EAST BELFAST MP SPEAKS IN COMMONS BILL DEBATE

Extracts of a speech given in the House of Commons on the Justice and Security (Northern Ireland )Bill on Tuesday 6th February 2007 by DUP Deputy leader Peter Robinson MP

“I want to indicate the unsatisfactory manner in which the Government are approaching the issue. We are at the Report stage of an important piece of legislation, yet the Government are introducing a significant provision through a side door. As we can see by the confusion in various quarters of the House, their proposals required a proper Committee sitting so that they could be thoroughly scrutinised and perfectly understood—if, indeed, anything is perfectly understood at the end of a Committee stage. None the less, it is clear that the Government have introduced the new clause on a whim, to get the Bill through post-haste. But why? Why is there such a rush to pass the Bill?

The Minister’s best hope is that it might be possible for the Assembly to address the issue by May 2008, so why is he introducing the legislation in 2007 and requiring it to be steamrollered through the House in such a manner? No one on this side of the House has asked for it to be done in that way—and I get the impression from the speech made by Mark Durkan that he has not exactly been pushing the Minister for this piece of legislation. I am not sure why there is a rush to get this piece of legislation on to the statute book when it is clearly at least 14 or 16 months before what it contains could be imposed on us. Let us be clear: the Minister has a motive that he has not shared with the House. Perhaps when he responds to the debate he will share it with us.

The difficulty that a number of Members face with this issue is that they cannot separate in their minds the creation of a Department from the fact that that Department would not have powers devolved to it. The reality is that all that the Bill does is to create a shell. It allows the model to be put in place, but the powers that would allow that Department to operate would be devolved only at such a time as the triple lock would operate. That is what is set out in the Bill and that is what the Minister was encouraged to say and eventually got round to saying, after at least half a dozen attempts to get him to do so by Dr. McCrea and others. It is what the Secretary of State said when closely examined on the issue in the Sub-group on Policing and Justice in the Assembly. I believe that, even if we had discussed this matter in Committee, the same conclusion would have been reached.

I am not interpreting the legislation; I am indicating exactly what is in it because it does not provide any functions for the Department. That is the key issue.

In the St. Andrews agreement, the Government clearly set down their belief that devolution of policing and justice powers could occur by May 2008. The Government are of course entitled to their view on that matter, but none of the parties were required to sign up to that date at St. Andrews. Had they been so required, the Government would have got the same answer on that issue as the party gives on the issue of devolution itself. We are a party that is condition led, not calendar led.

Throughout the process, it has been at the heart of the Democratic Unionist party’s strategy that we will not allow ourselves to be forced by deadlines to do things that would be wrong owing to the conditions on the ground. That must be the position of any sensible party if we are to have the stable and lasting devolution of any powers, including policing and justice powers.

The Minister will know that the DUP is a party that believes in devolution of the fullest possible kind. It thus believes that policing and justice powers should be devolved in the right circumstances and at the right time. He knows that that is our position because it was the position that we advanced to the Government back in 2004 when we considered matters that led to the Government’s comprehensive agreement. We made it clear that we were working towards the devolution of policing and justice powers. That is the endeavour of the DUP. I know that that is also the endeavour of the Government, and I hear that it is the endeavour of the Social Democratic and Labour party.

However, the people who must build confidence so that policing and justice powers can be devolved in Northern Ireland are members of Sinn Fein. The DUP supports the police. The SDLP has taken up membership of the Policing Board and has publicly indicated its support for the police. No one questions the Government’s support for the police. The party that must prove itself to the people of Northern Ireland is, of course, Sinn Fein.

The DUP believes that the necessary community confidence must be in place before the powers are devolved to Northern Ireland. Whatever dates the Minister might put forward, the key point must be whether the community is confident that such powers should be devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly. Among the criteria to consider at that stage would be whether the Assembly was sufficiently stable to have such sensitive powers devolved to it, and whether the model under which the powers would operate was workable and durable. We would also have to consider whether the Minister who would exercise the powers would have the support and confidence not only of one section of the community, but of the community as a whole.

