Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dodds]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Castlederg was very much in the news this summer. We all need to be very sensitive in dealing with the past, but a party whose Members do not take their seats in this House, Sinn Fein, organised a celebratory parade through Castlederg, at which the speaker was Gerry Kelly, a leading Sinn Fein Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly. That was seen as deeply hurtful by relatives who lost loved ones in Castlederg.

Yet we are lectured about the need to move forward. We do need to move forward in Northern Ireland, but everybody needs to move forward. Republicans and Sinn Fein—and, indeed, loyalists—cannot have it both ways: they cannot say that they are willing to move forward, but then eulogise the terrorist activities in which they engaged in the past. They cannot make a false distinction between the sordid activities of so-called dissidents today, which they say are intolerable and unacceptable, and exactly the same behaviour 30, 20 or 10 years ago, which they say was perfectly acceptable because it was by the Provisional IRA. It was all unacceptable and totally needless: it was all about inflicting pain and suffering on innocent people.

I understand what the hon. Member for Foyle is seeking to do through new clause 3, but I have concerns about the overall impression left by laying reports before Parliament. Paragraphs (c) and (d) of subsection (4) mention

“apologies that have been given by any Government or public body”.

The only reference to apologies is therefore in relation to Governments or public bodies. I understand what the hon. Gentleman has said, but that points up the difficulty here, because the clear impression that would go out is that nobody is laying reports of apologies for the 1,700 deaths by the Provisional IRA and the hundreds by loyalist paramilitaries. They would not get the same kind of attention or concentration. That issue is very live and raw in Northern Ireland today, and it needs to be addressed.

The proposals therefore have some merits in some respects, but they are flawed for the reasons that I have set out. They should be fed into the Haass process, but the House should not take them forward tonight.

[Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)]

I rise to make a short contribution in support of the new clauses tabled by me and my hon. Friends the Members for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and for Belfast South (Dr McDonnell).

We want to bring some clarity to the issue of victims and the past. There are various issues that relate to the troubles, as they are euphemistically called, which took place over 30-odd years in Northern Ireland and during which many people right across the community lost their lives. The SDLP wants to underscore the fact that murder was wrong and that those who perpetrated it were wrong to do so and were culpable in doing so. There are issues with the past that relate to victims, flags and emblems. All those matters are rightly being addressed by Richard Haass in the current talks process, which is due to be completed by the end of December. We look forward to those findings.

It is opportune that my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle has tabled the new clauses and particularly new clause 1, which relates to patterns and lessons from reports on aspects of the past. One of the critical cases happened in my constituency. I do not highlight it because six men were murdered by loyalists, but simply to illustrate a point. A police inquiry was carried out by the RUC in which the families were not really involved. They were never really asked for their opinions or asked about what happened on that night. They were always searching for the truth. There was a police ombudsman’s report into the police investigation. Both were found wanting. The police ombudsman’s report was contested because it suggested that what happened was tantamount to collusion, but it did not say that.

That report required there to be a further police investigation, which is still ongoing. The police are fact checking what they have put in their voluminous report. The senior police officers who have undertaken the investigation have told me that forensics show that some of the weapons that were used on the night of 18 June 1994 were used in other incidents in which people were killed at around the same time, which was a couple of months before both ceasefires were announced. They cannot provide their comprehensive report into Loughinisland because it relates directly to other deaths, murders, bombings and incidents.

[Naomi Long]

The hon. Lady touches on a point that I had intended to raise with the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan). At the end of an Historical Enquiries Team review of a case, it is not necessarily a closed case, but could still be an open case in which new information could lead to prosecution. Is there a risk that publishing detailed reports that imply patterns could prejudice the outcome of future prosecutions? Would that not have to be carefully managed?

[Ms Ritchie]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I do not necessarily disagree with her, but I will proceed with the point I am making.

Senior police officers have highlighted the fact that various weapons that were used in the Loughinisland incident were probably used in other incidents. That has precipitated further analysis and fact checking to establish who or what group may have perpetrated that dastardly crime. I am sure that there are patterns of activity in other incidents throughout the 35 years.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Am I right that the hon. Lady suggested that in 1994, the Royal Ulster Constabulary did not discuss what had happened with the victim’s family, or did I mishear? I would be surprised if that had happened.

