Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
RT HON
PETER HAIN
MP, MR JONATHAN
PHILLIPS AND
MR NICK
PERRY
26 OCTOBER 2005
Q40 Chairman: Thank you very much
indeed for that, Secretary of State, and I rather agree with you.
May I just ask you this? You said you were going to bring this
legislation before the House before Christmas. It is not your
intention to get it through all its stages before Christmas, is
it?
Mr Hain: To be perfectly honest,
I had not thought that far ahead. We are not in a position to
know what the various opposition parties will want on committee
stages and all of that. I repeat that there is no intention to
rush this through. Given the timetable, I rather doubt that it
will get through the Commons before Christmas and of course it
still has to go into the House of Lords. I think that will be
equally difficult, if not more so.
Q41 Sammy Wilson: You say that the
timetable will not allow this because it is essential—and
I quote you—in order to keep the momentum. Keep the momentum
towards what? Towards the restoration of devolution in Northern
Ireland? Is this the price that Sinn Fein have demanded in order
to ensure their cooperation in any such movement?
Mr Hain: This is part of keeping
momentum towards locking in and putting in concrete a permanent
peace and end to violence and terrorism, including the IRA, in
Northern Ireland. I think that is a very, very important part
of the picture. As I said earlier, and I do not want to detain
the Committee by repeating what I said, but if you are ending
a conflict as bitter, as engrained and as historic as this one—and
we are in that process now; we are in the endgame of that conflict,
however long it takes to establish a power-sharing executive—if
we are in that endgame, sometimes things have to be done and one
does not need to be a great student of world affairs to know that
often things have to be done which ordinarily, on a nice sunny
day, you would prefer not to be doing. This is part of getting
the peace locked in and I just have to emphasise that. The honourable
Member represents communities which I know will be angry about
this legislation and have suffered, as has his party and the Ulster
Unionists as well, more than anybody else in Northern Ireland
from the troubles of the last 30 years and the terrorism and the
conflict and the murder and the violence. Putting an end to that
conflict permanently is an ambition which we should surely share.
Q42 Sammy Wilson: I will just make
an observation. Since you assured us in the House today that all
the guns had gone, I wonder why you need to lock people in. Currently
the Police Service of Northern Ireland are spending £50 million
and have engaged 50 additional officers in looking at cold cases,
the cold case review, many of those prompted by requests from
families whose relatives have been killed and no-one ever brought
to justice. Are you telling us today that this legislation will
ensure that if anyone is identified during those investigations,
they will not go to jail? If that is the case, even if they are
identified as having been involved in murder, what is the point
of the £50 million being spent, the 50 officers spending
their time and the victims asking the police to try to get to
the bottom of these crimes?
Mr Hain: What I can assure the
honourable Member is this. If any individual is identified and
charged by the police, as we hope they will be, from whatever
quarter, in the course of this historic inquiry which we have
funded, they will be charged.
Q43 Sammy Wilson: Will they go to
court?
Mr Hain: They will be charged.
Q44 Sammy Wilson: Will they go to
court?
Mr Hain: They will go through
judicial process. I understand that there is a judgment to be
made here and the honourable Member has made a different judgment
to me. We have to bring closure on this whole awful dark period
of terrorism and violence and murder and mayhem in Northern Ireland.
Our judgment as a Government is that this is one of the ways in
which that is finally done.
Q45 Chairman: The question is: are
you determined to be even-handed among villains?
Mr Hain: I do not feel like being
even-handed towards any villains, if I may say so.
Q46 Chairman: That really has been
the inference one draws from those answers. Mr Wilson has asked
you about these people who are being investigated by the team
of police. You gave an indication earlier in answer to Rosie Cooper
that it would be wrong to treat one group of villains preferentially
to another. That was the effect, the substance of your answer.
I am merely asking you to confirm that; that is all.
Mr Hain: Yes, in the sense that
Loyalists and Republicans could be equally caught by this process
of inquiry and I expect will be, if that is even-handedness. We
are not talking about non-paramilitary criminals here; we are
talking about people of a particular category.
