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Lord Rogan: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Statement to the House this afternoon, and I also greatly welcome it. Today, the law-abiding people of Northern Ireland have received a late but much welcome Christmas present, with the Government not now proceeding with the Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill, or the on-the-run legislation. I am delighted that the Minister has at last seen sense and withdrawn that odious Bill, but it is a sad reflection that it took Sinn Fein/IRA to say that the Republicans would have nothing to do with that evil Bill before the Minister would agree to withdraw it.
An evil, but necessary Bill: those are words used by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, when he described and sought to justify that legislation to the people of Northern Ireland. I agree that the Bill was evil but totally disagree that it was necessary. That grotesque legislation should never have been brought before the House in the first place. It was seen by the victims of Sinn Fein/IRA violence and terrorism as yet another sop to republicanism. In welcoming the withdrawal of
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this Bill, I trust that these proposals or similar will not be introduced by the Government in another format in the future to placate republicans.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I welcome that welcome for the Statement, although I reject some of the noble Lord's points, I do not wish to have an argument with him this afternoon. The Bill came as a surprise to no one; it was foreshadowed in writing in 2003, in public documents. Everybody knew what would happen if and when the IRA finally gave up the war. It was part of a commitment which the Government entered into and fulfilled. There is no consensus on the Bill and, indeed, the prospect of the victims getting nothing out of the Bill was one clincher in its withdrawal.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I was slightly surprised by the frankness of the Secretary of State when he admitted in a radio interview that the Bill had been brought forward as a result of a commitment made to the government of the republic and to IRA/Sinn Fein? Is he aware that I am, if anything, rather more surprised that the Secretary of State has admitted today that it has been vetoed by the IRA? A Government who would not accept the misgivings that were expressed in the other place, and were perhaps fearful of what might happen to the Bill here, have now allowed a terrorist organisation to veto a Bill which the noble Lord himself described as "necessary".
Lord Rooker: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, obviously heard the interview. I said that the Bill was evil but necessary—I did not call it a necessary evil. I thought "evil but necessary" was a worse condemnation. But the issue will not go away. The Bill was necessary; we have decided it would not suit the purpose in the form it was drafted because it would not be used, but the issue will not go away. I have to disabuse noble Lords of the idea that because the Bill has been withdrawn the issue is put to bed and nothing needs to be done in the future.
The noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, said that he was surprised at the Secretary of State's frankness. He was frank. Sinn Fein wanted a one-sided arrangement; Sinn Fein was not being offered a one-sided arrangement and it will not be offered a one-sided arrangement. As both I and the Secretary of State said, what Sinn Fein decides about what happens to members of the security forces is not negotiable.
Lord Shutt of Greetland: My Lords, in thanking the Minister for his frankness, I wonder whether he could be franker still and answer this point. I believe that one of the problems is that this issue was agreed in the margins of Weston Park and eventually entered the public domain. There has been tremendous concern because it was not full frontal, as it were, in the first place. This has been a very serious feature of the issue. Can the Minister be frank and say that nothing else is lurking around the margins of Weston Park that still has to be outed?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I have repeated a Statement made by the Secretary of State. That is it.
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The Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill dealt with specific issues about on-the-runs. The noble Lord is quite right: it was not part of the Good Friday agreement, as people have wrongly claimed, but it was not a surprise. A public document was published in 2003 which set out what would happen if a sequence of events occurred—that is, the abandonment of the war by the IRA. I cannot go beyond that, because that is what this issue is about.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass: My Lords—
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, it is the turn of my noble friend Lord Dubs. I ask people to make their questions as brief as possible, as many noble Lords wish to speak.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, if the Assembly is not restored before the pay of Members of the Assembly comes to an end, what will happen to the staff who work at the Assembly and service its committees? Will they still be kept on so that if the tide turns and the Assembly is restored, things can move very quickly?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I assume that my noble friend is referring to the staff of the Assembly, not the staff of Assembly Members. I do not know the figures off the top of my head, but many members of staff at the Assembly are working within the government service of Northern Ireland. It is not as though they are sitting in Stormont twiddling their fingers—they are all doing useful jobs. I occasionally come across people in various of the departments for which we, as direct rule Ministers, are responsible, who indicate that their full-time job is at the Assembly if and when it is up and running. That issue will be dealt with and I do not think there need be any fear regarding the staff of the Assembly.
Lord Steinberg: My Lords, I am sure everybody is relieved to hear the Statement, and I am grateful for it. My noble friend Lord Glentoran has said what we feel. I do not want to talk not about the endgame or say that I am relieved that the Bill has been withdrawn—I want to ask where we go from here. It has already been mentioned that the Police Service of Northern Ireland must receive complete and unequivocal support from all political parties in Northern Ireland. I should be grateful for confirmation of that.
Where we go from here, in talking about the endgame, draws me on to the subject of the considerable criminality, which, perhaps as a result of the lack of political movement, is greater now in Northern Ireland than it has been for some years. As noble Lords are probably well aware, we are not getting the dramatic explosions and shootings of soldiers—thank God. But we are getting a growing criminality cult, which makes it even more important that the Police Service of Northern Ireland is fully supported.
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Finally, because the people of Northern Ireland have had such a difficult time for so many years, does the Minister recognise that the act of decommissioning could have been done in a better and more straightforward way, as it caused for people in Northern Ireland and elsewhere a concern that it had not been done in a completely open way?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his questions, and the positive nature of them. It is a question of moving forward. Whatever the issue relating to Northern Ireland, all the parties around the table must feel that they have a share of the success. The language of victory and defeat has got to go, and they must come to the table and be at the table thinking, "We've got a piece of success". If they can all start thinking that, we can actually move forward to a much brighter future.
On some of the issues that the noble Lord raised, I cannot go beyond what I said about the need for support for the police and the rule of law, because I would be qualifying what I said—and I think I expressed myself as strongly as I possibly could. I have not come with the figures, but I would probably dispute—and I think that the Chief Constable would probably dispute—what the noble Lord said about levels of crime. I have listened to interviews with the Chief Constable recently. He did a fairly long radio interview—I believe that it was on the "Today" programme—just before Christmas. Massive progress is being made by the Police Service of Northern Ireland in getting into areas where it would not traditionally have been, where officers have been able to police in a way that traditionally they have not been able to. I heard that they have been on bicycles—although I understand that that can be a problem sometimes even for policing in GB. But I shall seek to get an up-to-date position from the Chief Constable, and I shall make sure that a note is placed in the Library. I cannot dispute the generality of the noble Lord's remarks without the figures, but I understand from listening to the Chief Constable that the position is not as bad as the noble Lord said.
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