Justice and Northern Ireland

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for reminding me of the commitment I made in Committee, and I am happy to repeat here that if the 30 per cent. target is reached before March next year Ministers will come back to rescind those special provisions. The target was 30 per cent. and as soon as it is reached we shall be happy to disapply those special arrangements, and we would then proceed in the normal way on recruitment. The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned parading, the responsibility for which we anticipate will be devolved at the appropriate time. I acknowledge all the work that has been done and he has played a huge role in taking that work forward in very short order. I hope that in due course the Assembly will make the request for this matter to be transferred, and it is something that we stand ready to do at the appropriate time—I think that he understands that. He also made a very important point about the role of the Assembly committee, which will of course have a wider remit, examining not only policing, but prisons, the Youth Justice Agency, the probation service and criminal justice policy, and many other things. He is right to make the distinction as to who is accountable to whom. The committee in the Assembly will hold the Minister to account, and the Policing Board holds the Chief Constable to account. That is the appropriate set of arrangements, and I know that the hon. Member for North Down also makes that point clearly and strongly. The central truth of all this is that devolving policing and criminal justice powers means that we really do have joined-up government in Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) made the point that that is the key goal—I believe he said it was the "key prize"—and I can see a number of ways in which this will really move things forward. If the politicians in Northern Ireland are developing a resettlement strategy to reduce reoffending rates, they can do so more effectively when prisons and probation are joined up with health, employment services, housing services and so on. The big prize is that when devolution is completed the whole effort of government can be absolutely focused on young people, particularly those in hard-pressed areas, in order to give them a vision of something different, a way forward and a way out of antisocial behaviour or even worse. These are real prizes of devolution, and I know from listening to the debates of local politicians that they are very eager to grasp and move forward with them. The hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) demonstrated again his keen and long-standing interest in constitutional issues, and he reminded us of some of the history. We were all rather relieved that the violence and tumult to which he referred were not so evident in the Chamber tonight, despite the comments made by the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) about his feelings towards certain previous Secretaries of State—I shall come to those in a moment. May I thank the right hon. Member for Belfast, East on behalf of the whole House for the efforts he made to get here tonight, having had First Minister's questions in the Assembly this afternoon? I congratulate him, the Deputy First Minister and all his colleagues on what is being achieved. The focus in the right hon. Gentleman's speech was on a Northern Ireland beyond sectarianism, and the whole House supports him in that aim, vision and objective. I know that he understands—he made this clear in his speech—that when policing and criminal justice is lined up with the rest of government it is more possible to deliver the vision about which he spoke. I turn now to two stalwarts of this House who made tremendous speeches this evening, the first of whom was the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack). As is his custom, he paid tribute to a great many people in his speech, but I wish to pay a huge tribute to him for all that he has done. He has remained deeply committed to the Committee that he has chaired so admirably in recent years. I know from my own personal experience that he has wise words of criticism, which are usually gently delivered, but effectively so, as well as huge warm encouragement to offer to Ministers, to other Members and to members of his Committee in order to achieve the big prize of trying to make progress. I thank him personally for the encouragement that he has offered me, and I know that I speak for others here too. He is a truly even-handed Chair of the Select Committee, and I thank him for all that he has done. He will be a great loss to this House, but we all wish him well for the future. I turn now to the right hon. Member for North Antrim, about whom much has been said over the many years of what the right hon. Member for Belfast, East described as a "colourful" career. I think that we would all join in that opinion. Irrespective of whatever has been written about him, I have always found him in this place to be unfailingly courteous, kind, thoughtful, generous and deeply spiritual. Those things are the hallmark of the right hon. Member for North Antrim, who is right to say that there is no reason why people of strong views cannot live together if they can find common ground and work on the issues that separate them so that they can move forward together. His leadership has been crucial to the progress that is now being made in Northern Ireland. I remember his speech at St. Andrews—that crucial moment in the step forward to peace and progress in Northern Ireland—when he said that it was necessary to take the step for the sake of the children. Every time he speaks, he speaks about the future and the future for those children, and he does so in a heartfelt way. I wish to thank him for his contribution to this House and to political progress in Northern Ireland, and for what he has done to improve the prospects for people in Northern Ireland. He will, in the end, be remembered as the man who ultimately said yes. I detect consensus in this place this evening, and that consensus has been vital in bringing us to this point, where we are on the eve of devolving policing and justice powers. The consensus has been in place here and outside this place. In particular, it was a consensus that many of us felt last week when we visited the United States. Successive Presidents—Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama—have all been involved and all been supportive in this process, as has Secretary of State Clinton, and they have all put real effort, time and support into the efforts of Northern Ireland's politicians. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley reminded us of the hurt and pain that people still experience and the uncertainty that it has brought with it. The encouragement and the partnership in this place and beyond this place have, I think, been important. It is very important that that sense of support and solidarity remains in place. Devolution means full empowerment; it does not mean isolation.