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CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 333-vii House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE NORTHERN IRELAND AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
POLICING AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN NORTHERN IRELAND
Wednesday 21 May 2008 PAUL GOGGINS MP, MS CAROL MOORE, MS KATIE PETTIFER and MS NICHOLA CREAGH Evidence heard in Public Questions 552 - 606
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on Wednesday 21 May 2008 Members present Sir Patrick Cormack, in the Chair Mr Gregory Campbell Mr John Grogan Kate Hoey Dr Alasdair McDonnell Stephen Pound Sammy Wilson ________________ Memorandum submitted by the Northern Ireland Office
Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Paul Goggins, MP, Minister of State for Northern Ireland, Ms Carol Moore, Associate Director, Policing and Security, Ms Katie Pettifer, Head of Rights, Elections and Legacy Division, and Ms Nichola Creagh, Policing and Security, Northern Ireland Office, gave evidence. Q552 Chairman: Minister, could I welcome you and your team of officials. Thank you very much indeed for coming to give this formal oral evidence and thank you too for not succumbing to an invitation to go to Cheshire this afternoon. You are very welcome and, as you know, this is the final formal evidence session of this particular inquiry into policing and criminal justice in Northern Ireland and we are very grateful to you for coming. Is there anything that you would like to say by way of introduction and could you, in any event, introduce your colleagues with their responsibilities? Paul Goggins: I will with pleasure, Sir Patrick. Carol Moore, on my immediate left, you will know I am sure from previous visits, is the Director of Policing and Security. Katie Pettifer, on Carol's left, is the Deputy Director for Rights, Elections and Legacy. Q553 Chairman: That is quite a responsibility! Paul Goggins: That is taking care of the past and the future, I think. Nichola Creagh is the Head of Legacy Branch. Q554 Chairman: That sounds like an insurance company! Anyhow, you are all very welcome. Paul Goggins: In the course of this evidence session, I am sure they will all demonstrate why they are very highly thought-of officials. Sir Patrick, normally you invite me, as you just have, to say something at the start and I usually say something fairly quickly and move on because I know the Committee want to get into questions, but I wonder if you could forgive me this afternoon if I did say one or two things formally at the start of this session because this is a very complex area and it might be helpful if I did that. Q555 Chairman: We are entirely happy that you should do that. Following our conversation last night and conversations with members of the Committee, we are aiming for a 4.10 finish of this because I know that that fits in with your personal requirements, but, by all means, feel free to make an opening statement. When we come to the questions, and I will obviously lead off with those, they will be directed to you, but please feel at liberty to call in any of your officials to assist with the answers, as you wish. Paul Goggins: As I say, dealing with the past in Northern Ireland is complex and challenging and includes two separate elements, both of which are very important. The first is to ensure that proper investigation is carried out in relation to individual cases, and of course, as you know from your enquiries, there were 3,268 deaths during the years of the troubles, but then, secondly, to enable society as a whole to be able to move forward. Both of these strands are important and the Government is supporting both of those strands in very practical ways, and I will give you four particular examples. The first is through the funding of the Historic Enquiries Team, and I know you have had evidence about the work of the HET, and £38 million is being invested in this work over six years, mainly to the Police Service, but also to other agencies as well, the Ombudsman, also the Forensic Science Service and also to the Public Prosecution Service, and this is to ensure that an effective investigation is carried out into each of those 3,268 deaths, but also to provide maximum information and explanation to families, helping, if you like, to tell the story of what happened to their loved ones, which is a very important element of helping them to move forward. The second strand is of course establishing a number of public inquiries, the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, but also inquiries into the more recent deaths of Billy Wright, Rosemary Nelson and Robert Hamill. A third strand is to help a number of organisations in a very practical way to help those who have been victims of the Troubles. We fund the Northern Ireland Policing Fund and the RUC Widows' Association who provide very practical support in helping people to rebuild their lives. Then, fourthly, we have established the Consultative Group on the Past, which is co-chaired by Lord Eames and Denis Bradley, to see whether there might be a way of dealing with the legacy of the past in ways which command widespread support across the community and help everybody to move forward. In saying the Government is supporting these four activities, the Government of course is not alone, and you will have met a number of voluntary organisations, including organisations like Healing Through Remembering, who are doing a lot of very valuable work, and of course government alone cannot deal with these kinds of issues in isolation. In relation to the past, the situation in Northern Ireland is unique. All police forces of course have an obligation to investigate historic cases of murder and serious crime where there may be further evidence which could lead to a conviction, but what makes Northern Ireland different is the sheer scale of the number of deaths which have to be investigated. Also, of course we have to deal with the very serious allegation that people working for the State may have colluded in the taking of life, a most serious allegation, so that clearly also has to be dealt with. Finally, Sir Patrick, the Committee has expressed particular interest in whether the requirements of the 2005 Inquiries Act is preventing people from being brought to justice, and a very straight answer from me on that is no, it is not preventing people from being brought to justice, but there are a number of considerations which I would want to draw attention to. First of all, the public airing and reporting of crucial information in a public inquiry might of course be prejudicial to a later prosecution, although that matter will have been considered by those who set up the inquiry in the first place. The Attorney General may undertake not to prosecute a particular individual on the basis of his or her own evidence. Thirdly, the Public Prosecution Service may decide that the provision of evidence from covert sources is not in the public interest and a particular prosecution, therefore, may not be able to proceed, but these are all features of the criminal justice system in any event and they do not occur because of the 2005 Act. What is clear to me, Sir Patrick, is that dealing with the past does place a burden on a range of organisations, on the police, on the security services, indeed on my own department, the Northern Ireland Office, and your decision, as a committee, to examine this matter is both timely and welcome. Q556 Chairman: Well, thank you very much indeed for that and obviously we shall take careful note of everything that you say this afternoon, including the remarks you have just made, as we deliberate and produce our report to Parliament. We are aiming to publish the report on Monday 7 July with a press conference in Belfast at Queen's University, and obviously the normal embargoed copy which goes out to the press and so on will also go to you 24 hours beforehand, so that procedure will be followed. Now, we have of course received formal evidence, including last week in Belfast, from Sir Hugh and from Sir Alasdair Fraser and others. We have also had a considerable number of informal briefing meetings, we have met Lord Eames and Mr Bradley and their group informally, we have met with a whole range of family support groups, from some of whom we have taken formal evidence, some we have met just