Paul
Goggins: I certainly agree that where there is evidence
that is sufficient to convict someone of a criminal offence, it should
be brought into court and those people should be dealt with severely
for the harm that they do. I hope the hon. Gentleman will be encouraged
to know about the new cross-border fuel enforcement group that I
established within the OCTF, which brings together law enforcement not
just from Northern Ireland, but from the Republic of Ireland. It is
bringing together not just one agency, but all agencies. HMRC can come
in and do its work, but other agencies can come in as well.
Where there
is evidence, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that people will be
prosecuted and will be brought to court and dealt with. The presence
within the new fuel enforcement group of representatives of the
Criminal Assets Bureau and the revenue commissioners from the Republic
will add enormous strength. That activity is certainly one that has to
be dealt with. Of course we know that fuel smuggling can have a range
of impacts, but the crucial one is the money raised, whether it is used
on terrorist activity or other forms of criminality, and it is very
important that is dealt
with. Mark
Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP): The Minister has rightly emphasised
the role of HMRC in a number of recent successful actions. Has he any
concerns that the proposed reduction in the number of officers and
staff
in Revenue and Customs, particularly outside the greater Belfast area,
will have an impact on the very necessary work he has just
described?
Paul
Goggins: I have no fear that HMRC cannot do its job
properly. Yesterday evening I was with John Whiting, who leads on that
work in relation to HMRC in Northern Ireland. He is committed to
ensuring that it plays its full part in enforcing the law in that
respect, and making sure that those who might seek to use the border or
the area around it to their advantage in such activity will find that
there is no hiding place and that law enforcement north and south will
co-operate. I do not share the fears that my hon. Friend raised, but
obviously I continue to consider these issues. If at any stage he has
particular concerns, I would be happy to
listen. Dr.
William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP): The Minister must
acknowledge that although there have been significant press headlines
about those arrested or brought in for questioning, we do not seem to
see any speed in getting them into court and thus giving confidence to
the community. That would show that criminality will not
pay.
Paul
Goggins: I warmly agree with the hon. Gentleman. Justice
delayed is justice denied for many people. When the evidence exists, it
is important that those cases are expedited. In another sphere of my
responsibilities we have introduced a delay action team to make sure
that the whole court process is speeded up because it takes too long to
bring people to justice. That means people spending too long on remand
when they should be subject to a sentence and engaging properly in the
regime of the prison. I agree that it is important that we speed up the
court process, and am committed to ensuring that that
happens. David
Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP): Further to the point made by
my hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim about the speeding up of
cases, can the Minister give us any detail of the famous Slab Murphy
case and where that case is in the judicial
system?
Paul
Goggins: I cannot comment specifically on that case, but I
can say that my favourite headline of the year was printed recently in
The Sun. The hon. Gentleman may have seen it. It read:
“CAB nab Slab”. I thought that was a good headline.
Whoever is involved in unlawful activity that relates to organised
crime in Northern Ireland needs to know that the agencies operating
within the Organised Crime Task Force will deal with them, whoever they
are. Crucially, because of the cross-border work, wherever they are
they will be brought to justice. I am not able to comment further in
relation to specific cases.
Paramilitaries
have traditionally used extortion rackets to raise funds in Northern
Ireland, frequently targeting the construction industry. Recently,
there has been a move away from this type of extortion to more
conventional blackmail. Cases reported to the PSNI extortion unit tend
to involve paramilitaries attempting to extort money from members of
their own community, specifically in parts of Belfast.
Another
scourge of the legitimate business community is the sale of counterfeit
good across Northern Ireland. People frequently see this as a
victimless crime, which I am clear it is not. They think they have a
bargain and that no harm has been done. The reality is that the
apparent bargain in the market, pub or wherever people are buying those
items is funding the criminal lifestyle of the gangster and funding
their criminal activity. A great deal of harm is being
done. Sir
Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire) (Con): It is not
just that. Very often those counterfeit goods are intrinsically
dangerous. Some of the counterfeit so-called tobacco products and
particularly some of the alcohol are potentially
lethal.
Paul
Goggins: I agree. The laundered fuel can be damaging to
car engines and can poison the environment when the by-products are
released. Some of the electrical goods we have seen counterfeited are
very dangerous. Counterfeit cigarettes and alcohol can do a great deal
of additional harm, over and above any harm that the lawful products
might do. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely
right. Mr.
Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP): I understand
that the police would be acting on information regarding items seized
at markets. We have seen high-profile cases being highlighted on
various occasions. Does the Minister agree that the police could be
more systematic by means of comprehensive, consistent raids on areas
where those items are frequently on sale? All of us have constituents
who say that there are marketplaces where the sale of such garments and
other items is a weekly occurrence. Although the one-off activities are
welcome, they could be much more comprehensive and
consistent.
Paul
Goggins: I take note of the hon. Gentleman’s
comments and am grateful for them. I agree that it is important that
the police base their operations on good intelligence and that their
focus is on sustained operations, because the last thing we want to see
is a simple displacement of activity, or indeed the re-emergence of
activity after a one-off occurrence. It is important that the community
works alongside the police, refusing to buy the counterfeit goods and
pointing in the direction of those who are pedalling them, because far
from being a bargain, they are bad news and bring harm to
communities. Immigration
crime is an increasing problem, including the first signs in Northern
Ireland of human trafficking. Trafficking is a brutal and horrible
crime against vulnerable individuals and is nothing less than
modern-day slavery. I regret to say that Northern Ireland, in common
with most developed countries, is not immune to human trafficking, and
during the recent UK-wide operation, Pentameter 2, the PSNI discovered
five adult female victims of human trafficking in Northern Ireland.
Four were victims of sexual exploitation and one was the victim of
labour exploitation.
Human
trafficking is an example of global organised crime. The UK is
committed to ratifying the Council of Europe convention on action
against trafficking in human beings in December 2008, which will put in
place obligations to treat those who appear to be victims of human
trafficking in a victim-centred way outside the immigration process. The
PSNI recently established a dedicated human trafficking unit, and my
Department is working with it and the devolved Administration to put in
place a victim-led response to human trafficking in line with our
commitments and obligations under the Council of Europe
convention. Organised
crime is about making money by any illegal means. It is brutal, causes
harm and is never victimless. One of the best ways to tackle organised
crime is to remove the profits from the gangsters and so strip them of
their lavish lifestyles that are funded off the backs of others. I want
to see assets converted into real cash, half of which can go back to
the front-line law enforcement agencies to help continue the fight
against crime.
This year I
set challenging asset recovery targets for the law enforcement agencies
operating in Northern Ireland. The key figure is the money that comes
back net of all the costs. We often hear about the value of goods that
are restrained or frozen, but people want to know how much those assets
are actually worth and how much goes back into front-line services at
the end of the process.
I have set a
target for the actual value of the assets that come back at the end of
the process of between £6.2 million and £10 million for
this financial year, rising to between £7.8 million and
£12.5 million for the next financial year. The first quarter
results, which show a £2 million cash value for assets
recovered, is ahead of the curve. I want to keep it that way, because I
hope that we will be able not only to put half the money back into
front-line services, but consider putting some of that resource into
community projects to help people in communities that have suffered the
most harm as a result of organised
crime. I
recently had the pleasure of opening the annual cross-border seminar on
organised crime in Enniskillen, which is now an annual event that
brings together law enforcement officers from both sides of the border.
I can report that co-operation on organised crime north and south is
excellent and getting stronger. There was a real desire within the
conference to share resources and intelligence and to frustrate and
bring organised criminals to justice.
I will end my
remarks with a superb example of international co-operation. Members of
the Committee may already have heard of operation Eclat, which was a
collaboration between the PSNI, HMRC, SOCA, An Garda Siochana, the
revenue commissioners in the south and, crucially, the Dutch police.
That complex operation succeeded in breaking up a brutal Irish-based
organised gang. Eight arrests were made—one in Northern Ireland,
three in the Republic of Ireland and four in Holland. In total, the
operation removed from the streets 270 weapons and assorted ammunition,
heroin with a street value of £3.5 million and more than
€420,000. Operation Eclat was a brilliantly conceived and
executed intelligence-led operation across three jurisdictions, and
that is the way forward. Organised crime is international, and we must
adopt an international approach in
response.
Dr.
