Clause 27
Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill
12:00 pm
Lady Hermon (North Down, UUP)
I apologise, Mr. Atkinson, if I appeared to hesitate earlier. I had not heard the Division Bell because I was so excited by the anticipation of what the Minister would say aboutthe delay in extending to Northern Ireland sections of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, and in particular sections 60 to 67, 69 and 70, which are belatedly being extended by clause 27.
I have considerable concern about that point. The Minister, who is a diligent Minister and takes his responsibilities seriously, will have noted that immediately before the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill came before the House there was yet another report from the highly respected and regarded Independent Monitoring Commission, which he and his colleagues are so keen to quote to us. They will doubtless do so again before the end of the week.
I shall quote from the November 2004 IMC report, which I recommend to all members of the Committee if they have not already read it. Paragraph 5.5, on page 27, is pertinent to discussion of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. It states:
“The Northern Ireland Organised Crime Task Force has stated that there are some 230 organised criminal gangs believed to be operating in Northern Ireland.”
I shall repeat that: 230 organised criminal gangs.
“We have been advised that about 60 per cent. or some 140 have paramilitary links and that, of the top 25 criminal gangs involved in international activities operating in early 2004, 17, some two-thirds, had paramilitary associations.”
The next sentence is the most striking on the entire page.
“Seldom in the developed world has this high proportion of the most serious criminals been associated with groups originating in terrorism, with an organisational structure and discipline, and the experience of planning, learning and conducting sophisticated clandestine operations, methods of handling money, and with traditions of extreme violence.”
That was the report as recently as November 2004.
I was astounded that, in 2005, despite that report having highlighted the seriousness of the situation in terms of organised criminals and the gangs that operate in Northern Ireland—let me remind all members of the Committee that Northern Ireland is a small part of this United Kingdom—many provisions of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act were not immediately extended to Northern Ireland by way of primary legislation. It concerns me greatly that now, two years later, clause 27 belatedly extends to Northern Ireland only sections 60 to 67, 69 and 70.
On Second Reading, the Secretary of State described the chief purpose of the Bill. He said:
“The Bill will chiefly allow maximum flexibility in the arrangements for the future devolution of policing and justice functions to the Assembly”.—[Official Report, 13 March 2006; Vol. 443, c. 1167.]
Had it not been for their overriding purpose of devolving to the Assembly the decision about when it wishes to take responsibility for policing and justice, when in heaven’s name would the Government ever have got round to extending to Northern Ireland the important provisions of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, which ought to have been extended at the time of that Act in 2005?
The amendment would extend to Northern Ireland section 112 of the 2005 Act, which deals with the ability of a constable to order a person to leave an area. For example, there has been a series of high-profile cases in Northern Ireland in which men—and let us assume that the vast majority of people who commit domestic violence are men—have been released, had their names included on the sex offenders register there, and gone on to commit serious offences. My amendment would extend to constables in Northern Ireland the section’s powers in, say, the case of a convicted criminal who had been told to stay away from the victim of sexual abuse. The key question is when the Minister intends to extend the other key sections of the Act to Northern Ireland. When will the Government get their minds around to that? I shall listen intently to the Minister’s response.