Q47 Dr McDonnell: I note in paragraph
7 of the memorandum you gave us that there is a note on reinvigorating
discussions with political parties on the shared goal of devolving
criminal justice and policing. Could you tell us a little bit
more about that, about the exploration and what your scheduling
might be on that in terms of devolution returning, should devolution
return? Will the criminal justice and policing return very rapidly
or will it only return after a considerable time lag? As a rider
on that, could you make some comment on community policing and
support officers?
Mr Hain: First of all, I cannot
make anybody take part in political discussions. I cannot frogmarch
any particular party into talks about power sharing against their
will. That would not work and I would not attempt it. Clearly
it is up to each of the political parties to decide in what way
they wish to engage on a forward process towards the goal we have
all subscribed to, each political party in Northern Ireland and
the British and Irish Governments obviously, which is the resumption
of a power-sharing executive and the Assembly and all the institutions
up and running. We have all committed ourselves to that goal.
The question is when people feel able to engage in that. What
I want to see is not a process resting on side deals with a few
of the parties, but a process which is inclusive. That is the
first principle. On the first question of community policing,
and you asked about community support officers—I think that
was the burden of your question.
Q48 Dr McDonnell: Yes.
Mr Hain: I want to stress that
if we follow the very successful practice in Great Britain—I
have seen it work in Wales and in various parts of England—of
community support officers in support of the police—and
I hope we do, but it is a matter for the Policing Board—they
will only be recruited on the basis that they fulfil the same
criteria as are necessary for the recruitment of conventional
police officers.
Q49 Gordon Banks: Just on the matter
of community support officers, as and when they are introduced
into Northern Ireland do you see the role and responsibilities
of these CSOs mirroring that in England and Wales or is it possible
that they could have a different range of powers than they have
on the mainland?
Mr Hain: I see them very much
on the model of Great Britain, England and Wales in particular.
I know there is some scepticism in Northern Ireland about it and
all sorts of rumours are flying around which frankly are baseless
in terms of our intentions. I have talked to police officers and
I can think of one example in Colwyn Bay in North Wales where
they were initially quite hostile to the idea, because they saw
it as undermining their own professional leadership role as police
officers. Now they are absolutely thrilled with it, because it
releases them from certain duties, enables them to focus on the
most serious crime and to come and support community support officers
when they are needed. It means people are out on the street, they
are visible, local neighbourhoods like them and I think Northern
Ireland could benefit from this model.
Q50 Gordon Banks: Basically just
mirroring the job which is done in England and Wales.
Mr Hain: Very much so, subject
to any recommendations that the Police Service makes and the Policing
Board makes.
Q51 Mr Hepburn: That may be all right
in the real world, but unfortunately in Northern Ireland things
do not work the way they possibly should. If I were a paramilitary
walking around one of these estates unofficially policing them,
all of a sudden all I would have to do would be to don this uniform
and take over that role on an official basis.
Mr Hain: There is no way that
is going to be allowed to happen. I would not allow it to happen,
the Chief Constable, Hugh Orde, would not allow it to happen and
the Policing Board would not allow it to happen. There is no way
that a paramilitary can lay down an armalite one day and put on
a community support officer uniform the next day. That is not
going to happen. If we proceed down this road, community support
officers will be recruited on the very strict criteria which apply
to conventional police officers. No ifs, no buts about that.
Q52 Chairman: There is no question
of these people being armed, is there?
Mr Hain: No; they are not armed
in Great Britain.
Q53 Chairman: I realise that.
Mr Hain: No.
Q54 Chairman: You talked about scotching
rumours and this is an opportunity for you to scotch some of the
rumours. You have said unequivocally that you are going to guarantee
that no paramilitary turns up in a community support officer's
uniform in either Loyalist or Republican, Catholic, communities
and that is an undertaking you are giving this Committee absolutely
fair and square, is it?
Mr Hain: Yes; yes it is.
