Stormont House Agreement: Implementation

Danny Kinahan Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

As a former Minister in the Northern Ireland Office, the hon. Gentleman worked with me and others on such legacy issues, so he is well aware of the background to the situation. He is absolutely right. Earlier in the main Chamber, some of our colleagues made the point about what impact this might have on our ability to recruit men and women into our armed forces today. Would not a young 18-year-old looking at a career in our armed forces think twice about serving a country that might let them end up in the dock, simply for doing the job and protecting the community? That is a huge question that we need to ask of the Government. What is going on?

[Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on bringing the debate forward and on making his points so powerfully. Does he agree that evidence that is 20, 30 or 40 years old will be hard to rely on? We should be putting cases away unless there is new evidence. What really bothered me was that when I met a member of the police the other day, he said, “There are new ways of looking at evidence.” If there are new ways of looking at evidence, there is a threat that we will look at everything again. We simply cannot do that. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree?

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, himself a veteran, for his intervention.

Let me remind hon. Members of the price that our security forces paid in Northern Ireland for the service that they provided to our country: 520 Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force regulars, reserves and veterans murdered by terrorists; 243 from the Ulster Defence Regiment and Royal Irish Regiment, or their veterans murdered by terrorists; 325 from the Royal Ulster Constabulary or other constabularies throughout the United Kingdom and retired police murdered by terrorists; and 26 prison officers and former prison officers murdered by terrorists. That is more than 1,100 men and women in the service of the Crown who were murdered by terrorists, alongside countless others seriously injured and left to bear the mental and physical scars of that reign of terror. That is the legacy of the service provided by the men and women of our armed forces and police services in Northern Ireland.

Evidently, little effort has been made to bring to justice those responsible for those heinous crimes. I repeat, because it bears repeating: 90% of the deaths in the Northern Ireland were not caused by the Army, the police or anyone connected with the Crown; they were carried out by illegal terrorist organisations. Yet where is the pursuit of those people? The victims of these crimes cry out for justice. Where is the justice for them?

The Chief Constable, in fairness to him, established the Historical Enquiries Team, which was tasked with re-examining all the unsolved murders connected with the troubles in Northern Ireland. To a certain extent, that was a paper exercise. The team’s only remit was to review the previous police investigations; it did not have police powers to pursue investigations. When that team was wound up, its role passed to the legacy investigation branch of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which is where it currently sits. The reality today is that 90% of the resources of the legacy investigation branch—I stand open to challenge on this—are devoted to investigating 10% of the deaths during the troubles, and 10% of its resources are devoted to investigating 90% of the deaths. Where is the equity in that? Where is the fairness in a system that produces such a result?

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

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that many people who died in the troubles—all murders and killings were wrong—who were not members of the armed forces were innocent civilians? I can think of many of my own constituents. Will he relate that to the Stormont House agreement, which this debate is supposed to be about?

[Danny Kinahan]

rose—

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I will take one final intervention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Kinahan]

I just want to make the point that Corporal Major Hutchings, whom we heard about earlier, was today refused bail to go on a cruise with his wife so that his health could get better. That shows the lopsided nature of what is going on.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that further intervention. The hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) is absolutely right about the murder of the innocent. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) said, republicans are trying to rewrite the history of the troubles. They want to portray the security forces as the bad guys, and they want to be portrayed on the side of good. But let me be clear: whether it was the massacre at Kingsmill, McGurk’s bar, La Mon, Belfast’s Bloody Friday, the M62 bombings, Birmingham, Narrow Water, Droppin’ Well, the Grand Hotel in Brighton, Newry police station, Enniskillen war memorial, Ballygawley, Shankill Road, Greysteel, Loughinisland in the South Down constituency, Canary Wharf or Omagh, no one can ever sanitise the horror, the inhumanity and the sickening murderous depravity of those acts of terrorism. They cannot rewrite the history of what they did to the people of Northern Ireland and others.

Two years ago, we reached an agreement in Stormont about the legacy issues and several new institutions were proposed, including an historical investigations unit that would have full police powers to revisit the unsolved murders. The main impact of the establishment of that unit would be that the murders committed by the terrorists would finally be subjected to proper scrutiny and reinvestigation, and the innocent victims that the hon. Member for South Down referred to would have the opportunity to have their cases re-examined to see whether there was the prospect of prosecution and people being brought to justice. I accept the point that the hon. Member for South Antrim made about getting evidence for cases from so long ago.

The Stormont House agreement is there. There is currently an impasse between Sinn Féin and the Government on national security. Sinn Féin are demanding that this Government fully disclose in the public domain everything that happened, which would mean that if the Special Air Service had carried out an operation in Loughgall and shot members of the Provisional IRA who were exploding a bomb outside a police station, all that the SAS did—all the rationale, all its modus operandi and all the military planning that went into that operation—would be out in the public domain. How could we ever counter terrorism again if we put in the public domain the very methods that we use to detect what is happening and safeguard life? It is a nonsense that a former terrorist organisation should have the right to demand that a lawful Government put that information in the public domain.

The Government must hold the line on national security; further, they should act now. They need to proceed with the Stormont House agreement. They need to implement the historical investigations unit. We have waited long enough. It has been two years since the agreement. Why are we allowing Sinn Féin a veto over the investigation of the murder of innocent people, soldiers and police officers? We owe this to those people and their families. I urge the Minister: please, let’s get on with it. Let’s do the right thing. Let’s investigate these murders. Let’s give the people the opportunity for justice.