Northern Ireland

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Villiers]

I have discussed both matters with the Justice Minister and the Chief Constable on a number of occasions over the past few months. The Chief Constable is on record as indicating previously that he has the resources necessary to police Northern Ireland, and that is in no small part because of the £200 million that this Government allocated from the Treasury reserve to the PSNI to support its efforts to keep people in Northern Ireland safe and secure and to combat the terrorist threat. The Chief Constable has not raised resourcing with me, but I am always open to conversations about that. Indeed, I am working with him on what will happen once the four-year period of the £200 million that has already been allocated expires and on what future arrangements might be made.

On conversations with David Ford, I am always happy to listen to his concerns, and if he feels that further resource issues need to be addressed, I am happy to discuss them with him.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I commend the Secretary of State for her statement and join her in offering support to my colleague, the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long), to all her party colleagues who have endured attack, and to representatives of Sinn Fein and the DUP who have endured attack. That empathy comes from a party that has suffered attack from loyalists and republicans. Does the Secretary of State agree that no national flag, whether the Union flag or the tricolour, should be used or abused as a visual aid to sectarianism or as a partisan prop in the way that has happened all too often in the past?

Does the Secretary of State recognise that in circumstances where Northern Ireland will be moving towards having 11 new councils under a carve-up determined by Sinn Fein and the DUP, there is a danger that the whole issue of flags being determined at council level will be played out in those new council chambers in a very difficult and dangerous way? Does she further recognise that there needs to be real dialogue among all parties about how we handle and manage that situation, in relation not only to flags but to the sensitive issue of the naming of public amenities run by councils, including play spaces, which in my view should be neutral and apolitical?

[Mrs Villiers]

Given the sensitivity of issues relating to national flags, yes, one does need to be cautious in terms of how the flag is approached in political debate. Certainly, any kind of inflammatory approach to these issues is not helpful. The key lies in dialogue and learning from past successes in the peace process where many more intractable issues have been resolved and compromises have been found. There is a real opportunity for the political parties, working together, to find a resolution on this. I welcome last night’s statements from the DUP and the Ulster Unionist party that they want to start such a dialogue.