McCrea: Before the Minister concludes his remarks, will he
acknowledge that in Northern Ireland organised crime is carried out by
individuals, as well as by terrorist
and paramilitary organisations? For example, there has been massive milk
fraud against farmers in Northern Ireland, and those who are involved
in it seem to sail around the countryside with a smirk on their face,
while those whom they have hurt have lost their houses. Surely the
Minister must acknowledge that there are those who are organising crime
in a wide sphere of
society.
Paul
Goggins: Indeed. That is what I have tried to make clear.
Some people are engaged in organised criminal activity because they are
still part of an illegal paramilitary organisation, some are acting as
individuals, and some are part of loose criminal networks that have no
particular connection with paramilitaries. We have learned that the
networks of those who engage in organised crime are constantly changing
shape—allegiances and alliances change. Those people are looking
for any opportunity to make money, but always, while the making of
money lines their pockets, it causes real harm and hurt to the hon.
Gentleman’s constituents and people across the whole of Northern
Ireland. The
answer is strong partnership, and we have that with the Organised Crime
Task Force. I very much look forward to this
debate. 5.16
pm Mr.
Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con): I formally welcome
you to the Chair, Mr. Atkinson. I join the Minister in
welcoming the statement made this morning, which will restore the
Executive and lead to the devolution of policing and justice. I
congratulate the Minister on the work that he has done in that respect.
I know that he has worked hard to bring about these new
situations. I
welcome the debate, which is on a topical issue. It is good that so
many Members from Northern Ireland are here to discuss it, but
regrettable that many more Members are not here. The issue is
important, and is one that the Westminster Parliament has to deal with
at
present. Organised
crime in Northern Ireland is distinct from that in other parts of the
UK because of the unique political and social evolution of the
Province. The existence of paramilitary groups and their involvement
over the past four decades continues to pose a complex and ongoing
challenge to law enforcement agencies and other authorities in Northern
Ireland. Despite the good news we hear, it is impossible to turn a
blind eye to the steady stream of paramilitary crime. As we know, there
has been the odd murder and several attempted murders, principally
through attacks on police officers, and there is fuel smuggling, drug
crime and so
on. Although
it is right to say that some paramilitaries retain their political
aims, others have moved away from politics and increasingly exist
solely as criminal gangs. Sometimes individuals act without the
authority of their respective organisations, but as the political
process has progressed, there has been a widely recognised shift by
groups from paramilitary activity with political aims to paramilitary
crime. None
the less, dissident republicans continue to grow in number and have a
stated aim of killing police officers. Loyalist paramilitary
organisations retain their weapons, and only last week the Ulster
Defence Association sent out a chilling warning. Although I recognise
that some organisations and individuals in those organisations
may have changed their objectives, some have not and may still be using
criminality as a means of funding their political
ambitions. Of
course, crime exists in every part of the country, but the unique
nature of crime in Northern Ireland means that the police and other
agencies have had to face significant challenges. The Police Service of
Northern Ireland and other crime prevention authorities have had to
work together and adapt to tackle organised crime. Once again, I pay
tribute to the work carried out by those organisations. They have had
to deal not only with the usual or ordinary threats but increasingly
with the new threats that have emerged—for example, from the use
of the internet to commit crime and, as the Minister said, from drug
factories.
We welcome
this morning’s statement that policing and justice will at some
point be devolved; I am not aware when that will be exactly and I am
not sure that anybody else is either. Until then, the Government must
continue to act and come down hard on organised crime. It is, of
course, important to have communication between the various authorities
that exist to prevent crime. The Government, authorities and
communities need to work together to prevent crime. The paramilitaries
use bullying tactics and intimidation; they have held communities in
fear and can still do so. It is important that people feel able to
speak out. In the past, I know that has been fraught with difficulties
and the understandable reluctance of many people to speak out has made
it difficult to bring criminals to justice. However, now that the
situation has moved on, I hope that we can continue to make progress in
community involvement and outreach. The Organised Crime Task Force,
comprising various bodies, was set up as a multi-agency partnership to
tackle crime. I would like to hear a little more from the Minister
about his assessment of the success of that organisation.
One concern
highlighted in the 2005-06 report from the Northern Ireland Affairs
Committee, which was so ably chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for
South Staffordshire, was that information and evidence regarding
illegal activity was not reaching Her Majesty’s Revenue and
Customs. Will the Minister say a little more about whether he believes
that those links have been
improved? Another
concern expressed was about the involvement of working professionals in
businesses, such as accountants, in permitting fraud to take place. In
the United Kingdom those professionals are legally obliged to report
criminal activity and I wonder if the Minister could say whether he
feels that such reporting is happening in Northern Ireland, because
HMRC has an important role to play in tackling organised crime and it
should be used to its full potential.