When taking a decision on whether policing and justice powers should be devolved, any sensible democrat in the Assembly will make a judgment by considering such matters. They will not simply look at a calendar and say, “Ah, this is the day on which devolution should take place,” but will consider sensibly whether the circumstances on the ground are such that the powers can be safely devolved to Northern Ireland. That is the only judgment that a sensible politician would make.

I said that one of the criteria to consider will be whether the Assembly is sufficiently stable. I say to the Minister that the date of May 2008 would be at the earliest end of the tolerance of most people’s judgment of when the Assembly would be sufficiently bedded in and consolidated to allow such powers to be devolved. It is essential that Assembly Members deal with day-to-day politics and ensure that things are bedded in before the most sensitive and controversial powers are devolved to the Assembly.

Policing and justice powers are more controversial than health, education and other issues because they affect people’s lives: their safety, security and human rights. They relate to matters that touch every citizen in the country, every day. That is why such devolution cannot simply be forced by the calendar, and why great care must be taken when devolving such powers—and I say that as someone who wants the maximum number of powers, including the maximum number of policing and justice powers, to be devolved to Northern Ireland.

The second criterion that I mentioned was the model. This is the fifth model to be thrown out. I am not a betting man, but if I were, I would take a bet that it will not be the last model. Before too long, someone will return to the House with new legislation under which we will address the matter again. That is why I think that, to some extent, we are wasting our time dealing with this matter today. This will not be the last word on legislative arrangements for policing and justice powers being devolved in Northern Ireland. However, I recognise that the Government want to get things moving, so they have taken this step.

Some of my colleagues and I were heavily criticised. We irritated the Secretary of State—I know he was irritated because he told me so—with some of our remarks about the devolution of policing and justice. I said that, in the circumstances that then prevailed, where Sinn Fein was the largest party on the nationalist side and we were discussing a d’Hondt style of government, I could not imagine that in my lifetime there would be the community confidence in Sinn Fein that was necessary for those powers to be devolved. My colleague Mr. Dodds was attacked because he said that he could not see that happening in his political lifetime. William McCrea used a metaphor of distance rather than time, saying that it was light years away. Whether one uses the language of time or of distance, the message from all three of us was that there was no immediate prospect of the community in Northern Ireland saying that it would be a good idea for policing and justice powers to be devolved if Sinn Fein were getting their hands on the post of Minister with responsibility for policing and justice.

I speak for myself and I believe I speak for my colleagues. None of us made those remarks because we wanted to be belligerent or as a threat. None of those remarks were made in the House or outside because that is what we wanted to happen. It was a clear analysis of what we believed the community’s position to be in the light of a campaign that has gone on for decades, in which the very people who will be put in charge of policing and justice were blowing up courts and killing policemen. That is the reality.

The Government can put whatever dates they like on a calendar, but that will not change the minds of people in Northern Ireland, who ask whether it is sensible for somebody who blew up the Old Bailey and tried to blow up Scotland Yard to be appointed Minister for policing and justice? It does not take too long to consider that proposition. I am talking about Gerry Kelly, the policing and justice spokesman of Sinn Fein. It does not require much thought to realise that that may not be such a good idea.

We made those comments not to be difficult, but to bring some reality to the issue and to let the Government know exactly what they were proposing in Northern Ireland and what the reaction would be in the community. The Democratic Unionist party recognised the difficulty and sought to help the Government resolve the issue. The officers of the Democratic Unionist party put forward a proposal in the Sub-group on the programme for government, and the proposal was unanimously endorsed by our officer corps.

We suggested that if the difficulty was that the community could not have confidence in a particular party, we should have a system whereby the Minister was elected by the Assembly on a cross-community vote, so only somebody who had the confidence of the community would have the post. Let us set a weighted majority and ensure that there is a high degree of support. Rather than a Unionist candidate supported by a few nationalists, or a nationalist supported by a few Unionists here and there, clear overall support from both communities would be required for the Minister to be acceptable.

To some extent, that has been the basis for the Government’s model. They have not gone as far as we did. We required a 70 per cent. vote and a number of other conditions, but at least the Government have recognised that it is possible for policing and justice powers to be devolved without the post being in the hands of Sinn Fein.

