National Crime Agency

Lady Hermon Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Campbell]

Yes, that is indeed the case. Although that is not the primary concern, it is an additional one to that which I am about to discuss. I thank the hon. Lady for raising it.

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

Following on from the important point raised by the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long), given the absence of the wonderful and excellent Assets Recovery Agency, which used to operate in Northern Ireland but was, unfortunately, eaten up and extinguished by the Serious Organised Crime Agency, and given that the NCA does not apply to Northern Ireland, what powers of assets recovery do organisations, particularly the PSNI, have in Northern Ireland?

[Mr Campbell]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. The short answer is that those powers are extremely limited; they are virtually non-existent. I will come on to some of the issues that date back to SOCA operations, which have now been superseded by the NCA.

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[Mike Penning]

As I said, the way in which the NCA operates in the rest of the country is set out in the Crime and Courts Act 2013. The matters that are specific to Northern Ireland, to which I have just alluded, have come from the negotiations with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the work of David Ford. That is different; those sorts of understandings are quite specific and I wanted them put on the record. The issue has been debated extensively in Northern Ireland, and I want to put any fear away once and for all in this debate and address Northern Ireland’s concerns, because those issues are specific to Northern Ireland.

[Lady Hermon]

I am grateful that the Minister—an outstanding former Minister in the Northern Ireland Office—is replying to this important debate as the Minister of State for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims. Given the assurances that he has already outlined about the accountability of the National Crime Agency if it were to operate in Northern Ireland, does he agree with the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland that the Social Democratic and Labour party and Sinn Fein are being completely irresponsible? I apologise to the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) for saying this, but her party has left Northern Ireland in the position of becoming a honey pot attracting drug dealers, human traffickers and criminal gangs to that part of the United Kingdom.

[Mike Penning]

I hope that during the debate I will convince the hon. Members for South Down (Ms Ritchie) and for Foyle (Mark Durkan) that the right thing to do, with the assurances that are in place, is for their constituents and the people of Northern Ireland to take this issue on board. As I continue with my remarks I will elaborate on why it is so vital to the people of Northern Ireland to have the NCA there.

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[Mr Hanson]

I take what the right hon. Gentleman says. I have said publicly and privately to my hon. Friends that I think they need to sign up to the NCA operating in Northern Ireland. I respect their opinion. From my time in Northern Ireland I know how difficult policing issues are, and how difficult it has been over many years to get Sinn Fein and the republican movement involved in policing in Northern Ireland. The main thrust of my argument is that we are where we are and we have been where we are for some time. There is a duty of care on the Government, as well as on Justice Minister David Ford, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the political parties, to get resolution on this issue. I will quote from the Belfast Telegraph this week:

“David Ford: NCA impasse leaves children at risk of sex abuse…Justice Minister David Ford said that the PSNI is being put at a ‘distinctive disadvantage’ in the fight to keep young people safe due to the limited powers of the National Crime Agency here.”

If that were only the case now then it would still be of crucial importance, but that was the case 12 months ago.

[Lady Hermon]

rose—

[Mr Hanson]

I will give way to my hon. Friend.

[Lady Hermon]

I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and for referring to me as his hon. Friend. That is very kind of him indeed. I am very pleased, as other hon. Members will have been, to hear him publicly invite the SDLP to accept the full remit of the NCA in Northern Ireland, as well as in the rest of the United Kingdom. Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that he, as the shadow Policing Minister, and his colleague the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, have also sought and held meetings with Sinn Fein and their absentee MPs to encourage them privately—and publicly if he puts it on the record this afternoon—to accept the full capacity of the NCA in Northern Ireland?

[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?

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[Mr Hanson]

I am grateful for the support my hon. Friend gave the Opposition in that Committee, and yes he acted in a way that said he wanted the Bill to operate in Northern Ireland as well.

It is important to remember that my hon. Friends the Members for South Down and for Foyle, as well as absent Sinn Fein Members, have signed up to policing matters in the past. The proposals from David Ford would extend effective policing to tackling serious and organised crime. What extra steps can the Minister and the political parties take to get the NCA operating in Northern Ireland? He told us what happened in the past, but he did not set out a clear road map that will get us from David Ford’s proposals to an agreement to sign up to the NCA; to a legislative consent motion in the Northern Ireland Assembly; and to implementation of the relevant NCA provisions already on the statute book.

What steps are the NIO and the Home Office taking to discuss David Ford’s proposals further with the political parties? As mentioned, might they set a deadline? Occasionally, deadlines do work. We set one for the reintroduction of the Northern Ireland Assembly in the St Andrews agreement. We reached it at about one minute to 12, but reach it we did. I mean no disrespect to Northern Ireland Members, but deadlines sometimes focus minds. So is the Minister prepared to consider a timescale and possible future steps? When will the next set of talks take place between the NIO, the Home Office, the political parties and Assembly representatives? Is David Ford convening such a meeting? Will the NIO and Home Office be present? What is the timescale for concluding the discussions?

In Committee, the then Policing Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), said that the Government were

“carefully considering the part 1 provisions to see how they can best be modified to give the NCA some functionality in Northern Ireland but in a way that does not require a legislative consent motion. We will aim to introduce any necessary amendments to the Bill on Report.”––[Official Report, Crime and Courts Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2013; c. 174.]

That was on 29 January 2013 but we are no closer to implementing the NCA. I say to the Minister that we need a plan—it need not necessarily involve a deadline, but it could—so that we can see what Ministers and the parties are going to do to take this matter forward.

