Terrorism (Northern Ireland) Bill

I spoke during the debate on the Second Reading of the Terrorism Act 2000, and specifically about part VIII of that Act, to which the Bill refers. At the time, I welcomed the fact that those measures were to be in place for only five years and subject to renewal by Parliament by statutory instrument every 12 months. I have served on every committee that debated the annual review of those sections of the Act. That review was important because Parliament had to have the ability to consider the provisions regularly and to make its own judgment of the situation in Northern Ireland and of whether those provisions remained necessary. In that context, it has obviously been absolutely essential to have the benefit of studying the annual reports of my noble Friend Lord Carlile of Berriew. Indeed, in my judgment his work has underpinned much of the guidance that the Government have used to make their decisions subsequently. His work has been invaluable—not just because he happens to be the former Member of Parliament for Montgomeryshire. Unfortunately, given the time frame needed to place the Bill on to the statute book before the provisions run out in February, we are not able to see his deliberations on the operation of part VII of the 2000 Act in the current year, but I shall look very closely at his latest report when it is published. In that sense, it was very important that we had access to the letter that has subsequently been shared with those hon. Members who are in the Chamber today. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for having made that arrangement, which has been helpful in informing the debate. We welcome the fact that part VII will be extended only for a very limited time—indeed, until the end of July 2007. As we have already discussed, there is provision in the Bill for the sections that are then in force to continue, but no later than 1 August 2008—again, with specific parliamentary approval by statutory instrument. I understand that that can be achieved only by positive affirmation in the Commons and in another place, and I see the Minister nodding on that score. Lord Carlile welcomes that check, and I think that it is important, too, because Parliament simply must be able to look regularly and closely at whether such measures are indeed necessary in Northern Ireland. Of course I had hoped, as probably everyone had hoped in 2000, that we would have made sufficient progress in the long march towards peace and the normalisation of the Province to make part VII irrelevant at some point during the five-year lifetime that was placed on it. Although some progress has been made in recent weeks particularly, there has been such turmoil in the intervening years that the provisions of part VII are evidently still necessary. Although the IRA statement in July and the subsequent decommissioning of IRA weapons were significant events, they took a long time to happen. It is five and a half years after all paramilitary activities were meant to have come to an end, and seven and a half years since the signing of the Good Friday agreement. In fact, that very delay has meant that we find ourselves debating part VII again. We have had insufficient time to judge whether the IRA has decommissioned not just its weapons, but its activities. The signs from the latest IMC report are encouraging and I look forward to its next report in January, but I feel that the jury is still out on the long term. Until recently, similar progress has not been made in relation to loyalist violence or dissident republicans. The violence that we saw over the summer was truly horrific, and the loyalist paramilitaries demonstrated in no uncertain terms why it is necessary for part VII of the 2000 Act to remain in force.