Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Conor Burns)]

It is a humbling experience to come before the Committee to deal with the first of the two days in Committee of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill.

On Monday evening, I attended an event at Queen’s University Belfast hosted by the vice-chancellor Professor Ian Greer, where we heard video messages from President Clinton, Sir Tony Blair and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and we heard speeches from me and the former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. We gathered to pay tribute to my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Trimble, to thank him for his career of service in Northern Ireland and to thank his wife Daphne for her support of him over all those years. In my remarks, I said that we thanked him for his courage to compromise, his conviction to lead and his audacity to dream. I reflected on how much Northern Ireland has changed over the years since the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, of which he was such a key part.

The measure before the Committee is an attempt to try to continue the process of moving Northern Ireland on. I begin by genuinely and humbly saying that these measures are difficult, are a compromise and are contested. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who has had the courage to grapple with this issue when many others in the years since the Belfast/Good Friday agreement simply decided that it was too difficult.

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

The Minister quite rightly says that the proposals are contested, and he is accurate in that. Does he agree that the most important people in this equation—the innocent victims of many, many terrorist activities—are the ones who find the proposals most contestable, and they are totally and utterly opposed to them?

[Conor Burns]

Where I agree with the hon. Gentleman is on the fact that the victim must be absolutely at the heart of what we are trying to do. It is our contention that the measures are victim-centric, but they also acknowledge that the current system has not been delivering for victims as we think they deserve.

--- Later in debate ---

This Bill does not address that sick hatred and it never will. The only way we will have it addressed is when we have some honesty and justice in the process. I must say that there has been some unity across the parties on these Benches for quite some time. We want to get to the same destination. We might wish to take a slightly diverted journey, but we should be allowed to get there.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley). The issues surrounding this Bill, I suppose, can be traced back to 1994—rather than to 1998, as many people allude to unrepentantly over and again—because that was when paramilitary groups decided, in various ways, to call it a day. Those who had inflicted pain, misery and mayhem on all of us in Northern Ireland said that the game was up and that terror was going to finish. Political negotiations then came about. Four years later, unfortunately, terror was then legitimised. Those were the unfortunate origins of where we are today. We might try to rehearse history or to rewrite it, as others have tried to do, but that is what happened.

We then had a period of diminishing violence. All of us tried to come to terms with what we hoped would be a much better future. I fully understand, accept and share the view that many have on the Conservative Benches: that the problem now is that IRA terrorists, by and large, are not pursued, but there are the soldiers and former police officers caught in very difficult circumstances who, in many instances, had a split second to decide whether their lives were at risk or to take action to try to preserve an innocent life by taking someone else’s—a split second to decide whether a person was a threat to themselves or to their colleagues. Therein lies the difficulty.

Again, I fully understand the views of Conservative Members, especially those who have served, who say that we have to try to draw a line under this, and that this Bill is a way of doing that. Several Conservative Members have alluded to, for example, the late Dennis Hutchings. His case would, I believe, have collapsed, as did those of Soldier F and several others. There are different reasons for each case, but the underlying reason is that the passage of time has meant that even where the Public Prosecution Service thinks there is a possibility of a successful prosecution, it finds that for a variety of reasons it is not able to bring it to a successful conclusion, no matter how much it presses.

The passage of time has occurred and people’s memories are dimmed, and it is almost impossible to get an accurate recollection of what happened on a particular day. For example, I was on the city streets of Londonderry on the very day of Bloody Sunday. I have a reasonably clear recollection of what happened, even though I was a very young teenager at the time, but I could not give a second-by-second, minute-by-minute account of everything that happened on that day. I do remember that three days before two police officers had been gunned down with a machine gun. We will never know whether it was the same machine gun that the Saville inquiry said Martin McGuinness held on Bloody Sunday.

We come to the point now of assessing whether the Bill—even with some of the amendments that we hope, if passed, would make it a less bad Bill—will draw a line under what is happening. My view is that it is unlikely to do so. There are many people in Northern Ireland and a whole range of victims. Some have moved on, while some find it difficult to move on. Some have come to terms with the loss of loved ones, while others continue to grieve. What they all know is that even before this Bill is considered, there is very little likelihood of any successful prosecution.

