Hallett Review

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I am very keen to ensure that all hon. Members get to participate in this statement. I appreciate that the Secretary of State is giving very full answers. May I gently suggest slightly clipped and crisp questions, and crisp answers, as we do have quite a lot of business that we need to move on to?

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Does the Secretary of State recognise that although Lady Justice Hallett makes it clear at the start of her report that it is not a whitewash, it does leave a couple of black boxes in respect of Operation Rapid, not least the fact that there is little explanation as to why during that period so many cases on the list went from being “wanted” to being “not wanted”? Lady Justice Hallett gave an assurance that there was no chilling effect, but why then the frozen response on the part of the PSNI whenever it clearly realised that mistakes were made in respect to the Downey letter and why the frozen response whenever the Historical Enquiries Team indicated that it had identified possible evidence in relation to Mr Downey and offences in Northern Ireland?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Villiers]

As regards the names that came from the Irish Government, the Irish Government were involved at various points in the peace process on a number of matters, including this one. As I have said, I regret that Executive Ministers were not briefed at the time. On the prison service, it is not entirely clear how that came about, but it seems that the prison service had a number of individuals on its files who had escaped from prison, and the reason they ended up on the OTR scheme was to establish whether they needed to be sought for a return to prison. It was to clarify the position for the prison service.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Last but not least, Jim Shannon.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and her comments that she would have stopped it immediately if she had known. I am conscious of the victims; those are the people I think about. Kenneth Smith, an Ulster Defence Regiment sergeant, was killed on 10 December 1971. His killers escaped across the border. The IRA killer of Lexie Cummings walked out of court and straight across the border and has not returned. Four UDR men were killed at Ballydugan. Eight people were arrested, but none was charged. Some of those are now across the border. The murderers in the La Mon massacre at Castlereagh have also skipped across the border and have risen to prominence in business and political life in the Republic of Ireland. Will the Secretary of State tell us when she will have discussions with the Prime Minister in the Republic of Ireland to ensure that the investigations that will take place in Northern Ireland will mean that those down south who think they have escaped will be apprehended and made accountable?