---

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

6 Jun 2000 : Column 201

6.1 pm

Mr. Kevin McNamara (Hull, North): It is a delight to follow the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke). I remember well the solecism that he made and the cry that he should resign. I also remember saying at the Dispatch Box that I saw no reason why he should resign. He was the most subtle, most far-reaching and cleverest Tory Secretary of State we ever had. That is a rare tribute for me to make to a Conservative politician, but it is one that he deserves.

The last phrase of the Tory amendment states that the Bill

threatens significantly to increase the politicisation of policing in Northern Ireland.

That is precisely what the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay) is doing under the amendment. He is increasing politicisation given that the Patten report is aimed at and based on taking the police out of politics in Northern Ireland.

I am second to none in my praise of the integrity and courage of those members of the RUC--men and women--who have fought strongly to uphold the rule of law impartially. There are many such brave men and women, but I could not say that there has been no problem in the RUC. That problem still remains; if it did not, we would not be debating the Bill or discussing Patten tonight.

The first incident in the current problems occurred when nine policemen savagely beat Samuel Devenney in Derry in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume). A senior British police officer was appointed to inquire into that incident, but he could find out nothing because of a conspiracy of silence by the policemen who were in the area at the time. The police were standing by while Robert Hamil was cruelly murdered and while the streets of Belfast burned. The police were involved in shoot-to-kill policies. I am not raking over old history to score political points; I am saying that that is part of the problem. The sooner that hon. Members, especially those on the Unionist Benches, realise that we are considering a police force that, rightly or wrongly, has been associated by people in the minority population with being part and parcel of a state that has been hostile to them, the better; it has been used to persecute them as it regarded the minority as the enemy within the state in the past. Until people are prepared to recognise that that is part and parcel of what Patten has tried to address, we are in considerable difficulty.

Mr. Michael Howard (Folkestone and Hythe): What part does the hon. Gentleman think is played in what he describes as the problem by the words of the president of Sinn Fein, who in January of this year described someone who was convicted of murdering an RUC officer as a "republican role model" and "morally superior" to those who sought to criminalise him? What part does he think language of that kind plays in the problem?

Mr. McNamara: I find that language despicable. I hold no brief whatever for the killing of police officers. I pay tribute to those men who courageously held the line, for example, at the time of the Hillsborough agreement, in which a Government of whom the right hon. and learned Gentleman was a member were involved. Many police officers have behaved with enormous courage in grave

6 Jun 2000 : Column 202

difficulties. He should not ask me to defend the words of the president of Sinn Fein--that is a matter for him--nor should he suggest that I can explain away those terrible things in some way.

My hon. Friends the Members for Foyle, for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon), for South Down (Mr. McGrady) and I have always fought to have a police force that would be acceptable to the community as a whole in Northern Ireland, and which could earn the respect of both sides of the community. That is what Patten is trying to do. Patten produced a report that met his terms of reference, but the problem is that the Bill does not do so. The Bill is a cadaver of Patten; it does not contain the spirit and the letter of Patten as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State suggested. Much of what he said did, but the Bill does not.

The briefing that the Northern Ireland Office supplied for Second Reading bears very little relation in many substantial parts to what my right hon. Friend said today. I regard the Bill as mean, and its meanness can be seen in the discussion of the objections to the Bill contained in the briefing. He has stood many of those things on their head, so he presumably had nothing to do with the briefing, but, for example, paragraph 10, on traditions and beliefs, states:

Patten recommends that the new oath should require officers "to accord equal respect to all individuals and to their traditions and beliefs". The Bill omits "traditions and beliefs" on the basis that it would be wrong to accord some of them "equal respect".

What clever little man, with his grubby little jammy fingers, thought of that?

The paragraph continues:

For example, the "tradition" of violence and the "belief" that it is legitimate to use violence for political ends.

That must be aimed at the shoot-to-kill policy, at Gibraltar and at Derry. Is that what was meant? What nasty minds suggested that the SDLP's traditions and beliefs were ones of violence--the people most keen to ensure that the Bill should be considered in that way? Therefore, we are asked to say what have we found wrong with the Bill and why it is a cadaver.

The ombudsman's powers have been taken away and limited. To that extent, my right hon. Friend has gone some way to meet the concerns, but there are others about the proposed powers of the new policing board. The Police Authority said:

the Secretary of State's intention threatens to undermine the credibility of the new body before it even gets off the ground.


We are extremely concerned that if the legislation goes through as it stands, the Policing Board could actually have less power than the current Police Authority--a ludicrous situation . . .

It is strange that the code of ethics for the police has already been drawn up by Sir Jack Hermon, who was Chief Constable. It was obviously lacking, otherwise we would not need a new one, but the person who has Hermon's job will be responsible for it.

According to the draft implementation scheme that happened to fall into my hands, 133 of the 175 recommendations will be implemented by the police, and the Chief Constable will have sole responsibility for 29. On recruitment, the Bill will never achieve the critical mass that Patten wants; on the implementation oversight, I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is to alter it. An implementation officer with no powers--unable to enforce, to goad, to demand or to make regular

6 Jun 2000 : Column 203

checks--is no use. The Bill has been drawn up by the security services and the Northern Ireland Office, which thought, "How can we best emasculate, neuter or castrate the Patten report?" That attempt has failed.

If the Bill is passed in its present form, it will not carry with it the confidence of the nationalist community. That is what we must look for. There has been a lack of confidence throughout, which is why policing has been one of the major problems facing Northern Ireland and the achievement of a settlement. The association of the police with the organs of the state--the one as the political extension of the other--has to stop. Patten gives us that opportunity, and I hope that we seize it.

6.11 pm

Mr. Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire): Back in the old days, when I was young and lived in Northern Ireland, I talked to the police almost every day. My dad had a Volvo and no Royal Ulster Constabulary officer would believe that he had lent it to me. That concern turned out to be well founded, as I wrote the vehicle off on 1 January 1984. I apologise to the police for wasting their time and to my father for wasting his car.

The Secretary of State referred to "as good a model for policing as can be found anywhere in the world." He also said that he would approach the debate with an open mind. Also, as the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) said, the principle that we are debating represents the best opportunity for taking Northern Ireland policing forward, and I welcome the prospect of profoundly improving the trust with which communities in the Northern Irish population regard the police service--although I shall outline areas that are in serious need of improvement, which we may refer to in amendments.

Patten focused on the vision for policing for Northern Ireland, as outlined in the Good Friday agreement, which said that the police service should be

accountable, both under the law for its actions and to the community it serves; representative of the society it polices, and operates within a coherent and co-operative criminal justice system, which conforms with human rights norms. . .

That is also the Liberal Democrat vision for the police in Northern Ireland: a single, integrated police service with the confidence and respect of the whole community.

We all know the benefits of that, but one that has not been mentioned is the prospect of an end to most of the paramilitary beatings, a relatively large number of which still occur. There are a lot of reasons for that, but one must be the fact that self-appointed law keepers--vigilantes--think that their role is to step in when the RUC is seen to be ineffective. Clearly, there are no grounds to justify paramilitary beatings, but the fact that they happen is symptomatic of a deep-seated public order problem at a number of different levels. If we get the Bill right, perhaps we can address them successfully.

---