informally, and we had a meeting with the Victims Commissioners-Designate on the same basis, trying to inform ourselves, and I would like to ask you some straight and, I hope, pertinent questions about this. One of the things that surprised some of our Committee when we went and had a session at the HET headquarters, where incidentally we also met a group of victims' families informally over lunch, was the fact that they are indeed examining every case in a chronological order, although there are certain exceptions where certain cases have been given advanced priority, but starting with the earliest cases and, at this rate, they have only reached 1974/5. Now, are you yourself, Minister, satisfied that this is the best way of prioritising this work? Would it not have been better to have dealt with the most recent cases where there is a greater chance of getting a lot of evidence, because again we heard of all the police stations that were blown up during the Troubles, we heard of the two major attacks on the forensic laboratory, all of which resulted in the destruction of quite a lot of extremely relevant evidence, so would it not have been better to have prioritised by going to the most recent cases and also looking at those cases where the families had particularly requested an investigation? I merely give you one example of what we came across, I personally came across, which was the example of a bachelor in his eighties who was murdered in, I think it was, 1973 with no request for any investigation and no knowledge of any living relatives. Is that really the best way to use time, resources and money? Paul Goggins: I realise that this is a difficult issue, but I think the chronological system that they have adopted is the best system because it means that those who have waited longest for information and explanation are given a priority that clearly down the years they may not feel that they have always ---- Q557 Chairman: But should it be done, regardless of whether any request is made by the family? This is one of the things that has exercised members of the Committee. Paul Goggins: Well, my judgment is that, provided there are the other reasons that you have alluded to, whereby an investigation can be opened up, if there are particularly compelling humanitarian reasons, for example, or if the case is linked to another case, then exceptions should be made there. I think when you are dealing with so many cases, so many complex cases, each of which of course could be argued on its own merits should be a priority, they have to have something which is a fair system. Q558 Chairman: Yes, Minister, but I come back to the point that I asked and that you did not actually answer and it is this: that, if there has been no request from any member of the family regarding a case, such as the one to which I alluded, dating back to the early 1970s, should time, resources and money be devoted to that at the expense of other more recent cases? Paul Goggins: But what, for example, if a family had not requested an investigation to take place because that family was under pressure from some external source not to request an investigation and how could one know that? The example you gave was a rather compelling example, but it could be that families are under pressure not to request an investigation and that is why, in all fairness, the police have this systematic approach and, whilst no approach would be absolutely perfect, I think it is the best approach. Q559 Chairman: When HET was established in 2005, it was said that it would be a six-year project. Now, clearly that six-year deadline is not going to be met. When do you think it should be completed? Paul Goggins: I would not be able to give you a precise date when I would expect all the work to be completed, and I pay tribute to those, I was not amongst them, who set this Historic Enquiries Team up to do this very ambitious work; nobody had done anything like it before and nobody could predict, with any certainty, how long the inquiries would take. I think, for understandable reasons, things have been slow to move in the early stages. Some very complex cases have been examined and also in those early years of course there were many of the murders taking place, and in 1972, for example, more than 400 deaths occurred, so I think in the early years, in the early stages, there are the complex cases, there is the large volume of cases, and I would expect that the pace will quicken as we move along and as those longer-standing, more complex cases are dealt with, but I could not tell the Committee with any certainty when I expect the work to continue. We have of course funding in place for the current spending period, and I know there will be pressure, indeed, some would argue, an obligation, to continue this work until it is completed, but certainly there is sufficient funding to continue the work at present levels for the next three-year period. Q560 Chairman: Let me just say, as it were, in parenthesis that we were very impressed by the thoroughness, we were very impressed by Mr Cox, and all of the families we met, regardless of their cases and regardless of whether they were satisfied with the outcome, all paid tribute to the thoroughness and sensitivity of the operation, so that is something that ought to be formally on record. You talk about funding, but, if additional funding is needed, can you give the Committee a guarantee that it will be secured? Paul Goggins: The first thing to say is that nobody has ever complained to me in Northern Ireland that things are not being done within this work of the Historic Enquiries Team because there is no money or there is insufficient money. Every request for money that has been made has been met, including the request from the Ombudsman's Office for the £2.7 million that we are giving in the three-year period that we are now in. The question for the longer term is: will that money be there until all the investigations are carried out? We have it in place for the next three years. We are undertaking at the moment a stock-take to look at the numbers of cases dealt with, what the costs have been so far and to begin to make some projections for just how long we expect this work to continue. I think there would be enormous pressure around and, as I say, some people would feel, an obligation to make sure this work was continued until it was absolutely completed. The piece of work obviously that Lord Eames and Denis Bradley are doing at the moment plays into all of these issues and we will need to listen very carefully to what they recommend and to see whether there is any common ground right across the community in relation to this or other matters, and we will need to listen to that carefully, but I know that the Chief Constable is deeply committed to this work, he has made that clear to the Committee, and he is rightly proud of the work that the officers have done in the thorough way in which they investigate, but also to explain in a very honest way to the families as much information as they have. Q561 Chairman: I think we would endorse that. Minister, if you had to sum up for this Committee this afternoon the benefits that have been achieved from HET so far, how would you do that? Paul Goggins: I think the most impressive and the most successful elements of the work of HET are the things that the public would never see, the private explanations to families about what happened to their loved ones in the moments before their lives were taken, and I think that public money being spent to support that work is public money very well spent indeed. If in the end of course there are any prosecutions that arise out of those investigations, well, that would be an additional bonus, but I think the most impressive element is the explanations and information for families, which helps them to move forward from the distress and the misery of that moment of loss. Chairman: Now, we also of course met the Ombudsman, we have received formal evidence from him and we have also been to the Ombudsman's Office and informally met with a number of families helped there. Could I bring in Dr McDonnell at this point. Q562 Dr McDonnell: Thank you, Minister, for your comments so far; they are very informative. Just to come to the detail of the Police Ombudsman, that office was established in 2000 as part of Chris Patten's 'New Beginning to Policing'. It was then, in 2001, extended, the