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Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The debate has been conducted properly until now, and there is no point in hon. Members making seated interventions.
Mr. Mandelson: Some have accepted the necessity of the change, including some in the Unionist community and, indeed, some in the party of those hon. Gentlemen who are calling out to me. I know that because I have met members of the party who reluctantly accept that the change is necessary. They have also expressed the hope that it will be possible to find a way of commemorating the title and the service of the RUC in some form, not least in honour of those who have lost their lives. I strongly share that view, and I can announce that I have set work in train to identify appropriate ways of honouring the name of the RUC in perpetuity by associating it with suitable and agreed initiatives.
Ultimately, what the police do, how representative they are, and how they are trained and equipped matter more than what they are called. The Government are
determined to ensure that the police have the necessary resources and capabilities to protect the community and uphold law and order.
We must tackle the live, day-to-day issues: the all-too-frequent paramilitary attacks that inflict terrible suffering and mock the principles of fairness and justice; the arson attacks; and all the other crimes of violence that wreck lives, wreck homes and deny whole communities their basic right to live free of fear.
There are parts of Northern Ireland in which paramilitaries think not just that they are above the law but that they are the law. The paramilitaries' grip on such communities needs to be tackled and broken, but to achieve that, the police service must have the confidence of law-abiding people in such communities. The police service needs to be more representative of them if confidence is to be built up, if the police service is to command the confidence that it needs in all parts of the community, and if it is to do its job effectively and successfully and take on and defeat the paramilitaries' grip. That is our objective.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield):
The Secretary of State slips his tongue across descriptions of certain parts of the community in Northern Ireland. He describes them at one moment as nationalists, at another as republican and at another as Catholics. I am not sure that those descriptions necessarily all represent the same interest or objectives. Is it one of the right hon. Gentleman's intentions to have sections of the police force who wish to bring Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom? Is that in his mind?
Mr. Mandelson:
I do not know quite what the hon. Gentleman is saying. He seems to be asking whether there will be a separately constituted section of the new police service of those who are dedicated to persuading their fellow citizens to leave the United Kingdom. I must say that that would be an odd way of constituting a police service. All I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that the Chief Constable is responsible for the recruitment of members of the police service and were he to make such a proposal to me, not only would I be extremely surprised but I would have no reluctance in questioning and rejecting the proposal.
The motion also calls for the implementation of controversial recommendations to await a new dispensation. I want to take up what the right hon. Member for Upper Bann has said about that, because he made some important points and I take them seriously. I ask the House to think for a moment about the right hon. Gentleman's argument and what he has said. The British and Irish Governments, and all the Northern Ireland political parties, have to play a part in creating a new social and political climate in Northern Ireland. Reform of the RUC is not a consequence or a by-product of the climate that we want to create in Northern Ireland. Reforming the police is crucial to creating that climate and building up the new dispensation that the Good Friday agreement foreshadowed and which all of us who support the agreement want to usher into Northern Ireland as a new era of inclusive government and unbreakable peace. I say to the right hon. Member for Upper Bann that I believe that reform of the police has an important contribution to make towards creating that climate and ushering in that era, which all of us want to see in Northern Ireland.
None the less, I can reassure the House that there will be no question of rushing forward with change in the absence of a stable security environment. From recent events, including the explosion today, it is clear that we still have some way to go before we have created that entirely stable security environment.
A number of recommendations depend absolutely on the Chief Constable's assessment of the level of threat--recommendations such as phasing out the full-time reserve; amalgamation of special branch and CID; progress towards an unarmed police service; and changes to police buildings and vehicles.
Those changes will be carried forward only on the Chief Constable's advice, and on the basis of his assessment of the security threat in Northern Ireland. That is what Patten said, what I have accepted, and what the Government's policy is--taking account of the security situation and, against that background, the capability of the police as an organisation to absorb the huge changes that are set out.
Some changes can occur quickly. The Chief Constable has begun the process, and we will see the start of down-sizing and the creation of new district command units this November. That is his choice and his decision. Other changes will take longer. For example, Patten envisages the composition of the service changing over a period of 10 years.
In conclusion, I want to say this about the RUC: in its planning and preparation for change, the RUC has shown the same sort of typical professionalism as it has shown throughout 30 years of dealing with terrorism. I have met those responsible in the RUC--the change management team and the assistant Chief Constable, who has an excellent team. I am thoroughly impressed by the conscientiousness of those responsible and by their dedication to the task of bringing about the change, some aspects of which they may not like, but all of which, as professionals, they will embrace, if that is the will of Parliament once the legislation is enacted. They deserve our gratitude and our unfailing support. They certainly have mine.
