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Mr. Clarke: First, I do not accept that it would have been appropriate to ignore the Law Lords judgment, as the right hon. Gentleman implied. It is not a good state of affairs when the Law Lords take one position and the Executive take another. We should try to bring matters on to a proper basis. I should have thought that that commanded general support across the House. On the second point that it is necessary to make in response to the right hon. Gentleman, I do not think—he will correct me if I am wrong—that he would argue that the issues around weapons of mass destruction in Iraq lead to the conclusion that there is no security issue here that needs to be addressed. There are security issues. If he is saying that no security assessment can be trusted, so no action should ever be taken, I cannot imagine a less responsible position for any politician to take.
Mr. Clive Soley (Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush) (Lab): It would be churlish not to recognise the very real steps that the Home Secretary has taken to bring in a judicial process at all levels and surround the power of derogation with strict controls. However, he seems to be arguing the importance of the Executive role as justification for not letting a judge take the decision. May I remind him that, under the old prevention of terrorism Acts, the exclusion orders, which in many respects were not dissimilar to what we are doing here, were profoundly unsatisfactory? If he can find a way of putting the matter before a judge, that would be helpful. Does he plan that the legislation will fall after a certain period, such as one Parliament, after which it will be renewed in another Parliament or envisage that it will be reviewed at some unspecified future date?
Mr. Clarke:
We propose a series of reviews over time. On derogation, I said that there is an annual review and not simply a review at the end of a Parliament. Perhaps I am not being clear enough. The judicial powers that I suggest for the Home Secretary's decisions in relation to deprivation of liberty are very substantial indeed. They are for a full court, and it is for a High Court judge to go through the whole case and assess on the balance of
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probabilities whether the Home Secretary's judgment was right. They will then have the power set out in the Bill to quash or modify the order if necessary, and even to direct the Secretary of State if necessary. I think that that is a very powerful situation that does not bear comparison with the historically correct point that my hon. Friend makes about the way in which prevention of terrorism legislation worked in the past.
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Northern Ireland
1.31 pm
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Paul Murphy): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on Northern Ireland.
I came to this House on 11 January to make a statement relating to the Northern bank robbery on 20 December. To recall the background, a highly organised and brutal gang kidnapped the families of two staff from the bank's headquarters in Belfast, threatening them with death unless the individuals co-operated in the execution of the largest robbery ever seen in these islands.
Since then, a major police investigation has been under way. As the House is aware, the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland made his conclusion clear that the Provisional IRA was responsible for the robbery. The Prime Minister and I have indicated that we accept the Chief Constable's judgment, which is also shared by the Irish Government and their security advisers. The Chief Constable's statement, seen in the context of other subsequent events, serves to reinforce the extent of the challenge that all of us face in working towards peace and stability in Northern Ireland.
Earlier this month, on 10 February, I laid before the House a copy of a report presented to the British and Irish Governments by the Independent Monitoring Commission. That report, which the commission had elected to produce in addition to its normal twice-yearly reports to the two Governments, concluded that the Northern bank robbery was planned and undertaken by the Provisional IRA and that this organisation was also responsible for three other major robberies during the course of 2004. I am very grateful to the members of the commission for their quick response to the very grave situation created by the robbery and its attribution.
The IMC concluded on the basis of its own careful scrutiny that Sinn Fein must bear its share of the responsibility for these incidents. It indicated that, had the Northern Ireland Assembly been sitting, it would have recommended that the full range of measures referred to in the relevant legislation be applied to Sinn Fein, including the exclusion of its members from holding ministerial office. In the context of suspension, it recommended that I should consider exercising the powers that I have to apply financial penalties to Sinn Fein.
The House will recall that following the IMC's first report in April last year, I issued a direction removing for a period of 12 months the block financial assistance paid to Assembly parties in respect of both Sinn Fein and the Progressive Unionist party. Having reflected on the IMC's latest report, I have concluded that it would be appropriate for me to issue a further direction removing Sinn Fein's entitlement to this block financial assistance for a further 12-month period, the maximum permitted under the legislation. I am therefore minded to make a further direction to come into effect on 29 April—the day after the existing direction expires. Before reaching a final decision, however, I will take into account any representations made to me by Sinn Fein by next Tuesday. I will make a decision on whether to extend the financial penalties imposed on the PUP last April when I receive the next IMC report covering all paramilitary groups, which is expected in April.