remit was extended to include historical cases. Could you outline for us the rationale behind that because there is, some people would say, a bit of a contradiction between the Ombudsman role, which is a role going forward, and the reflection backwards. Paul Goggins: That of course is a tension that is there throughout the whole system; it is there for the police as well. There is an ambition to police today as well as an obligation to police yesterday and balancing that up in terms of time, resources and expertise is felt by the police as well as by the Ombudsman, and I have had discussions with the current and the previous Ombudsmen about this very issue. Having the Ombudsman there to investigate cases involving the police of course has been critical to building confidence in policing in Northern Ireland and we have levels of confidence of policing in Northern Ireland which are unparalleled anywhere in the rest of the United Kingdom, and the Ombudsman's Office has been critical to that. Now, allowing and enabling the Ombudsman to investigate deaths which are referred from the HE Team and indeed referred from members of the public builds up that confidence, but also uses the expertise which the Ombudsman has gained through the investigations that that office has carried out, so I think it is both expertise, independence and confidence, all of these things, which make it important. However, I acknowledge of course that there is a build-up of work now in the Ombudsman's Office that he feels very keenly and he feels that this is, to some extent, providing an imbalance in the work because he is desperately keen to get on with the job of today, and somehow or other we have to enable that balance to be worked through. Q563 Dr McDonnell: So you have outlined a number of the benefits there. Are there any other drawbacks that you would want to outline for us? Paul Goggins: I think this is principally a positive thing that the Ombudsman is engaged with this. Clearly, in investigating deaths and events in the past, the Ombudsman's Office necessarily becomes engaged in controversy sometimes and that can be problematic, but I think in the end of course that again is a bonus and a benefit because that adds to the independence and the authority of the Ombudsman's Office, and I think that that is a wholly good thing. Q564 Chairman: But, Minister, you did see his evidence here when he indicated that he was profoundly unhappy about the burden and even advocated a splitting of the Office and the responsibilities and, as you are answering Dr McDonnell's questions, I would be grateful if you could reflect on what he has publicly gone on record before this Committee as saying. Paul Goggins: I am happy to respond to that because it is a discussion I have had with him personally and that is why I freely acknowledge that he feels that imbalance between the growing work of investigating the past compared with his current responsibilities to investigate the here and now. For example, if there is a discharge of a firearm somewhere today in Northern Ireland, the Ombudsman will be asked to investigate that, and that is a very positive role that the Ombudsman plays, but at the same time he is having to deal with these historic cases. The first thing the Ombudsman has promised to do, and, even as we sit here, I understand it is winging its way to my office, is that he is going to provide a business case to indicate the level of resources that he feels is necessary in order to do that work that will be required. There are 62 cases which have been referred by the HET so far and he calculates maybe another 300 coming on the way, so he will indicate what he believes is necessary in terms of the resources required to deal with that number of cases, but he has made it clear that he would like that work to be positioned somewhere else outside of his office. Again I say that we will need to wait and hear what Lord Eames and Denis Bradley have to say about this issue, if they have anything to say at all ---- Q565 Chairman: And what the Committee says about it. Paul Goggins: ---- and of course what the Committee has to say about it. I am not saying it is impossible for it to be put somewhere else, but you have to balance the assertion that it should be with the integrity, the independence, the authority and the experience which the Ombudsman's Office has. Who else has that degree of independence, authority and experience? We would have to be satisfied, would we not, that any alternative had that because there are serious obligations here that have to be followed through? Q566 Dr McDonnell: Following where it is located and those issues, one thing on which I think we would all agree is the adequate funding and there is a serious concern that has been articulated here, and you were almost alluding to it there yourself, as to the need for adequate funding. It is currently only partially funded, so do you feel that we can increase the funding? For the historical aspects of the cases, and you have alluded to the number of cases there, do you feel that the possibility of taking it short of that, short of separating it, if you do not leave it with the Ombudsman's Office, that it can be better funded? Paul Goggins: I say again that I do not think anybody could claim that money has been bid for that we have not paid up in relation to this. The Ombudsman received, I think, £1.4 million for work done up to March of this year and we have allocated £2.7 million for work over the next three years. Now, that £2.7 million is precisely the amount of money that was requested, so we have met that bid in full. Now, as the work grows, and we have a new Ombudsman who is assessing these things, he is going to send me a business case for what he regards as necessary to meet the growing workload, and we will have to assess that and look at it, so that is one question. The second question is: is it correctly located in the Ombudsman's Office? As you point out, Chairman, we will consider what you recommend and look at what Eames and Bradley say and think about these things in the longer term. Q567 Dr McDonnell: Taking us on to that very point, some have suggested here to us that perhaps the work of the Historic Enquiries Team and the historic aspect of the Ombudsman's Office should be located together under a single independent agency. What are your feelings on that? Paul Goggins: We do not have any plan to do that, so that is the first thing to say. Q568 Dr McDonnell: No, but you have a feeling? Paul Goggins: Obviously in the context of the work that is being done to deal with the past and, in particular, the work of Lord Eames and Denis Bradley, we are open to reflect about these things and to consider all, and any, of these things, if there is a better way of doing it which will command widespread support and enable people to move on, so I would not rule it out, and I do not think the Chief Constable ---- Q569 Chairman: I was going to make that point because again the Chief Constable is on record to this Committee as saying that it is something that he certainly recognises as being entirely feasible. Whether it is desirable, we have to determine. Paul Goggins: Yes, I think his position would be that he is not advocating it, but he has not ruled it out. I think what he would be looking for and what I would be looking for is whether we get the same thorough investigation, the same degree of independence and the same authority in any new framework as we are getting from the present one. I think it is important, Chairman, and this is perhaps a general comment that applies to a number of issues, that, whilst we yearn for a big-picture solution in Northern Ireland, and we do and that is what Eames and Bradley are working on, we should acknowledge the progress that is being made through these initiatives and, in particular, the Historic Enquiries Team and the work of the Ombudsman. They are helping individual families to reach a resolution to their own particular loss and that is helping enormously, so, if we are going to change any of this, we need to be absolutely certain that it is going to be at least as good as what we have got, if not better. Q570 Sammy Wilson: Just to pick up something that the Minister said about the Police Ombudsman's Office and the request that is probably coming to him for additional resources, given that currently, with the 60-odd cases that they have, they