[Ms Ritchie]

The RUC did not discuss the case adequately and left all six families, some of whom are directly related to me, feeling very unfulfilled. I think that that would be the best way of describing it. If the matter had been adequately addressed at the time and prosecutions had been forthcoming, we might not be in the place we are in now.

To return to new clause 1, there is a clear need for the Secretary of State to

“appoint a person or persons to prepare an analysis of findings, issues, patterns or lessons”.

In the case that I am describing, the police have said that there are patterns and lessons. The best way to deal with such matters is for somebody to document them. I believe that that is true right across the board and right across the community. I am sure that there are many similar incidents.

Given that the Minister was formerly at the Ministry of Defence, perhaps he could provide some elucidation on the Ministry of Defence files that have been held in Derbyshire and which the Historical Enquiries Team alleges it was not aware of until June or July of this year. The contents of those files could have been helpful in bringing prosecutions and in providing elucidation.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Andrew Robathan)]

I am afraid that I have no knowledge of that and that I now have no responsibility for it either.

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[Ms Ritchie]

I thank the Minister for his helpful intervention. I have received some parliamentary answers on this issue, so it is on the record. However, I am still not satisfied because I know that those files are available. I simply want to know why they were not pursued, given that they might have been helpful in bringing prosecutions. Perhaps he could pursue that with Ministers in the MOD.

In summary, the new clause is eminently sensible at this time. It could inform the debate.

[Lady Hermon]

I wonder whether the hon. Lady will take this opportunity to address a valid point that was made by the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds). How do she and her colleagues propose that the Secretary of State would appoint the person or persons who would prepare such an analysis? What criteria would be used? Would it be done by a man or a woman? Would the person be an international figure? Who do she and her colleagues have in mind?

[Ms Ritchie]

We would be happy to provide some information on that. It could be an individual, a range of individuals or a range of bodies.

Suffice it to say that we believe that this device is required in order to inform because patterns have emerged in various cases, such as in the weapons that were used, that suggest who might have been involved in carrying out murders. It is good to learn those lessons and to have them documented. The compendium of work by Anne Cadwallader, which was published several weeks ago, suggests that such a device is urgently required.

[Dr McCrea]

I have listened with interest to the speeches that have been made. New clause 1, which was proposed by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), states:

“The Secretary of State may appoint a person or persons to prepare an analysis of findings, issues, patterns or lessons from various reports in particular events of Northern Ireland’s troubled past.”

Let us be honest in saying that the past is a difficult subject. It is rightly called “Northern Ireland’s troubled past”.

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[Mr Lewis]

That is very generous of the hon. Gentleman. Eddie McGrady earned tremendous respect, not only in all parts of this House, but across the divides in Northern Ireland. He genuinely believed in peace and condemned the use of violence at every opportunity. Perhaps most of all, he will be remembered for being a great fighter for social justice and fairness.

[Ms Ritchie]

I thank my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) for their tributes. As the successor to Mr McGrady in South Down, I thank them both for their kind remarks, which I will pass on to all our colleagues but most of all to his family, who are grieving. My predecessor was a person of certain distinction and certain political intellect, and somebody whose political representation stretched right across the community.

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[Ms Ritchie]

I welcome the opportunity to speak on Third Reading. We had a good debate on Second Reading and during part of the Committee stage in this Chamber in June, and my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) took the Bill forward in Committee. Tonight we discussed further amendments on Report and now we have the Third Reading debate.

