Part of Police (Northern Ireland) Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 3:15 pm on 11 March 2003.
The new clauses relate to schedule 3 of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000 and district policing partnerships—DPPs, in the jargon that the Government like to use—which we have not yet had the opportunity to get our heads around. In a DPP, a local council is required to set up what everyone, including me, would probably want to call a committee, although calling it something else seems to suit Northern Ireland. That committee would consist of 15, 17 or 19 members,
''as the council may determine'',
as it says in paragraph 2(1) of schedule 3 to the 2000 Act. Paragraph 2(3) says how that will be done:
''Where a DPP consists of 15 members, of whom—
(a) 8 shall be appointed by the council from among members of the council in accordance with paragraph 3.''
A minimum of eight people are therefore appointed in accordance with paragraph 2(3). If the numbers increase, the figure could be nine or 10.
Paragraph 3 relates to what the Act calls political members. Paragraph 3(1) states:
''A council shall exercise its power to appoint political members of the DPP so as to ensure that, so far as practicable, the political members reflect the balance of parties prevailing among the members of the council immediately after the last local general election.''
Some councils in the Province have Sinn Fein-IRA members and, so far as I am aware, there are also councils with one or two members who are loyalist paramilitary apologists.
The Act therefore requires the appointment to DPPs of members of a political party that is totally bound to an armed terrorist organisation that has yet to disarm. I wait to see what the Government have managed to achieve by giving them even more concessions so that they might relinquish a few more arms and explosives.
The policing partnerships are required to appoint armed terrorists, or apologists for armed terrorists, who show almost no inclination to cease their terrorism as a means to achieve what they want, irrespective of the wish of the majority. Under the 2000 Act, those people can—indeed, must—be appointed to an oversight role in relation to the PSNI, which is the very body that is required to try to put such people out of business. That is utterly perverse. It is to put the criminal in charge of the organisation that exists to hound the criminal. It is to put the terrorists in charge of people who are trying to eliminate terrorism. I have never believed that that is acceptable. There should be no place for terrorists or apologists for terrorists in any democratic organisation until they have given up terrorism. Even then, I would have my doubts.