Lord Hay of Ballyore (DUP)

My Lords, I support this draft order extending the provisions in the Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007, which will, for a further two years until 31 July 2027, enable criminal trials to continue to be concluded without a jury in Northern Ireland if certain conditions are met. The provisions are there to protect potential jurors from intimidation and offer defendants protection from potentially biased jurors in specific cases. The extension is also informed by the security situation in Northern Ireland, including the fact that the threat level from Northern Ireland-related terrorists has remained at “substantial” since March 2024. As we know, non-jury trials take place only in exceptional circumstances. Under the old Diplock scheme, the default was a non-jury trial for certain offences. I entirely understand the Government’s reasons for wanting to extend the measures, given the circumstances in Northern Ireland; those have already been touched on. We know that, in the past weeks, we have witnessed serious violence across Northern Ireland. Police officers were seriously injured, property was attacked and were people attacked in their own homes. Let me say this clearly: the violence that we have witnessed on our streets in recent days cannot be justified and must be condemned. We have people in Northern Ireland who want to take us back to those days but we, as democrats, must resist that. The other issue I want to raise—the Minister will be aware of it—is the resourcing and funding of the PSNI. It has continued to fall over a number of years. In fact, the current budget is simply inadequate and the pressures on the service are unsustainable, certainly in the long term. The PSNI is currently running at an estimated deficit of £34 million, which is a huge amount of money, and the force requires significant financial investment over the next number of years. We know that the chief constable has touched on this issue many times because, at this moment in time, we have 3,300 police officers in Northern Ireland; the chief constable is saying that, for the police in Northern Ireland to do the job that they need to do, that figure needs to be raised to over 7,000. This can be done only by the proper resourcing of policing in Northern Ireland but that has not been the case. I appeal to the Minister and this Labour Government: if they seriously want good, effective policing across Northern Ireland, it is important that the PSNI is properly resourced.