Northern Ireland (Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan) Bill
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
Read Full debate
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mrs Theresa Villiers)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Bill gives effect to key elements of the fresh start agreement of 2015 and the Stormont House agreement of 2014. It is an important stage in the implementation of those agreements, which, taken together, have the potential to help us to secure a more peaceful, stable and prosperous future for Northern Ireland.
Before turning to the detail of the clauses, I will remind the House of the background to their contents. As the House will recall, following just over 10 weeks of intensive talks, the Government, the Northern Ireland Executive parties and the Irish Government reached the Stormont House agreement on 23 December 2014. It addressed many of the most significant challenges facing Northern Ireland. Some of those challenges, such as the long-standing disagreements over flags, parading and the past, were deeply damaging to political relationships within the devolved Executive and were fuelling community divisions. Others, particularly the state of the Executive’s finances and disagreements over welfare reform, were jeopardising the effectiveness and sustainability of devolution itself.
The Stormont House agreement included proposals to give the Executive a workable and sustainable budget; to set a path towards resolving contentious issues around flags, symbols and parading; to establish new bodies to help to tackle the legacy of Northern Ireland’s past; and to deliver reforms at Stormont to make devolution work better. All of that was underpinned by a financial package that gave the Executive about £2 billion of extra spending power.
The Stormont House agreement was and remains a good deal for Northern Ireland. However, by last summer, it was clear that implementation had stalled. That was largely due to disagreements in the Executive over the budget and finances, at the heart of which was the decision by the nationalist parties to withdraw their support for the welfare reform package agreed at Stormont Castle the preceding December. As the stand-off continued, it had the knock-on effect of preventing decisions on other elements of the agreement from being taken. Sadly, the sense of crisis was intensified by two brutal murders in Belfast, one in May and one in August, which once again raised the spectre of the malign influence of continued paramilitary activity on the streets of Northern Ireland.
As we entered last autumn, the political situation looked increasingly perilous. We faced the prospect that resignations might trigger early Assembly elections. That could easily have led to the collapse of the devolved institutions and a return to direct rule from Westminster. That would have been a major setback after all that has been achieved under successive Governments during the past 20 years. It was an outcome that the Government acted strenuously and decisively to avoid.
First, in a speech in Cambridge on 5 September, I made it clear that we could not let the financial impasse continue indefinitely and that if there was no resolution to the dispute, we would be left with no option but to legislate in Westminster for welfare reform.
Secondly, following discussions with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, it was decided that the time was right to convene a second round of cross-party talks, which began at Stormont House on 8 September. Once again, the talks included the five largest parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Irish Government on matters for which they are responsible, in accordance with the long-established three-stranded approach to Northern Ireland affairs. The objectives we set ourselves were twofold: to secure the full implementation of the Stormont House agreement and to deal with the impact of continued paramilitary activity.
The talks once again lasted for 10 weeks and concluded on 17 November with a document entitled “A Fresh Start: The Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan”, which was agreed between the UK Government, the Irish Government and the two parties representing a majority of Unionists and nationalists in the Executive. In the Government’s view, that agreement goes a long way towards satisfying the objectives that the participants in the talks set themselves. It gives the Executive a stable and sustainable budget that includes welfare reform; it unblocks progress on other crucial elements of the Stormont House agreement, including institutional reform; and it strongly reaffirms support for the rule of law and places fresh obligations on Northern Ireland’s political representatives to work together with determination to rid society of paramilitary activity and groups. This agreement, like the previous one, was underpinned by a financial package from the UK Government, this time worth up to £500 million.
I can inform the House that progress on the implementation of the fresh start agreement has been good. On 18 November, the day after it was reached, the Assembly passed a legislative consent motion for Westminster to go ahead with welfare legislation. The subsequent Northern Ireland (Welfare Reform) Act 2015 was given Royal Assent on 25 November and the related order was passed in early December. The Government are working closely with the Executive on the extensive secondary legislation that is required to deliver the new welfare system in Northern Ireland. We hope to be in a position to begin bringing that forward shortly, with a view to completing its passage through both Houses as soon as we can.
