Northern Ireland: Murder of Lyra McKee

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

The hon. Lady speaks incredibly powerfully. There have been some wonderfully moving contributions and hers is certainly one of those. I am sure that Lyra’s family and friends will have heard her condolences. I am happy to pass on personally those condolences as I will be at the funeral tomorrow. About her comments and her quoting of the Pope, “Murder is murder is murder”—absolutely.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

Lyra spoke about the dividends of peace not being shared. She was talking, I believe, about communities such as the one in which she was standing when she was so cruelly murdered. Does the Secretary of State accept—I know that she does not want to get into the restoration of the Assembly tonight—that if we are not going to see a restoration of devolution, she will have to find some other way, perhaps, of intervening, supporting and making a change in communities where young men are being raised to believe that those active in the troubles were heroes?

[Karen Bradley]

I am determined that we will see devolution restored because it is the right thing for Northern Ireland and the right thing for the people of Northern Ireland. I absolutely agree with the sentiments and the comments of the hon. Lady about the young people in those communities in Northern Ireland. She is right to say that those communities have been unable to benefit from the economic prosperity that we have seen in Northern Ireland largely because of how the dissidents behave and how they oppress that community. We need to see an end to it.