Mr. David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab): This is a matter of concern to everyone in the House. In talking about normalisation, if we are asking people to live normal lives, we have to ask the police to do the same. I am worried that if the police have these powers and do not use them properly, we may end up giving people who will not recognise the police a stick to beat us over the head with.
Mr. Hain: I note my hon. Friend's general point, which is well made. The fact is, however, that the PSNI is now the most accountable and regulated force in the world, with the Policing Board, the district policing partnerships, and the police ombudsman, who is, appropriately, not known for her reticence in these matters. Apart from political oversight by this House and, in future, by a devolved Executive and Assembly, the structures of the Policing Board and the other arrangements provide important safeguards.
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3.45 p.m.
Mr. David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab): I approach the debate as someone who is interested - too interested, some would say - in Northern Ireland. Even so, I am an outside observer. We are talking about "normalisation" - a horrible word - and how far we have gone down the road to achieve it. Yesterday, some of us were in Northern Ireland for the Northern Ireland Grand Committee, including you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in your capacity as Chairman. I should like to put on record our thanks for the welcome that we received from the great people of Belfast. I was taken by the fact that there was a Christmas market outside City hall. Germans were trying to sell us sausages, and Italians were trying to sell us sweets and wine. There was a mixture of accents - as for me, English was their second language - and it took me back 15 or 20 years, when the only non-Northern Irish voices that we heard in the streets were those of Cockney or Yorkshire squaddies saying, "Show us your driver's licence or your passport. Open your car boot. Show us what is in your bag or wallet." There is a huge difference, because where there were once security posts there are now market stalls - that is the reality of so-called normalisation.
We have come a long way, but we must consider how far we have travelled on that long road, and whether the proposals in the Bill are necessary. Anyone who visits Northern Ireland will not experience any difficulty travelling around, or in undertaking daily activities such as shopping, eating and drinking. The situation is vastly different, and it is a clear sign that things have changed. We talk about normalisation but, in truth, "normality" in Northern Ireland has probably never meant what it means in the rest of Great Britain. We are looking for a new normality that accepts that we live in a globalised world with global challenges. It says that we can never return to a world in which the use of force and the fear of intimidation are the basis on which our community is built.
The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) chairs the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in an exemplary way. He is non-partisan, and has tried to provide challenges, both to the Government and to Northern Ireland politicians. I want to look at the things that we discovered in our work on security, and discuss two areas that show the progress that has been made as well as the challenge that we face. First, the Select Committee is conducting an inquiry on tourism. In early October, we went to Northern Ireland, and we have been taking evidence ever since. We saw the quality of the tourism industry that has developed in Northern Ireland, and the fantastic opportunities that are available. People from all over the world visit Northern Ireland and, by spending their money there, provide genuine hope for the future. There is a strong interest in encouraging more people to come, to stay longer and spend more money, so that we can build Northern Ireland into a place that we can all enjoy and of which everyone in the British Isles can be proud and can boast about to the rest of the world.
The other side of normalisation, as the hon. Member for South Staffordshire said, became clear in our work on organised crime. Clearly, such crime takes place in mainland Britain - there is much more than anyone wants - but in Northern Ireland there is a history of paramilitary involvement, and the worry is that people who learned their trade fighting security forces will use those lessons to intimidate ordinary people.
People trying to go about their ordinary day-to-day lives face threats and extortion. People who are trying to build houses and public service institutions are told, "You either do as you are told, or when you come to work tomorrow morning, the building won't be there. It will be damaged or destroyed." We took evidence from a gentleman who had to hand over a six-figure sum every year just to keep his buildings intact and his equipment safe. That is not the sort of world that anyone could call normal.
Smuggling of all sorts of products, from oil to soap powder, takes place. The mind-boggling variety and scale of counterfeiting shows the ingenuity of some of the people on that island and undermines the concept of normalisation. At a time when the sad events in Ipswich are to the fore, exploitation in the form of people trafficking, particularly for sex, is increasing in Northern Ireland. These are some of the issues confronting the police and the legal system there. Behind it all is the worry that terror, and the history and impact of terror, are still there. That must be borne in mind as we consider how to take forward the so-called normalisation process.
