National Crime Agency

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Campbell]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. The point of today’s debate is to say that, while discussions between the Chief Constable and the SDLP continue, there are 140-plus criminal gangs operating through the Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland and the UK and smuggling not millions, but tens of millions of pounds-worth of illegal drugs. Some of that activity could be prevented by the full operation of the NCA.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The situation goes even further. According to the police today, there has not been one single civil recovery of a crime asset since the NCA took over, because the PSNI does not have the surge capability to do that. We are actually losing our ability to make civil recoveries.

[Mr Campbell]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, which is a damning indictment of those who still hold back from offering support for the full implementation of the NCA. I note from recent reports that, while meetings between the police and the SDLP continue—they do not appear to have come to a satisfactory conclusion—Sinn Fein has not responded to requests from the Department of Justice for a meeting about the issue. That is the scale of the problem we face.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hanson]

May I just help my hon. Friend by saying that I am the shadow Immigration Minister? Owing to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) being elsewhere and the debate being Home Office-led, I have drawn the important straw—not the short straw—to deal with this issue today.

I will confirm that to the best of my knowledge, since I left responsibility for this area 12 months ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington and our Northern Ireland team, my hon. Friends the Members for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) and for Bury South (Mr Lewis), have been engaged with all political parties to try to resolve this issue as a matter of some urgency. We do so because 12 months ago, when the NCA began operations, David Ford was saying the same thing as he said last week. On 7 October 2013, in a report by BBC Northern Ireland, he said:

“I haven’t lost hope that we will get full political agreement that…will…see the NCA operational and discussions are ongoing to see if we can get that political agreement”.

What has been happening these past two years? If I had been Northern Ireland Minister, as I was proud to be for two years, and this had been coming down the line, I would have been driving forward with my hon. Friends the Members for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and for South Down (Ms Ritchie), with Sinn Fein Members, who do not attend the House but are still involved in discussions, and with other parties to resolve this matter, and I certainly would not have abolished the Serious Organised Crime Agency. The Crime and Courts Bill, which abolished SOCA, had its Second Reading and Committee stages two years ago and has now been in operation for a year. I would not have gone through all that without reaching agreement. I appreciate the Minister’s tone, but how urgently are he and the Northern Ireland Office working to get the parties round the table to reach an agreement on the measures Mr Ford has announced?

[Ian Paisley]

I sat on that Committee with my right hon. Friend, and we proposed that the Government set a deadline and that if the parties could not agree they implement the NCA anyway. This was subsequently raised in the Select Committee, and the Northern Ireland First Minister agreed with the strategy, yet still the Government have not pushed to deliver it.

[Mr Hanson]

It is important that the Minister respond to that point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Tomorrow, when people pick up the Belfast Telegraph and the News Letter, they will not recognise this debate. Invariably, a photograph will be published of Prime Minister’s Question Time and a packed House, and then a picture will be published of fewer than 20 Members in this debate, and people will say, “Look how uninterested the House was.” That would be a calumny, however, because this has been one of the most interesting Northern Ireland debates in recent times, and has been well attended from across the House: more than 25 Members in attendance, at most times; 16 or 17 speeches; and the same again in interventions. It has shown the wide interest among hon. Members and the drive to debate the matter properly and flush out some of the excuses we have heard regarding the NCA.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) for his presentation of the issues and for posing the important question: what good reason is there not to have the NCA operational in Northern Ireland? At the end of the debate, I think we can all truthfully say that no good reason has been presented to the House. We have heard hot air, excuses, explanations and raised voices, but no answer nailing why the NCA should not be operational in Northern Ireland. The Government need to move forward immediately, therefore, to ensure that the NCA becomes operational as quickly as possible.

The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) mentioned annex E to the St Andrews agreement, which of course contains a reference to the operation of MI5 in Northern Ireland. The excuses presented concern accountability, but let us be clear: we are talking about the operation of a significant arm of the delivery of law and order services in Northern Ireland, and there is no accountability for MI5 because it is a national issue. I know that some camouflage has been put in the window and that from time to time the Policing Board calls in the head of MI5 and questions him, but that is an informal arrangement agreed between the head of MI5 and the board; there are no formal accountability arrangements, yet every political party in Northern Ireland plays the game because they are supposed to be committed to the rule of law.

The issue of the NCA is just as important, if not more so, when it comes to dealing with everyday organised and serious crime, yet we have seen deliberate obfuscation and attempts to prevent the delivery of this service. These excuses should be set to one side immediately. Since this debate started, there will have been people trafficking, the smuggling of illicit goods—in the last year, we have had issues with illicit food products being smuggled and presented for sale across Northern Ireland—and other criminal activity, yet no serious answer has yet been given to the question: why are we not implementing the NCA in Northern Ireland? It is wrong.

As the right hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan), a former Minister, made clear, certain friends of a certain organisation appear to be benefiting from the current situation. The right hon. Gentleman, a distinguished Member of the House, would probably know, because he has just left government and I am sure papers have crossed his desk showing what is happening. If so, it is the strongest reason why the Government should implement the NCA over the heads of the Assembly and say, “You’re not up to it. You’ve had two years to play around with this. We’ve given you every opportunity.”

The opportunities were given in 2012. In September 2012, the hon. Member for Foyle asked the Secretary of State if she would undertake a comparative assessment of the compatibility of the NCA with the Patten report, and the Secretary of State came back quickly and said it was compatible. She indicated that it was reflected in the Crime and Courts Bill, maintained the primacy of the Chief Constable and provided for local accountability. If the SDLP’s questions, which it was entitled to asked, have been answered, why then does it continue to object to the NCA being put in place?

