| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Moving forward, everyone has a part to play. As I indicated at the start of my speech, as an Orangeman I know that the loyal orders will not be found wanting. They responded positively to Lord Ashdown's review. The Orange Order has stated that it remains committed to playing a full part in creating a Northern Ireland that is a peaceful, stable and fair society founded on mutual respect and trust. The loyal orders have also been at the forefront of initiatives designed to develop the community and tourist potential of parades, particularly around 12 July. On that matter I commend my Democratic Unionist party colleagues, the Tourism Minister, Arlene Foster and the Culture Minister, Nelson McCausland for their practical help and support. [Interruption.] And their predecessors.
All of us must do what we can to address and resolve the parading issue, and if it is to be resolved, the sentiments contained in the motion would be a good place to start. I support the motion; would that all hon. Members did the same.
9.24 pm
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP): Unlike many of my colleagues who have spoken this evening, I am not one of Northern Ireland's serial paraders, but I do believe that the issue is important. I accept the point made by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael), who initially took the view that perhaps there were more important matters to discuss, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) said, we have on other occasions sought to raise other issues, such as the economy. Of course, however, many of those issues are now dealt with by the devolved Administration, so that is where the debate on them takes place.
The debate concerns an issue that, for a number of reasons, is important. The first is that the treatment of one section-a decent section-of Ulster society by the Parades Commission has caused deep hurt. I think of the fears and hurt of those people, many of whom are constituents of mine. As I said, I am not a member of an Orange lodge, the Apprentice Boys of Derry, the Royal Black Institution or any such order. However, many of the people involved are good, solid, law-abiding citizens who believe that the actions and intervention of the commission in the activities in which they wish to engage regularly-for example, marching to display their culture, history and religious beliefs-almost sullies those honourable activities.
The subject is important for a second reason that has been pointed out by a number of hon. Members already. We are moving towards the completion of devolution in Northern Ireland, and a lot of hard work has gone into it. I believe that it is a desirable goal and we should pursue it vigorously. However, if we are to complete the devolution of policing and justice, we cannot do it in isolation from ending the contention surrounding the parades issue. If anything will destabilise policing and justice, it is the fact that we remain without the machinery to resolve the contentious parades in Northern Ireland. As others have pointed out, the Parades Commission has not been the vehicle for doing that, despite some of the points made by the hon. Members for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and for South Down (Mr. McGrady). I want to address their points in a moment or two. However, for those two reasons, it is important that the issue is addressed.
The anger against the Parades Commission has been generated for a number of reasons. First, every parade or public demonstration-indeed, every public activity on the streets of Northern Ireland-must first be referred to the commission. I get people coming to me in my constituency who want to arrange motorbike ride-outs and classic car rallies, as well as civic parades and sometimes church parades for uniformed organisations. All of them have to be referred to the commission. The point that many of them make to me is that there is nothing contentious about their activities-in fact, many of them are cross-community activities. Yet they have to pass through the filter of the Parades Commission and be applied for. Many of the Orange parades and those of other institutions are not contentious either, but they have to be filtered through the commission as well. The implication is always that there is something contentious about the parades. People resent that.
Secondly, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) pointed out, the Parades Commission is an arbitrator, but does not seek to facilitate or mediate in these contentious situations. Sometimes, arbitration itself can do damage. People have come into my office complaining about the prescriptive conditions laid down by the commission. A pedantic jobsworth in the Police Service of Northern Ireland might apply those prescriptive conditions if, for example, a parade has not started at 7 o'clock on the dot, even though it might be waiting for a busload of people to arrive.
Sometimes that busload of people will be held up as a result of police activity. If the parade waits two or three minutes for them to arrive, the police will want to take action and refer the parade back to the Parades Commission because of a breach of the conditions. Had the jobsworth thought it through, he would have realised that it would be far better to have everybody included in the parade, rather than having some stragglers arriving after it starts. That is one of the problems, and I could give lots of other examples. Being that prescriptive sometimes causes problems that are not necessary and that, had the parade not been referred to the Parades Commission in the first place, would not have arisen.
The third reason is the bias that is seen in the Parades Commission, whether in its make-up-there is a long history of objections to what is seen as its biased make-up-or, even more so, in the decisions that it makes. In many instances, especially where there are contentious parades, those decisions seem to be made on the basis of who presents the biggest threat. The more that a group is prepared to lean on people or-this is the worst of it-the more that it has a history of being able not only to make the threat but to deliver it, the more weight the Parades Commission seems to give to its arguments.
The suggestion has been made that taking away the Parades Commission would put the police in the front line. However, on many occasions people have come to me and said, "Look, we believe we made a good case to the Parades Commission. We don't know how they reached their decision at the end of the day, but we ticked all the boxes that they asked us to tick. However, the police came in afterwards and, on the basis of what they said, the attitude of the Parades Commission changed." Whether the hon. Members for Foyle and for South Down like it or not, the police already have an
input. They are already in the front line and are part of the decision-making process with the Parades Commission anyhow.
