Bloody Sunday Inquiry

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I welcome this debate and thank the noble Lord, Lord Shutt of Greetland, for providing this House with an opportunity to have a thorough discussion of the findings of such a vital report—a report that has healed many wounds. I, too, look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven.

The Saville inquiry’s findings are not only crucial in establishing the truth of what happened on that fateful day 38 years ago but also of great consequence for the future of Northern Ireland. Many noble Lords speaking today have huge personal experience in Northern Ireland and have shown a consistent interest in its progress towards peace. I must make special mention of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, whose wonderful work with Denis Bradley in chairing the Consultative Group on the Past has been an important step in dealing with the legacy of 40 years of violence and mistrust in Northern Ireland. Like the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, I believe that we will benefit from his wise experience today.

The events of Bloody Sunday can and should never be forgotten. The findings of the Saville report were long awaited by all those affected by what happened during the course of the civil rights march in Londonderry on 30 January 1972. More important, the conclusions of the inquiry were painfully anticipated by the families of the 13 civilians who were killed by Army gunfire on that day, as they were by those who were injured. The finding of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville, that some of those killed or injured were clearly fleeing the area or going to the assistance of others who were dying is truly appalling. Conclusions that one person was shot while,

“crawling ... away from the soldiers”,

and another was shot, in all probability,

“when he was lying mortally wounded on the ground”,

are shocking and indefensible.

Bloody Sunday occurred in the context of a reignited campaign of armed violence by paramilitary groups and internment without trial by security forces policing the streets. The British Army was in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday, as it had been since the flare-up of violence in 1969, as an aid to the police service of Northern Ireland in restoring order to the city. The men and women of the British Army are, I believe, second to none. We owe an enormous debt to the work of our Armed Forces, which have played an essential role in maintaining order and achieving peace in Northern Ireland. Their record of service is justly commendable. However, the conclusions of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville, shocked us all. What happened on that day was wrong and we agreed with the Prime Minister when he said in his measured and honest Statement on 15 June that,

“you do not defend the British Army by defending the indefensible”.

He was right to say that,

“what happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/6/10; cols. 739-40.]

We welcome the full and unreserved apology from the British Government and we share that apology.

It was vital to get to the bottom of what happened on Bloody Sunday because of the impact that the events of that day had on the subsequent 30 years of violence and political unrest in the Province. It was vital and it warranted an independent judicial inquiry because of the distinct nature of who was involved in what occurred in Londonderry that day. As Tony Blair said when he announced the Bloody Sunday inquiry to the Commons in 1998:

“Bloody Sunday was different because, where the state’s own authorities are concerned, we must be as sure as we can of the truth, precisely because we pride ourselves on our democracy and respect for the law, and on the professionalism and dedication of our security forces”.—[Official Report, Commons, 29/1/98; col. 502.]

The inquiry was vital because of the shortcomings and unanswered questions left over from the Widgery inquiry. As my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton remarked in evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee in the other place, the Widgery inquiry was both,

“an unsatisfactory and unfair inquiry”.

Finally, Saville was vital for the Bloody Sunday families, as the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, suggested.

The Saville inquiry has established the truth. That is what it set out to do and its value is immeasurably large. However, from these Benches, we argue that this value can be truly realised and sustained only once certain questions have been answered. In his Statement marking the publication of the Saville inquiry, the Prime Minister told the other place that there would be,

“no more open-ended and costly inquiries into the past”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/6/10; col. 741.]

So what now of the inquiry into the death of Pat Finucane? What about the deaths of the 11 civilians at Ballymurphy in 1971, an incident where some of the soldiers on duty on the day were the same service personnel who were to be in Londonderry six months later? What about an inquiry into the Omagh bombing? To focus on the Ballymurphy case, in the context of the announcement that this is the end of the line for public inquiries, will the families find it slightly confusing that the Secretary of State recently met those who lost their loved ones at Ballymurphy? Perhaps it raised expectations of success in their call for just such an inquiry.

The noble Lord rightly spoke of the importance of reconciliation and commended the work of the Historical Enquiries Team. The purpose of the HET, a specially convened independent police team, is to try to help people bereaved by the Troubles by answering their questions and looking at each case thoroughly, with a view to bringing forward any new or remaining evidential opportunities. The HET hopes to bring a measure of closure for the families of those killed and to bring some closure on the past. The HET is looking into more than 3,000 deaths. Its budget was originally set at £34 million over seven years. The HET is half way through its case load and it has spent all its allocated money. The scale of the historical case review is unprecedented and the HET has neither the human resources nor the budget to conduct complex inquiries like the Bloody Sunday or the Billy Wright inquiries. The Government cannot rely on the underresourced HET to deal with all the remaining cases, especially any future complex inquiries. The Billy Wright inquiry cost £35 million and that was for just one incident and one death. There are cases remaining of the complexity and profile of Billy Wright and it seems clear to these Benches that the HET is not the mechanism to address them. I also remind the House that, while funding for public inquires comes from central government at Westminster, the budget of the HET is supplied by the Government at Stormont.

However, this is not a time to stand still and tell the HET how to handle its workload. The situation in Northern Ireland is peaceful, but still fragile, as recent violence has made clear. It is crucial that we build a consensus to find a process to replace inquires, if they are to be ruled out. We must find a process to deal with the complex past; we cannot shut it down.

