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

My Lords, like many other noble Lords, I welcome this day and I welcome the devolution of powers for policing and justice to the Northern Ireland Assembly. I pay tribute to all those who have worked over the years to secure this, and in so doing I pay tribute to people with whom I would have had very little sympathy. I pay tribute to those who have moved the republican movement from what it called the armed struggle to what we have now. I also acknowledge the pain and suffering of all those who have suffered at the hands of actors of the state who have behaved as they should not have behaved. We have had reference already to the inquiry of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville, and to the fact that the report of that inquiry will be delayed. I do not think that I can say any more about the noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville, now, but I will in future. For the past 12 years many people have played politics with our peace and our security in Northern Ireland. As we speak that continues, and the sectarianism continues. Neither the DUP nor Sinn Fein is prepared to allow the application of the d’Hondt principles to provide a Justice Minister. The parties that occupy the offices of First Minister and Deputy First Minister will not allow it and the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP, who sit outside them, will not allow it. They are therefore determined that they will elect the leader of the Alliance Party to this ministry. In so doing they are electing someone who has publicly said that the Saville inquiry is pointless. The Saville inquiry was established by the British Government to establish exactly what happened on that terrible day in Derry. That causes me great concern about the proposed Minister for Justice’s understanding of matters of justice. I should, however, like to address the substance of my remarks to the issue of national security. The noble Lord, Lord Bew, has already referred to the fact that the chief constable will effectively face a dual responsibility to the Justice Minister and to the Home Secretary. I want to say a word about national security because, in Northern Ireland terms, "national security" refers only to the activities of republican terrorists and not to the activities of other terrorists who are active in Northern Ireland and who emanate, if you like, from Northern Ireland. Previous experience has shown that terrorists who were working in both republican and loyalist communities were recruited as informants to the intelligence services and particularly to the Special Branch of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. That led to the situation in which intelligence informants were able to engage in the most serious of crimes without being made amenable for those crimes. Those crimes included murder, attempted murder, arson, kidnapping, extortion, and all the things that go on under the cloak of paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland. It is said that it is necessary for informants to be engaged in crime so that they can produce information for the security and policing services. To a degree, that is undoubtedly true; they will be closer to those who are engaged in serious crime. However, the reality is that the United Kingdom has serious controls over the activities of informants and that those controls were not observed by the Royal Ulster Constabulary during all those years. The introduction of a surveillance commissioner, in an attempt to regulate the process of informant handling and management, was a welcome development. However, what happened in Northern Ireland continued to happen notwithstanding the role of the surveillance commissioner, who was unable to identify what was happening in the situation. In essence he could not identify the level of criminality in which those informants were involved, and he accepted the assertion that they were not currently involved in crime—which I was told by a police officer meant "at this moment they are not committing a crime". This was misleading the surveillance commissioner. Primacy has now moved to MI5, where many former Special Branch officers are employed. It is vital that in the exercise of his functions the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, will be more effective than the surveillance commissioner was in managing these issues. Lessons must be learned not only from the successes of the Royal Ulster Constabulary but also from the failures of that organisation. I want to say something about the £800 million which I think needs to be said. The £800 million reflects the amount needed to make justice and policing in some measure fit for purpose in Northern Ireland. Over the decades many compromises have been made in the management of policing, justice and the prisons. It has left us with a situation in which we have many unresolved problems, several of which have been referred to today—the dysfunction in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the serious dysfunction in the Prison Service, and many other problems which arise in the operation of our probation service and things like that. There will be significant challenges for the new Ministry of Justice, but there will also be significant challenges for each of us as we seek to give our consent and our support to the activities of that ministry. There can be no more further playing politics in these matters. I hope that as we move forward all the people of Northern Ireland will do all they can to assist not only in the resolution of today's problems as they are caused by the dissident republicans, but also in the resolution of yesterday's problems and the significant pain that still exists—the pain of those from all parts of the community who have suffered murder and the pain of those whose loved ones were disappeared by the IRA. I call on all those—obviously not noble Lords—who have any information about the whereabouts of the disappeared. More have disappeared than are formally acknowledged to have been disappeared. I call on people to give this information so that others can lay their loved ones to rest.