Let us leave parties out of it altogether. The only person who is excluded under the Government’s system is somebody who cannot achieve the cross-community support that is necessary. That is the reality. We have made it clear that there are some people whom we cannot see as having that necessary support. I suspect that if I was to put myself forward for that position, I might not get the cross-community support that was necessary either. But who knows what the future might hold? However, the reality is that the position could be filled only if there was cross-community support.

There is a further problem. First of all, as has been said, not all policing and justice powers would reside automatically in a policing and justice Department. There are some residual powers in the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister. It would be sensible, if and when the circumstances come around and we deal with the minutiae of the issue, for all the policing and justice powers to be put into the one Department, not spread about.

The other issue is that under this—I will put it in the most pleasant way that I can—peculiar system of government, there would be an ability on the part of any three Ministers to call in any issue dealt with by another Minister for a vote within the Executive. We are dealing in policing and justice with matters that, as I have said, are particularly sensitive. Some will have legal implications. It is clear that there will have to be procedures, arrangements, protocols—call them what one will—to ensure that there is some ring-fencing of the role of that Department because of the nature of the task before it. All those issues are essential and need to be dealt with before we can finally take decisions on the future of policing and justice in Northern Ireland.

I want to turn to the triple lock, where some of the confusion seems to arise. The DUP negotiated the triple lock mechanism some years ago, and it is a sensible piece of legislation. It ensures that the First Minister must approve the devolution of powers before the matter gets to the Assembly, that the Assembly must approve the devolution of powers by a majority of both designations, and that Parliament must approve the devolution of powers. The Minister has made it abundantly clear that there will be no devolution of policing and justice unless the Assembly asks for the powers to be devolved.That is the key issue. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has made it clear that even if he had a mind to impose on the Assembly the devolution of those powers, and even if he had a mind to impose a Minister on the Assembly, those powers could not be worked if the Assembly did not want them and was not prepared to work them. That is realpolitik.

There may be a shell of a Department, but it cannot do anything until the powers are devolved to it.  Ultimately the Assembly is able, as is the First Minister, to exercise the power to ensure that the powers are not devolved. I agree that it is a bit nonsensical for the Government to have the power to set up a Department if powers are not to be devolved to it. The Minister’s rationale is that he would not be exercising those powers unless it was expected that, by doing so, he was assisting the process towards setting up a policing and justice Department that would have powers devolved to it. That would be the sensible exercise of his power

The reality is that the triple lock—it has also been described as a quadruple lock— is now firmly in place, so the powers cannot be devolved, unless, of course, the Government were to come back to this House with primary legislation.  The triple lock mechanism is a sensible provision to have and I am glad that the Bill does not interfere with it. It is a vital element in providing confidence not only to the Unionist community, but to the community in Northern Ireland generally.

I mentioned the DUP’s attempt to help the Government to get round the difficulty of there being a section of the Assembly in which people would not have confidence as regards the devolution of powers. We have to recognise that there will be individuals who will not gain the support of both sections of the community. I am therefore surprised that the model that the Government provide in the Bill is deficient in several ways. I agree with the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkin) that the Minister has made no case for why this Department should have a deputy Minister. I do not understand the Government’s logic in that regard.

I do not accept that there should be the two positions, as I think that the Assembly should be free to choose any Assembly Member whom it believes can command the necessary degree of support in order to have policing and justice powers devolved. The provision unnecessarily limits the scope of the choice available and discriminates against the Alliance party—a party that believes in freedom and does not believe in discrimination. The Government, who so often lecture us about those matters, should be ashamed of themselves. Indeed, I have to say that my party argued that the Alliance party should have membership even of the Sub-group on programme for government. We may not have been expectant about the number of Alliance party members that would be returned in an election, but we believe that the potential is still there, so we should not take the electorate for granted on any of these matters. The Alliance party should have been included in the Sub-group—and we said so.

In order to move on to debate other matters, I would like to conclude my remarks by saying that we are not getting excited about this piece of legislation because we all recognise that even though it is deficient, it will not be the last word on the issue. The safeguards that my community needs are in place. I believe that the House will be asked to return to this matter and will no doubt be required to legislate further on it in future, but we make it clear now that we want policing and justice powers devolved at the right time and in the right circumstances.”