reckon it is costing £11/4 million per year and you have mentioned a figure of another 300 cases, so, on a pro rata basis, we are looking at another £7-odd million per year for just that work of the Police Ombudsman's Office, across all of the other costs of inquiries. Are you not beginning to get concerned that the more we keep on going down the route of these types of inquiries, first of all, the bill can only go in one direction and, secondly, as we have heard from the Police Federation, especially with the enquiries which come through the Police Ombudsman's Office into the records of police officers, that not only is the bill going up, but there is resentment amongst those who serve in the security forces who now feel that there is almost an attempt to rewrite the truth and blacken them? Really we ought to be looking, in the direction we are going, to address those two problems, the vast resentment which is being built up and also the vast costs which are being built up as well. Paul Goggins: Well, the reason why I started my evidence in a rather more formal way than I normally would was to emphasise precisely the point that individual investigation on its own will never provide a resolution to the problem that the whole of Northern Ireland's society is facing and that you have to have that balance between the individual inquiry and investigation and the ability of the whole of society to move forward. If you try to do one without the other, it will not succeed, if you try to have a big-picture solution that disregards the anxieties and questions of individual families, it will not work, and, equally, if you only have the individual investigation, you never move forward as a whole society, and that is why the work of Eames and Bradley, complementing the work of the Historic Enquiries Team and other initiatives, is so very important. We could continue to spend hundreds of millions of pounds doing the individual investigation, but, if it were not complemented by some bigger movement to move the whole of society forward, then it would not produce the solution that everybody might want to see, and I acknowledge that. I do acknowledge that the danger with individual investigations is that certain sections of society get painted into a corner as if they were always to blame for the problem. There needs to be a wider debate in which everybody can participate. Q571 Sammy Wilson: Minister, is there not a contradiction in
what you are saying, that we need a wider picture so that all of society can
move forward and we need these investigations?
Many people would argue that these investigations, rather than helping
us to move forward, are simply reinforcing many of the prejudices that people
have about the past, are picking at the scab of the past and indeed making it
more difficult to move forward? Chairman: Perhaps that is a good point at which to move on to Mr Campbell's section on inquiries. Q572 Mr Campbell: Staying on costings, you outlined the additional funding for the HET and, setting the funding aside, there does appear to be a general air of gratitude or at least expectation that at least somebody somewhere is looking into the crimes that relatives or loved ones were victims of. That goes without saying. It seems that HET is getting a broad look, but the Chief Constable indicated to the Committee that the forthcoming contentious inquests that we are all aware of, quite a number of them, have the potential themselves, each of them, to be a mini-inquiry. There does not appear to be any additional funding for that. Is that the case? Paul Goggins: The funding in relation to any additional pressures in terms of the Coroner's work would be a pressure that would not come to the Northern Ireland office but would go to the Ministry of Justice that is responsible for the court service. I acknowledge that if for example the Coroner, as he has indicated, is going to have to spend a lot of his own time dealing with controversial inquests that is a valuable resource which is tied up with that work. Presumably there are other day to day pressures also building up. I do not deny that there is resource pressure there. I also do not deny what the Chief Constable has said here which is that if you have 48 controversial inquests - that is the estimate of the number that we have - when we have had legal challenges which have taken place coming to the House of Lords about how much information should be disclosed and so on - we know about all the legal challenges that happen - there is the likelihood that the issue of the request for sensitive information by the Coroner which has already been made in relation to certain cases will be met with a response from the police about, first of all, the level of work that is required to find that information and then to share it. Of course, there may be a request to restrict some of that information on the grounds of national security or other grounds, so we get into that complexity that we have become familiar with at public inquiries in relation to a number of inquests. I think we have to acknowledge these inquests are controversial. They are complex. They would not be the normal, every day inquest that you would see, but it will throw up resource issues. It will throw up time pressures and it will throw up other pressures about what information can and cannot be disclosed. I think we have the experience of public inquiries. The Chief Constable is very experienced in handling these issues and I think he will use that experience in the way that he responds to the Coroner. Q573 Mr Campbell: Is it not the case that the 48 controversial inquests are going to have resource implications, as you have put it? All of the other inquiries - HET, Saville and the ongoing public inquiries - with the exception of Saville are at the very early stages of ongoing development and costs. According to a parliamentary question I received a reply to 260 million so far has been expended on HET, Saville and these public inquiries, most of which are at a very early stage, not counting the 48 controversial inquests. Are we not talking about much more than just resource implications? Paul Goggins: We are certainly talking about more than simply money because the Chief Constable for example has estimated I think that some £22 million is his estimate of the costs of dealing with the inquests. It is not pound notes; it is people's time. It is the time of experienced officers who have to go back through the files, identify what may be relevant information and then share it and enter into negotiation if necessary with the Coroner about what can be disclosed and what needs to be restricted. Q574 Mr Campbell: That is his estimate before any of the inquests have started. Paul Goggins: My understanding is that is his estimate for what it is going to cost ---- Chairman: He has said to the Committee that he is seriously worried about the impact this will have on every day policing in Northern Ireland. Q575 Mr Campbell: I remember the Saville Inquiry being told that it would not cost any more than 15 to 20 million and we are at 182 million now and we are not finished yet. Paul Goggins: All I can give you is my understanding of the Chief Constable's own estimate. I know how these costs rarely decrease and often increase, but the point I am making is I have a lot of sympathy with the Chief Constable in this. Where he is faced with public inquiries, inquests and so on, it is officer time tied up with going back through files, often very experienced officers going back through files, coming up with the information, sharing it and so on. I acknowledge that is a pressure but it is a pressure that, in his own redoubtable way, the Chief Constable gets on and deals with. Q576 Chairman: I am not impugning your good faith for a minute but that is a very disturbing comment in a way because we have had Sir Hugh before us indicating his worry, indicating in effect to the Committee that this could be such a drain on resources that he would not be able to provide the adequate policing which is so necessary if the vast and welcome improvements in Northern Ireland are going to be built upon. An efficient police service that detects crimes, that protects the peace is crucial for the future of Northern Ireland. What can you do to give comfort to the Chief Constable and indeed encouragement to this Committee that this is sufficiently recognised? Paul