On 21 December, the UK and Irish Governments, along with the Northern Ireland Executive, established a Joint Agency Task Force to reinforce efforts to tackle cross-jurisdictional organised crime. The Executive have established the three-person panel envisaged by the agreement to make recommendations for a broad-ranging strategy to disband paramilitary groups. The appointments process for the new flags commission is under way. A Bill to reduce the number of Government Departments from 12 to nine has completed its consideration in the Assembly. A further Bill to reduce the number of Members of the Legislative Assembly per constituency from six to five is set for its final stage of consideration in the Assembly tomorrow.
The Bill before the House today represents further significant progress, dealing with elements of the fresh start agreement that require UK Government legislation. Clauses 1 to 5 make provision to put into effect a treaty, to be agreed between the UK and Irish Governments, that will establish the independent reporting commission. The Bill sets out the commission’s primary objective to promote progress towards ending paramilitary activity connected with Northern Ireland. It will report on progress towards that objective and on the implementation of relevant measures by the UK Government, the Irish Government and the Executive that were agreed in the fresh start agreement. The Bill makes provision for key aspects of the new commission’s work, including the duties to which it will be subject and the legal privileges to be conferred on it as an international body. These are intended to ensure that the commission is able to engage with a range of sources of information in performing its important functions, but will avoid doing anything that might put life, safety or national security at risk. I appreciate that hon. Members will wish to see the text of the treaty. It has not been possible to provide that today, because it has not yet been agreed between the UK and Irish Governments, but we will of course place a copy in the Library of the House in due course as soon as we can.
Clause 6 and schedule 1 will extend the time available for the allocation of ministerial positions in the Executive from seven to 14 days after the Assembly meets following an election. The purpose of the change, as set out in the Stormont House agreement, is to allow parties more time to agree a programme for government on a cross-party basis prior to the allocation of ministerial positions. It is hoped that this will encourage a more bipartisan approach to the programme for government.
Clause 7 will amend the pledge of office for Ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive, reflecting strong commitments set out in the fresh start agreement to give unequivocal support for the rule of law and to work collectively to achieve a society free of paramilitarism once and for all. Clause 8 will introduce a similar undertaking by all Members of the Assembly.
Clause 9 will implement the commitments in the fresh start agreement for the UK Government to legislate, with Assembly consent, to increase fiscal transparency in Executive budgets, thus helping the Executive to deliver an affordable and sustainable budget.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)
If I may take the Secretary of State back to clause 8, I am very pleased about the introduction of a new pledge for all MLAs. They will not be able to participate in any proceedings, or do anything within the Assembly, unless and until they have taken the new pledge. When they have taken the new pledge, however, what sanctions will there be if they fail to honour it, and who will decide?
Mrs Villiers
Naturally enough, any sanctions relating to the actions of MLAs are matters for the Assembly, rather than for the Chamber and the legislation proposed here today. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention.
Clause 9 provides that the Northern Ireland Finance Minister will have a duty to specify—
Lady Hermon
I am terribly sorry to intervene on the Secretary of State again, but if I may say so that was a rather flippant response and not at all characteristic—she is always so well briefed. Clause 8 actually states:
“Standing orders shall provide for the procedure for giving the undertaking.”
It does not say in clause 8 that Standing Orders will be passed in the Assembly on sanctions for MLAs who do not honour the new pledge, so it must be in this proposed legislation.
Mrs Villiers
I am very sorry. I did not mean for my answer to sound flippant or not serious. It remains the case that the Bill does not provide for sanctions and neither does the fresh start agreement. In terms of internal matters of discipline within the Assembly, that really is a matter for the Assembly itself to determine. What I can provide further clarification on is that an individual who refuses to give the undertaking will not be able to participate in Assembly proceedings, or receive any of the privileges of office or salary.
