Police Service of Northern Ireland: Security and Data Protection Breach Debate
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Colum Eastwood
Main Page: Colum Eastwood (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Foyle)Department Debates - View all Colum Eastwood's debates with the Northern Ireland Office
Police Service of Northern Ireland: Security and Data Protection Breach
Colum Eastwood Excerpts(8 months, 1 week ago)
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Chris Heaton-Harris
I have not yet spoken to the Catholic Police Officers Guild personally, but my officials have done so on a number of occasions and I am very happy to do so. Initially, we were receiving high-level briefings from the chief constable and his senior management team, and, as I mentioned, the Cabinet Office committee that was set up was receiving and imparting information at an officer level. We are at the beginning of the process, so there is still a very long way to go. The PSNI will have to reflect on today’s news of the chief constable’s resignation. There is a lot more for the Government and the Secretary of State to do in this space, and I fully recognise that.
Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)
I think that Simon Byrne has made absolutely the right decision in resigning today, given everything that has happened in recent weeks. However, there is a much deeper and more significant problem than just one individual, and it is one about which we have been warning for years: the real crisis in the recruitment and retention of Catholic PSNI officers and staff. Does the Secretary of State agree that the best way of dealing with that crisis is to bring back 50:50 recruitment?
Chris Heaton-Harris
During a conversation I had with the hon. Gentleman last week, he talked about the Patten reforms and 50:50 recruitment, and said it had been a backward step to depart from that point. I am a great believer in the original principle of policing, in Peelism, whereby a police force reflects the community that it polices. That is how it gains its confidence. I may be mistaken, but I think I was briefed recently that there had been good levels of recruitment to the PSNI from Catholic communities, but situations such as the one we are discussing today damage the prospects of that continuing, and it is our job—the job of all of us—to ensure that that does not happen.