Dunmurry Police Station Attack

Sorcha Eastwood Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sorcha Eastwood (Lagan Valley) (Alliance)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the car bomb attack outside Dunmurry police station on 26 April 2026.

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Hilary Benn)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) for her question.

Shortly before 11 pm on Saturday 25 April, a vehicle was abandoned just outside the front gate of the Police Service of Northern Ireland station at Dunmurry. The vehicle had been hijacked in the Twinbrook area of west Belfast a short time before, where a gas cylinder was placed in the boot of the vehicle and the driver was ordered to drive to the police station. When he got there, the driver informed the police, who immediately and very bravely evacuated nearby homes. A number of residents, including two babies, were being taken to safety when the device exploded. I know that the thoughts of the whole House will be with all those affected—residents who had to leave their homes, the police officers who were helping with that evacuation when the device exploded, and the delivery driver, who has been through a traumatic experience. It is incredibly fortunate that nobody was killed or injured.

A similar attack on the police station in Lurgan was attempted on 30 March, when a fast food delivery driver was also hijacked by two masked men, who placed an object in the boot of the car and ordered him to drive it to Lurgan police station or be killed. Mercifully, on that occasion ammunition technical officers were able to carry out a controlled explosion. They confirmed that it was a crude but viable improvised explosive device, and the New IRA later claimed responsibility. This was a shameless and cowardly attack on the brave men and women who work so hard to keep our communities safe in Northern Ireland. Urgent investigations into both incidents are, of course, continuing and I urge anyone who has any information to contact the PSNI.

Over the decades, Northern Ireland has been transformed into a much more peaceful society. However, a very small number of people who represent no one but themselves remain determined to try to cause harm to our communities. I join with the Prime Minister and all those from across the political spectrum in Northern Ireland who have condemned what happened on Saturday, and I know the House will join me in paying tribute to the extraordinary efforts of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, led by Jon Boutcher, and to our security partners. It is their tireless work that keeps our communities safe, and this Government will continue to support those efforts as together we seek to bring to account those responsible for terrorism.

[Sorcha Eastwood]

I am sure the whole House will join me in sending a message that terrorism never succeeds—neither in the past nor in 2026. I too wish to put on record my thanks to the Police Service of Northern Ireland for the work that it does every day, keeping communities safe in the face of ongoing threats. In particular, I pay tribute to those police officers who were in Dunmurry police station on Saturday evening and who were helping to evacuate babies as the device detonated.

I also pay tribute to the officers at Lurgan police station who were there on 30 March when a viable device was driven through the front gates of the station. My thoughts are also with the two delivery drivers, one of whom was held at gunpoint as their vehicle was hijacked. It is only by the grace of God that we are not dealing with fatalities. The people who commit these acts of terrorism have no support from the decent people of Northern Ireland—they do not now, and they did not in the past. This is not representative of who we are.

National security is a reserved matter, so will the Secretary of State commit to ensuring that the PSNI is adequately resourced to deal with tackling Northern Ireland-related terrorism, along with the other categories of extreme right-wing terrorism, extreme left-wing terrorism, Islamic terrorism and those acting without ideology? Those are stated national security priorities. It is clear that the PSNI is already operating within a challenging budget, and I am sure the Government will want to ensure that it is adequately resourced to tackle this threat.

[Hilary Benn]

I join the hon. Member in her expression of thanks to the police and in her expressions of concern for all those who have been affected. As she well knows, PSNI resources are determined by the Northern Ireland Executive, but it is our job as a Government to play our part. We have given a record settlement to the Executive in the spending review last summer, and we have implemented the first increase in the additional security funding in more than a decade; it will be £130 million over three years.

I also draw attention to the fact that there is a Home Office counter-terrorism policing grant. The level of funding per head is the same as that given by the additional security funding. Northern Ireland received Barnett consequentials on top of that as a result of the announcement of the Home Office counter-terrorism policing grant. It is for the Executive to determine how much it chooses to devote to policing out of the record settlement that we give.