The problem the Bill presents is that, if it is passed—even in slightly amended form—it slams shut the possibility of any potential prosecution or any justice ever being brought to bear on the cases involving loved ones. For that reason, my colleagues and I will be opposing the Bill.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Like other Northern Irish Members, I live among so many people who, through no fault of their own, are victims of terrorism. Those victims have approached me, while going about their daily business, to express how hurt they are by the Bill and how it extinguishes that glimmer of hope of any form of justice—although they know all too well that justice has already been grossly perverted in Northern Ireland.

We table our amendments in recognition that the Bill is likely to be made law. It will never be good law; it will always be fundamentally flawed and will always represent injustice and pain. However, it can be made to be better law, and we urge hon. Members to give serious consideration to what we believe are measured, constructive and victim-focused amendments. My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) has eloquently outlined the rationale for the amendments in our names and the names of our colleagues, and I wish to reiterate some of the thinking behind some of the amendments.

Much of the public cynicism, certainly within the victim’s community, is based on the belief that if someone is willing to put a gun to a person’s head and take their life, lying about their actions will not disturb their moral compass. Amendment 97 would offer some form of recourse for lying to the panel. It is also, we believe, appropriate that such cases at the very least be directed to the Public Prosecution Service. If this process is to have any semblance of credibility, surely the Committee will agree that making a mockery of the process should come with an appropriate penalty.

We must also consider the situation of those who have deliberately evaded justice. That is our rationale for amendments 96, 98 and 99. The DUP utterly rejects the idea of immunity for any terrorist, but the Bill needs to offer specific provision for cases where those terrorists fled from justice. Whether they have scuttled off to the safe haven of the Irish Republic, the United States or elsewhere, those subject to active proceedings should not be afforded immunity. The thought of such individuals being welcomed through airport terminals by cheering crowds, to be embraced as heroes by leading figures of Sinn Féin, makes me sick to the pit of my stomach, as did similar images at the release of terrorists following the Belfast agreement. To permit such circumstances through this Bill would be wholly wrong. We therefore ask the Committee to support our amendment that addresses that salient point.

Amendments 100, 101, 102 and 199 relate to the whole issue of immunity. My party has always opposed immunity, for one reason—it is wrong. On Second Reading, my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) gave numerous examples of terrorist atrocities in a very personal and moving contribution. His story is the story of so many people in Northern Ireland, and indeed here in Great Britain. How anyone could listen to that account of loss, pain and suffering and believe that immunity for the perpetrator is acceptable is beyond comprehension. Members across the Committee seem to think the situation is justified by saying, “It is not perfect and we don’t like it, but we have no other option.” Yet there is always one option, and that is to do what is right. Victims want this Committee to do what is right.

I cannot close my contribution any more powerfully than by using the words of two victims of IRA terror. I urge Members to give their ear to these voices—to listen to these broken hearts speak. Abbie Graham lost her father, Constable John Graham, and Louie Johnston lost his father, Reserve Constable David Johnston, when they were shot dead while on foot patrol in Lurgan in my constituency of Upper Bann on 16 June 1997. Abbie and Louie were aged seven and in primary school when their much-loved fathers were murdered. I urge Members to listen to these words. Abbie says:

“The way the law works is that if the killers were caught and jailed they could only do two years. That would be a formal recognition of the wrong that was done. But if this law was to come in and then someone came forward with the information, it’s too late.”

Louie Johnston states:

“We’re 25 years on from and there are always new forensic opportunities becoming available and always the chance someone will come forward. But if the government is going to remove that opportunity it leaves us without any hope. This was the murder of two fathers who said goodbye to their children on a normal school day, the same thing that was happening in every decent human being’s house.”

He says:

“We need to look at what is right and wrong and take the politics out of all of this. What is happening now is that we are creating a justice system based on a postcode lottery. You can get justice as long as you don’t live in Northern Ireland. This government is burying justice and Boris Johnson and Secretary of State Brandon Lewis are playing the role of undertaker.”