulster Constabulary, to develop local crime prevention and reduction strategies. We accept the thrust of the clause and the amendments are intended to be helpful and constructive. Community safety is particularly important in Northern Ireland because of the antipathy of one part of the community to the RUC and the difficulties that police authorities have faced hitherto. It is the reason that we are here debating the Bill. Major changes are afoot, many of which will be helpful. The Bill is important, but we acknowledge that it seeks to legislate in a contentious area of great difficulty where great sensitivity is required. We want to be constructive and we hope that the Minister will accept, after taking due and considered advice from his officials, that the amendments are reasonable and helpful. Mr. Hunter: There seems to be a common theme to the conglomeration of amendments, which is worth scrutinising carefully. Amendments Nos. 35 and 36 have been tabled by my hon. Friends in the Ulster Unionist party; amendments Nos. 66, 67 and 69 were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss); and amendment No. 37 was tabled by the combined forces of the Ulster Unionists and the Conservative party, which is always a happy state of affairs. The intention and effect of the amendments can be expressed simply. They are not designed to undermine the Government's intentions in clause 7, but have been tabled to help to expand and clarify what the Government are trying to achieve. They are meant to be helpful. The clause deals with the Police Authority's arrangements for obtaining the public's views on policing. We cannot seriously quarrel with that objective; it is essential to good policing and it is highly desirable for the Police Authority to know the public's views. As I said, the amendments are designed to expand, clarify and further define how that desirable objective can be achieved. They are based on two propositions. First, we would be well advised to ensure that the process whereby the Police Authority obtains the public's views is the best available and most appropriate practice. Secondly, if such a process can be identified, it would be beneficial and desirable for it to be incorporated in the Bill, so that it becomes a statutory obligation. Why should that not be the case? Amendments Nos. 35, 66, 36 and 37 would provide that clear, precise definition that I believe is desirable. They would give the Police Authority a statutory obligation to obtain the views of the community police liaison committees. Inevitably, the emergence of such committees in recent years has generated debate, but I believe that the basic principle that there should be such committees is right. 5.30 pm It is sensible, right and proper that the role of the community police liaison committees should be enhanced and encouraged by the Bill. They have an important role and it follows, therefore, that such a role should be statutory. That is a reasonable argument, which is consistent with the Government's intentions. Amendments Nos. 36 and 67 go further. They would give the Police Authority a statutory obligation to obtain the views of ``Community Police Liaison Committees, local government authorities and such other representative bodies as may be appropriate''. I can accelerate my argument because my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire made the point in some detail. In preparing the Bill, the Government have chosen not to give the Police Authority a statutory obligation to consult those bodies, so we are entitled to ask the Minister to explain why they have not been specified in the Bill. The amendments would give flesh to the Government's intentions. They want full consultation, so those agencies and organisations should be specified. I hope that the Government will accept a combination of amendments Nos. 35, 66, 36 and 67. Amendment No. 38 follows logically from the previous ones--it is not a consequential amendment. If the theme of the earlier amendments is accepted, lines 37 and 38 will be redundant. That brings me to amendment No. 37. It may seem somewhat academic, in a pejorative sense, and pedantic, but it is not necessarily so. Inserting the words ``and reducing'' after ``preventing'', will give a more complete definition of the reality of what the Police Authority is instructed to do. In an ideal world, all crime could be prevented, but that is wishful thinking. A realistic objective would be to reduce the level of criminal activity, which would be expressed by inserting the words ``and reducing''. It would insert a degree of reality that is currently missing from the Bill. Mr. McWalter: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that preventing crime is a way of reducing it? If 20 crimes are prevented, that will reduce the number to 80 for every 100 that might have been committed. I cannot see that the amendment would add anything to the clause as it stands. Mr. Hunter: That intervention was addressed to you, Mr. Jones, and I am sure that you are most anxious to prevent all crime. It is a common theme. I was arguing on pragmatic, practical grounds. Perhaps we tabled the wrong amendment, and should have inserted in our proposal the word ``some''. However, the intervention reinforces my point rather than detracting from it. In the same way as amendments Nos. 35, 66, 36 and 67 seek to clarify and expand the Government's intentions, so does amendment No. 69. The Bill refers to ``reasonable notice'', which begs the question of what is meant by ``reasonable''. I know from other legislation that that word can be a lawyer's paradise. Amendment No. 69 would provide a reasonable answer to the question of what is meant by reasonable and the definition would improve the Bill. I shall conclude with the sentiment with which I began. The amendments are intended to be helpful and to bring out the Government's aim. I hope that the Minister will respond to my argument even if he does not accept our proposals. Mr. Ken Maginnis (Fermanagh and South Tyrone): The clause is one of the most important in the Bill. It deals with obtaining the views of the public on the type of policing that they want. I do not like the word ``public'', because that could mean three fellows standing in the corner of a bar philosophising at midnight each with a pint of Guinness. As you know, Mr. Jones, pubs are supposed to shut at 11 o'clock. I prefer the word ``society''. When determining how we direct and require our police to carry out their responsibilities, we must consider the entire society in Northern Ireland. If we can consider the problem in terms of society, that will get us away from concentrating today on this tradition, tomorrow on another tradition