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26 Mar 2003 : Column 392—continued
Mr. Trimble: Time is getting on and we want to get on to the next group of amendments, so I shall try to confine my comments to a few salient points.
The Minister was remarkably frank and I was glad that one word was absent from her contribution and indeed those of some other hon. Members—the word "Patten". What we are dealing with tonight has no sanction at all in the Patten report. The report referred to four sub-groups in Belfast, but nowhere did it say that those four groups should exercise the entire functions of the district policing partnership. The original provisions in the 2000 Act were a reasonable interpretation of the half sentence in the Patten report that dealt with that issue. The amendments clothe the sub-groups with all the essential functions of district policing partnerships and thereby marginalise the DPP. That has no warrant
in Patten. It should go on record that the Government are introducing the new clause at the insistence of Sinn Fein, that they are supported by the SDLP, which claims that it wants the Patten report to be fully implemented, and that there is no such provision in Patten. The new clause is not consistent with Patten. That is the first key point.The second main point is balkanisation. I appreciate that the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) had to leave the Chamber, but I was greatly disappointed by his contribution on the new clause. On other matters, he and his party are great advocates of partnership, which runs through the agreement and the legislation that the Government have introduced in the past few years. However, the Government have abandoned partnership on the subject of our discussion, and that is worrying. My hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim (David Burnside) was right to say that if we want a partnership-based approach in Belfast, there should be a single DPP for the city. It should not be split into four groups.
We have mainly discussed west Belfast, but the same problem will arise in east Belfast, where the demography is overwhelmingly Protestant and Unionist. In a way, west Belfast and east Belfast are mirror images. There should be no "Bantustanisation" of the city. The Government should be ashamed of themselves. They have introduced the new clause purely on Sinn Fein's insistence, because that party wants to dominate the sub-group in west Belfast and thereby control policing in the area. The Government have gone out of their way to assist them through designing the sub-group. The composition provides that the independent members must be representative of the sub-group area. That means that in west Belfast, the independent members will be overwhelmingly nationalist and republican and in east Belfast, overwhelmingly Unionist. The political appointees have to be balanced only on the council as a whole. That opens the door to domination of west Belfast by people from one side of the House and that of east Belfast by those from the other.
The safeguard to which the Minister referred is no safeguard. It applies only in so far as it is practicable. If the Minister considers it, she will realise that there are ways in which Sinn Fein could make matters impracticable—for example, by making life miserable for people. As has been said, it would be a chairmanship from hell for a Unionist in west Belfast, but I do not believe that the converse would be true in east Belfast. A value judgment must be made.
I have outlined the salient points. The new clause is not good in principle. It departs from the spirit of the agreement and the arrangements that the Government support. That has been done at Sinn Fein's insistence to advance its ulterior purpose. I would not be surprised if the Government were back here in a year or two to unscramble the mess that they are creating now.
Mr. Carmichael: I, too, shall try to be brief, but as the term is understood in Upper Bann rather than in Newry.
I am profoundly unhappy and ill at ease with new clause 14. However, I shall not vote against it; the Liberal Democrats will abstain for two reasons. First,
we accept that its genesis is in Patten, although I accept that the comments of the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) have a great deal of force. Secondly, I am persuaded by the arguments of the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) about the practicalities. I hope that the provision will wither on the vine in time. If the normalisation that we keep discussing means anything, Belfast will eventually have a single district policing partnership. It is always best to go with the natural community, which is Belfast in the case that we are considering. One encounters immense difficulties when one starts drawing lines to divvy up a natural community.7 pm
I have a tremendous amount of respect for the Minister, as I think she knows. As the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) said in his typically understated way, however, her speech was very revealing. I ask her to reflect on one of her sentences in particular, of which I took note, which was, "I think I'm being as honest as I can be with the House". I appreciate that it is not always easy for politicians to be honest, but we are all hon. and right hon. Members in the House. The Minister went on to say, quite fairly, that this measure was a concession that was being given to Sinn Fein. I have to say that that adds further to my unease. What is in it for Sinn Fein? It is apparent from our discussions about the situation in west Belfast exactly what is in it for them.