Goggins: I hope the Chief Constable, the Committee and others will take comfort from the way that my right honourable friend, the Secretary of State, battled very hard in the negotiations around the Comprehensive Spending Review to make sure that the Police Service of Northern Ireland is adequately funded. I can confirm that in this and the next two years the PSNI will spend £1.1 billion in each of those years. That is substantially more than comparable forces across the rest of the United Kingdom. That is how we try to deal with it, to win the resources to enable the police to do their job in all its complexity and dimensions. That is how we can best help. Of course we pay close attention to the pressures that build up in the police budget and we have always tried, wherever we can, to help them to deal with those. Q577 Kate Hoey: How do you think the PSNI is going to deal with the £100 million shortfall that they have said there will be in policing on the ground, the ordinary, every day policing that the vast majority of the community in Northern Ireland wants to see happening, irrespective of what their views are on historic inquiries? They are very different, as you know. How is that going to be met? Why do you keep going on about making a very simplistic, as the Chief Constable himself said, differential between what we are getting in Northern Ireland in terms of policing and other UK forces as if somehow you can compare like for like? Do you accept that it is not a like for like situation? Paul Goggins: Let me deal with the second point first. It is not like for like. I would not for a minute suggest that. It would be simplistic to compare numbers and disregard the pressures. The pressures on the PSNI are significantly and substantially different from the pressures in other police force areas in the United Kingdom and that is reflected in the budget settlement. There are proportionately more police officers. That is necessary. We have a remaining threat from dissident Republicans which we all need to guard against. We need the police to be able to deal with that. In all of these things and in terms of dealing with these issues to do with history, we need a police services that is properly resourced. I am not making crass or simplistic comparisons, but it is a fact that there is substantially more funding going in and it is necessary. That is why we battled so hard to win that. I do not suggest for a minute that the budgetary position the Chief Constable is in is an easy one. It is not. Q578 Kate Hoey: You accept there is a shortfall of £100 million? Paul Goggins: I am going to come to the first point right now. I accept straight on that there are pressures in there which need to be dealt with. Priorities will need to be made by the Police Board and by the Chief Constable. In relation to the budget pressures, let us be absolutely clear. There is a funding difference of £88 million. That difference is between what the Police Board bid for and what the government has allocated. It is not a cutback from what was spent last year. It is the difference across the whole of the three year CSR period between what they bid for and what was allocated. Let me confirm to the Committee that in the process of that bid being arrived at that bid increased by £300 million in the course of the negotiation, so we have a bid that grew by £300 million and yet still the difference between the bid and what was allocated was 88 million. I accept that that is the difference, but I think that is a tremendous outcome in the current climate and with the pressure that is on public expenditure. I note that the Chief Constable and the Board have confirmed that they balanced the budget for the year that we are now in and that they will be able to retain 7,500 police officers. I am pleased about that and I know that further work is being done to close the remaining gaps for the second and third year. That is why I acknowledge that there are pressures, but we need to be very clear. The funding gap, the difference between what was bid for even with the additional pressure of £300 million and the allocation over three years, was £88 million. If any Secretary of State of any department that spends money under this administration could claim that kind of success, I think they would be very pleased with it. Q579 Mr Campbell: I strongly suspect that when the Police Board come back next time they will be looking for even more again. Part of the reason they will be looking for even more again is because of what we are examining today. Hundreds of millions of pounds over five, six or seven years are going to be diverted into what the Chief Constable talks about, trying to police the past. It seems to be a never ending black hole into which hundreds of millions of pounds are going to be poured. That is before the inquests start and before the main public inquiries get up and running and the biggest one has not finished yet. Who knows where we are going to be in 12 months? You mentioned the Inquiries Act 2005. The police have told us that, in the area where there are disputes between the police and the inquiry chairman about disclosure or reduction of intelligence information, the demarcation lines are unclear. Can you explain the circumstances we might arrive at whereby you or whatever minister it would be would have to intervene to prevent publication of sensitive data? Paul Goggins: It might be helpful if I just say something about the whole process of the request for information. When an inquiry is established, the inquiry asks all the relevant agencies for any information that may be relevant to that inquiry. That is a big responsibility for the police, the security service, the Northern Ireland Office and any other agencies to go away, look through all their files and see what might be relevant. They then present all of that information to the inquiry and the inquiry team has a look at all that information and sees what they believe would be relevant to their investigation and what would then be shared with other parties to the inquiry. Once they have made that clear to the particular agency - let us say the police - of course the police will look carefully at that information to see whether they believe that information could be shared with other parties and ultimately of course with the public, bearing in mind issues of national security and Article 2 responsibilities, which are very important too. They would then point out to the inquiry that they thought certain information perhaps should be restricted and should not be passed on. There would then be a negotiation if there was a disagreement between the inquiry and the police about whether or not that could be restricted. In the end one hopes - and in the vast majority of cases this is what is happening - that negotiation reaches a voluntary agreement so there is no question of any powers being used. If it was not possible to reach a voluntary agreement, then the Secretary of State for example under the Inquiries Act could issue a restriction notice which would compel the inquiry then not to release that information. The inquiry could then take the Secretary of State to court and have that decision judicially reviewed. That has not yet happened in any of the inquiries because so far it has been possible to reach a voluntary agreement. Certainly I hope that is the case but, in presenting it like that, I do not deny for a minute that there are real pressures and real stretch and strain within that negotiation to arrive at the agreements that they have arrived at. Obviously, as the Minister of State, I will take a very, very close interest to see that that progress can be maintained. Q580 Mr Campbell: The police view is that ministerial intervention might be necessary in order to protect the lives of covert sources who might be exposed by some of the inquiries. That might put you and others in an invidious position. Paul Goggins: Perhaps I should clarify a little bit further. If the Chief Constable was saying to an inquiry, "I do not think that information should be shared with other parties or should be in the public domain because there is an Article 2 obligation here that prevents that" and the inquiry did not agree and they could not reach a voluntary agreement, if I or the Secretary of State was persuaded by the Chief Constable indeed that that matter should not be shared because of Article 2 obligations, then