Northern Ireland Act 1998 (Devolution of Policing and Justice Functions) Order 2010

My Lords, just in case there is any doubt, I have been a lifelong devolutionist. I also had the privilege of being at the right hand of David Trimble—now the noble Lord, Lord Trimble—when he negotiated the Belfast agreement. I would be happy if Northern Ireland were confident and able to deal with devolved policing and justice. I would be ecstatic if Northern Ireland’s political machinations over the past three years had been based on honesty, openness, industry and integrity, but, sadly, that is not the case. Hence, today I want to put the record straight. Today we have a Prime Minister and a Secretary of State—Shaun Woodward—who have chosen to ignore the centre ground of politics in Northern Ireland in favour of an exclusive carve-up of its future among two parties that are driven by years of mockery and exploitation of the people of Northern Ireland. Before anyone tells me that I should be celebrating the transformation of the DUP and Sinn Fein, let me spell out the inconsistencies of those two parties. The latter has, as we all know, murdered its way to power; it is led by murderers who not only will never be brought to justice in this life but will never be publicly examined. I have, by necessity, accepted that and sought to put the past behind me, as has the Ulster Unionist Party. But at the same time, every alleged mistake and misjudgment of police and military who were placed, ill prepared and ill equipped, between the killers and the vulnerable general public 40 years ago is still being judged against today’s background of comparative normality. For 12 years—a political lifetime in new Labour parlance—we have been promised and waited for the Saville report, only to be given the impression over the past few days that we are not likely to hear any details until after the election. We will not hear about the £200 million-worth of millionaire lawyers that the initiators dare not reveal at the hustings. Against that, retired police officers, some now in their 80s, are still being held to their honour obligations in relation to events up to 30 years past. There are no millionaires there—they are lucky, while their retirement has been held to ransom, if they get lunch expenses for their time. There is not much point in going into the history of the DUP, which brought down the Sunningdale agreement in 1974, when Sinn Fein did not even exist as a political party and we could have dealt with people such as the late Lord Fitt. The same DUP mimicked the Red Berets at their King’s Hall rally, misled the unionist electorate with lies about the danger of the Belfast agreement and then proceeded to undermine it, weaken it and remove its safeguards at St Andrews and through its recent Hillsborough aberration. Why has it been necessary for me to recount these destructive realities from the past? It is quite simply because Shaun Woodward has pandered to the baser instincts of these very people with £800 million of blood money. Let me try to understand that vast sum that the Secretary of State threatened to deny policing and justice unless a deal were done. Was this money actually needed for policing and justice? If so, was the Secretary of State telling us that he was prepared to leave the people of Northern Ireland at the mercy of dissident IRA and criminal gangs? Was this a bribe: "I will create a little trough into which you can stick your snouts"? When one sees what has gone on over the past eight or nine years—not least the wheeling and dealing of the past few days—I suppose that anything is possible. Or was it blackmail: "Secretary of State, we will do anything, but you will want to pay us"? It has to be one of those three, unless, of course, the Minister is minded to admit that it was simply the mindless arrogance of Shaun Woodward. The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, described him last week as the worst Secretary of State for Northern Ireland for the past 11 years. Well, the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, was very wrong: Shaun Woodward has been the worst Secretary of State for Northern Ireland for the past 38 years and it is against that background that I evaluate his policing and justice debacle. Before I leave the £800 million mystery money, let us remember that Northern Ireland has been asked to make over £400 million-worth of savings this year, with £113 million being deducted from health and social care, which is already underfunded by up to £600 million compared to England. The DUP and Sinn Fein are no better than Shaun Woodward at understanding and controlling public finances. The wastage in the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister alone is staggering. It has 400 staff, which is more than Downing Street. There are four separate ministerial private offices and eight advisers. The recent opinion poll commissioned by the same office cost upwards of £40,000. This figure alone would have paid for an extra four heart operations or seven hip replacements. Moreover, opinion polls are not the flavour of the month. The Secretary of State spent the equivalent of one heart operation plus one hip replacement on his own creation—his own loaded question—to deliberately mislead the public in Northern Ireland. Noble Lords should listen to the question. It reads: ""I believe we should transfer policing and justice powers to Stormont"—" that would have been all right, but it goes on— ""so that the Executive can get on with the job of improving life for everyone in Northern Ireland"." Is that a loaded question? Yes, just as loaded and heartless as trailing a poor, grieving widow out on the first anniversary of her husband’s murder to make a personal appeal. How cynical can the Northern Ireland Office be? Let me now move to the state of policing and justice that the Assembly will inherit. We have a Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland that could not win the Omagh bombing prosecution, whereas the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, from this House, won a civil case based on the same incident. The Public Prosecution Service could not win the McCartney murder case, despite dozens of witnesses. This was the same Public Prosecution Service that would not prosecute the Thomas Devlin murder until the persistence of the family and the public forced it to do so, when a verdict of guilty against the two defendants was obtained after the victim’s families were put through hell. That is the same for most trials where few if any serious crimes are brought to court inside a period of two and a half to three years. Justice delayed is justice denied. Forty-four thousand police files go annually to the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland. Justice is regularly delayed. Is it any wonder that we have a high rate of recidivism? It is similar with policing. Just this weekend a major police operation was fired on by dissidents without fire being returned. Despite more than half a dozen dissident murders in the past year or thereabouts, not a single shot has been returned. In one case, the police, having dissident gunmen in their sights, were congratulated on withdrawing from the scene. What are we getting into? I know from long, personal experience at the coal face that no one from the Assembly is equipped to provide what policing and justice require in Northern Ireland. Paul Goggins, despite the hindrance of the Northern Ireland Office, has made a valiant effort, but there is no one in the Northern Ireland Assembly who would know a gun from slingshot or who has any practical knowledge of youth justice, the probation service, prisons, courts or any of the complex aspects of what has to be undertaken. Not only that, but the agreed, negotiated d’Hondt system has to be corrupted for a Minister of Justice to be appointed. Not an iota of planning and preparation has been achieved. No one in your Lordships’ House who has served our country in uniform will be other than shocked that not a single command or infrastructural provision has been decided on, let alone established. One might as well put David Ford, an agreeable man against whom I have no prejudice whatsoever, into a rocket aimed at the moon and expect him to come back. For the right reasons but with the wrong approach, we are heading for disaster. That is progress, or so I am meant to believe. If I look depressed, that is only half of what I feel.