That goes back to the point made by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann and by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) about the balkanisation of Belfast. That was an appropriate term in many ways. I see this as a measure that will ultimately lead to the entrenchment of tribalism, instead of getting away from the situation that has pertained in the past. In an earlier intervention on the Minister, I referred to Belfast city council. It is apparent that people are able to work well together there. Why should it be different for the district policing partnership?
I am afraid that I simply do not understand the logic of the Government's position. I can see that there would be an operational benefit for the police to have a divisional structure—that is a given. I do not understand, however, why an entirely pragmatic operational matter should be translated into a much wider aspect of policy, which is properly the reserve of the district policing partnership. They have very different functions. We should be looking for balanced, normal treatment of all the communities in Belfast, and I would ultimately like to see a Belfast-wide board forming the basis for that. I do not understand the logic of having a mechanism for taking consultation and responsibility for policing closer to the community while establishing another artificial mechanism that would result in the DPP not being perfectly—or even substantially—representative. As things stand, the different divisions are not cross-community.
I am impressed with the Conservative amendment. There would be a great deal of benefit in putting some measure of control into the hands of Belfast city council. If, between now and the Bill going to the other place, the Government were able to find a means of achieving that
end, I would be minded to recommend these measures rather more warmly to my colleagues in the other place than I am tonight.
Mr. Dodds: I have listened to the Minister attempting to explain how the sub-groups are going to be created, how the chairmen and vice-chairmen are going to be appointed, and how the matrix will be devised to ensure that it all complies with the legal requirements. As a member of Belfast city council—I declare that interest—I have enormous sympathy with the official who is going to have to sit down and work all this out. Towards the end of her speech, the Minister said that she thought that these were very practical proposals, but I have not heard more impractical proposals about setting up bodies such as these in a very long time. It is clear that there is no real logic behind them; they have a political purpose. The Minister let the cat out of the bag by saying that she was being as honest as she could be. In so doing, she admitted that Sinn Fein pushed for the proposals at Weston Park. The SDLP did not push so much, but it certainly supported them.
The fact is that when the proposals were published as part of a text for consideration back in November, my party made it clear that we would oppose them. Other parties made that clear as well, and members of the Policing Board made their position fairly clear. I had the opportunity to speak to members of the Belfast DPP at a meeting in my constituency only last Thursday night, and I have to tell the Minister that they think that the idea of setting up four sub-groups is, to put it mildly, not a sensible or practical way forward. They are worried about the dissipation of energy and focus that the Belfast policing partnership would otherwise have.
Apart from Sinn Fein—the SDLP has gone along with the proposals—who else in Northern Ireland believes them to be either sensible or practical? I cannot understand why the Minister and the Government are not prepared, on that particular issue, to say, "Let the Belfast DPP get up and running for a while to see what it thinks, or let the city council have the final say."
Although the DPP has just been created—it has had only one meeting thus far, I think—here we have the Government immediately stepping in to introduce legislation making it mandatory for the council to set up the sub-groups, which will, more or less, have the powers of DPPs. There is no sense whatever in that. It runs counter to every principle that one would imagine the Government wanting to apply in relation to consultation and taking on board the views of those who have gone through the process of applying and being appointed to the Belfast DPP.
The Minister touched on some Belfast DPP members having to serve on one or perhaps two sub-groups, in addition to being members of the full partnership. Clearly, an onerous burden will be placed on those members, given that they must also attend many community and other meetings throughout the year. Frankly, it will be an onerous task for anyone to undertake that range of duties and carry them out satisfactorily, especially councillors, who have other duties to undertake and other meetings to attend.
The hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) talked about the difficult situation in Belfast. Of course, we all recognise that there are difficulties in the
city. Representing Belfast, North, I know that better than most. I acknowledge some of the issues that the hon. Gentleman referred to, but I do not agree that breaking down the responsibility for overseeing and monitoring policing into four sub-groups is the way to tackle those difficulties. They would be better managed and less exacerbated by keeping things in an overall, city-wide DPP with a balance across council representation and across independent members, rather than breaking them down into local areas.Clearly, in west Belfast and, on the other side, in east Belfast, one view will be preponderant. Take my area, north Belfast: the proposals could be a recipe for some pretty stormy meetings, to put it mildly.
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