Northern Ireland (Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan) Bill

Debate between Gavin Robinson and Jeffrey M Donaldson

Thursday 10th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

We welcome the passage of the Bill. We are a signatory, as it were, to the Stormont agreement. We want to see its implementation. Equally, we want to see the implementation of the Stormont House agreement. I echo the sentiments of the Secretary of State, particularly in relation to the bodies that will deal with the legacy issues—the historical investigations unit being prime among them.

Every day, I talk to constituents, victims and survivors in Northern Ireland. There is a deep sense of frustration on their part that the media are full of the whingeing of Sinn Féin about what the state did and what the Government did. The stark statistics speak for themselves: 90% of the killings carried out in what we call the “troubles” were carried by out terrorist organisations. Some 60% of those killings were carried out by republican terrorists. There are 3,000 unsolved murders linked to the troubles in Northern Ireland, yet we have the absurdity of scores of police officers reviewing the killings known as “Blood Sunday” in Londonderry and not a single police officer looking at the equally bloody Sunday in the constituency of the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Tom Elliott), when the Provisional IRA exploded a bomb at the cenotaph and murdered many innocent people. Today, not a single police officer is being deployed to investigate those responsible for that murder.

Looking at that situation, we can understand why ordinary people in Northern Ireland are left deeply frustrated. Ninety per cent. of killings get little or no attention, yet the focus is constantly on what the state did, constantly on what our brave soldiers did and constantly on what our brave police officers did. In many instances, the killings carried out by the state were entirely lawful and legitimate, and carried out against terrorists engaged in acts of violence and terrorism. They were often in self-defence.

We have inquests. We have investigations. We have inquiries. We have hundreds of millions of pounds spent on investigating what the state did. The innocent victims are not only not getting the attention they deserve; they have to accept—they do not accept it; “endure” is perhaps the word—a definition of “victim” that in law equates them with the perpetrators. That is something this House ought to address. There is no consensus in Northern Ireland on the definition of “victim”, and I do not think the Northern Ireland Assembly is likely to agree one in the near future. There was debate on this in the Stormont House discussions and it has been discussed at length in the past. I presented a private Member’s Bill in this House to change the definitions of victim and survivor. I tabled amendments to the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. My party has tabled an amendment to this Bill, as has the Ulster Unionist party. We still do not have a change to the definition of victim and survivor.

The hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) is right to say that this matter goes beyond the people who live in Northern Ireland. It includes many who served in Northern Ireland, and the victims of the Birmingham, Manchester, Canary Wharf, Bishopsgate and Guildford bombings. There are many instances of terrorist atrocities carried out by republican terrorists here.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

Does my right hon. Friend believe that the injustice was further compounded earlier this week, when the Legal Aid Agency refused to support the just quest of the families of the Hyde Park bombing for civil support in their pursuit against John Downey?