the Secretary of State would have the power to make a restriction notice. Of course, it would then be for the inquiry to challenge that in court. If we were persuaded as ministers, we would not hesitate to use those powers because Article 2 obligations are absolute. Q581 Sammy Wilson: Coming back to your earlier point about trying to move forward, is that not the real danger in the line that Gregory Campbell has taken you down? Those who wish to try and use the inquiries - and many of them will - for legal purposes will come back and say, "There you are. Nothing has changed. There is still secrecy attached to it around the police. There is no justice." You could write the lines for them as well as I could. Is that not the real danger of these public inquiries? You spend money. You use political capital on them and you still give ammunition rather than answers to those who want to use them for a mischievous purpose. Paul Goggins: I make the point again that, unless we do this other work of trying to deal with the whole issue of moving society forward as a whole, then I agree that we would continue to go down this endless route of individual investigation and inquiry that would be very expensive and it would not produce the resolution that we all seek in the longer term. That is why we have to get the balance right. I want to see a reduction in the first four public inquiries and investigations because I want to see those that need to be done resolved and then I want to see people moving on. Unless we get that wider resolution, we will have the endless pursuit of inquiries and investigations. I accept that that is a very expensive road and it does not in the end produce the kind of settlement that can sustain the peace that we have achieved in Northern Ireland. Q582 Mr Campbell: I have a question on the press release that the NIO released last week about the disc. Paul Goggins: Obviously when we establish an inquiry, because the Northern Ireland Office is the sponsoring department for the inquiries, we reach an agreement with them about a whole range of issues, including the handling of sensitive information. We have robust agreements with all the inquiries about that. I can confirm that after the HMRC disc was lost last year, the Permanent Secretary wrote to all the inquiries to ensure that all the systems that were agreed were in place and working well. All the inquiries assured us that they were. Clearly, there is grave concern about the loss of the information from the Nelson Inquiry and that is why the Secretary of State has put in place an expert in the security area to work with all of the inquiries, to make sure all of their systems are as robust as they need to be, because this is highly sensitive information. It is deeply concerning that any of it would ever be lost. We take this absolutely seriously. Q583 Chairman: Have you any idea where it is? Paul Goggins: I would not want to comment, frankly, on the record as to where I thought that information might be. I think the police have offered some reassurance but nonetheless it is concerning that the information should ever be lost in the first place. We need to make sure, through the work of this security expert, that we have the systems in place, that people stick to the procedures which have been agreed and that sensitive information does not get out. Q584 Kate Hoey: Do they have to sign the Official Secrets Act, anybody who is working in any capacity with those inquiries? Ms Pettifer: They do not sign the Act as such but the provisions of the Official Secrets Act apply to them. Q585 Chairman: We sat in on some of the Nelson Inquiry last week when we were over there and listened to the evidence that was being given by one of the witnesses. We were impressed by the thoroughness of the questions and so on, but you yourself have referred to highly sensitive information. To think that it should go missing and you have no clue where it is is very worrying, is it not? Paul Goggins: It is very worrying. I spent a considerable amount of time with the Secretary of State on the day when this information came to light. He and I were both deeply exercised by it. We followed this through in a very rigorous way, as you would expect. We frankly need to know what happened in this case. We also need to know that it is not going to happen again. That is why we have put somebody in place with real expertise, who can go into these systems and make sure that they are properly adhered to. I take the point that has just been raised. Whether or not people have to sign the Official Secrets Act, any member of staff who is engaged in a public inquiry has an obligation to make sure that any information that they handle or deal with is treated in an appropriate way. Q586 Chairman: Minister, you said a minute or two ago that after the fiasco of the Revenue and Customs loss last year when millions of records went astray and have still not come to light, so far as I am aware, you put certain systems in place; yet, after putting them in place, this still gets lost. Paul Goggins: It is the case that an agreement is reached at the outset about how sensitive information is stored, handled and disseminated. What the Permanent Secretary did after the HMRC disc went missing was to reassert the importance of those agreements and systems. Q587 Chairman: Yes, but in spite of all that reassertion and importance, it has gone. Paul Goggins: Then we received this news, so we are deeply concerned about it. Q588 Chairman: And embarrassed? Paul Goggins: I think those involved in the inquiry are embarrassed about it. It is their responsibility and it was their loss. It is our concern that such a thing should happen. Q589 Sammy Wilson: I am not sure that they are deeply embarrassed. It would appear that they are not even concerned because the PSNI have informed us that, in the case of the Billy Wright Inquiry, whether it is because they want to keep their independence or whatever, the inquiry has declined to document who will handle sensitive information or provide assurances as to how that sensitive information will be used, managed or stored. If the inquiry asks the police for this information, if it does leak eventually you can say, "They are the people who had it" or "That is how they were meant to deal with it." How can you possibly give that assurance when the inquiries are adopting this kind of attitude? Paul Goggins: It is timely that you are raising these concerns because having this expert consultant now in place he will be looking in depth and in detail to make sure that all the systems that should be in place and should be being adhered to are being adhered to. When we receive his report, that will offer I hope reassurance to this Committee and others that the systems are being properly handled and properly dealt with. Ms Pettifer: For both the Billy Wright and the Rosemary Nelson Inquiries which do hold very sensitive material, a very detailed set of requirements were put in place with the inquiry with the agreement of the government departments whose sensitive information was being dealt with. Procedures were put in place for auditing the inquiry at regular intervals to make sure those requirements were being complied with. This review will hopefully identify whether there are further requirements that need to be put in place. Q590 Sammy Wilson: Would one of the requirements at least not be that if they ask the police for sensitive information at least they would give the police the information as to who is going to have it and what they are going to be allowed to do with it? Ms Pettifer: The review will be helpful in telling us that. One of the important issues we will need to bear in mind is the independence of the inquiry and the fact that it will have to operate independently of the government and of the agencies providing this information. That is certainly a question that we can put to the review. Q591 Stephen Pound: I am acutely aware that you can have the best system in the world and there is absolutely nothing you can do to guarantee 100% security. In the case of Billy Wright which was exactly four months ago, a laptop was stolen as I recall from a barrister's chambers in London. What do you do in terms of a protocol, in terms of a structure, in terms of a system of procedures to actually avoid that, because it seems to me that discs will go missing. If data is being extracted, stored