Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Villiers]

The Government have stepped in, providing an additional £231 million to support the PSNI’s efforts in regard to national security matters. That will help across the board, assisting community policing as well. It is, however, of grave concern that the failure of Sinn Féin and the SDLP to agree on welfare reform is having an impact on the budgets of other Departments in the Northern Ireland Executive, and, sadly, that includes the PSNI.

[Mr Andrew Robathan (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

With your indulgence, Mr Speaker, let me first commend my right hon. Friend for her excellent work to secure peace and prosperity for all the people of Northern Ireland.

My right hon. Friend may recall that about three weeks ago I visited south Armagh, where is little security and where criminality runs rife despite the PSNI’s best efforts. We need the National Crime Agency in south Armagh, and in Northern Ireland as a whole. Will my right hon. Friend please put pressure on the good people of the SDLP, who are opposing that, and on Sinn Féin, which has been subsidised in the past by the very terrorists who are still running the criminality in Northern Ireland?

[Mrs Villiers]

I warmly commend my hon. Friend for all the brilliant work that he did in Northern Ireland. I also warmly welcome his successor as Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison).

I agree that NCA capability in Northern Ireland is crucial. Only recently I had a conversation with Keith Bristow, the head of the NCA, who commented that a major child protection operation had been inhibited in Northern Ireland. The NCA had had to ask the PSNI to carry out work that was being carried out by the NCA everywhere else in the United Kingdom. That put further pressure on PSNI resources, which need not happen.