Police (Northern Ireland) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 5:15 pm on 25 October 2000.

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Photo of Lord Cope of Berkeley Lord Cope of Berkeley Conservative 5:15, 25 October 2000

This is a small matter. It is not nearly as emotional or important as the matters discussed in the previous debate.

Clause 54 provides for co-operation between the RUC and the Garda Siochana. Clearly, we are all in favour of that, the more the better. However, it seemed to us that the way in which it is expressed may even limit the co-operation because the Bill provides that the board and the Chief Constable,

"shall implement any arrangements made ... between the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of Ireland", dealing with co-operation on police matters.

We suggest that there should be a duty on the board and the Chief Constable to promote co-operation "wherever practicable". Of course, that means co-operation resulting from agreement between the two governments; but it means a lot more than that.

It means also co-operation between the two forces themselves and, indeed, at the lower levels between the individual units of the various forces. It was my experience, when I had responsibility for security in Northern Ireland, that the co-operation seemed to be better the lower down the scale you went. The station sergeants in police stations either side of the border were much more likely to telephone each other than were the people in the headquarters of the two police forces or--even less likely--the two governments. We had discussions about co-operation and we constantly tried to achieve more co-operation out of the government of the Republic at that point. I am talking about 10 years ago. The work was extremely sticky and difficult, whereas co-operation between the sergeants on day-to-day matters was, as far as I could detect, fairly good. I do not suggest that today co-operation at the top level is not equally good; certainly, it is now much better than at the time of which I speak. We believe that such co-operation should take place extremely widely.

Chapter 18 of the report of the Patten commission deals with co-operation and makes several sensible recommendations about how it can be improved, for example that there should be more joint planning, joint exercises and that kind of thing, protocols between the two police forces and agreements between the two governments. We seek to widen the clause so that the board and the Chief Constable are under an obligation to promote, wherever practicable, co-operation on policing matters between the RUC and the Garda Siochana. I beg to move.