and the day after on a third tradition--if we can find one--and perhaps going back to the first. We can help to bring people together by addressing policing in terms of society and we can create confidence across the traditional divides in Northern Ireland. That is why we have tabled amendments and why we welcome Tory support for amendment No. 37. I shall address the issues one at a time. When we tabled amendment No. 35, we hoped to encourage the Government to do more to promote the concept of a society in Northern Ireland into which representatives from both traditions would be drawn. Every section of society could be brought together in community and police liaison committees; for example, professional people, business people, trades unionists and artisans. I have seen how that concept of society works in practice. From 1981 until 1993, I was a member of a district council and when community and police liaison committees were set up, I was one of the first to be involved. At that time they were intended to relate directly to the Police Authority and we spent many long and arduous sessions dealing with the authority. The CPLCs brought together people in Northern Ireland who did not normally meet. They had the opportunity to discuss law and order and matters pertaining to the police. Each tradition experienced particular difficulties over the ways in which they were policed, and they would not usually have been able to interface to discuss those matters. Much of the difficulty within the Unionist tradition arose from the belief that those involved in IRA violence were treated more favourably because they had a better propaganda machine, than those who would claim--I stress the word ``claim''--that their violence was reactive. The awful thing about violence is that it may start as reactive, but it becomes self-perpetuating. We have seen that again and again in Northern Ireland. In the CPLCs, representatives from both traditions compared and discussed matters. They had to devise constructive relationships with those senior RUC officers who attended the committees. The officers were able to hear how they might better serve society or the local communities. I am particularly worried about the structured bodies, drawn from every section of society, which will be set up instead of CPLCs. They will be so vague that the liaison process will be manipulated by people who call themselves the public, but who have at heart neither the good of society nor the good of the police. The three fellows at the end of the bar who finish their pints of Guinness at 12 o'clock could walk out into the street and decide that they represent the public. Who will dispute with them? 5.45 pm Perhaps I exaggerate--although the Minister knows that I am not given to exaggeration--but I want to make a serious point about that sort of manipulation. I concentrate on the IRA because it is the most proficient terrorist organisation in Europe, perhaps the world. In the past two or three years, the IRA carefully crafted a process of taking over concerned citizens' groups. It did not only take over genuine groups, but it created others, which it called concerned citizens' groups. It did that not only in Northern Ireland, but in that land of peace to which the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. McWalter) refered: the law-abiding Irish Republic. There are many peaceful areas in the Irish Republic--as there are in Northern Ireland--but there are also many areas where we would be at considerable risk if we ventured into them during, or even before the hours of darkness. Much organised crime occurs in Dublin, Limerick, Cork, Galway and other places. Such organised crime is confronted or taken over by people who call themselves members of Sinn Fein, but are backed by the power of the IRA. Estates such as Tallaght show that the Garda Siochana finds it increasingly difficult to operate because Sinn Fein members, posturing as concerned citizens against drugs, organise crime. I make the qualification that not all concerned citizens' groups in Dublin any more than in Belfast are run by the IRA, such groups are vulnerable to terrorist organisations. In Belfast, the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Ulster Defence Association, the Loyalist Volunteer Force and the Irish National Liberation Army also operate. God knows how many different groups exist, but they all try to create their own little niche to manipulate events. I caution the Government against vagueness in the Bill. That is why amendment No. 35 would replace ``public''--that ill defined word that covers a multitude of sins--with ``Community Police Liaison Committees''. For the same reason, amendment No. 36 would replace ``public'' with, ``Community Police Liaison Committees, local government authorities and such other representative bodies as may be appropriate''. The Minister may say that that is not good drafting--I am open to correction if it is not--but I understand representative bodies to include trades union organisations, business organisations, professional organisations and the like. With amendment No. 36, we are seeking to put local government authorities in their proper place, so that they can participate in the process on an on-going basis and are not, as the Government have it in clause 7(2)(b), a detached group who will be consulted. One of the sad realities of life in Northern Ireland is that local government has not had vested in it the sort of responsibility that is allowed in other parts of the United Kingdom. Hence, local Government is eager for real and responsible work. Local government is keen to claw responsibiilty to itself. The hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire will remember that local Government felt complimented when it was decided that it should participate in business and industrial promotion. Will the Minister assure me that local government will not be ``consulted''--which means visited once a year, if fortunate by a Minister, if less than fortunate by a senior civil servant or a member of the police authority. That would be rather like the annual visits that we all make at Christmas time to areas that we shall probably not visit again until the next Christmas. We do not want the Minister to make an annual pre-Christmas visit to district councils, asking them what they think of local policing, allowing everyone to let off steam and then going away, shaking the dust off his shoes and saying, ``That is it for another year.'' We want local government to be involved. I believe that local government should be included in clause 7(1)(b), along with CPLCs and other representative bodies.

©Parliamentary copyright 1998	Prepared 26 February 1998