I believe that in many instances the police make the judgment as to who presents the biggest threat. As most of those who are involved in the loyal orders are ordinary, decent, hard-working, law-abiding, solid citizens, the judgment is that they are not the ones who will cause the trouble. Rather, the judgment is that those who, through protest, have a record of causing street disorder are the ones to whom we must pay most attention. Therefore, the bias is towards them.
The hon. Member for Foyle talked about what would happen if we disturbed the Parades Commission. Despite the fact that the SDLP claims to be a radical organisation, there is no group of people who want to maintain the status quo and the establishment more, regardless of how badly it is seen to work, how inadequate it is or how much times have changed. The SDLP will always want to defend the status quo, and as the Parades Commission came about not as a result of the Patten commission, but nevertheless because of nationalist demands, it must stay, even if it does not work, even if there is a better way and even if there are still things that it has been unable to resolve.
A number of arguments have been put forward. The first is that we should look at how many parades take place without any violence or confrontation, as if that were down to the Parades Commission. In many cases the Parades Commission simply has no input. It receives the applications and rubber-stamps them, but it does not do anything else. That parades take place without violence is down to the good sense and good community relations that exist in a place, so let us not attribute successes to the Parades Commission for which it is not responsible.
Mark Durkan: Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that there were far more contentious parades before we had the Parades Commission? During the life of the commission, those issues have progressively been reduced to the number that his colleagues have talked about.
Sammy Wilson: The hon. Gentleman is right, but his assumption is that, somehow or other, that was to do with the existence of the Parades Commission. Just because we see something happening, and we see a change taking place, it does not necessarily tell us the cause of that change. Indeed, many of the changes have happened as a result of the work of people in their local areas, outside the work of the Parades Commission. That is the whole point of the Ashdown proposals, as I understand them. We want to see more of that work, yet the Parades Commission appears to be acting as a block to it, or ignoring it and rewarding intransigence. People are therefore arguing that the commission should be done away with.
A further argument in defence of the Parades Commission is that, if we replaced it with something else, those who wished to cause disruption would test the new arrangements. The truth is that anyone who wishes to contest parades can do that through the Parades Commission, and a new body will not necessarily lead to more people saying, "Let's test the new body." Indeed, they would know, given the weakness of the Parades Commission's record and the conditions that it attaches to its decisions, that that is the body that really needs testing.
Mark Durkan: Where is the evidence?
Sammy Wilson: The hon. Gentleman asks that, yet he is asking us to believe that something that is not yet in existence will produce the effect that he has described. He asks me for evidence: there is a body on the ground through which, in the past, people have tried to use the rules that it has made to try to stop parades. We know that that has happened. He is speculating about a body that is not even in place.
Mark Durkan: Like me, the hon. Member will have listened to many of his colleagues saying that Sinn Fein is the problem. They have outlined Sinn Fein's agenda and motives, which they say are still current in relation to this issue, but none of them has said how the Ashdown proposals will get around the problem-if that is the problem.
Sammy Wilson: I am going to conclude now, but let me reiterate that, in most cases of contentious parades that have been sorted out, they have been sorted out not by someone arbitrating and saying, "You will do this, and the other people will do that", but by people sitting down and by mediation. The whole thrust of the Ashdown proposals, as I understand them, is that we should replace this arbitration, which is seen to be biased, with mediation. That is the mature way forward, and I believe that that is an important factor. I am a supporter of the devolution of policing and justice, and I have proclaimed that publicly in a number of different ways. Let me make it clear to the Minister, however, that if we are to have that devolution, we shall also require a solution to the question of parading. Otherwise, it will not work.
9.39 pm
Christopher Fraser (South-West Norfolk) (Con): I am clearly not standing here as a Northern Ireland Member of Parliament, but I serve on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and the Northern Ireland Grand Committee, and I am chairman of the all-party group on Northern Ireland. This issue has come up many times in debates held by those different groups when they have met in this House. I have been listening to the contributions from colleagues this evening, whether I was in the Chamber or detained elsewhere, and I would like to put to the Minister several questions that have not yet been addressed.
First, I understood that, under the original legislation, the timetable was for the recommendations of the strategic reviews to be implemented in the spring of this year. I think we all understood that to be the case. When does the Minister expect the final report to be published? Given that Ministers made estimates of the financial implications of the recommendations, based on the interim report, does he accept that those should be accounted for in the proposed financial settlement? I am not quite sure, after what he said earlier, whether that is the case.
How does the Minister expect to implement the strategic review's final recommendations? Does he expect the proposals to be incorporated into the detail of a wider criminal justice and policing handover? If devolution of criminal justice and policing is delayed, for whatever reason, will the Government consider legislating for parades separately? I am not sure that what the Minister said earlier went as far as that, so I would be most grateful if he would clarify it.