Clause 9 provides that the Northern Ireland Finance Minister will have a duty to specify to the Assembly the amount of Government funding available, as notified by the Secretary of State. The Minister will have to show, when delivering a draft budget, that the amount of Government funding required by that draft budget does not exceed the amount specified as being available.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Before the Secretary of State moves on to that more detailed point, does she agree that the provisions outlined in the Bill should be extended here? Members who do not take their oath in this place receive privileges and benefits, and are not excluded. Maybe we should learn something from the situation in Northern Ireland and apply it to this place.
Mrs Villiers
I am very much aware of the concerns the hon. Gentleman and his party have on such matters. Issues relating to privileges and expenses are House business, and he and his colleagues are welcome to raise them at any time for the House to consider. In due course, we will look at Short money too.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
Just to take a step back in relation to the cross-border task force, I understand a meeting was held in December 2015 to establish it. Can the Secretary of State clarify today how often the task force will meet or is it scheduled to meet?
Mrs Villiers
I think we need to distinguish between the ministerial meeting, which was a one-off, and the agency task force, which will meet regularly. I do not know that it has scheduled a timetable of meetings as yet, but I am sure that once it does I will be able to supply the hon. Gentleman with details. One would expect it to meet regularly to conduct its important work. The membership has been formulated, so it is already cracking on with its work.
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State agree that cross-border co-operation on a whole range of issues, not least organised crime, is made much easier by the fact that the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK are members of the European Union?
Mrs Villiers
I was wondering when that subject would come up. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there are a whole range of reasons why the relationship between the UK and Ireland has improved massively in recent years.
I have outlined the main features of this short, but important, piece of proposed legislation on Northern Ireland.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
There is one area that is not in the Bill. Will the Secretary of State inform the House when the legacy Bill will come forward? Many people throughout Northern Ireland are grieving deeply and want to know when the proposals will come forward.
Mrs Villiers
The hon. Lady raises a very important issue, which I was about to come on to. Sadly, I am not able to give her a date for the presentation of that proposed legislation, but, as I will go into, I am determined to work as hard as I possibly can to build the consensus necessary to enable us to introduce it. I agree with her: it is very important that we press ahead.
I must put on record my gratitude for the co-operation of Her Majesty’s Opposition in agreeing to a somewhat faster than usual passage of the Bill through the House. This should enable measures relating to the pledge of office, the undertaking and the extension of the time available for ministerial appointments to be in place in time for the new Assembly when it meets in May. It will enable the new independent reporting commission to be established as soon as possible.
I am very conscious, returning to the point made by the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie), that some important elements of the Stormont House agreement are not, sadly, in the Bill we are discussing today.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Given that the welfare reform legislation was microwaved through here and that this Bill will be fast-tracked, can the Secretary of State give an undertaking that the legacy Bill will not be fast-tracked and that her commitment to building consensus will extend to proper consideration for victims and the wider public interest, and not just be something cobbled up between parties?
Mrs Villiers
I need to reflect on that, but I definitely agree with the hon. Gentleman that the legacy Bill will be in a very different category from the other two pieces of legislation—the Bill today and the welfare legislation. In those circumstances, we should do everything possible to make sure that it has an ordinary timetable. If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will not give an absolute undertaking on that for today’s purposes, but if we get to the stage of being able to present that Bill to Parliament, it is highly likely that we will want to proceed with it on the basis of an ordinary timetable rather than an expedited one, given the sensitivity of the issues.
As I set out in my speech in Belfast on 11 February, the Government are and remain committed to establishing these legacy bodies. We have a manifesto commitment to do so. We will continue our efforts to build the consensus needed to allow us to present legislation to this House. We have made more progress than any of our predecessors in getting close to achieving an agreed way forward on the past. We are now closer than ever, I think, to resolving the main outstanding problems standing in the way of getting these new bodies set up and operating.
