Simpson backs police motion

The Upper Bann MP said: “This early Day Motion which my DUP colleague Gregory Campbell has tabled notes that 2010 will be the final year for the discriminatory anti-Protestant 50-50 recruitment procedure for the police.

“The DUP has consistently opposed this sectarian employment practice. I have had had quite a number of constituents from Lurgan who have been denied employment in the PSNI on what are these purely sectarian grounds.

“Employment discrimination such as this ought not to go unchallenged. It is ironic that all these years after the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement that those who have been most vociferous in their support for this employment discrimination are those who would claim to be the inheritors of it.

“The vast majority of people oppose the principle of denying a person the right to a position on the grounds of their faith. I hope that they will welcome end of this discriminatory recruiting practice.”