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The commission's report also refers to other public money that Sinn Fein receives, although recommendations on this are outside its remit. In this context, I am conscious that hon. Members on both sides of the House have raised concerns in the past about the payment of financial allowances to the four Sinn Fein members who decline to take up their seats here. I hope that the House will welcome the opportunity to debate in the very near future a Government motion proposing that these allowances be suspended on a time scale in parallel with the arrangements at Stormont, in recognition of recent events. The debate on that motion is for another day, but I should emphasise to the House, lest anyone accuse us of denying the extent of Sinn Fein's electoral support, that the measures that we are proposing are designed to express the disapproval of all those who are committed to purely democratic politics of the actions of the Provisional IRA. All in this House recognise the degree of support for Sinn Fein, but we also believe that the actions of the republican movement are letting down everyone in Northern Ireland, including those who vote for Sinn Fein.
There are those who will argue that these financial sanctions are insufficient as a signal of the Government's and Parliament's condemnation of recent events. They may well argue that I should take steps to exclude Sinn Fein from the political process or from the Assembly now. I want to deal with those arguments directly, because they are sincerely made and with a strength of feeling that I understand.
The Government's ultimate goal remains the achievement of an inclusive power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland. I need not remind the House that the robbery has set back the time scale for achieving that, but the reality remains that long-term stability in Northern Ireland will not come about if we focus on exclusion. That objective requires inclusion; dialogue with Sinn Fein must continue in order to see how that long-term goal can be achieved. But I am clear that this must be inclusion on the basis of a complete and demonstrable commitment to non-violence and exclusively peaceful and democratic means, that fundamental principle of the Good Friday agreement, enshrined in the pledge of office.
Had the robbery occurred while the Assembly was in operation, however, the decision about exclusion would have been very different. It is inconceivable, in my view, that members of Sinn Fein could again hold ministerial office while the issue of paramilitary activity and criminality on the part of the Provisional IRA remained unresolved.
The suggestion is made in some quarters that I should restore the Assembly, and then, if the Assembly itself failed to take action to exclude Sinn Fein, that I should take action myself using the powers available to me to exclude it. This would be very difficult in the absence of a clear plan that would see the parties in the Assembly come together on a cross-community basis to form a Government in Northern Ireland, but as I told the House on 11 January, I have not ruled anything in or out as we continue to assess possible ways forward for achieving greater local political accountability. As my
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right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, if we cannot achieve a comprehensive settlement in the short term, we need to consider other ways forward.
In the meantime, our focus will remain strongly on dealing with the underlying issue of ongoing criminal activity in all its forms. The police investigation of the Northern bank robbery is the largest undertaken by the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which is continuing to follow up every lead. This is inevitably an intensive and time-consuming process, and in parallel with this, I am taking the opportunity to ensure that our arrangements for tackling organised crime remain fit for purpose, and I have asked the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, South (Mr. Pearson), the Security Minister in Northern Ireland, to review the Organised Crime Task Force to see whether and how it might be strengthened.
We continue to have excellent co-operation at both a political and operational level with colleagues from the Republic of Ireland. Yesterday, I met Michael McDowell, the Republic of Ireland Justice Minister, for a regular bilateral meeting, along with the police chiefs from both jurisdictions. At that meeting, I was pleased to see the further strengthening of co-operation, when the Chief Constable and the Garda commissioner signed protocols to facilitate the movement of officers between both forces through personnel exchanges and secondments with policing powers. That development can only serve to strengthen the existing co-operation between the two police services in tackling terrorism and other crime.
Whatever our success in tackling criminality and paramilitary activity, the fact of the matter is that the commitment to peaceful and democratic means is not one that this Government need to make. As we said in the joint declaration of April 2003:
"ongoing paramilitary activity, sectarian violence and criminality masquerading as a political cause are all corrosive of the trust and confidence that are necessary to sustain a durable political process."
In the present context, it is, as the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach have both indicated, for Sinn Fein and the Provisional IRA to do that. They need to step forward and tell us how they will demonstrate their full commitment to all the principles of the Good Friday agreement and how they intend to demonstrate to all the other parties in the political process, and to the people of Northern Ireland, that the kind of behaviour identified in the IMC report is in the past.
Financial penalties of the kind that I have described today may signify our strong disapproval of what has happened, but they will not of themselves rebuild the trust that is necessary if confidence is to be restored. That is a matter for the republican movement in general, and for Sinn Fein in particular.
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