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10.19 am
Mr. Tony McWalter (Hemel Hempstead): In the five minutes available to me, I shall concentrate on paragraph 37 of the report. I associate myself with the many speeches of praise of the bravery of those who have sought to implement peace in Northern Ireland.
There is in England a gipsy camp known to me. In it, there are a number of young people who would be best described as hooligans. Despite that, that gipsy camp is an exemplary neighbour. Local people have no difficulties with the hooligans, because the person who is in charge of the gipsy camp says to the neighbours, "If any of my lads do anything which, in any way, invades your peace or your ability to enjoy your premises, let me know, and I'll deal with them"--and deal with them he does.
Mr. William Ross (East Londonderry):
By what means?
Mr. McWalter:
By the strap or other such means, as families have done for hundreds of years; I do not commend that. In England, such a different source of authority from the law and the police force is very rare. In Northern Ireland, the number of people who regard themselves as appealing to some other authority or law is very much greater than in England.
The Select Committee report took seriously the plight of those who regard themselves as alienated. Although we of course dealt with the issue of under-representation of women in the RUC, the report specifically deals with the issue of under-representation of Catholics in the force. Some will see the report as pro-Catholic, some will see it as pro-nationalist, some will even see it as pro-republican.
I draw attention to paragraph 37, which establishes unanimously that the Committee took seriously the problem of under-representation, and recognised that some things could be done, within approved legal structures, to try to minimise the extent to which there is a law and a force other than that of the state. It states that one of the things that we must do is to say that the cause
of low Roman Catholic membership is not merely a result of intimidation. Even if intimidation contributes to the cause--how we quantify such a contribution, I do not know--and even if an element in the Catholic community is saying, "You will not join that; if you do, you are a traitor", there are nevertheless things that we can do to improve the situation.
I agree very strongly with the observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Mr. Salter) on the community awareness programme that the RUC has inaugurated. It is fantastic. It recognises the Catholic community's problems, and has made an enormous effort to understand why so many people in the Catholic community feel alienated from the normal processes of law. The programme is doing its best to try to address that issue.
Although exemplary in its content, the community awareness programme is not sufficiently extended. How much of the process of training is devoted to such problems of alienation? The answer is comparatively little. How many RUC members, such as those who have been in post for 10 or 15 years, or are members of the canteen culture that the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) described, have access to the programme? The answer, again, is comparatively little. The community awareness programme is not sufficiently distributed throughout the RUC, and is not sufficiently taken on board, even in training recruits.
One of the things that I discovered as a lecturer in philosophy was that it is very difficult to address people's reluctance to take seriously ideas which their culture has treated as nugatory. It takes an awful lot of effort, training, essay writing and discussion. Just being given a relatively small snapshot of what life might be like on the other side is not sufficient.
Mr. Jeffrey Donaldson (Lagan Valley):
I echo the comments of my colleagues on the Committee on the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke). We have all enjoyed working under him. It was a remarkable achievement to reach the level of consensus that is borne out in the report in a Committee comprising quite a diverse range of political opinion. I also pay tribute to the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which has suffered greatly during the past 30 years of terrorist violence. We ought to recall the level of sacrifice that its members have made in defending and protecting all of the community in Northern Ireland.
The main thrust of the report deals with the imbalance of membership of women and Roman Catholics in the RUC. It proposes improvements in training and recruitment procedures to deal with that imbalance, which I welcome.
I and some other colleagues dissented from two aspects of the report. One was the issue of flying the Union flag. It is worth bearing in mind that the Union flag is our national flag, and that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. It is appropriate, on occasions, for the
RUC to fly the national flag. Equally, I welcome the Committee's conclusion that there is no clear reason for making a special case for changing the name of the RUC. Members of that police force carry the name with pride. The name is also very important to the widows and orphans of RUC members who have lost their lives serving the community.
There is no case to be made against other aspects of RUC symbolism either. Considering that the force's badge shows the harp, the crown and the shamrock, nobody could reasonably argue that it does not fairly reflect both traditions in Northern Ireland. Similarly, I find it unconvincing that nationalists argue against a police force whose members wear a green uniform.
