Northern Ireland

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. I wholeheartedly agree with his thoughts in terms of the fact that rioting destroys the arguments that the protestors purport to be making. The danger of escalation is very real and the situation is very serious. As far as I know, the chief constable has not asked for additional resources but the UK Government have always stood ready to provide what Northern Ireland needs for its security. I am aware that the chief constable will be assessing the impact of these nights of violence on his resources as the year progresses.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that one of the most depressing aspects of this very sad situation is, as the chief constable of Northern Ireland said, the number of young people who are involved in these disturbances? Our difficulty, of course, as the Minister said, is that because the powers to deal with these things are mainly devolved, there is very little that we can urge the Government to do. If I were a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, I would ask the Executive whether it was time that they dealt with the tremendous disadvantage facing young people in Belfast. It has been there for years and I hope that it is not too late to deal with it. What they ought to do is bring together urgently the teachers, voluntary organisations, the police, the health service, local government and the churches to see what can be done to give the young people of the disadvantaged parts of Belfast some sense that they have a future too.

[Baroness Randerson]

I appreciate the noble Lord’s comments and I agree with him that the outstanding tragedy of recent weeks has been the incredibly young ages at which some of these people are becoming involved. One feels that they cannot fully understand what they are participating in. I agree entirely with the noble Lord that we must all redouble our efforts to deal with youth unemployment, which remains too high in Northern Ireland; to deal with low levels of educational achievement in many of the areas affected among the loyalist community; and to deal with attempts to improve the prosperity of Northern Ireland in general. That is why it is so very sad, when 2013 is a year of opportunity for investment, that this has occurred.