As Member of Parliament for South Down I want to thank all Members on the Front and Back Benches and across various parties for the tribute that they have paid tonight to the former hon. Member for South Down, Eddie McGrady, who passed away last Monday afternoon in Down hospital. I worked for and with Eddie for many years, and I, like other hon. Members here tonight, always found him a man of considerable integrity, hard work, dedication and commitment to all his constituents without fear or favour. He represented the true hallmarks of what a Member of Parliament should be, at a time in Northern Ireland when it was difficult to engage in that particular role because of ongoing violence, ongoing deaths, ongoing threats and the ongoing murder of many of his constituents, some of whom I have already referred to in this debate. He condemned all of those unequivocally, because he always believed that the principle of democracy must reign. He, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle and many other party members, participated faithfully in the negotiations on the Good Friday agreement, because we firmly believed that that was the pathway and the direction of travel to the resolution of our conflict, bringing about a final political settlement on the island of Ireland, espousing the relationships between Unionists and nationalists in the north, between the north and south of the island and between Britain and Ireland, which were characterised by the political institutions that were established as a result of the Good Friday agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

On behalf of my party and my SDLP colleagues in this House, I condemn the terrible and horrendous attack yet again on the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) and on her constituency office. Such attacks are an affront to the democratic process and to democracy. Again, I emphasise that this House and all Members adhere to the principle of democracy, and we want that to reign supreme. Those who carry out such acts of violence are reprehensible, and their deeds are reprehensible.

The Bill, with its 29 clauses, is being debated at a time, as the Minister said, when there has been no particular crisis in Northern Ireland. It simply reflects a movement in the democratic process in Northern Ireland. We in the SDLP—my hon. Friends the Members for Foyle, for Belfast South (Dr McDonnell) and me—would like to have enhanced the Bill with the inclusion of clauses to deal with the past, which is currently the subject of the Haass talks, bringing back the whole issue of petitions of concern to what they were meant to be under the Good Friday agreement of 1998, and the whole area of statutory duties with regard to good relations. We welcome the greater level of transparency in relation to donations and the Government’s further commitment tonight on that, which was originally brought forward by the hon. Member for Belfast East.

In Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle and I raised the issues to do with dual mandate. We asked for that area of the dual mandate to be extended to the Lords and Seanad Eireann in the Republic of Ireland, because that would be more comprehensive and would deal with the issue in a much fuller way.

In Committee, I tabled amendments on the length of the Assembly mandate, which has been referred to tonight by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon). We believe that the extension of the Assembly term from four to five years is undemocratic, because Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, who fought the election in May 2011, those Members who were elected, and those people who voted for all candidates in that election, did so for a four-year term, not a five-year term. I understand the Government’s wish for synchronisation, so that matters concur with what is happening in the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, but we in the SDLP are clear that that is a disruption to the democratic process and to the principle of democracy. On Second Reading, I referred to the mystery tour, and why that decision had been taken. When the Secretary of State, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and other organs of political activity in Northern Ireland were supporting a four-year term, why was it automatically changed to a five-year term? So far I have not received a sufficiently adequate answer to that mystery or puzzle. Perhaps the Minister will be able to elucidate that tonight.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that whatever the pros and cons of the delay of the election to the Northern Ireland Assembly, whether or not it is delayed for a year could hardly be categorised as an issue of burning interest among the people in Northern Ireland?

[Ms Ritchie]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The people of Northern Ireland fully subscribe to the principles of democracy and, I think, contrary to what he says, would be concerned about that.

In conclusion, although the political process in Northern Ireland has moved on and there is now a concentration on the social, health and economic agenda, we want to see those processes built on. We want to see total delivery for the people of Northern Ireland through the Northern Ireland Assembly. We want to see an Assembly and an Executive that are actually working for the people on all the issues that matter, rather than some of the sterile debates and decisions that have taken place in recent months.

We want the British and Irish Governments to work with the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive on energy, economic development, urban regeneration, jobs and the economy, because we all—I am sure that this applies to all parties from Northern Ireland represented here—want to see delivery for the people in relation to Treasury and fiscal matters. We want to see our tourism protected. In that regard, and in advance of the autumn statement, there is a need for VAT on tourism to complement the level it is at in the Republic of Ireland, because we do not want our tourism industry, our jobs and our economy—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order.

[Ms Ritchie]

In conclusion, after that slight detour— I am back on track, Mr Deputy Speaker—and in relation to the general principles of the Bill, we look forward to a positive solution from the Haass talks on issues relating to flags, emblems, the past and victims, some of which we would have liked to have been addressed by new clauses in the Bill, but I am pleased to have been able to participate this evening.