I shall continue to engage with the political parties in Northern Ireland, with victims and survivors and with those who represent them, and I am particularly grateful for the input and work of the Commission for Victims and Survivors in trying to facilitate this process and for working hard to try, with me, to build consensus for the new bodies.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Does the Secretary of State agree that one element of the legacy issue that is paramount in the minds of many survivors of the troubles is that under no account and under no circumstances must Northern Ireland be seen to go forward on the basis of treating the perpetrators of violence in the same way as those who were innocent victims of that very violence?
Mrs Villiers
I entirely agree. We on the Government side would never accept a rewriting of history. I think we should always recall the dedication of, and sacrifices made by, both the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the armed services in Northern Ireland. We should salute that sacrifice, and I am absolutely convinced that in the vast majority of cases, the members of the security forces performed their duties with the utmost integrity and professionalism.
I want to pay tribute, too, to the dignity and determination with which victims and survivors approach the legacy matters under discussion. I have been deeply moved on many occasions when I have met victims and survivors to hear of their experiences and their tragedies. I have welcomed the chance to meet many of them over my years as Secretary of State. They have different and divergent views on a number of issues, but almost all are agreed that the current mechanisms for tackling legacy cases are not working as they should.
The legacy bodies proposed in the Stormont House agreement will not be perfect and, sadly, even when they are set up, they will not provide every answer to every question. Sadly, no set of solutions that we could devise here or in Stormont could ever achieve that, but I believe that those bodies would deliver significantly better outcomes for victims and survivors than the status quo. For that reason, we will continue to pursue them with diligence and dedication.
As a result of the Stormont House and fresh start agreements, I think politics in Northern Ireland is probably more stable now than it has been over the past three years. Economically, although there was undoubtedly some heart-breaking news from Bombardier last week, it is still the case that 46,000 more people are in work compared with 2010 and the unemployment register is down by more than 40% since its peak in 2013. The fresh start agreement also takes us closer to the point where we can complete the transfer of corporation tax powers to the Executive—a move that I believe can have a transformative effect on the economy there.
As we go forward there will continue to be difficulties and challenges. I need hardly remind the House that despite some success in suppressing their activities, the threat from dissident republicans is severe and the need for vigilance is constant. We are also, of course, approaching some very sensitive centenaries—commemorations that can have very different meanings for different parts of the community. Northern Ireland has, I think, entered 2016 more positively than for some time. For our part, the Government remain determined to deliver our manifesto commitment to help build a brighter, more secure future for Northern Ireland. The Bill is intended to help that process, and I commend it to the House.
Vernon Coaker
I very much agree with my hon. Friend, and with the First Minister and others in Northern Ireland who have pointed out that, although agreement has not been reached on how to deal with the legacy issues, the PSNI, the Coroners Service for Northern Ireland and others are still required to deal with the consequences of those issues. Given that the Secretary of State has put aside money pending any agreement, surely it would be acceptable to give at least some of it to those bodies in order to reflect the continuing work that they must do in trying to investigate and resolve some of the difficulties. I think that the First Minister has made a perfectly reasonable request, and, although I know that the Secretary of State will not be able to respond to it now, I hope that she and the Minister—and, indeed, the Government as a whole—will consider it.
Mrs Villiers
May I intervene briefly to offer some assistance? The fresh start agreement makes it clear that the £150 million package to support the legacy work is linked to the establishment of the new bodies. However, we are listening carefully to representations, particularly those relating to inquests. If a credible reform package for inquests is put together, we will of course take very seriously any request for funds to support it.
Vernon Coaker
That is a helpful response. I think that everyone in the House—and, indeed, in Northern Ireland—will have heard what the Secretary of State has said, which implies that she is open to making money available both to the PSNI and to the Coroners Service. I think that that is what victims would expect. They know that it is difficult to reach an agreement on how to deal with the past—and, although the institutions, or the proposed institutions, are there, agreement has not been reached—but, at the same time, work has to be done. Given that the money is there, we would support the Secretary of State if she—or, for instance, the Treasury—estimated at any point that at least some of the money could be released to enable that work to be done as soon as possible, because I think that people in Northern Ireland would expect it to be done as soon as possible. The First Minister would have been pleased to hear what the Secretary of State has said.
