The Federation - Conference 2008
36th ANNUAL CONFERENCEPOLICE FEDERATION FOR NORTHERN IRELAND
SPEECH BY SECRETARY OF STATE:
You talked Chairman about me being the last Secretary of State and you may know something I don't know. In one sense I obviously hope I could be the last full time Secretary of State here because of what that would mean about the process of completing devolution, but as I am going on to talk about in the course of my remarks this morning, that is a decision that we made here in Northern Ireland and by local politicians elected here in Northern Ireland.
Chairman you are indeed a forceful advocate. It's very, very clear from what you said this morning that you command the support and truly represent the feelings of everybody in this room.
It's not easy being the Secretary of State following you in a speech. In fact, I wish I could simply read out your speech, rather than the one that I've got and you will have seen me scribbling intensively in the course of your remarks this morning to try and address some of the issues which you have raised but let me just say to you at the very beginning that while as a Government we may not always agree with you we are always listening to what you and your members say and while I may not always be able to deliver what you want, when you want, in the way that you want it, never confuse that with not listening to what you are saying to me.
Because it does matter that we have this open dialogue, it does matter that it is frank and it does matter that you rightly represent the full panoply of views of your members and that's the value of living in a democracy and that's the value of living in a society in which we can talk to each other without fear or favour.
I am listening to what you say about the pay claim but let me also say in response to that, as indeed you said yourself, police officers like everybody else in this society also face the consequences of inflation and public pay like all public sector pay feeds into the inflation that we see at the moment before us. Now you know as I know that the major factors in that inflation are a consequence of rising fuel prices, the energy crisis that we face at the moment because of globalization, inflationary pressures around the world and the impact that we are seeing in the current turbulence of financial markets. Institutions that we thought could never face the kind of difficulty they are facing are now having to be helped by Government in the United States.
Now in all of this, your members both as police officers and as ordinary people living in the United Kingdom face these pressures day-in-day-out so yes we have a responsibility to listen to what you say about the pay claim and yes it must be fair but we also have to be fair to you as men and women living in a society alongside everybody else to do what we can to control inflation.
I don't have to remind this audience about what happens if a Government loses control of inflation. We saw yesterday the inflation figures announced of 4.7 per cent. That's well above where we want to see it. It's well above where it will be this time next year but the fact of the matter is that we have to act to hold down those inflationary pressures otherwise your members will pay for this and in doing so remember what happened to inflation in the early 1990s, when it hit 12 per cent.
Remember the inflation at the end of the 1970s and early 1980s was nearly 20 per cent in the United Kingdom so we have to actually have a tight control on inflation because you won't thank us if this time next year the inflationary figures look like the figures that we saw then. So we have to balance that too, it doesn't make it easier, but as you say, as a member of the Cabinet, and as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, I will do all I can for you as police officers but also people who have to live in this society.
Now yesterday the Prime Minister addressed the Assembly; he made very, very clear his support as indeed mine, for every single officer of the PSNI and the wider policing family. There is absolutely unequivocal support by the Prime Minister for every single officer of the PSNI. We owe every single officer in this Service past and present a huge debt for what they do, and they continue to do, as they represent our community, for indeed they are our police officers and they go about protecting our communities.
The Prime Minister is absolutely unequivocal in his support for you. But equally we believe that policing should in Northern Ireland be in the hands of locally elected politicians. I am grateful for the remarks that you made this morning about the importance of locally elected politicians here in Northern Ireland also listening to your views, not only on police pay, not only on the transitional allowance, not only on all the issues that affect police officers as they protect the community but also, how you also as I do, share a view that the best way we can deal with the threats facing police officers today is through politics winning and only politics winning.
Now I have heard people say that devolving policing and justice will not really make a difference. I could not disagree more. It is the difference. The difference made when Sinn Fein signed up to policing was absolutely enormous as a turning point in policing safely our communities in Northern Ireland and demonstrating as you said Chairman, that it is in deed and not just in words that the difference can be made.
The significant degree of devolution that we have already had in terms of the Policing Board, the DPPs and CSPs has made a significant difference on the ground which you all know that many of the problems that you are asked to deal with are not solely or indeed mainly policing issues, underage drinking, antisocial behaviour. It simply doesn't make sense for policy makers to have responsibility for education, health, social development and then look to me or the Minister of State Paul Goggins in Westminster to deal with policing and justice.
