The Secretary of State has vowed to take fine defaulters out of prisons to make room for loyalists who refuse to give up their weapons.

Shaun Woodward said special laws allowing for legal disarmament will be renewed in February for a further year — but it will be the last opportunity.

In his strongest comments to date, he warned the UVF and UDA he will make room in prisons to jail those found to have held on to their guns.

In 2005, the IRA decommissioned its weapons, but since then loyalist groups have been slow to follow suit, prompting Mr Woodward’s latest demand for action.

“It is just not going to be an acceptable feature of a normal society that groups of people can continue holding on to weapons which maybe one day they might hand in,” he said.

“It’s my view that next February’s decommissioning order should be the last.

“It is perfectly clear what the consequences will be — there will be no legal way to decommission.”

He added: “People have got to get themselves out of the grip of the past, and I understand that, but I do not tolerate violence.

“If people want to behave in a criminal way, then they’ll be treated as criminals and they will come before the courts and will go to prison where they belong.

“And I will take the fine defaulters out of prison and create the places in prisons for these people who refuse to come to terms with what’s happened in Northern Ireland and where Northern Ireland is going.”

In spring last year the UVF announced the end of its 40-year campaign of violence. But it controversially said that while it would put weapons beyond reach of rank and file members, it would not decommission.

A wing of the UDA destroyed a small number of guns last November, but the group’s leaders have refused to decommission its weapons.

Since then Mr Woodward has warned that the legal path for decommissioning would not be in place forever, but yesterday he confirmed an effective deadline was to be introduced.