and then transferred to another jurisdiction, how on earth can you police that? The dam has been breached there. Is there no protocol or practice which prevents evidence of that sensitivity being taken away from the primary investigation site? If there is a protocol in place - I am sure the Chairman has already mentioned this - could the Committee have sight of it because we are aware of the problems. Paul Goggins: Certainly any information in relation to the protocols that we have we will be very happy to share with the Committee. The key word here is "encryption". Any information that is downloaded, put on a disc, taken and transferred anywhere should be encrypted because if it is encrypted then it cannot be broken into even if it is lost and found by somebody. That is a key element in the protocols and agreements that we have. Making sure that that aspect is adhered to is extremely important. We would be more than happy to share information about the protocols and agreements that we have. Q592 Chairman: We would welcome as much information as you can give us and as soon as possible because one of the things that we of course are looking at is the whole protection of sources. There are real implications here. Although you have given us reassurances, for which we are grateful, about the 2005 Act, all the reassurances in the world have a coach and horses driven through them if this can happen. Please do keep us closely informed. Paul Goggins: It is important to underline as well that these public inquiries are all formally public authorities. They all have Article 2 obligations, the same as a government department would have or the police would have. It is important that this message is absolutely loud and clear. This obligation is on all of us. Q593 Sammy Wilson: You have outlined some of the benefits of the Historic Enquiries Team and the Ombudsman but just generally on inquiries what assessment have you made of the benefits of for example the Finucane, Saville and Nelson Inquiries as well as HET? Paul Goggins: The Finucane Inquiry is not yet up and going but the others are. The benefit is in relation to public confidence. There is a very serious allegation that runs through these inquiries that there was collusion, that people who worked for the state were involved in the taking of life. There can hardly be a more serious allegation and that needs to be investigated. Things have either to be dealt with or reassurances offered. Given where Northern Ireland has been, given the history that we have, we have to resolve those issues if we are going to enable people to move on with confidence. For all the difficulties associated with inquiries - and I am the first to acknowledge them - that is the prize, greater public confidence. Q594 Chairman: Why are inquiries which hold intelligence information not subject to scrutiny of their information management procedures by the Surveillance Commissioner? Paul Goggins: Because the role of the Surveillance Commissioner is to actually oversee the activity of covert surveillance and of covert human intelligence sources. It is the surveillance of the activity, not the surveillance of the documents, as it were. It is a different role that the Surveillance Commissioner has. Q595 Chairman: You, as the Minister, have powers under the Act of 2005 to make rules dealing with the return or safe keeping of documents to an inquiry. How are you going to exercise those powers to give reassurance and would it not be sensible for you to bring in the Surveillance Commissioner to assist you? Paul Goggins: We will consider very carefully of course what you have to say about this. We will also consider any recommendations that come from the security expert who is doing this work for us at the moment in relation to the systems for handling sensitive information. If more needs to be done to offer that assurance both to ourselves, to the wider public and to Parliament, then we would obviously need to consider that. I am not persuaded of any particular line of action at the moment. I have tried to answer why I am not convinced that the Surveillance Commissioner is the right person in any event, but clearly this is something that we would want to consider. Q596 Chairman: In those immortal words, you are ruling nothing in and ruling nothing out. Paul Goggins: That is a fair summary. Given the work that you have done, I think it would be fair to say that we will wait and see what you recommend in this area because clearly we will need to respond to that and, in doing so, will consider any recommendations that you make. Q597 Sammy Wilson: Another word which has now crept into the benefits which you have mentioned is "confidence". If we look at all those inquiries, the Finucane Inquiry revealed and led to someone going to jail; yet the Finucane family was still not happy. An inquiry has been set up with which they are not even going to cooperate. In the case of the Saville Inquiry, some of the families have not bothered with it anyway and already some of them have been fairly critical. In the case of the Billy Wright Inquiry, the family has been critical of the procedure and the nature of the inquiry and everything else as well. On all of those we have expended 27 million already on the Finucane case, Stevens one, two and three. We have expended 190 million on Saville. If you are resting your case on these inquiries helping to engender confidence, the people to whom they are directed have not said that, right to the point where they are not even prepared to cooperate with them. Is this not an expensive way of trying to buy confidence from people who either are determined never to have confidence in the state of Northern Ireland anyway or else will always find ways of nit-picking over what an inquiry does? Paul Goggins: I do not think I am ever going to convince Mr Wilson about the merits of public inquiries. I genuinely believe that they can help to build up public confidence as well as to deal with individual circumstances. I am not pretending - and I have not pretended for a minute this afternoon - that they are a perfect and complete answer in themselves. There are many issues and difficulties associated with them and they themselves do not produce the final answer which Northern Ireland as a whole will need if it is to move forward. We need to do that other work which Eames and Bradley have been doing, consulting widely across the community. We need to do that work as well. Q598 Sammy Wilson: Would you not build confidence much easier though? A lot of the people we have spoken to and people who are victims have talked about part of the problem being that compensation was very little. The vast millions of pounds that are being spent on inquiries: would it not be far better to look at how that money might be directed at victims who are now becoming older, who are being affected by the injuries which they sustained? It is becoming clear, the impact which those injuries are having. Would that not be a far better use of resources than trying to chase some illusory confidence which might be built up by these inquiries or providing answers which sometimes people, even when they do get them, are never satisfied with anyway? Paul Goggins: I do accept the argument that we need to do practical things to help people rebuild their lives and move forward. We have spent somewhere in the region of £47 million over the last ten year period in supporting people in that way. I have mentioned before some of the organisations that we have tried to help. I think they do fantastic work and we need to support them. Q599 Chairman: Minister, you will know that in giving evidence to this Committee Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, the first Victims' Commissioner, made the point that he felt there should be a more adequate and continuing compensation scheme. When we put his suggestion to two of the victims' groups that were giving formal evidence to us, they both warmly endorsed Sir Kenneth's submission. What is your response to that? Paul Goggins: We are out to consultation on the criminal injuries compensation scheme at the moment. We launched a consultation document in March and we are having a full, 12 week consultation on it. Frankly, the level of compensation paid for criminal injuries in Northern Ireland is on the whole greater than it is for injuries sustained elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Q600 