The commonsense of this is clear. If politicians here will make better judgments because they were elected locally about health, about education, about the issues that affect you, your families, your children, your parents, why wouldn't that also be true for policing and justice?
Now in the last few months, indeed the last few hours, we have seen a lot of speculation about when these devolution powers will be transferred to Northern Ireland and as I said at the beginning the decision remains one for the politicians here in Northern Ireland. But the Prime Minister was clear yesterday. I share his view. The Prime Minister also said it was the view of President Bush; it was also the view of the candidates one of whom will become the President of the United States next year either Senator Obama or Senator McCain that actually this is the right thing for Northern Ireland. The time is right now to transfer these powers from me to politicians elected here. It's right for policing, it's right for this Society, it's right for investment, it's right for prosperity, it's right for the continued stability for everything you stand for in Northern Ireland
In 2000 the politicians here showed courage to bring devolved Government back to Northern Ireland. The difficult decisions they took then have been vindicated. But devolution will not work if it is a la-carte. It matters that we fulfill our obligations to everyone, every community in Northern Ireland.
You do not police just a part of Northern Ireland you bravely police all of Northern Ireland. I don't think you can govern for a part of Northern Ireland you must govern for all of Northern Ireland and to help you do your job better the politicians must now do theirs.
If we fail, if we falter we will risk disillusioning a whole generation not only of the grown ups of today but the children of tomorrow. You will damage the fabric not only of the politics but of the society that everybody has worked so hard to achieve. Making devolution work was never going to be easy. Seeing the other person's point of view isn't always easy but if you want to make a relationship work you have to work at it. There isn't anybody in this room who hasn't been married for more than a few years who knows the importance of actually making it work. Take the other person for granted the relationship fails. Fail to be considerate to the other person's point of view the relationship fails. If you want it to work you have to work at it and that means talking, that means dialogue, that means the Assembly meeting, that means the Executive meeting, talking, working through your differences and finding solutions.
For those of us who have chosen politics as a way of expressing our public service, just as for you who have chosen the Police Service of Northern Ireland for your policing and expressing your public service, it's working together resolving differences that we have come into public service to do. That's our job that's what we must do. But yes there will be issues that continue to divide us but division in talking is very different from violence and conflict.
Being difficult doesn't mean impossible and the fact of the matter is nothing is impossible in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland proved that, when the public voted in a referendum ten years ago, to effectively end for good the conflict. That decision to move forward ten years ago was truly historic. At the time Senator Mitchell recognized that half of the work was reaching the agreement on which the referendums would take place; the other half of the work would be implementing, not the agreement but the spirit of the agreement, and it's that spirit that we have to now conclude if Northern Ireland is to complete its destiny.
There is a huge challenge facing local politicians as they reconcile these differences but I truly believe there is no longer any difference on the table that cannot be met and cannot be reconciled. And that is the right thing to do for the people of Northern Ireland. It is after all the politicians not me who should be responsible for delivering policing and justice. The letter to the Assembly Executive Review Committee from the First and Deputy First Minister was a significant further development and it has been followed by continuing engagement between the DUP and Sinn Fein but we do now need to move to another gear and those decisions should be made sooner rather than later because standing still is not an option. It is time for local politicians to talk to each other and agree these final issues which need to be agreed.
Now Chairman in your remarks this morning you spoke about the threats that face our police officers today and you know the interesting thing about this is actually the threats they face and the work of the politicians on policing and justice I believe are absolutely bound up hand and foot.
It is clear from the moment of the signing of the Belfast Agreement that there was a very small number of people in Northern Ireland who refused to accept there could be any change from the violence and conflict that had torn Northern Ireland apart for so long. Those people as you know went out, were responsible for the Omagh bomb, killing 29 people, two unborn children.
I remembered in August this year with other political leaders in Northern Ireland, many people here today, at that tenth memorial service in Omagh those who were killed. It was a terrible, terrible thing to have happened it had no support anywhere in the community and indeed as you know this week there was a television programme which looked at the use of some of the intercept material allegedly around at the time of the bomb and indeed may I just share with you that the Prime Minister is announcing this morning that Sir Peter Gibson, the Intelligence Service Commissioner, will review the intercepted intelligence material circulated to the Security Intelligence Agencies in relation to the Omagh bombing and how indeed it was shared. But this threat that has come forward is indeed different from the past.