The House has been in the habit of dealing with Northern Ireland legislation in one day, but we believe that that should happen only when the need is truly urgent. We supported an emergency procedure with respect to welfare reform, and I promised the Secretary of State when I resumed my current role that we would maintain a bipartisan approach based on the principle of consent. I hope that our actions have demonstrated that commitment, but I want to make it clear that in this instance we have agreed to an expedited procedure rather than an emergency process. This procedure allows us more time to consider the Bill, while still making it possible for us to secure Royal Assent before the approaching Northern Ireland elections. I assume that any necessary legislative consent motion will be forthcoming in order to ensure that measures relating to the pledge of office, the MLA undertaking, and extension of the time available for ministerial appointments are in place in time for the Assembly's return. I am told that the Northern Ireland parties themselves are keen for that to happen.
The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) made a fair and reasonable point about discussion of the legacy issues in due course. I think that anyone in Northern Ireland would expect discussion of those significant and important issues to take place by means of due process in the House, and not to be speeded up.
Dr Alasdair McDonnell (Belfast South) (SDLP)
I want to speak briefly about a number of faults or flaws in the Bill, which we certainly hope to address during its next stage.
Tackling paramilitary activity is paramount, and paramilitary activity continues to blight our society in Northern Ireland, not least in and around my constituency, where Gerard Davison and Kevin McGuigan were both ruthlessly gunned down in the past 12 months. Such events may not, thankfully, be as common as they once were, but they still happen on our streets. Those two murders are stark reminders of the paramilitary activity that persists nearly two decades after the Good Friday agreement was signed.
Throughout the talks that led to the Bill, we were clear that a whole-community approach is imperative if we are to root out paramilitary activity once and for all. Parties cannot and must not be seen to indulge in any class of paramilitary activity, in any circumstances, at any time. That should not be limited to certain groups or individuals, or to activity in certain constituencies; there should be no exclusions or opt-outs. It requires unequivocal and universal condemnation, and a united front, from all democratic parties and from all in civic society. Any vestige of paramilitary behaviour or structures is an affront to democracy, not just in Northern Ireland but anywhere else where it might exist, and should not be accepted. Furthermore, such vestiges continue to blight, obstruct and undermine every opportunity for economic recovery, which is desperately needed in Northern Ireland in the light of some of the news of the past couple of weeks.
The pledge proposed in the Bill, to be undertaken by Ministers and Members of the Legislative Assembly, is a step in the right direction, but the content of the pledge requires further scrutiny, particularly on the transition away from paramilitary activity. We in the Social Democratic and Labour party realise that ridding our society of paramilitary activity will by no means be an overnight process, but support in the transition has been allowed to become, or be seen as, a degree of tolerance of some element of paramilitary activity. That cannot be allowed any further.
The big absence in the Bill is, of course, any reference to the legacies of the past and, particularly, to issues pertaining to legacy. We have made our views clear: victims, survivors and their needs must be paramount, and vague claims about national security cannot and must not be used to prevent disclosure and block every effort to uncover truth and to establish accountability and transparency. There is no degree of honesty or integrity in that.
Northern Ireland society cannot, as some would have it, just move on and forget about the past, abandoning the hurt and the needs of victims and survivors. The wounds of the past must be healed, and the victims and survivors across our society have waited far too long. For many of them, this Bill—or another, if there is one coming, which we would like to see sooner rather than later—is the last real chance for any sort of meaningful truth or genuine justice. It is perfectly understandable that many of those people feel enormously let down by the shortfalls of not only this Bill but previous Bills. Dealing with the past and its legacy has been far too much of a piecemeal exercise. We will work to amend the Bill at the next stage, and we will work on any other Bill that may emerge. We will seek amendments on the needs of victims and survivors, and on the needs of communities that have been blighted and tortured by paramilitary activity.