The PSNI is
the key agency in the Organised Crime Task Force. Last year, when the
policing budget was announced there was some concern that £3.5
billion over three years would not be enough. The police budget is
indeed stretched—we heard a little more about that subject
earlier today.
We also heard
about the Saville inquiry. It will not reach its conclusions for many
months yet, but to date it has cost £181 million. In fact, that
figure might be a month or so out of date, so the total is probably
more than that. When money is getting tight, does the Minister share
our concerns—I think I know the answer to my question and that
he does share them—that public
inquiries and historic inquiries risk becoming an almost permanent drain
on resources? That money could be spent, as I think he has already
indicated, on tackling the sort of crime that we are discussing
today. I want to
touch on the impact of organised crime on Northern Ireland’s
economy, causing a loss that runs into hundreds of millions of pounds.
During the years of the troubles businesses were hard hit and, as a
result, many people in Northern Ireland are poorer than they ought to
be. We need to bring about a shift in Northern Ireland from public
sector activity to private sector activity to redress that imbalance,
and criminality must not be allowed to impede the process.
The key
threats from organised crime have been outlined: paramilitary
involvement, criminal finance, excise and tax fraud, drugs,
counterfeiting, technology-enabled offences, armed robbery, extortion
and immigration offences. The Minister touched on those threats.
Introducing the issue of immigration crime was important and I am glad
that he mentioned it, because it is significant both in terms of the
social evils it causes and the knock-on effects it can have.
The border
with the Republic of Ireland adds another dimension to organised crime.
The border is a hot spot for criminal activity and its porous nature
has caused problems in the past with regard to countering terrorist
activities. Some changes in dealing with organised crime were
implemented following the 2005-06 Select Committee report, including
closer collaboration between Northern Ireland and the Republic over
cross-border crime. The annual cross-border seminar also provides a
forum for discussion. We are now two years on from that report. How far
has the Minister been able to go in implementing the recommendations?
There are continuing problems with fuel smuggling, which has been going
on far too long, and with drugs. The Minister touched on the emergence
of drug
factories. Returning
to the paramilitaries and their involvement in organised crime, the
Independent Monitoring Commission plays a valuable role in providing
insight into the activities of those groups, as the Minister said. Its
20th report, which came out last week, indicated, like previous
reports, that the paramilitaries are heavily involved in organised
crime. The report cites the main activities of each group. I will not
take up the Committee’s time by running through each and every
group, even though my researcher provided very good analysis of what
was said about each one. Suffice it to say, the comments on each are of
concern to the Committee.
Whether they
are republican or loyalist, paramilitary groups are engaged in all
kinds of crime. Those crimes affect businesses and communities very
badly. It is difficult for businesses to operate in such a climate;
they lose out on profits as a direct consequence of smuggling, they are
forced to pay higher insurance costs because of the risk of armed
robbery and there are risks to employees, who are open to the threat of
extortion and, as the Minister said, to blackmail. Sadly, the
paramilitaries are, in their own way, innovative and resourceful.
Following decades of terrorism they are, again in their own way, well
trained, resourced and skilled, which is a dangerous combination when
they put their minds to organised crime. Furthermore, while they were
paramilitaries with political aims, they were to some extent admired by
their own communities, where they were championing their cause, so their
roots go deep into those communities, which is a problem. The Minister
touched on one or two statistics about drugs. In 2007-08, law
enforcement agencies in Northern Ireland seized more than £4
million-worth of drugs, including 10.8 kg of cocaine worth
£648,000 and 10 kg of cannabis resin, to name but two. We are
all familiar with the problems that drug-related crimes cause families
and communities. Not only is it illegal to deal in drugs, of course,
but the people who take drugs then commit further crimes and make the
situation far
worse. Mrs.
Iris Robinson (Strangford) (DUP): Does the hon. Gentleman
agree that the figures do not reflect the true cost to society when one
considers the damage to young people who take drugs and who are
encouraged to take drugs by the paramilitaries? It is a huge amount of
money and cannot be calculated at all.
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