You spoke Chairman this morning about the IMC Report last week about the IRA. You spoke about the fact that in that Report, an independent report, and you talk quite rightly about deeds and not just statements. What the IMC found in that Report that the Army Council was indeed redundant; that conscious decisions had been made by the leadership to allow the organisation to wither away, for military structures to be disbanded.
They also posed a central question could the IRA ever return to terrorism and they concluded no. The truth is there will not be a threat from the IRA in future. The threat comes from organisations like RIRA from CIRA the INLA and those who are still small in number but who have targeted, as you rightly referred over the last nine months, once again police officers. These people are criminals, these people are cowards. And in threatening our police officers, I believe that as a community we should stand as one, and recognise a threat against a single police officer is a threat against every single person in Northern Ireland. And yes I do acknowledge the remarks that have been said by Sinn Fein in standing up against these attacks. I do acknowledge the fact that the Deputy First Minster went to visit a police officer in hospital as quite rightly he should have done. That's absolutely right but let's not fail to acknowledge where that lies as progress here in Northern Ireland.
These attacks on police officers are an attack of a community itself, an attack on a single police officer is an attack on us all. But let's be in no doubt that those who do not want to accept what the people of this country voted for, that those who do not want to accept this Northern Ireland of peace and prosperity. For these people they will exploit the political vacuum and feed off every single small division between the politicians and use it to try and recruit young, stupid, impressionable people into their organisations.
Now we need to recognise that the vacuum that could open up in the coming months, if the politicians find it too difficult to go forward, is the only opportunity that exists for this small number of criminal organisations that remain here in Northern Ireland.
I as a politician have a duty to share with the other politicians the fact that the difficult work they must do is the best hope to close down this threat and the threat which you and your police officers are facing. For the fact of the matter is no small terrorist organisation, criminal organisation could recruit if it were unequivocal that the politics works. Politics has won in Northern Ireland. It has changed this society from one in which four thousand people lost their life because of the troubles. Politics changed that. It's our duty now to make sure that politics closes for good the door on those tragedies which affected so many people here.
Now Chairman it was in the context of this increased threat to police officers that you and others including the Chief Constable made representations to me about the phasing out of the Transitional Allowance that had been agreed back in 2006. In 2006 Mark Baker carried out a detailed comprehensive review of the Northern Ireland Transitional Allowance. One of his recommendations was that we review the payment of the allowance again next year. I did listen very, very carefully to representations made by the Chief Constable and you and others and what I decided to do was to bring forward the Review but more than that.
On Monday of this week I announced that the second part of the agreed reduction has been deferred pending the recommendations of that Review. Now I am pleased that all parties, the Police Advisory Board for Northern Ireland have agreed to the Review and that all parties have decided that John Hunter should be the person to carry it out. John is willing to take it on and is looking forward to meeting soon with the Federation and all who represent the police family to hear at first hand about policing in Northern Ireland and assess how the circumstances compare to those in which your colleagues in the rest of the UK have currently to work. John who was former Permanent Secretary of the Department of Finance and Personnel will start this review work immediately. And I have asked him to report to all of the major stake holders by March of next year.
Now we have also listened to the concerns of officers in relation to the need for further help with resources especially the need for further helicopter support which you have reiterated today. So I have listened and I agree. So today I am pleased to be able to announce the approval for the procurement of an additional Eurocopter 145 helicopter to support current surveillance capacity and ensure PSNI officers can be transported to locations in shortened periods of time.
Chairman the continued progress on the new Police College is further evidence of our commitment to the PSNI now and for the future. It is of course extraordinary and a source of huge pride for me as Secretary of State here for Northern Ireland that I see that the targets that were set by Government for increasing public confidence in policing continue to be exceeded. There is no question who makes that happen. It's not us in setting the targets, it's your officers on the ground doing the work they do and the most recent results of the Northern Ireland Crime Survey show that public confidence in the police and police accountability arrangements has increased a further six percentage points from 73 per cent in 2003 to 79 per cent this year and I can tell you that there are many MPs in Westminster and many other Chief Constables anywhere else in the United Kingdom who truly envy your outstanding figures and the work of the officers.