Right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned the importance of bringing investment and prosperity to Northern Ireland, which is crucial to getting these issues sorted and ensuring that Northern Ireland participates as fully as it should in the economic success of the United Kingdom. I know from talking to people in the Province that they want to play their part. It is terribly important to deal with this issue sensitively, so that people feel that their voice is being heard, and they can go about their business lawfully in the knowledge that they have the support not just of this House, but of the wider community.
Can the Minister assure the House that devolution of criminal justice and policing will not be rushed through-before a general election, for example-at the expense of getting things right? If we get it wrong, we shall get it wrong for a very long time, so we need to think very seriously about these issues.
Lord Ashdown's interim recommendations were discussed earlier. He advocated a strong role for local councils, but does the Minister accept that councils are too partisan on occasions, and that there are valid concerns that their role could undermine mediation? Does he agree that safeguards to account for the political allegiances of councils need to be considered and dealt with in this respect?
It is likely that 11 super-councils will be created by 2011, and will have a key role in dealing with parade mediation. Is the Minister confident that the transition will be smooth? Parades have historically brought to the fore the political and social tensions that still exist, as we know, as an undercurrent in Northern Ireland. Does he agree that it is crucial for peaceful parading not to be undermined by potential teething problems resulting from local government reform?
Finally, the strategic review's interim report did not include recommendations relating to the Drumcree and Ormeau road parades. Is the Minister concerned that at the interim stage of the strategic review, agreement was not reached on the two parades that are perhaps in greatest need of guidance?
9.43 pm
Mr. Nigel Dodds (Belfast, North) (DUP): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Christopher Fraser), who does a splendid job as chairman of the all-party Northern Ireland group, and who is also a member of the Northern Ireland Select Committee. I thank him for his interest in Northern Ireland. He was absolutely right to say that with policing and justice devolution, the crucial thing is to get it right-something that my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) has said on a number of occasions. That must be the principle that guides us all in this context. As has been said, if we get this wrong, generations thereafter will bear the cost.
We have had an extremely good debate. As a number of speakers have said, it has been a measured debate, and I think that we have explored the issues thoroughly in the short time available. I want to commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East, the leader of our party, for the way in which he introduced the debate. He set out clearly the importance of this issue to the people of Northern Ireland-the people whom we represent-and, indeed, to the whole future of the stability of political institutions in Northern Ireland.
Some Members, notably the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael), commented on the choice of topic. I commend him for voicing his concerns on this matter. He eventually acknowledged that we had been sincere in tabling the motion, because we wanted to tackle a running sore in politics and in the community in Northern Ireland. It is true that if we are to tackle the great issues involved in putting Northern Ireland on a more prosperous and better footing for everyone's benefit, we must deal with the important matters that we are debating tonight, and it is appropriate that we are discussing them at the present juncture. Far too often we embark on contentious issues involving parading much too late in the calendar cycle, when controversy is at its height. Now the parading season is past, but we still have some time ahead of us, and I believe that we should use it constructively to air the issues and ensure that progress is made.
All too frequently the criticism from those in the loyal orders, and those who engage and seek to promote engagement, has been that when they spend their time trying to make progress and enter into debate and dialogue, no agreement is reached. Then the Parades Commission steps in, and does not recognise the efforts that have been made throughout the winter and spring months. All that is ignored and set aside, and the same or worse determinations are made each year, which only exacerbates the problem rather than leading to any kind of solution. It acts as a disincentive, and demoralises those who want to engage in debate and dialogue.
A number of Members have mentioned the importance of this issue in the context of the stability of Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) observed that, in terms of parades, this had been the quietest year for a long time. I remind him that in the aftermath of this year's parade past the Ardoyne shops in my constituency, guns and blast bombs were used on the streets of Belfast. I would not necessarily describe it as one of the quietest years on record.
We must ensure that all elements of that kind are dealt with. People still want to cause disturbance and violence on our streets, and we must put an end to that. It is important for us, as parties in Northern Ireland, to demonstrate that we will not allow it to continue. We must make clear that we will not tolerate circumstances in which every year, before, on and after 12 July, we must stand on the streets of Belfast and elsewhere trying to calm people down and trying to work with others to restrain them from becoming involved in violence or anything like it. We must ensure that progress can be made.
Many Members recalled the history of this whole dispute. My right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East, my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Mrs. Robinson), my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) and others referred to the significant role played by Sinn Fein in the fomenting of the trouble, and referred particularly to the statements made by Sinn Fein's leader Gerry Adams. There is no doubt about the significant role that Sinn Fein have played in the circumstances with which we are now having to grapple, but as others have said, it is important to highlight the tourism potential in Orange and loyal order parades.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |