Patrick Finucane Report

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Every organisation—every Government—has to face up to its own history and explain what it did and why. The British Government get all sorts of criticism, but I do not think anyone can criticise us for not being incredibly open about what happened. I would also say that British-Irish relations are better today than probably at any time in the last 25 years. Getting to the truth about the past really matters, of course, but so, too, does trying to secure a peaceful future for Northern Ireland, and those relations are very important for that, and I want to build on them.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

I have met the family of Pat Finucane here in Parliament and I pay tribute to them for the dignity with which they have conducted themselves in their quest for justice. Public inquiries do not have to be over-long and over-expensive, as the Baha Mousa inquiry shows. If after reading the de Silva report the family of Pat Finucane still request a public inquiry, will the Prime Minister listen to their request?

[The Prime Minister]

I myself met the Finucane family and I will always listen to what they say, but I have to say that I think that what we have done—we have taken a very open approach, putting all the information out there in public—is the right approach and is the best way to get to the truth of what happened.

The hon. Gentleman says that public inquiries do not necessarily take a long time. I refer him to the fact that the other inquiries set up after 2004 ended up costing tens of millions of pounds. The Baha Mousa inquiry was about one individual and a number of hours spent in custody, whereas this is about an issue that has had the biggest police investigation in British history—involving three separate sets of investigations and millions of documents. There would be no concept of a short inquiry for this; it would be multi-year, multi-million pound, with absolutely no guarantee that it would get closer to the truth than this extremely open and truthful document we have in front of us.