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Lord Fitt: My Lords, I listen regularly to Radio Ulster. Last week I listened every morning, and every morning without fail Radio Ulster reported that another series of knee-cappings had been carried out by both loyalist and republican paramilitaries. That happened every single day. It was the same the week before that. No doubt next week it will be the same.

Paramilitary organisations in Northern Ireland are using their arms to intimidate individuals, districts and communities and to bend them to their will. The message to them from this legislation is that they will be able to hold on to their arms until 2007. They shall be able to carry on knee-capping and all that goes with it and the Government will not do anything about it.

I have yet to hear of anyone being brought before the court charged with knee-capping or of a paramilitary being charged with the mutilation of an individual. They know that that will not happen because those people who are mutilated, who have been knee-capped and/or who have been intimidated out of their country—the exiles referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Park—will not say anything.

I have just attended a meeting at the other side of this building which concerned a barman in Derry who did not agree with one of the customers who was becoming very obstreperous. The barman ordered him out of the pub. The person ordered out was a member of or had friends in the republican movement. The next day masked men with balaclavas came to the barman's house and ordered him out of the country.

Does that not show the power that is now being wielded by some of the greatest thugs that have every walked the streets of Northern Ireland? This legislation is saying that they can continue to do that until 2007.

I asked last week—and I do not want to go into this again in any great detail—whether the Government have made any representations to those in control of paramilitary organisations. Again I do not restrict my remarks to the IRA; the loyalists are also exiling people from their homeland. The loyalists also carry out knee-capping and mutilations every day of the week. What can the Government do because those who are mutilated by the loyalists do not go to the police? The IRA argument, when challenged on this, is: "We have to do this. We are acting as policemen because there is not an acceptable police force in Northern Ireland". That is what they say. So they are asking permission to continue with these mutilations for another five years on the grounds that they are the only acceptable police force in those communities in Northern Ireland.

I said to the Minister last week: "By the way, standing as I do in this House, having the experience which I have had in Northern Ireland, and having had my own home burned out in Northern Ireland by the so-called republican paramilitaries, I could quite easily sit here and say nothing. I could stay away from these debates because when I do take part in them I get a lot of anonymous threatening letters from paramilitary organisations". It is mostly from the republicans because I have questioned their activities in this House.

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"But I believe that when coming to this House and taking the Oath of Allegiance at the Dispatch Box I gave an oath that I would talk on all the issues that are relevant to the security of the United Kingdom". I am doing so now because Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom.

Many of Northern Ireland's citizens are being brutally intimidated by paramilitary organisations—Mafia organisations. This legislation, as it stands, is saying to them that they can continue to do this until 2007. On the other hand, we know—and I refer to it again at the risk of repeating myself—that there will be an amnesty granted to republican prisoners who are on the run in the Republic of Ireland. The Government are going to grant them an amnesty so that they can come back to Northern Ireland. I was speaking to a policeman last week in Belfast. He told me that one of those who will gain from this amnesty he knew for a fact had killed three of his RUC colleagues. Just imagine how difficult it will be for that policeman to see the murderer of his colleagues granted an amnesty by the British Government because of some deal that they are doing with paramilitary organisations.

I have suggested that if we are to get anything out of this—and I do not believe that we are—the Government should say to the paramilitary organisations: "Before we let your people come back into Northern Ireland from the Republic, we insist that all those who have been exiled by paramilitary organisations are allowed to come back home and live in Northern Ireland". At least we should get something in return.

I refer again to the choreography. We were told that the Government make one move and Sinn Fein or the IRA or the loyalists make a move in the other direction. They have not. The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, in effect says, "We realise that we cannot defeat the Government because they will get their way in the legislation, but at least restrict the activities of the paramilitary organisations to one year rather than to five years". I do not believe that that is an outlandish request to make. I appeal to the Government to take on board what has been said by noble Lords in this House about the existing situation in Northern Ireland where fear and intimidation exists to a large extent throughout communities and to tell those who they must be negotiating with in relation to this legislation that they will have to give something back in return.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, I intervened in Committee after the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Desai, when he told the House that the guns were silent. I cited the paramilitaries' actions against the rest of the community about which the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, has just been speaking. I emphasise that it is either side of the community; it is not the community simply on one side. I quoted data from the evidence section of the report by the Select Committee in another place in the last Parliament on the paramilitaries sending their fellow citizens into

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exile. That data reflected the increase in shootings after the second ceasefire by comparison with a fairly modest number of shootings after the first.

By unfortunate irony, the other place is debating that report in Westminster Hall at 2.30 this afternoon, once this debate is likely to have been concluded. The Government did not reply to that report published in May of last year until December. The Minister's reply to the debate this afternoon is therefore the first real opportunity for the Government to be cross-examined on their position on the issue and on the report.

The noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House will recall that my noble friend Lady Park's debate on this subject in this House coincided with the news of the decommissioning by the IRA. Therefore, he did not have excessive time on that occasion to respond to the specific points made by my noble friend. I make no criticism of that. The coincidence was one which in part determined the debate.

The Times on 8th February brought the figures up-to-date in terms of last year in an article which may have reflected the case mentioned a moment ago by the noble Lord, Lord Fitt. In that article the RUC had reported that there were 331 punishment beatings and shootings in Northern Ireland last year, which is the highest figure in 30 years of conflict. The Times also cited statistics brought forward by Base Two, the body that underlies NIACRO, which also gave evidence as regards the report that I have alluded to. That indicated that there were 906 threats last year by paramilitaries to their fellow citizens in the community. I acknowledge immediately that the first 300 of those were by republicans and at least 500 were by loyalists. I am not suggesting in any way that it is all on one side of the community. However, those 906 threats included 50 death threats and 650 of what are perhaps not wholly felicitously referred to as "exile orders".

I understood the response of the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House to my noble friend's amendment in Committee, which was of a similar nature to the one he is moving today. It meant that, beyond peradventure, the letter of the law in terms of what the noble and learned Lord said is on the side of the Government. But there are occasions when the spirit of the law requires reinforcement in order to send a message from Parliament in instances of this sort. Therefore I continue unreservedly to support my noble friend's amendment.

Lord Dubs: My Lords, of course the level of paramilitary violence, kneecappings and so on is quite unacceptable. Of course decommissioning must happen; but frankly I am not persuaded that the difference between 2005 and 2007 will make the paramilitaries say, "Ho, Ho! Parliament is more determined than we thought it was". I do not believe that the difference between the two is the real issue, in terms of whether the paramilitaries will respond or not.

In any case, as I understand it, the provisions have to be renewed a year at a time so that there is still the possibility—the inevitability—that Parliament will

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from year to year pronounce on the continuation of these measures. Even if the IRA were to decommission today we would still need this legislation on the statute book until 2007, I believe, because both the Real IRA and some of the loyalist organisations have not been disposed even to consider decommissioning up to now.

At least from the IRA we have had one major act of decommissioning—not a minor one—which I believe to be of enormous significance. I hope that I may, just for the record, disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth. She suggested, as she does every time she speaks, that all the concessions are one-way and that Sinn Fein/IRA have made no concessions at all. I have no truck with violence from anyone, but perhaps I might remind her that Sinn Fein are members of a devolved parliamentary institution within the United Kingdom, that two of them are Ministers and that they have accepted the principle of consent that there will be no change in the constitutional position of Northern Ireland without the will of the majority of its people.

That is an enormous concession by them, given their previous position. I think that it should be remembered, before we believe that the Government are simply making concessions to one side and not to the other. Of course decommissioning has to happen but I believe that it will happen through argument, pressure and persuasion, not by means of a technicality on our statute book.

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