Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2008

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the Minister for his explanation of the orders and in giving the orders a broad welcome. It is good that that they will bring the legislation in Northern Ireland broadly into line with the rest of the United Kingdom. There has been considerable demand in Northern Ireland for a review of sentencing. Every time that someone has unfortunately been killed by a joyrider or a drunken person, there has been considerable clamour when the defendant who is found guilty gets an extremely light sentence. I join the Minister in recognising that we have in the House tonight Attracta Harron’s widower. It is becumbent on us all to recognise the tremendous dignity that the Harron family had in their tragic loss of their mother in dreadful circumstances. It is also fair to point out that had the person who has been convicted for that murder, Trevor Hamilton, not been released early from prison, had he been tagged or had there been supervision, Attracta Harron could very well be alive tonight. In other words, if the order had been in place, Attracta Harron could be alive tonight. I shall make a couple of quick points, because time is going on. It is not easy to talk about security issues for Northern Ireland over here. I am still very concerned about the lack of prosecutions because of political interest. I am concerned about a recent statement from the Forensic Science Agency, which said that it now has the techniques for DNA testing that mean that it could go through the entire arsenal of rifles, guns and other machinery that have been taken off paramilitaries through crimes during the past 30 years and could identify an awful lot of people and evidence. Unfortunately, I see no evidence of that being taken up by the Historic Inquiries Team, which seems strangely reluctant to involve its colleagues in the art of DNA science to find out who used those guns, and so on. The people who look at the DNA are plugged into an extremely advanced computer system—possibly one of the most advanced in the world—which can identify people immediately from the DNA and indicate where they were on certain nights. I am also concerned about the ongoing lack of prosecutions for fuel laundering and other fuel offences. The Government’s own figures for a number of months ago indicate that in Northern Ireland the Government lose taxes at the rate of £365 million per year because of fuel laundering, mostly in South Armagh. That is £1 million per day. I think of the number of hospitals and other things that the Government and the Executive of Northern Ireland could fund with that money. We see very few people who have been made amenable to fuel laundering. I do not expect the Minister to answer these questions today. I will probably pursue these things through Parliamentary Questions in due course.