Disorder in Ballymena

Lord Reid of Cardowan Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that there is a responsibility on the British Government to work with police forces across the United Kingdom. That does not just include money, it is about sharing best practice and about funding that has been made available for public sector transformation works. Making sure that we are working hand in hand with the PSNI is incredibly important. The noble Lord will be as aware as I am of the ongoing comments by Jon Boutcher about the funding requirements he needs. I hope everybody is listening, but I promise the noble Lord that the Secretary of State is speaking to him regularly.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I apologise for my inadvertent failure to declare an interest when asking a question a week ago of the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, on the SDR.

As regards this particular Question, my sympathies lie entirely with the noble Baronesses, Lady O’Loan and Lady Ritchie. I fully understand the delicacy of relationships when we are dealing with a devolved institution. Nevertheless, when the PSNI is confronted with at least two major issues that are not devolved issues but UK-wide issues—legacy and counterterrorism—it seems to me that the logic of our position should be that there may be some way of supplementing the normal grants, in view of the fact that these are UK-wide issues. I know it is not easy, but I would be obliged if my noble friend was to at least seek to inject that into the conversations with the Secretary of State.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. His experiences of bringing people from across Northern Ireland together are one of the reasons we are now in the position we are with peace in Northern Ireland. We are talking about appalling disturbances in the UK but that are not of what happened during the Troubles.

With regard to legacy, I do not doubt that there will be many opportunities to discuss in your Lordships’ House how we will fund legacy going forward, though funding is in place. With regard to funding for the additional national security impact, the Chancellor announced in the other place during the spending review that, over the course of the spending review, there will be an extra £113 million allocated to the PSNI. That is direct from the United Kingdom Government and in addition to the grant that it receives from the Northern Ireland Executive.