We would also welcome some reference in the Bill to other issues that have been left out. We would like it to make much greater progress on dealing with flags and parading. Those things lead to disturbance and need to be addressed, as does dealing with the past and its legacy.
The Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State referred to the economy. During the Stormont House talks we discussed prosperity and the need for an overall comprehensive economic recovery strategy, or a prosperity strategy, but somehow that has been forgotten about. Corporation tax has been mentioned. The SDLP was talking about that 20 years ago and has fully supported this approach at all times in between, but corporation tax will not do everything—it is not a magic bullet, dare I say? There is a desperate need for third-level education, training, apprenticeships and skills development, to go along with propping up and developing a newer and better economy. I say to the Secretary of State that I would have been keen to have some reference in the Bill to the economy and creating a prosperity process. I know that there are issues she wishes to deal with urgently, but we need to address a dire economic situation, and attention has been drawn to that by the Bombardier situation.
Mrs Villiers
I want to provide reassurance that, like the Northern Ireland Executive, the UK Government are absolutely committed to enhancing and increasing prosperity in Northern Ireland. Our main vehicle for the work we do together is the economic pact, so the fact that the issue was not expressly referred to in the fresh start agreement does not mean the two Administrations are not working closely to bring that about.
Dr McDonnell
I thank the Secretary of State for that, and I am reassured, but I look forward to further stages of the Bill and the opportunity to flesh it out, amend it and make additions, where appropriate, to ensure that it is as comprehensive as possible and does all that we would expect it to do.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr Ben Wallace)
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), who in every debate is optimistic and positive, and it is especially welcome that in what is, effectively, another stage of the Stormont House agreement and the fresh start agreement, we find ourselves in this Second Reading with the full support of Her Majesty’s Opposition. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) and all those on the Opposition Front Bench for their continued support for making sure that we move Northern Ireland onwards to normalisation and ensure any bumps in the road that we have experienced are sorted out to allow the Northern Ireland political settlement to bed in and move forward so that the people there can take hold of the opportunities on offer.
With the leave of the House, I would like to respond to some of the points raised in the debate. I reiterate the importance of this Bill in the implementation of November’s fresh start agreement as a whole, as well as of the specific provisions, including those that give effect to the independent reporting commission and increase fiscal transparency in the Executive’s budget-setting process.
Paramilitary activity has been a blight on Northern Ireland society and is an issue which the UK Government, the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive will tackle together. The measures in this Bill will create an independent body that will report on the progress made towards ending paramilitary activity connected with Northern Ireland once and for all.
The draft budget measure achieves what was set out in the fresh start agreement, and it will ensure that the Executive cannot consider spending plans that exceed the block grant allocated from the Treasury.
Let me respond to some points raised by hon. Members. I join others in sending condolences to the family of Mark Calway, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) understands that we are here to support him and the family of Mark Calway in their loss. We are also incredibly grateful for the forensic support—if I can put it that way—that his Committee gives to Northern Ireland politics and Government policy. We know that pragmatic, forensic examination of our policies, and those of other people, will help build that trust in Northern Ireland.
I say to the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) that as a former Member of the Scottish Parliament I know the internal workings of devolution, and some measures in the Bill that the SNP supports would not necessarily have been right for it in Scotland. However, I know that the SNP supports such measures for the reasons that the hon. Lady eloquently articulated, which are to try to move Northern Ireland forward and achieve a settlement that will allow people to put the troubles behind them.
I pay tribute to the DUP. The right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) articulated his tribute to the former First Minister, without whose actions we would not be discussing this Bill today, or indeed the previous Bill. I am grateful for the support that the DUP has given to the Government throughout this process, to try to resolve some of the issues that led to that impasse last year.
