Armed Forces: Historical Cases

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Although the IRA did not win the war in Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin is trying to win the propaganda war and rewrite the history of the troubles. Let me absolutely clear that, for our part, it will not be allowed to rewrite the history of the troubles in Northern Ireland.

As I have said, it is evident that the current resources devoted to legacy investigations are heavily skewed towards investigating what the police and the Army did, and that not enough is being done to address what the terrorists did, despite the fact that they were responsible for more than 90% of the deaths in Northern Ireland and other parts of the UK. It is wrong that the full powers and finances of the state are devoted to prosecuting the men and women who stood on the frontline in the most difficult of circumstances to defend the entire community and uphold the rule of law.

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

My right hon. Friend is delivering a powerful speech. A number of veterans groups have been organising events over the past few weeks to highlight the problems that we are highlighting today. One group attempted to organise a peaceful demonstration and the peaceful laying of a wreath in Londonderry only a couple of weeks ago, but it was forced to cancel as a result of threats from dissident organisations. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that compounds the problems that he is highlighting today in Parliament?

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

There are some in Northern Ireland who talk much about respect, equality and discrimination; yet the same people were silent when it came to the violent threats made against some veterans who simply wanted to exercise their civil liberty to march to the Cenotaph in Londonderry and lay a wreath in remembrance of their comrades—some respect and equality there. Some people in Northern Ireland politics speak with forked tongue.

When we add to all these things the fact that legacy inquests and investigations by the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland are laying bare the modus operandi of the counter-terrorism operations by the Army and the police that brought the terrorists in Northern Ireland to their knees and helped to secure the relative degree of peace that we enjoy today, we should all be concerned. Our national security and the security of every UK citizen is put at risk when we allow the operations of the security forces to be exposed in this way through the legal system. We must bear in mind that there is a continuing threat. A police officer was targeted by Republican terrorists in County Londonderry yesterday, and another was shot while in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North. That terrorist threat remains, yet we are exposing how the security forces counter that violent extremism and terrorism. We can be sure that putting soldiers and police officers in the dock while the terrorists walk free is an expediency that will cost us dear in years to come if we do not do something about it now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Pound]

A year, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says.

Far be it from me to further impugn the reputation of Chris Huhne, but the temptation is there, and it cannot be denied that he was the Minister who came up with the idea. I have to say that those of us here have our own share of responsibility for not making more of an issue of it at the time. I think we can begin to understand why it was so attractive in Stormont at that time. I also see from today’s Times that Mr Huhne is now the European chairman of

“a US supplier of wood pellets.”

I leave those words hanging in the air, slowly smouldering in the Drax power station, as tons and tons of Canadian forest are chipped up, pelleted and brought over here.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the revelation in today’s Times, outlandish as it might seem, has not led to a crisis of government here and has not led to in-depth investigation teams at the BBC trying to establish guilt before any investigation has taken place? For whatever reason, some broadcasters seem to have double standards when dealing with the waste of public money.

[Stephen Pound]

Oh, Madam Deputy Speaker, how tempting it would be to follow the hon. Gentleman down the primrose path towards which he leads the innocent parliamentarian, but I have known him for longer than both he and I have been in this House and am able, on this occasion, to resist his blandishments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dodds]

May I also, most importantly, pay tribute to the members of our security forces—those who have served and those who continue to serve? As the Member for Belfast North, I am only too well aware of the enormous sacrifice made over the years by the members of the security forces in protecting life and limb and property in my constituency and across Northern Ireland. The recent example where a police officer was injured—thankfully, not seriously—in my constituency and what happened just the other day in County Londonderry, which has been referred to, show the continuing risks that members of our security forces face in the service of us all, and they deserve our admiration, pride and grateful thanks.

How we deal with legacy issues in Northern Ireland is important for innocent victims and their families first and foremost, but it has a deeper significance. How we respond to current feelings—they have been highlighted at length thus far—in the process will reflect our commitment to fairness and justice right across the United Kingdom, and there is a very real view and perception that those who defended our communities from attack are being investigated disproportionately and with greater zeal than those who brought terror to our land.