[Mr Robathan]

The hon. Gentleman knows that I agree with him, but let me correct one point. I was not basing anything I said on privileged information. I want to make that correction for the House—and for the Government, in case they pursue me late at night.

[Ian Paisley]

I wish I had not given way. There was some explaining to do outside the Chamber.

I appreciate the comments made from the Labour Front Bench. The right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) made it very clear that this issue will not threaten the peace process. No one here is going to have their bluff called on that any more. People can keep pulling that one out of the drawer and saying, “Oh, if we do not do this right, the peace process will be in crisis,” but we have got to recognise that that can no longer be used as an excuse. The objections to implementation are, as the right hon. Gentleman said, bewildering. I think that, having listened to the hon. Members for Foyle and for South Down (Ms Ritchie), Members will remain bewildered, bewitched and bedevilled that we have not yet got the answer. We wish we could have that answer. The SDLP Front-Bench spokesmen need to sign up; it has taken them more than two years to act. I hope that after today and after what some Members have taken as comforting words from the hon. Member for Foyle, we will see action as well as just words about these matters.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), the leader of our group, made it very clear in his clarion call that it is time to act. With all the discussions we have had, it is now time to see action. We deliberately proposed this debate so that the Government Front-Bench team can give us an answer: will we now see action taken on these key issues?

I was very pleased with the comments of the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, who made it clear that when it comes to accountability, we have a better deal in Northern Ireland. I want to put on record the fact that I welcome the accountability that has been achieved. I sat in the Public Bill Committee, together with the right hon. Member for Delyn and others, where we argued for additional accountability and it was achieved. The trouble is that, two years later, nothing has been done as a result, despite all the assurances having been given. When we hear the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee saying that accountability is much stronger in Northern Ireland than anywhere else in the UK and casting a jealous eye over Northern Ireland’s accountability arrangements, I think we should take that as credit for Northern Ireland and say that that sort of accountability arrangements should pertain in the rest of the United Kingdom. The arrangements for scrutinising this type of organisation are altogether better.

All of us, with the exception of two Members, indicated their support for moving forward immediately, but some of us have taken comfort from the fact that the SDLP appears to be more in tune and is now in line with history on this particular issue and not on the wrong side of history, as has often been said. Irrespective of whether we can persuade SDLP Members on these issues—the party has its own issues to address—two matters remain important.

My hon. Friends the Members for South Antrim (Dr McCrea), for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), I think, and for Upper Bann (David Simpson) put their finger on the nub of the problem, which appears to be sectarianism—an unwillingness to get over the issue of the word “national”. It appears to be as petty as that, but I hope that is not the case, because unfortunately the people who are suffering are innocent children. At the behest of these criminals, people are having their pockets robbed daily, and our country is being held to ransom. Northern Ireland has become the soft underbelly of the criminal world, which of course causes us great concern.

Even if we address those petty concerns, the objection from Sinn Fein remains. Sinn Fein has an elected mandate; it is the second largest party in Northern Ireland; it has strength in the Northern Ireland Assembly. That being the case, the Government have a stark choice to make. Do they implement over the heads of Sinn Fein, as was asked for by the First Minister in the Select Committee, and as has been asked for again in this House by the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) and others, or should they allow this to dribble on and on with countless crimes continuing to mount up? I hope that the Government will, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North said, act—and act now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Karen Bradley]

I want to be clear: I am talking about trivial examples of how we respect devolution in order to show the many ways in which devolution is respected across the United Kingdom, whether in the devolved Administrations, with the powers and competences devolved to them, or our local councils. We must all respect that, and recognise that point.

[Ian Paisley]

The Minister should be under no illusion. We have not called lightly for her to intervene. This is the only issue on which the parties have united to call for the Government to intervene. We respect the devolution settlement—we are part of it, and we helped negotiate it—but there are times when there is a logjam and the Government of our nation must act.

[Karen Bradley]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will get on to the specific points about that. I accept the points he makes, and they have been made throughout the debate, but I will get to those specific points shortly.

The consequences of not acting are potentially devastating. This is about drugs and violence on our streets, children being abused and vulnerable people defrauded. Organised criminals make money out of other people’s misery and undermine the fabric and cohesion of our communities. That threat costs the UK more than £24 billion a year, and it is not just the financial cost—it is the emotional and physical cost, and the impact on families and communities. We should not underestimate the importance of the threat.

The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) opened the debate very well and made a number of important points, some of which were followed up later. He set the scene very well and his example of drug smuggling and the co-operation required on that powerfully highlights the importance of this matter.

The shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), and I spent many happy hours in the Modern Slavery Bill Committee recently. I am pleased to say that he, like us, is supporting the motion before us today. He wanted to know what extra steps the Government are taking, and the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) and others asked about that, too, including the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). The UK Government have been fully involved in the discussions, rightly led by the Northern Ireland Justice Minister David Ford, and in developing the package and supporting the discussions. The package represents a sound proposal to enable progress and it has the Government’s full support. We remain ready to support David Ford in those discussions, including by meeting the parties if they would find that helpful. I will pass back to the Justice Minister the comments that have been made about setting deadlines.

Comments were made about whether the UK Government should legislate for the NCA in the absence of agreement, and I want to be absolutely clear. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said recently:

“Be in no doubt, it may have ‘national’ in its name but the UK Government completely accepts the crucial importance of ensuring that NCA’s operations in Northern Ireland are fully consistent with the devolution settlement.”

We have to accept that devolution settlement. That is what this Westminster Government agreed to do when that settlement was set up by the previous Government, and we must continue to respect it in order to maintain that settlement.