Debate contribution: Policing Resources

Debate contribution by Mr Mark Durkan on 9 September 2024.

MLA

Mr Mark Durkan

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

9 September 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Policing Resources

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4511630

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I welcome the opportunity for the Assembly to discuss and debate the hugely important issue of policing resources. I declare an interest as a member of the Policing Board. Recent events have laid bare and made worse the dire budgetary situation in which the PSNI finds itself. For years, we have read the reports and heard the warnings, although some of us may have chosen not to hear them. Now, however, everyone sees and feels the effects and impact of sustained underinvestment in policing. Whether for the policing of racially motivated rioting in Belfast or of recreational rioting masquerading as republicanism in Derry, reinforcements from elsewhere on these islands have been required. Our Police Service has had to request assistance, through mutual aid, to restore and maintain order on our streets and to protect people and property. Our thoughts are with the officers injured during the disorder, and we wish them swift and full recoveries. Our thoughts are also with their colleagues, who are under-resourced, overstretched and at constant risk of attack, injury or even worse, as they do their job every day and night to protect and serve the community. It is not only in the highly trained public order crews that we do not have as many officers as we need; successive deficit Budgets have ensured that that is the case across the Police Service. We see cuts to neighbourhood policing, making areas feel less safe, and cuts to traffic policing, making our roads less safe. Response times to calls are getting slower, and investigations have to be prioritised against one another and are taking longer. That undermines not just the efforts of good police officers but the community's confidence in policing. In some areas, that confidence has been hard won. In other areas, including my constituency, there is still a long way to go to build confidence in the new beginning to policing, and that will be 100 times harder if we end up with a Police Service that can barely perform its basic functions because of budgetary shortfalls. In some areas, there remains antipathy and downright opposition to policing, despite the progress that has been made. The hangover from historical issues — the legacy of some negative actions by the RUC during the conflict — has not been shaken off, and there are criminal paramilitary organisations that are only too happy to exploit that. It is made much easier for them to do that if and when the police are not able to respond to ordinary everyday calls about burglaries, antisocial behaviour and road traffic collisions.

While the bleak budgetary landscape of the PSNI is often proffered as an explanation, it sometimes feels to people like more of an excuse. It allows those with alternative, sometimes less-than-honourable, motives to portray the police as uncaring and for them to try to assume the mantle of protectors of the community themselves. It is not just good people and victims of crime who will notice a reduced police presence and a reduced capacity to respond to calls; the bad guys will too. We cannot leave communities vulnerable and people prey to the coercive control of criminal organisations. Therefore, it is not just obvious but essential that we come together and work together to support every effort and initiative to attract extra funding from whomever or wherever we might get it.

I thank the Member for that intervention. I think that the Justice Minister addressed or attempted to address some of those issues and will do so again later in today's debate, but I understand where he is coming from. We understand and support the efforts of the Executive to extract further and fairer budget settlements from Whitehall. The holes in our Budget, be they for policing, health, education or housing, did not appear overnight. We will not be found wanting in pushing the UK Government to fill those holes, which they have been leaving us with for years. However, the Chief Constable obviously felt that the case that he and his predecessor had been making to the Executive for policing was either not being listened to or not landing. His decision to go straight to the Prime Minister was, I assume, borne out of frustration and sheer desperation. Who better to outline the stark realities of the state of policing and the stark danger of not giving the PSNI not just the funding that it wants but the funding that it needs to protect life and property, preserve law and order and prevent the commission of offences? He should be supported, not silenced. As our amendment states, we disagree with the rebuke that he received, including its tone and timing. While the letter bore the signature of a senior civil servant, it is hard not to suspect that, despite the Minister's very recent assurances, it had the fingerprints of maybe more than one Minister on it. Our amendment removes the call on the Justice Minister to apologise. It is not that we do not think that she has questions to answer. In fairness to the Minister, she has answered some of them already, and I am sure that she will answer more as the debate proceeds. However, we are not going to use the issue to score political points. It is far too important for that. This is something that we should be united on, not divided on. Our focus should be on getting more resources, growing police numbers and working together with the Executive, the UK Government, the PSNI and the Policing Board to do so. We need to make good and go beyond the pledges in 'New Decade, New Approach' and the promise of Patten in terms not only of police numbers but of the representativeness and effectiveness of the Police Service. There is a lot of work for us to get on with. Let us get on with it.

983 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:58 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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