Q55 Sammy Wilson: You are not referring
to paramilitaries with convictions. Are you referring to people
with paramilitary connections, regardless of whether they have
had convictions or not? Perhaps you would clarify how you will
ensure that such people are not included?
Mr Hain: In the end it is a matter
for the police to make sure they select people according to exactly
the criteria which apply to police officers now. Secondly, they
will be subject to exactly the same standard security checks that
would-be recruits to the police are subject to now; exactly the
same ones. It is not in the interests of Government or the Police
Service of Northern Ireland to have paramilitaries somehow recruited
into the Police Service. If, however, Sammy Wilson is saying to
me that, let us say, a youngster from a Republican background
wants to join the police, as many Catholics of Nationalist persuasion
have increasingly done over recent years, which is a good thing,
as I am sure he will agree, if a young person from a Republican
family decides he wants sign up to the police and be recruited
by the police, I am not putting up a ban saying "No way".
However, he will be subject to exactly the same security checks,
standards, rigorous criteria that apply to all people wishing
to be recruited to the police.
Q56 Lady Hermon: You have emphasised
that exactly the same criteria will be applied to the recruitment
of community support officers. Would you kindly take this opportunity
to assure the Committee and the wider public in Northern Ireland
that the morally repugnant 50/50 recruitment procedure will not
actually be applied to community support officers?
Mr Hain: In the end this is a
matter for the Policing Board and for the Police Service of Northern
Ireland. I understand from what she has said the vehemence which
she feels about this matter.
Q57 Lady Hermon: Yes, I do.
Mr Hain: The truth is that Catholics
have been under-represented in the Police Service in the past.
I know she will agree with that; it is a fact.
Q58 Lady Hermon: Yes.
Mr Hain: To get a Police Service
which is genuinely supported across the community in the future,
it is an advantage to have more and more Catholics joining. The
50/50 recruitment policy has meant a big increase from 8% to 18%
in the proportion of Catholics now in the Police Service of Northern
Ireland, which is very positive, because it actually builds confidence
and confidence now in the Police Service of Northern Ireland is
higher than it has ever been as all the statistics and surveys
show. What is also the case is that less than 2% of people from
a Protestant background have been turned away for reasons of the
50/50 recruitment policy; a very small proportion of the 28,000-odd
recruits who apply to the police every year have been turned away.
They have been turned away because there has been a massive number
of people wanting to join up and sign up to the police and that
is a good thing; it is a popular force and people want to do the
job. However, you cannot recruit everybody and that is the reason
why people have been turned away: the large numbers applying rather
than the 50/50 policy.
Q59 Mr Campbell: I want to finalise
this recruitment business of community support officers. It is
a misnomer to talk about a 50/50 recruitment to the police because
the figures I have obtained through Parliamentary Questions would
indicate that there is a minority Protestant recruitment to the
police, that less than 50% of the people recruited to the police
are Protestant and more than 50% of those recruited are Catholic.
So while 50/50 is a nice cliché, it is not actually accurate:
it is minority police recruitment. Is it going to be the case
then that the merit principle will apply to the community support
officers, as it should do to the police? For example, if there
were 26%, as there would have been had the merit principle been
applied to the police, that would be a very healthy increase in
the number of Catholics. Will the merit principle be applied,
whether it is by the Policing Board or whatever the system is?
Will it be a merit oriented principle for the community support
officers which will necessitate purely ability to do the job as
it should be for the police?
Mr Hain: Of course. There is already
a merit principle embedded in all police recruitment. Perhaps
I might give the Committee the headline figures here. Since 2001
there have been nearly 44,000 applications to the police. Only
6,034 have been suitably qualified, that is to say they meet the
merit principle which Gregory Campbell is asking about. Only 1,980
have been appointed and the increase in the number of Catholics
has been from 8.3% to 18.69% of the total force. It may be of
assistance to the Committee if I send in a detailed breakdown
of these figures giving more information[1].
Chairman: That would be very helpful;
I am sure we shall return to this on future occasions.
1 See letter on page 16 Back
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