Saville Inquiry

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

May I thank my hon. Friend for what he said about the statements by me and the Leader of the Opposition? I know that he cares deeply about this issue, too. What I would say to him about the very strong point that he makes is that the Good Friday agreement included clauses that were incredibly painful for people on all sides to cope with. The idea that someone who had murdered—and, as my hon. Friend said, murdered perhaps more than once—would serve only two years in prison was incredibly painful for people to understand, but these things had to be done to try to end the long-running conflict and to bring people to pursue their goals by peaceful means. That is what the peace process is about.

In terms of making a contrast between that and what soldiers have done, I am very clear that we should not try to draw an equivalence between what terrorists have done and what soldiers have done, because soldiers are operating under the law—operating for a Government. We should not draw equivalence. On the issue of prosecutions, I can only repeat what I said to the Leader of the Opposition, and I also make the point that it is important that I do not say anything today that would prejudice either a criminal prosecution or, indeed, a civil action, were one to be brought.

Let me end, again, on the point about the painful decisions that had to be made in the peace process. We all, particularly on the Conservative side of the House, know people who have been affected. The first person I ever wrote a speech for was Ian Gow, who was murdered by the IRA. It is incredibly painful and difficult for people to put behind them what happened in the past, but we have to if we are to make the peace process work.

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

I thank the Prime Minister for his statement, and of course it will take some time fully to divulge the contents of the Saville inquiry. The events of 30 January will live with the surviving relatives for the rest of their lives. Thousands of other surviving relatives have had to do likewise. They have had no costly inquiries and no media interest, and there have been 10,000 other bloody days in Northern Ireland’s recent history. Murder and mayhem were caused by the Provisional IRA in the days, weeks and months before Bloody Sunday. Indeed, the two police officers whom the Prime Minister mentioned were murdered in the immediate vicinity of the march just three days before that march. I am glad the Prime Minister mentioned them today on the Floor of the House, because Lord Saville did not. That is an unfortunate and deeply regrettable omission.

We did not need a £200 million inquiry to establish that there was no premeditated plan to shoot civilians on that day. We did not need a report of such length to tell us that as a result of IRA actions before Bloody Sunday, parts of the city “lay in ruins”. Many have said that the difference between Bloody Sunday and the other atrocities that I have alluded to was that Bloody Sunday was carried out by state forces, whereas other murders were carried out by terrorists.

There has been no similar inquiry into the financing of the Provisional IRA at the inception of that organisation by another state—the Irish Republic. That Irish state acted as a midwife at the birth of an organisation responsible for murdering many thousands of UK citizens.

Soldiers answered questions in the course of the Saville inquiry. The 2IC of the Provisional IRA, Martin McGuinness, appears not to have answered questions. The public will want to know from today what he was doing with a Thompson sub-machine-gun on the day of Bloody Sunday. Does the Prime Minister agree that the sorry saga of the report is finally over and done with, and that we should look forward, rather than looking back?

[The Prime Minister]

I agree that we should look forward rather than back, and I hope the report will enable us to do that. Of course the hon. Gentleman is right to refer, as I did in my statement, to the 1,000 members of the Army and security services who lost their lives during the troubles, and all that they did to try to keep Northern Ireland safe and secure. Of course he is right to refer to the many thousands of families who have lost loved ones through terrorism and who have not had an answer and have not had an inquiry into what happened to their loved ones. When it comes to answering questions, yes, it is important that IRA members and people who were responsible for things even now come forward and answer so that people can at least bury those whom they lost. Of course that is important.

I hope, as well, that the hon. Gentleman will understand that there is something about Bloody Sunday—about the fact that 13 people were shot by British Army soldiers and died on that day—that necessitated a proper inquiry. That is what the report today is about. Yes, we must come up with the answers to other people’s questions and yes, we have to go through with the historical inquiries team to try to settle those issues of the past, but let us not pretend that there is not something about that day, Bloody Sunday, that needed to be answered clearly in a way that can allow those families—all those people—to lay to rest what happened on that day.