Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what recent assessment she has made of loyalist paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland.

The Assessment of Paramilitary Groups published in October 2015 confirmed that all the main loyalist paramilitary groups remain in existence. It stated that the leaderships of the various groups are committed to their ceasefires but individual members continue to engage in criminality and also seek to exercise community control through unacceptable violence and intimidation.

Paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland were not justified in the past and they are not justified today. I welcome the commitments contained within the Fresh Start Agreement aimed at achieving a Northern Ireland society free from the malign impact of paramilitarism.