Rosemary Nelson Inquiry Report

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I am very grateful to the Chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee for the tone of his question. As the report makes quite clear, all the main agencies have now been changed. We are confident that the home protection scheme offers a completely different type of protection from that described in the report.

[Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I vividly recall the tragic death of Mrs Nelson, and indeed attending her funeral. It fell upon me, some years later, to set up this inquiry. The Secretary of State and my right hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Mr Woodward) were right to praise the police service in Northern Ireland for all the great work that it does, but the report is a sorry and tragic one. Does the Secretary of State not agree that ultimately, the state simply did not protect Mrs Nelson enough, and that we must learn lessons from that? The acts of omission that occurred were tragic, and they should never, ever occur again.

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question, and I pay tribute to him for his service as Secretary of State. He is absolutely right that the report makes it quite clear that there were omissions, and that if the Northern Ireland Office or the RUC had done certain things, the risk would have been reduced. However, it was also incumbent on Mrs Nelson to accept security advice at the time and ask for security help. I made it clear in my statement that I regret that those omissions meant that the risk was not reduced, but we have to face the fact that under the circumstances, it was impossible to eliminate the risk.