Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

I will be very happy to write to the hon. Gentleman about his more detailed second question. On his first question, all the accountabilities that exist in respect of the police in Northern Ireland remain regardless of whether the police officer is working with the security service. If they are working with the security services, that fact changes nothing in terms of accountability. I wish to say a few things about the measures in the Bill for the greater regulation of the private security industry. That has been recommended by the Independent Monitoring Commission and it is an important part of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee report on organised crime. It is also clear to me from my meetings and discussions with members of the private security industry in Northern Ireland that they would also welcome that. We must tackle head-on matters such as organised crime and extortion because otherwise they will have a tendency to undermine communities in Northern Ireland and we cannot allow that to happen, not least because of the connections with paramilitary activity. In essence, what the Bill provides is a switch from the present arrangements whereby individual companies are offered a licence by the Secretary of State unless he has evidence to suggest that they are involved in paramilitary activity to one in which individual workers will have to have their own licence. Such licences will be given only where people have undergone appropriate levels of training and criminal record checks have been done on them. We cannot move immediately to that system of individual licensing, which is why we have some intermediate arrangements. We intend to extend the current arrangements so that the Secretary of State will still give licences to individual companies, but we are widening the criteria so that he can deny them a licence or place conditions on them not only if he suspects that they are involved in paramilitary activity, but if he believes that they are involved in any form of criminality. In due course, we will move to a situation where the Security Industry Authority, which already operates in England and Wales, will operate from next door in Scotland, too, and we hope that soon after it will operate in Northern Ireland. We want to move to an arrangement in which it oversees the regulation and licensing of the private security industry there. That will be very welcome. It will add enormously to security, and it will produce more opportunities for the private security industry in Northern Ireland which will be welcome, too. Most importantly, it will help us to drive out criminality from within the communities of Northern Ireland. This has been an important debate. Policing and justice is, and will remain, the key issue in Northern Ireland. All parties must support policing and the rule of law and every citizen should play their part by reporting crime to the police. But the police and the justice system still need to function in face of the threats that remain. The powers that we are giving in this Bill will enable the forces of law and order to do that. I commend the Bill to the House. Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read a Second time.