We in this House are all agreed that Northern Ireland has made outstanding progress out of the dark days of the violence of the Troubles and we celebrate that. We can and must build on this peace, and the lessons of Saville, by addressing the needs of Northern Ireland in the round. One crucial way in which to do this is through investment in community policing. The Government must affirm their support for all communities in Northern Ireland with proper investment in the Police Service of Northern Ireland. If this does not happen, there is a very real risk that the community policing role will be taken over by dissidents. Northern Ireland is not immune from value for money, but it is a special case and should be recognised by the Government as such. The Secretary of State must win his battle with the Treasury ahead of next week’s comprehensive spending review. A large percentage of Northern Ireland’s population is employed in the public sector, but the Troubles helped to bring about this state of affairs. Private investment in Northern Ireland is possible, and is happening, but it needs help and encouragement. Northern Ireland needs to be given the means to ensure that the ends of peace are sustained. Economic support for Northern Ireland is support for the peace process itself.

The Saville report clearly states the significance of events on 30 January 1972:

“What happened on Bloody Sunday strengthened the Provisional IRA, increased nationalist resentment and hostility towards the Army and exacerbated the violent conflict of the years that followed. Bloody Sunday was a tragedy for the bereaved and the wounded, and a catastrophe for the people of Northern Ireland”.

The truth has been arrived at and, with it, some closure for the Bloody Sunday families. I am glad that my party while in government made the decision to look again at the events of Bloody Sunday and I am immensely proud of the work that we did with the parties and communities of Northern Ireland to bring a successful peace settlement to the Province. Of course, we worked with many noble Lords in this House, on the Benches opposite and from the Benches around us. Tony Blair said that the aim of the Saville inquiry was,

“to establish the truth, and to close this painful chapter once and for all”.—[Official Report, Commons, 29/1/98; col. 502.]

I hope that that is what it has done.

The value of the Saville report cannot be underestimated, but remaining questions must be answered. The Government must anticipate potential situations in Northern Ireland, must be sensitive and get to know the communities and must stick to the principles that enabled us to build, prosecute and deliver peace to Northern Ireland. I am confident that that is what they will wish to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Glentoran]

My Lords, in 1971, 496 people died in Northern Ireland, which was the highest casualty rate in any year of the Troubles. I am not as confident as everybody would appear to be about the Saville report. Throughout the 12 years that it has been going on, I sat on the Benches opposite and hassled to try to get something out of it in a reasonable length of time. I failed abjectly. However, we have been in power for only a few months, and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State got the report published and the Prime Minister made his major Statement in a very short space of time. Why that did not happen under the previous Secretary of State is anybody’s guess.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

I respectfully point out to the noble Lord and the rest of the House that the report was ready to go when the election was called. It was ready as a consequence of the actions of my Government working in tandem with the Government of the noble Lord. I fully respect the noble Lord, but I do not respect what he just said about the timing of the publication. The Prime Minister did a magnificent job with his Statement, but I take issue with the noble Lord on the timing issue.

[Lord Glentoran]

I accept what the noble Baroness says, but will attempt to correct it after a nod in this House. The reason why I am little unhappy about the report has not been mentioned. It is that a certain lawyer who was representing the Army claimed that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville, cherry-picked the evidence to help to paint the picture that he wanted,

“after 12 years and 191 million pounds to give a report which gave very clear findings even where in truth the evidence didn't support them”.

Another negative about the report is from the civil rights organisation British Irish Rights Watch. It states that what saddens it is that after all this time and all this effort very little more is known about Bloody Sunday than was known before the inquiry took place and that the report begs more questions than it answers.

That is a serious warning about the future. I accept the plight of the victims and that victims are our major concern and should be. In Northern Ireland, when we are talking about the affairs that we are talking about today, there is nothing more important than the care of victims, particularly in the past.

The world has changed. Londonderry is now a city of culture. Who could have imagined that in 1972? As the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and others said, the Prime Minister made a fantastic, emotional Statement in another place that went a long way to appeasing a large number of people in Derry. I have spoken to one or two people to whom noble Lords might not have expected me to speak, one of whom was at our party conference. He assured me that the families of Bloody Sunday victims are largely relaxed—they are unhappy and sad—and do not wish to push for prosecutions.

Where are we now? Where do we go? A lot of people have talked about where we are and where we go, but we have not had any answers yet. A lot of the press statements and other comments—I also have it from Sinn Fein—indicate that prosecutions are not being sought. There also is legal evidence of the requisites that will have to be met if prosecutions are to take place. There has to be a better than 50/50 chance of getting a conviction, which has to be in the public interest. Certainly, defence lawyers would use the 38 years, or perhaps 40 years, rule before bringing people to trial. So that rules out prosecution of the soldiers. A further fact is that if soldiers were brought to court and convicted, they would not spend a single day in jail because of past legislation and all the other things that go with it.

As far as we are concerned, prosecutions for the future are off the table as regards Bloody Sunday, even though—someone might want to stir things up—some soldiers have admitted perjury. However, they still cannot be prosecuted because, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville, said, they cannot convict themselves. Hence, that is out too. We have no possibility of any convictions, trials or prosecutions for the happenings of Bloody Sunday.

Let us return to where we go now, on which a lot of people have spoken. I agree that we have to go forward. We have to find a way of giving people some satisfaction that they know what happened. We have to do our best to ensure that the families of victims and so on are kept as well informed as possible about what happened on particular days. I do not believe that going forward with major inquiries costing millions of pounds, with the sole objective of finding some evidence to give comfort to family and friends, is a way to go.

Of the inquiries that are going on now, as is well known, the Wright inquiry found nothing. It did not even find how guns were got into the jail. Mr Wright, the father, is still as bitter, twisted and unhappy as he was before. He got no satisfaction out of that inquiry, which cost £30 million. We can go on. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, has some good examples, while I am reading out the not-very-good ones. That is where I think that we are.

In summary, I do not believe that the Saville report was a great success or that it achieved very much more than the Widgery report. The whole thing was almost a white elephant. I accept what noble Lords have said about being wise with hindsight, but that is where we are. It is very important that, following the speeches made by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney, and others, we find a Christian, solid way of going forward, and of handling these things when they happen.