I want also to pay tribute to the role of the Army in supporting the police in the fight against terrorism. The Army, too, has shown enormous courage in helping the police to uphold law and order and in protecting all sides of the community in Northern Ireland from violence. It, too, has paid a very heavy price, with the loss of 655 soldiers since 1969. In that context, let me join the right hon. Member for Upper Bann in expressing my sympathy to the families and colleagues of the soldiers lost in the tragic accident on the River Foyle last night.
Those who care about the police must resist all temptation to project self-interested political arguments on to the RUC. [Interruption.]
Mr. Mandelson:
Whether in support or condemnation, that does the police absolutely no service and it makes their job harder, as the chairman of the Police Federation in Northern Ireland reiterated this morning, when he asked for politicians and the political parties in Northern Ireland to debate all the changes, but not to seek to link those
Therefore to Unionists I say: "You are not being asked to relinquish your pride in or your sense of community with the RUC. You are being asked to share it with others in the whole community in Northern Ireland."
To nationalists, I say: "You must meet Unionists halfway. We can create a service of which nationalists can feel a proper sense of ownership, but it is up to you to embrace it and to join the new police service when it is created."
Mr. Andrew MacKay (Bracknell):
The House is grateful to the Ulster Unionist party which, by using its precious single Supply day to propose a motion on policing in Northern Ireland, has given us an opportunity to comment on what should be contained in the legislation that the Secretary of State will introduce shortly.
I want again to underline the Conservative Opposition's respect for the Royal Ulster Constabulary. During the past 30 years, the RUC has constituted the thin green line in the Province between the rule of law and anarchy. We owe the RUC a huge debt of gratitude on the mainland, in the Province and in the Republic.
Members of the RUC have paid the most horrendous price: 302 officers have been murdered, more than 10,000 have been cruelly maimed or wounded while trying to protect innocent life. In the international context, the police force in Northern Ireland is regarded throughout the world as the best counter-terrorism force ever. Those who recently visited the Balkans, especially Kosovo, know of the excellent work that RUC officers are carrying out there under equally difficult circumstances.
The whole House was therefore delighted when Her Majesty chose to recognise the RUC by awarding it the George Cross. Never has an award been more deserved. Conservative Members fully understand why the Secretary of State will not be with us for Question Time next Wednesday. He will rightly be with Her Majesty in the Province for the exciting occasion of the awarding of the George Cross. We are delighted that that will happen.
I shall repeat the comments that I made when the Patten proposals were published in September. We believe that they offer an interesting and helpful basis for policing in the Province when there is no longer a terrorist threat. However, the terrorist threat remains. In the past 24 hours, a serious explosion has occurred at the Eglinton barracks. A couple of weeks ago, a car was intercepted on the road between Hillsborough and Lisburn, and 500 lb of home-made explosives were found. In the run-up to St. Patrick's day, those explosives would have been used in a dangerous and evil way. I hope that no hon. Member believes that there is no continuing terrorist threat from republican and so-called loyalist paramilitaries. Hopefully, it comes only from splinter groups.
We believe that it would be decidedly premature to introduce some of Patten's security-sensitive recommendations. There are 175 recommendations in all, the great majority of which are straightforward, sensible and necessary. Many were mirrored in the Chief Constable's earlier review and we believe that they should be implemented forthwith. We can get those out of the way immediately.
We have reservations about the proposed name change. Worse than that, I do not believe that we can support the Government when the legislation comes before the House. We see no need to change the name of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. As the Secretary of State and the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) were good enough to point out, this is an extremely sensitive issue, particularly for those who have lost loved ones serving in that force. Therefore, any change of name must not be taken lightly by the House.
The biggest reason that we are given for a name change is that that change would increase confidence in the nationalist-republican community. I rebut that by quoting the Police Authority survey, which was concluded only in October last year--no more than six months ago. It says that a name change
will cause major offence in the Protestant community but will not lead to significant improvements in support for the Police among Catholics.
I endorse that. In other words, a recommendation to scrap the name of the RUC would create considerable grief and pain in one community without achieving much consequent gain in the other. That has been further endorsed today by the survey in the Belfast Telegraph, which shows that 61 per cent. of the Catholic community not only have confidence in the police, but do not believe that there is any need to change the name. I hope that, at this late hour, the Secretary of State will think again. To give him advance notice, I must tell him that, if he does not, we shall seek to remove that provision from the legislation and will press the matter to a Division, both here and in the other place, until we can persuade him to do so.
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