I and other colleagues also dissented from prohibition of the recruitment to the RUC of members of certain organisations. Such a prohibition would raise a number of issues, not least the question of fair employment. I am not convinced that existing laws on fair employment in Northern Ireland would permit such a prohibition. I believe firmly that recruitment to the RUC should be on merit, and merit alone.
I support the proposal for the registration of membership of such organisations. I welcome the fact that the Government, in their response, rejected the Committee's recommendation on prohibition of membership. It would be foolish to deny a sizeable proportion of the community in Northern Ireland access to membership of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, bearing it in mind that the organisations mentioned in the report represent a large proportion of the population. We are seeking inclusivity in our police service in Northern Ireland, and such a prohibition would mitigate against that.
If the Minister has time, will he clarify exactly the organisations which officers of the RUC will be encouraged to register their membership of? Will they include, for example, membership of organisations such as the Knights of St. Columbanus and Opus Dei, as well as the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the loyal orders and the Freemasons?
In his intervention, my right hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) mentioned the chill factor. It is not correct for the hon. Member for Reading, West (Mr. Salter) to suggest that the wider chill factor was not addressed in the report. Paragraph 4 of the conclusions and recommendations refers to intimidation, peer group pressure and so on. Those are symptoms of the wider chill factor towards the RUC within the nationalist community, which expresses itself in a number of ways. My right hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann mentioned the Gaelic Athletic Association's ban on members of the RUC belonging to its organisation.
There have also been problems with members of the SDLP--the largest nationalist party--refusing to serve on local police liaison committees. That, too, sends out the wrong signal to the nationalist community about the acceptability of the RUC and creates and adds to the wider chill factor.
Impartiality has also been mentioned. I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Mr. Beggs). I add that one only has to visit the Maze and Maghaberry prisons to see that their number of loyalist prisoners equates to--indeed, in proportionate terms, is greater than--the number of republican prisoners.
We must accept that it was the RUC who put those men behind bars and in that respect it has been highly impartial.
Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire):
I want to deal with aspects of the problem of recruitment of Catholics to the RUC. The leader of the Ulster Unionist party, the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble), has recognised and condemned the canteen culture that exists, and that is important. However, paragraph 37 of the report, which deals with those matters, stresses that
One of the factors behind that is the intimidation and beatings perpetrated by the IRA. If we were discussing other matters, I might want to talk about loyalist paramilitary activity, but it is sufficient in this debate to refer to IRA activity. It has sought to operate as a crude police force, judge, jury and executioner in the most barbaric fashion to contain and control its own communities. In those circumstances, it is difficult for people to contemplate a career in the RUC, yet the IRA can change its policy, as it did during Clinton's visit and in the run-up to the Belfast agreement. Recent publicity from the House and elsewhere means that during the past fortnight republican violence has ended, apart from perhaps one incident.
Sinn Fein is sufficiently worried about the violence to have thought of an alternative that it calls restorative justice, in which it brings together victims and those who have committed a crime to sort out matters. I am not against restorative justice if it is operated by officialdom, but I am not in favour of it being operated by a political party.
Responses to the beatings, such as that by the leader of the Ulster Unionists--who suggested that Amnesty International should monitor the situation; and the organisation responded to that--mean that the violence seems to have been called off for the time being. As long as the publicity is kept up, that situation will continue.
We now need to tackle the problem of people being forced into exile from Northern Ireland or particular communities. Several hundred people have been chased out of Northern Ireland by paramilitary groups.
In January, Families Against Intimidation and Terror assisted 15 families to leave Northern Ireland and has dealt with about 80 people this year. In Manchester, the Christian group Maranatha is dealing with 14 cases. It assists one family a week, but before the ceasefire it was dealing with only one family a month. That is a serious matter that could be tackled by 10 March.
"a picture does emerge: intimidation; peer group pressure; losing contact with family and friends",
and expresses concern for the safety of Roman Catholic officers. That obviously provides a tremendous bar to recruitment to people from Roman Catholic areas.
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