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Rev. Ian Paisley (North Antrim): The Secretary of State must keep in mind the fact that, when Roman Catholics join the police, they often lose their right to go home. Many Roman Catholics in my constituency are members of the police, and they cannot go to their own homes; their homes are under threat. Sometimes their parents have to meet them outside Northern Ireland. Surely that is why we do not have the input into the present RUC that we did in the old days when about a third of the force were Roman Catholics.
Mr. Mandelson: I entirely accept what the hon. Gentleman says. I know that IRA intimidation--in the past, including murder--has been a significant factor in preventing Catholics from joining the RUC. Such intimidation is absolutely disgraceful, and it must stop.
I say to the hon. Gentleman, however, that intimidation is not the only factor. Peer pressure, lack of community support, lack of identification with the RUC, fear of loss of family contact and an expectation among Catholics of having to submerge their nationalist identity should they go into the RUC--I am not suggesting that they will; that is the fear and apprehension among Catholics--are factors and they have all played a part. It is those factors that we are addressing and trying to remedy in the changes that we advocate today.
Northern Ireland is a divided society and the issue of policing throws those divides into sharp relief. To be fully effective a police force must be representative of the community that it serves and it must also command widespread support across that community. That is why I was persuaded that serious and radical changes were needed to redress the extreme religious imbalance in the composition of the RUC. That included changing the name.
Mr. Robert McCartney (North Down):
Is the Secretary of State aware that, between 1918 and 1921, the Royal Irish Constabulary comprised 70 per cent. Catholic constables? However, exactly the same process of
Mr. Mandelson:
I believe that the changes taken in the round will address the problem and, over time, they will bring about the change in perceptions and attitudes among Catholics and nationalists which is necessary if we are to promote and secure the applications, the recruitment and the different composition of the RUC that everyone agrees is necessary. Nobody disputes the need for that. Where there are divided opinions is over the type of measures--the form the measures will take--and how quickly they should be applied to redress the religious imbalance that exists.
Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater):
As the Secretary of State rightly said, the whole House would wish to see a police service in Northern Ireland that commanded the widest possible cross-community support. In his recommendations on the Patten report, he has put forward some pretty fundamental changes that will obviously cause concern. What confidence does he have that the leaders of the nationalists--and republican elements as well--will be prepared to endorse and support people joining a new police force under the structure that he has proposed?
Mr. Mandelson:
I believe that my confidence matches my hopefulness that that endorsement and those calls will come from leaders of the nationalist community. I have been encouraged by what leaders of the nationalist community have said and, if one takes what they have said at face value, I believe that, if we faithfully implement what we have said we will do, that support and encouragement will be forthcoming. I certainly hope that it will be.
Mr. John Hume (Foyle):
In reply to the point made by the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King), there is no doubt that we want a police service that has the loyalty of the entire community and membership from all sections of our community. As I have often said, the basis of law and order in any society is fundamentally agreement on how it is governed; where that is absent, the police, no matter who they are, will be seen as being on one side or the other. They are therefore victims of politicians' failure to reach that agreement. My hope is that the agreement that we have now reached, including the implementation of the Patten report, will provide the basis for a police service that has the membership of all--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. I am reluctant to stop the hon. Gentleman, but this is an intervention, not a speech.
Mr. Mandelson:
It was a very welcome intervention, and an important one because the hon. Gentleman has remarked that if, in implementing the Good Friday agreement, we implement what the Patten commission has recommended, the police service will, in his opinion, command the loyalty of all sections of the community. That is a welcome and important statement, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making it.
Mr. Frank Field (Birkenhead):
May not the House be missing the point when we say that of course we look for
Mr. Mandelson:
My right hon. Friend makes a reasonable point, but it is no more necessary or desirable to have our views about policing and the proposed changes dictated to us by those who hold guns than it is to have the future of our devolved and political institutions, and their establishment in Northern Ireland, dictated to us by those who hold guns. I do not want any blackmail on any decision or policy to be perpetrated by people who insist on carrying arms as members of paramilitary organisations.
Mr. Michael Howard (Folkestone and Hythe)
rose--
Mr. Mandelson:
I am afraid that I must press on, but I shall be glad to give way later in my remarks.
Mr. Howard:
My intervention is on this point.
Mr. Mandelson:
I defer to the right hon. and learned Gentleman.
Mr. Howard:
The right hon. Gentleman is generous in giving way and I am grateful. On the point about the name, is he aware that the police force that is singled out for most praise in the Patten report, and which operates in not entirely dissimilar circumstances to the RUC, is the Royal Canadian mounted police? Is he aware that the Canadian high commission has confirmed that there are no plans to change the name of the Royal Canadian mounted police?
Mr. Mandelson:
With respect, the right hon. Gentleman is rather dramatically missing the point. If the Royal Canadian mounted police were operating in a society as divided as that in Northern Ireland and the policing itself were as controversial and evoked such passion and anger as the policing in Northern Ireland, they would be addressing the nature, the form and even the name of the force, just as we are doing with the RUC.
That brings me to the issue of the name. The Patten report concluded that
I concluded, however, that small but significant changes to Patten's recommendations were called for. For example, the new name--Police Service of Northern Ireland--has been modified and will be adopted only
when the first new recruits enter through the new recruitment procedures in autumn 2001. Nothing that we are doing is overhasty or accelerated. Logically, the new badge of the police service will be introduced at the same time, but I have not decided what the badge should be, and I am not convinced that it need be entirely free of association with both traditions.
I have listened carefully to the arguments made by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann. I acknowledge that many Unionists and many in the police family vigorously oppose the change and I have experienced at first hand their continuing opposition. Equally, however, it is very clear to me from all that I have heard from nationalist political, church and community leaders that, in their opinion, a change in the name is essential if the changes to the police are to succeed in changing not only people's perceptions of the police, but their attitudes to volunteering and recruitment to the police service in the future.
That view is not confined to nationalists. Editorials in the Belfast Telegraph on 19 and 20 January at the time of the announcement of the Government's decision recognised that while the sacrifices of the RUC should be remembered in a new policing era,
The Belfast Newsletter said that Unionists
the name of the RUC . . . had become politicised--one side of the community effectively claiming ownership of the name and that the use of those words . . . must inevitably go some way in inhibiting wholehearted participation in policing.
To be absolutely frank, my starting point was to challenge that view. I recognised the pain that changing the name would cause and questioned whether it was really necessary and indispensable in attracting a balance in recruits. After a lot of thought and genuine consideration, I concluded that it was necessary.
sadly, there would have been little chance of progress towards a broadly acceptable force without some change in the name and symbols, which were a legacy of the past.
The Belfast Telegraph got it right.
would do well to take their cue
from the police who would
take all the changes in its professional stride.
I want to make it absolutely clear: changing the name has nothing to do with the issue of sovereignty or Northern Ireland's constitutional status. Northern Ireland will remain a part of the United Kingdom for so long as that is the wish of a majority of its people. No matter how much smoke some people create, the name change is about effective and representative policing--nothing more and nothing else.
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