The facts bear that out; it is not just a perception. It has been amply demonstrated in the contributions thus far that there is substance to that perception. Many of our armed forces veterans have heard a knock on the door early in the morning and been hauled in by police for interrogation about events that took place many years ago. We have heard examples from Conservative Members of exactly that having happened—houses being invaded and searched, and reputations tarnished. We on the DUP Benches are not prepared to stand back and see those who have bravely served the people of Northern Ireland and the people of this country generally in their darkest hour be hounded and unfairly vilified.

We believe that investigations into historical cases must be balanced and proportionate. It is wrong that our former members of the security forces are subject to a different set of rules from those who sought to do them and us harm. My right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley has set out how the provisions of the Belfast agreement gave special dispensation and special measures for paramilitaries and those who have been imprisoned but did nothing for our security forces. That is wrong.

Operation Banner was the longest military deployment in British history. More than 250,000 men and women served in the armed forces and in the Royal Ulster Constabulary during that time. It is right to emphasise the fact that more than 7,000 awards for bravery were made, and that more than 1,100 security service personnel were murdered in the course of their duties, with countless others bearing mental and physical scars from those days. Without their dedication to making people safe, as the Secretary of State rightly said, and without their sacrifice, terrorism would not have been defeated and the roots of peace could not have taken hold to get us to where we are today. Flawed and difficult as it is, we are in a much better place as a result of the work and sacrifices of our security forces. They defended us, and we must defend them. We must never forget that paramilitary terrorists, republican and loyalist, were responsible for some 90% of the deaths during the so-called troubles.

The way in which we address the legacy must reflect what actually happened. No one on these Benches is saying that people are above the law. The actions of the security forces must be held to the highest levels of professionalism and must of course be properly investigated. In saying that, we must also remember the difficult context in which people in the security forces and the police were operating at the time. They were operating in a climate of fear and terror created by terrorists who went out of their way to target and murder not only innocent civilians but detectives and others who were involved in investigating crime. Moreover, policing practices across the United Kingdom were far removed from those used today. To suggest that misconduct was rife is a deliberate distortion. It is a narrative of the troubles that is not justified by the facts, and we in this House must reject such revisionism. The hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) said earlier that there was a danger of the past being rewritten and the propaganda war being won. Yes, that is a danger, but we must not allow it to happen. We must ensure that the past is not rewritten in the way that the terrorists and their sympathisers would like.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

On proportionality, does my right hon. Friend agree that significantly fewer than 1% of all the people who served in the security forces, the Army and the police in Northern Ireland down all those years were ever found guilty of, or even questioned about, breaches of law, while 100% of the terrorists were most definitely guilty of such breaches?

[Mr Dodds]

My hon. Friend makes an important point that bears emphasis in the House and further afield. It is important that these issues are made clear to people who might, as time passes and we no longer hear direct reports from Northern Ireland, begin to think that a different narrative had occurred there. That is why it is so important that the institutions that were proposed under the Stormont House agreement—my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley mentioned the historical investigations unit—are set up so that we can have a balanced, fair and proportionate approach to all this.

We need to highlight the fact that 3,000 murders remain unsolved in Northern Ireland and that acts of terrorism were carried out by people such as Sean Kelly, the Shankill bomber, and Michael Caraher, who was part of the south Armagh sniper team that murdered Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick in 1997—one of the last members of the armed forces to die in that period. Michael Caraher received a sentence totalling 105 years, yet he walked free having served just over three.

My right hon. Friend has rightly detailed the efforts made by the then Labour Government, under John Reid and then Peter Mandelson, to go to extraordinary lengths to provide concessions to IRA terrorists with no regard whatever to any kind of proportionality or to doing anything for the security forces. Secret deals were done on on-the-runs, for example. Such concessions had a major debilitating impact on those who were facing down terrorism in Northern Ireland, and our duty now is to convince people that that will not happen again. I share my right hon. Friend’s view that this Government will not repeat those mistakes and that there will be no amnesty and no secret deals to allow terrorists off the hook.

In conclusion, it is important that we get the Stormont House agreement institutions up and running as quickly as possible, that we begin to get back some kind of fair and proportionate system for investigating legacy cases and that we do not—