Police Service of Northern Ireland: Security and Data Protection Breach

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman again for the urgent question and for the various questions he has posed. Officials in the Cabinet Office have chaired regular operational meetings—initially daily—bringing together the PSNI, Government Departments and our world-class security services to ensure that all their collective skills, including cyber-expertise, have been brought to bear in supporting the PSNI on the breach.

You will appreciate, Mr Speaker, that given your ruling on sub judice and for security reasons, I cannot comment on specific details of the response, but six individuals have been arrested by detectives investigating the breach and the criminality connected to it. Five have been released on bail to allow for further police inquiries and one has been charged with possessing documents or records likely to be useful to terrorists, and another item.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned money. The response to such a significant breach will obviously come with a cost. The UK Government are clear that security is paramount, and the focus remains on support and expertise at this point. With Northern Ireland’s policing being devolved, it is for the Department of Justice to set its budget and ensure it can fulfil its duties and responsibilities, but it still remains a fundamental responsibility of the Executive—in their absence, Northern Ireland Departments—to run a balanced and sustainable budget. Where additional funding is required, the correct process, which includes a whole host of different things, must be followed. However, I completely understand the right hon. Gentleman’s point.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

This whole episode is agonising. I want to put on record my support and sympathy for all those brave men and women of the PSNI who fear for their security and that of their families as a result. I urge the Secretary of State to do everything possible with the PSNI to ensure that documents of this sensitivity are subject to sufficient protection so that a mistake of this sort can never ever be made again.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I think that the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) referred to it in his question as a “self-inflicted” wound, and it surely was. To be frank, checks and balances should have been in place. I completely agree with my right hon. Friend, and we will do what we can to assist the PSNI and the Department of Justice, as she would expect. We keep abreast of these matters, as I hope I detailed in my answers, but this is a really significant breach. As one police officer put it to me, “When I joined the police service, I used to think when I went to work that maybe people knew what I did for a living, but now that has completely flipped—I feel that they absolutely know what I do for a living.” That has changed the psychology around the whole piece. I know that a lot more assurances need to be given for us to get to the place that my right hon. Friend wishes to get to.