This means that people in Northern Ireland can truly feel well protected by those who serve them. And I have no doubt that a significant contributory factor to this growing confidence is the fact that the composition PSNI increasingly reflects, is the entire community it serves. And is increasingly seen as an integral part of the community.
Now Chairman let me turn to some of the other issues you raised. Again on police pay. I too wish that an agreed pay settlement could have been found. What was offered was a three year pay deal which would have given us the opportunity to stabilize the future for pay. Now regrettably we were unable to actually agree on that opportunity and the Home Office has recently issued a consultation paper on the most effective way to replace the Police Negotiating Board with a completely independent, non-departmental body to advise the Government on pay. I can only say that I hope everyone takes advantage of this consultation and we find a way to get it right.
Mr Chairman you raised a number of important matters surrounding the health and safety of officers and the use of less lethal weapons. I want to make it absolutely clear that decisions surrounding all aspects of operational policing are a matter and only a matter for the Chief Constable and his Operational Commanders. Operational independence from political control of a Chief Constable is a fundamental principle of UK policing and is one which I will continue to uphold.
Now I of course welcome the Health and Safety Executives Report but the Chief Constable and I agree there is a clear onus on Government and police officers involved in the decision making process to ensure that the health and safety of officers remains paramount and where there are lessons to be learned I know that the Chief Constable and his senior command team will take these on board.
In terms of Government police officers, of course, must have the necessary equipment commensurate with the level of threat from wherever it should come. So let me simply say that I continue to support the Chief Constable's decision to introduce the taser and I will always work with him to ensure that we do what is right for the officers of the PSNI.
Chairman dealing with organised crime is a major priority for the Government. I want to commend you and your colleagues for the work that you do in this difficult and dangerous field. That was indeed exemplified in the recent hugely successful international operation against organised crime involving the PSNI. This operation has removed from the scene a key organised crime gang responsible for the supply of firearms and drugs to criminals across Ireland and further afield.
Now in Northern Ireland we have a unique response to organised crime with the Organised Crime Task Force. Since the OCTF was established in 2000 a high level of trust and respect has been developed between partner organisations and the community. It is an extraordinarily effective example of cooperation, sharing information and jointly working by a range of operationally independent agencies from across both the public and the private sectors. That is no mean achievement and I am proud and supportive of the work that the OCTF does under the Chairmanship of Minister of State Paul Goggins.
We in Government, will continue to do our part, to ensure that those fighting organised crime have our support and the necessary legislative framework against which you can do your work. And that is why we will further enhance the powers available to enforcement agencies in the forthcoming Policing and Crime Reduction Bill. That should make it easier to remove from criminals the proceeds of their crime and indeed I was particularly pleased that in May of this year the first serious Crime Prevention Orders in the UK were handed down in the case involving fuel smugglers here in Northern Ireland. We should see more of these Orders to limit the activity that these criminals can engage in.
We are Chairman fraternal delegates all in this together - Central government, devolved government, Policing Board, PSNI the wider community. There is no simple separation of the peace process and the political process from policing.
For if ever the peace process the political process were to break down I know and you know it would be those brave men and women of the PSNI who would be out there defending the community regardless of the failure of the politics in that community. And those are also the police officers who live as ordinary men and women in this Society, They too in every sense would face the consequences if solutions cannot be found to the divisions that remain in our politics.
That is why the PSNI in every sense is not separate from the peace process or the political process but is at the heart of the processes that we currently are working through. You have been a crucial part of making the progress and being the progress itself. We now need to complete this progress for you because it is in the interests of everyone that we do so. It isn't therefore a goal of the politicians to complete the political process. It's the only way for Northern Ireland to live at peace with itself. It's the only way for this Society here in Northern Ireland, for every family of every police officer, to also be able to enjoy the peace and prosperity that's been enjoyed everywhere else in the United Kingdom when Northern Ireland was torn apart.
For all you and all of your officers have done on behalf of the Government I thank you and for all that we still ask you to do and in the hope that we will soon manage to achieve the completion of devolution I again thank you. You are central to this progress you are this progress and for you I want to achieve the progress to complete devolution.
Thank you
