Patrick Finucane Report

Andrew Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, the campaign he has fought and the points he has made. He and his predecessors in the SDLP were right about what went wrong, and this report shows that they were right. It shows the extent to which we are prepared to open up and be clear about what happened. As for the organisations he mentions, the FRU has gone, and the RUC Special Branch has gone, so the question now is whether there is anything else to discover that this report has not discovered but a public inquiry would, and I do not believe there is.

In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s specific question about how high this went, Sir Desmond de Silva is absolutely clear that Ministers were misled and briefings were given that should not have been given, but he does not find that there was a ministerial conspiracy or ministerial order for the murder of Pat Finucane. That is very important. We now have a true picture and it is for others, including the police and the prosecuting authorities, to work out whether there is anything more that can be done.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend’s statement was full of shocking and shameful revelations. Notwithstanding the dignity and good work of the vast majority of our security services in the past, can he confirm that the oversight, scrutiny and accountability of our intelligence services today is completely different?

[The Prime Minister]

I am happy to give that assurance. I would not stand here and say it is perfect in every way. There are always improvements that we can make to the arrangements, which is why we have an Intelligence and Security Committee that scrutinises what is done and an Intelligence Services Commissioner who looks into the work that is done, but the situation has been transformed. When we read this report and think about what happened and what these agents were doing, it appears that that was a completely different world, where there does not seem to have been rules, processes, the rule of law, consideration of human rights or ministerial oversight. There were not those things that there are now.