Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

I will be rather briefer, I hope, than the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), although of course he took several lengthy interventions. I give my broad support to the Bill, but as the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins), knows full well, I have reservations about it, some of which members of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee share. I do not know whether the Committee members share all my reservations because we have not discussed the Bill in great detail. That is my first objection. There was not the need for hurry on the Bill that the Secretary of State suggested—it could have been introduced next year. I would have preferred it to have been introduced after we had seen the Assembly re-established in Northern Ireland and working properly. That could have been done, although the Secretary of State had the right to take the decision that he made. I also would have preferred the Bill to have been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny; many of the points raised in interventions have underlined the wisdom of that course. I intervened on the Secretary of State to say that there was unanimity in the Committee on the principle of the need, reluctantly, to continue to hold certain trials without juries. Indeed, that was one of the recommendations that were made in our report on organised crime in July. Equally, however, although I was grateful that the Secretary of State and the Attorney-General met the Committee and discussed these matters with us, the Secretary of State knows that I would have preferred the ultimate decision to have rested with the Attorney-General. That is not the same as what others have advocated—that the judge should have the final say—but I believe that the First Law Officer of the Crown would have been an appropriate person. I trust that those points can be debated in greater detail in Committee and put to the test. Regardless of where we sit in the House, I think that we are all waiting anxiously to find out what will happen in the first two months of next year. I was glad that the hon. Member for Foyle made this point about Sinn Fein: whatever hang-ups or reservations Sinn Fein might have about the devolution of policing and justice, that should not prevent it from signing up to the police aspects now. He made that point unequivocally and I am grateful that he did so.