I am also grateful for the positive attitude and speeches by DUP Members, and the support that they have provided to allow an LCM to be put in place swiftly. Such determination by the Executive and the First Minister to deal with those issues in Stormont means that I am incredibly optimistic about Northern Ireland and how it will progress, and I hope that the bumps that appeared in the road when I was first appointed to this post are put behind us so that we move forward, deal with the paramilitary past, and hopefully stop such things in the future. We must also grasp with both hands the opportunities and economic challenges that are presented.
I hear the issues about legacy raised by the hon. Member for Belfast South (Dr McDonnell), and we all want to solve them. In the past few weeks and months my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, the Minister for the Armed Forces and I met the Lord Chief Justice, and the Minister of Justice, the Deputy First Minister and the First Minister of Northern Ireland. Everyone is united in trying to get to a position where we can deal with the legacy of the past and move forward, and the Treasury has agreed to a package of funding—£150 million —to do that. However, we cannot just impose that £150 million on an unreformed system. We are all trying to work together to produce a long-term solution, not a short-term solution.
The phrase “national security” is often bandied about as if somehow it is being used as an unreasonable block on progress. Throughout the troubles, informers, neighbours, workmates, and ordinary members of the public helped the security forces against people who intimidated their own communities. It was not just informers; it was everybody. It was people who did not agree with violence. They might not have been Unionists; they might have been nationalists. Not only do those people deserve our protection, but we have a duty to protect them. Without their information and helpful tip-offs, without the confidentiality hotline being used, and without people in the heart of those communities saying, “We don’t stand for violence and we want an end to paramilitary bullying”, we would not have reached the end of the troubles. When people bandy around the phrase “national security” as some throwaway line, we should remember that at the heart of this is the need to protect those people and provide the duty of protection that we owe them. Without them, more blood would have been shed on the streets of Northern Ireland, and we should not forget the role that they played.
Mark Durkan
Does the Minister agree that when investigating the past, the police ombudsman has always respected such matters fully? It has never breached or compromised anybody’s interest in that regard, so surely others could be trusted to adhere to the same standard?
Mr Wallace
Everyone is entrusted with the powers that they are granted. National security does not just cover the actions of the PSNI; it covers the actions of the security services and of a range of people involved in trying to ensure that our society is safe and secure. We should remember that national security is not taken lightly. It is open to scrutiny by our Intelligence and Security Committee in this House, by the ombudsman and by the courts. The coroner and the judges often make the final decisions on many of these issues and they see the full facts, so it is important to remember that national security is about protecting life and people.
The hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Tom Elliott) is absolutely right about the financial provisions. To enable a stable and secure budget to go forward, it is incredibly important to allow everyone in the Assembly to have a role in producing a budget and delivering services for better governance and better services for the people in Northern Ireland. The extension from seven to 14 days for the appointment of Ministers is absolutely a good example of making Government work better. We are delighted that as a Government we can ensure that that is put in place.
Let me reply to the hon. Member for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan) on the definition of paramilitary and paramilitary activity. In our view, that should be left to the commission to decide. It would be hard in a piece of primary legislation to prescribe—and it is the Government’s view that it is not for us to do so—how the four commissioners and the commission should look at paramilitary activity.
I hear the comments made by the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) about paramilitaries leaving the stage. When I hear that comment, I often think I would not like to be in the green room at that time. There is no place for paramilitaries in Northern Ireland, and there never has been. We must make sure that there never is in the future.
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s support for the Bill and his observations. Of course, the independent reporting commission will also cover paramilitary activity in the south, in Ireland, and that is incredibly important. I know that the people of Ireland will take note of that. The Garda, who have been incredibly supportive over the years in ensuring that cross-border activity is countered, know that all this will be effective between the north and the south, which is something that we will focus on.