Last week the Committee had a session with the police in Northern Ireland. They gave us a run-down of what had happened in this year's marching season, which should gladden all of us in Parliament. For the first time in almost four decades, there was no need to use troops on the streets to police the marching season. That did not happen by accident. The police force, the security forces, political parties from all sides, the Parades Commission and, above all, people on the ground got together and worked out a way of bringing the almost 3,000 marches to a relatively peaceful conclusion.
On the back of that report, we also saw evidence of what happened just 12 months previously at Whiterock, where blast bombs were used, people were clearly shooting at police, and devices were found and dismantled before they could cause further harm. There is evidence of increased activity by dissident republicans, which should worry us all. We want to move from a terror-led past to a respect-driven future, but the path is not easy. The Bill reflects the great progress that has been made on that journey.
The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee met Ministers and the Attorney-General. We expressed our cross-party concern that we had not participated in the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, and we were worried about whether matters should be moving as fast as they are. We recognise that intimidation and, perhaps more important, the fear of intimidation still exist and might prevent people from coming forward. They want to do so but they are frightened that, if they do, they will not receive justice and violence will be visited on them. There are also worries that if people volunteer to sit on juries, they will not be able to do so as we in Great Britain do, and that they would not be picked for jury service in the same free and independent manner as those of us who have done jury service in this country expect to be the norm.
For that reason, most of us have said that we will support the Bill, at least in the short term. We are happy that things are moving forward and that we have come a long way, although we are convinced that there is still a long way to go. The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) may not agree, although I agree with him, that through the Bill we are putting in place an abnormal situation. We should all work as hard as possible to remove that abnormality. I know that that is the Government's intention, but anxiety has been expressed across the House today about whether, once the measure is enshrined, it will ever be removed. Non-jury trials should be seen as the exception, rather than the norm.
Hon. Members have taken a strong position on the extended powers of the Human Rights Commission. I think that it has done a good job in Northern Ireland. We all know that there was a need for it. In the time that I have been involved in Northern Ireland, there has seemed to be a "business" around human rights, and it is good to have one concentrated human rights body doing the work that needs to be done. I welcome the fact that it will be able to get into places of detention and have access to evidence.
Sammy Wilson: I note what the hon. Gentleman says about the work of the Human Rights Commission. Since prisons are already heavily regulated and inspected by inspectors of prisons, prison visitors and so on, what added value will it bring to the prison regime in Northern Ireland?
Mr. Anderson: This debate is about what is and what is not normal. The hon. Gentleman knows better than I do that this is a matter of trust. People from certain areas of Northern Ireland give the commission the trust that they do not give to other bodies. We may not like it, but they say, "I've got faith in what these people do." If it carries out an investigation that backs up the work that other agencies are doing, surely that is in everybody's interests and is the right way to move forward.
Earlier, I intervened on the Secretary of State about the extra powers for the police and the Army. I share some of the grave concerns that have been expressed. I am particularly worried that people may use this as a political ploy, and say, "You're moving the goalposts, so we cannot sign up to policing in the way that we believe we should." I have said on the record that I believe that members of Sinn Fein and any other people who want to involve themselves in democratic processes in this House or in any other democratic part of our society should support the police and the work that they do. They should work with the police irrespective of whether they like them individually or respect what they have allegedly been involved with in the past. If they want to play a part as democratic representatives, they owe it to the people they represent to be involved. I hope that the Bill does not get in the way of that.
The current situation is not normal. If we say to everybody in Northern Ireland, "We want you to act as normally, in every sense, as people in the rest of Great Britain", we have to say the same to the police and to the Army. The Secretary of State said - I will read his speech in Hansard with great interest - that there are various areas where the police and the Army are not allowed to go under the existing legislation. I would have thought they could already go to all those areas, so why insert these additional powers? I think that "pregnant" was the right term to use. We all know what we end up with when there is pregnancy in an unblessed relationship - I hope that is not so in this case.
My final point concerns the private security industry. As the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee said, it is right and proper to work with people in the industry, who work with everybody from the daft to the deadly. They need to be trained and looked after properly so that they are not exploited, but they also need to be capable of doing the job properly.
I will look with great interest at what emerges in Committee and on Report. I hope that the Bill's Third Reading will be the start of a really happy new year for everyone in Northern Ireland, and I express that sentiment to everybody in this House today.
3.59 p.m.
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