UUP to take more time over police reform proposals

Ulster Unionists are to take more time to decide whether to endorse the British Government’s policing reform proposals, party leader David Trimble confirmed today.

Following a meeting of the UUP’s 120-member Executive, Mr Trimble said a motion deferring a decision that the party should go on to the 19-member Policing Board was passed unanimously.

Mr Trimble said: "The resolution simply reads that this (party) Executive reaffirms its continuing rejection of the Patten Report and the leader’s determination to resolve satisfactorily with the Secretary of State a number of fundamental issues regarding the Policing Board and the Police Implementation Plan before any further decision is given by the Ulster Unionist Party to nominate its members to the Policing Board."

Mr Trimble said Ulster Unionists needed the British Government to address concerns about the effectiveness of the new police service for the North.

Several members of the Ulster Unionist Executive had expressed concern about police numbers on the streets of North Belfast during the disturbances between loyalists and republicans in interface areas over the summer.

"We have always been concerned about that in terms of whether a number of the Patten procedures will work," he said.

"A number of colleagues here today, particularly those from North Belfast, gave graphic descriptions of how during the course of this summer they felt there was not effective policing in a number of areas in North Belfast and how they felt on a number of occasions over the summer that the police were not able to deal satisfactorily with the situation.

"And obviously against that background any further changes in numbers and structures would be very worrying indeed and we feel those concerns are reinforced by the Report of Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary who have said that there is serious danger that the new arrangements would not deliver effective policing even at the point of their inception."

The UUP Executive’s decision to withhold their verdict on the implementation plan and any move to nominate members to the Policing Board means that only the Nationalist SDLP has said that it will be participating in the new structures.

The rival Democratic Unionist Party and some leading anti-Good Friday Agreement members of the UUP have urged Mr Trimble not to sign up to the Policing Board until they succeed in reforming further the police reforms.

Sinn Fein has already indicated that it is not going to take part on the Board, leaving it in direct conflict with its main nationalist rival - the SDLP.