[Lady Hermon]

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for taking a second intervention. The right hon. Gentleman has served with distinction in Northern Ireland and he has carefully listened this afternoon to the assurances that the Policing Minister has very carefully articulated about all the additional accountability points relating to the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, so what exactly does the right hon. Gentleman expect the British Government to give away to Sinn Fein in addition to all those accountability issues? Why cannot the right hon. Gentleman simply call on Sinn Fein publicly—as he did for the SDLP—to accept the role and the total competency of the National Crime Agency in Northern Ireland?

[Mr Hanson]

I thought I had been very clear that I want the National Crime Agency to operate in Northern Ireland, in Belfast and every community represented here today on the same basis as it operates in my constituency, and as soon as possible. I have argued for that. I want Sinn Fein, along with my hon. Friends, to sign up to it as quickly as possible. The assurances given by David Ford should be subject to a positive response on those issues. I say to the hon. Lady that I am not the Government. If I were the Government, what I would be doing is looking at how to convene a meeting with the relevant parties to see if there are genuine outstanding differences, to see if resolutions on those differences can be reached, to look at what we do with the David Ford proposals and, if necessary, to look at setting a deadline against which consideration of these matters would take place. That is what I want the Government to look at and respond to. The vital point is that the National Crime Agency needs to operate in Northern Ireland to protect people from crime in Northern Ireland, as it does in Wales, Scotland and England.

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[Mr Robathan]

I do not think of Gerry Adams in the same way. In any event, we know the background of members of Sinn Fein, and we also know the background of many of the people who are operating in south Armagh. Everyone who ever served in the Army there—in fact, nearly everyone who ever served in the Army in any part of Northern Ireland—knew the name of “Slab” Murphy. Well, he is still there, and he is still up to his old crooked business. I think that he has been to jail in the past, but what is he doing with his money? That is the question we must ask. Well, some of it is going into new houses, some of it is going into Mercedes cars, and some of it is probably going into villas in Spain, but who is funding political organisations?

I must say to Ministers—or, rather, to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), who is the only Minister still in the Chamber—that I fear she will find that quite a lot of the money that used to go to the Provisional IRA is now going, through the back door, to Sinn Fein. I cannot see it going anywhere else, and I want the NCA, which deals with serious and organised crime, to go and examine that funding as well. If it is not able to do that, it damn well ought to be able to. Twenty years ago, these people were in organised gangs. They are still there, and the proceeds of crime still exist. Where is the money going? We need to be taking back those proceeds of crime.

[Lady Hermon]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Robathan]

I am trying to stick to my 10 minutes, and the hon. Lady has already said one or two things.

South Armagh is still bandit country: there is no question about that. The rule of law does not run there. We need the NCA, backed by the PSNI and by HMRC, to get down there and find out what is happening.

[Lady Hermon]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Robathan]

Oh, all right, go on.

[Lady Hermon]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Robathan]

Only because I like the hon. Lady.

[Lady Hermon]

That is extremely kind and generous of the right hon. Gentleman.

The right hon. Gentleman has referred, in very general terms, to the people of south Armagh and to “bandit” territory. I represent the people of North Down, but I have had occasion to visit, privately, families in Crossmaglen and elsewhere in south Armagh. I ask him, very gently, to put it on record that the vast majority of people in south Armagh are law-abiding, decent citizens. I am only sorry that their public representative—their Member of Parliament—does not take his seat in the House and represent them.

[Mr Robathan]

The hon. Lady is quite right, and if I gave a different impression, I apologise. Of course the overwhelming majority of people want to live with the rule of law, although why they vote for Sinn Fein is beyond me. It is the same anywhere in the world. Decent people who see crooks getting away with things are as appalled as anyone else.

I do not know where we go from here, but I think that the Government have responsibilities. I think that the Opposition have responsibilities as well. I think that all parties have responsibilities. Perhaps we should consider whether devolving policing and justice was the right thing to do if the Northern Ireland Executive are not up to dealing with this matter. That is not Government policy, because I no longer speak for the Government. However, I really do think that until the NCA operates in south Armagh and in the rest of Northern Ireland, we shall have the most huge problems with serious and organised crime.

I am glad to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe has not yet started coughing.

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[Sammy Wilson]

It is, of course, in the interests of not only the people of Northern Ireland, but the people of the whole of the United Kingdom. That is the challenge. If Sinn Fein are dancing on the head of a pin, the Government must stop pussy-footing around them and make a decision.

[Lady Hermon]

In fairness to our friends in the SDLP, would it not be very helpful if either the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) or the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) took the opportunity to intervene on the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) in order to confirm that the SDLP is courageous enough to allow the full remit of the National Crime Agency to extend to Northern Ireland without Sinn Fein? Will they confirm to the House that they have that courage, which I would like to think they do?

[Sammy Wilson]

I am coming to the end of my speech, but I would certainly be happy to give way to either of those two SDLP Members if they would like to intervene. At the end of the day, the important thing is that we get the opportunity to get proper arrangements in Northern Ireland to ensure that criminality is not rewarded. We are one year on since the start of the National Crime Agency, but the only people in Northern Ireland who are celebrating are the criminals who are escaping the long arm of the law because of this impasse.

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[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I now have to announce the result of the deferred Division on the motion in the name of Mr William Hague relating to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. The Ayes were 384 and the Noes were 18, so the Ayes have it.

[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]

[Lady Hermon]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. There are five Sinn Fein Members of this House who do not take their seats. What constitutional authority do they have? They do not speak in this Chamber and have not spoken in this debate, yet they have an effective veto over national legislation being extended to Northern Ireland.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Lady raises an interesting question, but it is not a matter for the Chair.