Chairman: With very good reason. Paul Goggins: With good reason both in terms of the origins of the compensation scheme through the common law process in Northern Ireland that frankly, again for understandable reasons, was always more generous than the system elsewhere in the United Kingdom but, as we move to more normal times, I think there is a very strong argument why the compensation scheme should be more closely aligned. That has been our starting point, although I would hasten to add we are not simply just transposing the GB system to Northern Ireland. Chairman: The thrust of Sir Kenneth's submission and of those who supported him was this: that the saddest and in some ways the bitterest legacies of the past are those who may have been maimed, injured and mutilated 20 or 30 years ago whose needs, rather than diminishing, can actually increase with age and therefore the need for help increases. I would hope that in any review you would at the very least take on board that powerful and very logical point put by Sir Kenneth. Q601 Sammy Wilson: £47 million to people who find themselves in those circumstances, as opposed to if you add up all of the money which has gone to inquiries, most of which has gone to lawyers, it is nearly five or six times that. The question I am asking you is: are we not far better to zone the resources in on those who are still living with the real legacy of the past, their injuries, their disabilities and all of the disadvantage they have, rather than putting five times more into the pockets of lawyers who seem to be making a good living out of these inquiries? That would seem to be the main outcome. We are certainly not getting confidence, answers or moving on. Paul Goggins: I think we have to do both. We have to fund the inquiries to get the resolution, to get the public confidence. We also need to fund practical projects that help people to rebuild their lives. Of course, as you will know, within the Assembly and the Executive there is now a renewed emphasis on the needs of victims. The Deputy First Minister has taken on these responsibilities. It has not been without controversy but it is important that the priority that is being given there is understood. Those who have suffered in the past need help to rebuild their lives and we would certainly support that assertion. Q602 Mr Grogan: Judge Cory in the report there, in the government's response, gave us an indication that they would take all reasonable steps to put into effect his recommendations, including even possibly capping legal costs. What progress has been made in implementing those recommendations? Paul Goggins: In the 2005 Inquiries Act, we placed a new responsibility on the chairman of any inquiry, a duty to have regard to the need to avoid unnecessary cost. This is not an obligation that was ever there before. Chairmen of inquiries spent as much as they spent, whereas now we have placed that duty firmly upon them within the Act. Secondly, we have also taken steps to cap both the payments and the hours worked by legal advisers. For example, senior counsel within an inquiry, have their fees now capped at £200 an hour. Solicitors are capped at £150 an hour. Their hours are capped at 40 hours a week or 60 hours during any oral hearing. We have taken steps to try to limit in terms of the overall spending of an inquiry and also in terms of the specific limits at any one time on any solicitor or leading counsel. Q603 Mr Grogan: I understand your reluctance to say when this process might come to an end. HET is funded until 2011. There might be a further extension but looking at other processes round the world of trying to come to terms with the past - South Africa is one example; there are others - once we get to 2011, it will be more than a decade after the Good Friday Agreement. Without being very specific, would you hope that, for a minister in your position coming to this Committee at a similar stage in the next Parliament, it would be pretty well wrapped up by that stage? Paul Goggins: Whilst in central government we still carry some responsibilities for public inquiries, I hope that many of the responsibilities I have will have been handed over by this time next year. Obviously I can only speak about the three year spending period which we have just entered where we negotiated hard to get the kind of resources that we need, both for policing and for other things. Clearly, this task of resolution and moving forward is going to take longer than that spending period, so people will need to anticipate. That is why the work of Eames and Bradley is so important because, in terms of shaping future direction, if they are able to find this consensus about how to move forward, that might involve a lessening thirst for public inquiries and investigations because people are more confident and want to move on. That would be very welcome and that would shape in a different way than the priorities and the spending of the Northern Ireland Office or whoever is funding public inquiries and activities of this kind. I think that is the big prize that we are trying to achieve here, to build confidence, deal with the individual allegations and cases, but to try and diminish the thirst for that route by drawing away and moving forward in a way that uncovers common ground and an aspiration to sustain the peace that has been developed there in recent years. That will require public funding but you can see that it will be funding different activities if we are moving in that more positive direction. Q604 Kate Hoey: Going back to the first question Sir Patrick asked you, you gave a response after Ms Creagh sent you a note about why we could not just look at the ones where people wanted to be looked at in the Historic Enquiries Team. You made some remark about pressure and people might be put under pressure not to come forward. I would suggest, Minister, that that is something you should look at again because I do not think that is a very sensible reason for not being much more streamlined about why we should go back and, in many cases, raise the families in that they may not, for all sorts of reasons, want to even go back through huge, huge expense, huge amounts of waste of time and energy and not allowing you to do, as you said, the ambition for policing today. That is what the people of Northern Ireland, I believe, really care about. I think you should look at that again. Paul Goggins: I am happy to look at it again. I would invite Nichola to make her own comment now in words rather than in a written note. It was a very helpful note. I will go back and enquire very specifically how many cases have been opened for investigation where there was no request for that investigation, prompted by yourself and the Chairman. I will happily go away and ask that question and think harder about the points you have raised. Q605 Chairman: Do you want to add to the Minister's words? Ms Creagh: I do not think there is anything much to add to what the Minister has said. It is a concern that has been articulated by the Chief Constable and Dave Cox that there is a potential of families being put under pressure not to cooperate. Perhaps it is illustrated that maybe it does happen by the fact that a number of families choose to engage after HET have completed their work and come back into the process, which might indicate that, although at first they were reluctant, having maybe had contact with HET by letter, therefore they do then realise that they would like to do it or they maybe are freed from some sort of thought of pressure that might be put on them. Q606 Chairman: By listening rather than reading we at least know that the Minister has an authentic Northern Ireland voice in his ear. Minister, could I thank you and your colleagues and officials for coming this afternoon? The evidence you have given will be very helpful to us as we formulate our report. We will aim to publish on 7 July. It may well be that there will be one or two points we shall wish to follow up in correspondence following this session, but thank you very much indeed for your attendance and thank you to all the officials. We wish you a safe journey back to Belfast or wherever you may be going, Minister. Paul Goggins: I think it might be Cheshire. Chairman: I cannot wish you success in Cheshire but I can wish your officials a successful flight back to Belfast. Thank you very much. |