The right hon. Gentleman made a powerful point, and it is important that we should be clear about it. It was INLA, IPLO, the IRA, the UVF, the Red Hand Commando and the UDA that killed innocent people on the streets of Northern Ireland and on the mainland of the United Kingdom. No amount of innuendos, or selective leaks and salacious allegations, can change that fact. It does not wash away their guilt by trying to move it on. The narrative that has been growing is very dangerous for the history of Northern Ireland, because the reality is that it was those groups that chose to go out on nights and kill people. It was those groups that planted the bombs. We will not let the alternative narrative be planted that somehow somebody else caused it and that they were therefore not guilty of what they did. We hear that, loud and clear.
Mark Durkan
On that basis, given that these organisations need to be rightly blamed and indicted for what they did, does the Minister now regret that the British Government for so long maintained the UDA’s status as a legal organisation and consistently refused to proscribe it?
Mr Wallace
If memory serves, the UDA was proscribed in 1992. I was not in this House and I was not privy to the work of Government. In fact, in 1992 I was walking around west Belfast. As for the idea that I can condemn or support the ruling, all I know is that when I was serving in Northern Ireland, I was grateful that the UDA was proscribed. I was grateful that the UVF was proscribed, and the Red Hand Commando. Any paramilitary organisation should be proscribed. Not only should any organisation that uses fear, terror and bullying be proscribed, but the people who take part should be convicted.
To the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) I say that we in this House should not forget the SDLP’s long-standing opposition to paramilitary intimidation. Very often, the SDLP bore the brunt of that intimidation. All the parties in this House have experienced at first hand intimidation by paramilitaries, either within the communities that they represented or in the neighbouring communities that sought to keep them out. I pay tribute to that long-standing commitment to peace and the democratic process. We do not forget that, but I say again that we should not take the issues of national security lightly.
On the legacy issues, as I have said earlier, all of us are trying our best. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State regularly has meetings with the victims community to make sure they feel we are doing our best. We are going to get there. We are going to try to resolve this, and that will happen—we hope—as soon as we can all get agreement.
Vernon Coaker
May I just press the Minister once more on this issue? He mentions dealing with the legacy of the past. I asked the Secretary of State, but I want to be clear about this because a number of questions have arisen throughout this interesting and good debate. Will the Minister and the Secretary of State look again at releasing some of the funding that the Treasury and the Government have put aside for dealing with legacy issues to fund the PSNI and the coroner service to deal with some of these issues which were supposed to be dealt with by other institutions? Because of the inability to come to an agreement, the PSNI and the coroner service have been left to deal with them but not been given the resources to tackle them. Will the Minister re-examine that?
Mr Wallace
Absolutely, we will support any measures that deal with the legacy, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said. We cannot just release the money; we need all the actors on the stage to produce the solution. We need the victims, the PSNI, the courts, the Lord Chief Justice and the Executive to support the solution. If we were just to release money but nobody else was supporting the schemes or the coroners’ courts changes, for example, we would not necessarily solve the issue. We will look with all seriousness and all support at any proposals to solve the legacy issues.
The good news is that we have the Treasury’s agreement for the sum in principle, which is half the battle, as anybody who has ever been in government will know—£150 million is there. That means that the gap between getting the money and delivering it is simply a matter of getting an agreement between all the significant stakeholders in Northern Ireland. We are all determined to do that and it is one of our priorities. We are all trying to get there and we will work with all parties in Northern Ireland to try to do it.
Ms Ritchie
I referred to the split of moneys between the National Crime Agency and the PSNI. Would it be possible for the Minister to follow that up in writing to me?
Mr Wallace
I thank the hon. Lady for reminding me of something: £28 million has been allocated for tackling paramilitary activity. As far as I understand it, how that is divided is an operational decision about who needs it and where it should go. That sum has been allocated, and we think it is a step in the right direction in tackling paramilitary activity. If there is any more to tell her, I will certainly write to her.
In closing, I wish to remind the House that this Bill has the support of the Northern Ireland Executive. It will deliver on the UK Government’s commitment to the fresh start agreement and it plays a significant part in our efforts to support a stable and workable devolution settlement in Northern Ireland. I urge the House to support the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.