Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)]

I echo all right hon. and hon. Members’ tributes to young Dáithí and his family, including his father, Máirtín, who is here with him. I had the pleasure of meeting them both at Lisburn in my constituency, and the case they brought was absolutely compelling. I welcome the Secretary of State’s decision to bring forward the amendments to the Bill. As you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I, the hon. Members for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) and for North Down (Stephen Farry) and other colleagues—in fact, all the sitting Members of the House from Northern Ireland—signed a cross-party proposal similar to the one brought forward by the Government. However, we are more than willing to support the Government’s proposal to ensure that enabling legislation is put in place to allow the Secretary of State to lay regulations implementing the necessary provisions, including the definitions of prescribed organs that are covered by the deemed consent. We very much support moving forward in that way.

I note the Secretary of State’s comments about the Assembly and the Executive. I am clear that we want to get a functioning Executive and Assembly up and running as soon as possible. He will know that when I took the decision last February to withdraw the First Minister from the Executive, I felt it was a measured response to the inactivity and failure of the EU to engage with the Government meaningfully to bring forward proposals that would address the concerns of Unionists. That enabled Ministers to remain in their Departments right up until the end of October, when, under the legislation, they could no longer remain in office. I understand why the Secretary of State has brought forward this Bill to extend the period for holding an election. Let me be clear that Democratic Unionist party Members do not fear going to the people; if and when an election is called, we will take our case to them. I noted the Secretary of State’s comment that he wants to create the space within which progress can be made—in that spirit, so do we. We are engaging with the Government on the vital matters that now need to be resolved to enable an agreement to be reached with the EU, one that we expect will result in fundamental change.

We are talking about change that will, first and foremost, respect Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom. That is not just a requirement on the part of the Unionist community in Northern Ireland, but one of the fundamental principles at the heart of the Belfast agreement signed in 1998. Section 1 of that agreement deals specifically with respecting the constitutional status of Northern Ireland and the principle of consent, and we need to see that fully restored. As I said to the Prime Minister earlier, it is important that we are dealing with not only the trading issues that are the consequence of the protocol and its imposition, but the democratic and constitutional issues that flow from the protocol—the democratic deficit and Northern Ireland’s place within the UK.

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

Let me ask about the space that, we hope, has been created to make progress. In the past, whatever the whys and wherefores, where a substantial segment of the community in Northern Ireland was prepared to resist, oppose and declare that they did not like the way politics worked in Northern Ireland, an accommodation had to be found to try to ensure that a new regime accommodated that view. Does my right hon. Friend agree that as we try to make progress in that space today, Unionists have to be afforded exactly the same position, whereby we reach an accommodation where both major blocs and everyone else buys into the process on which we build for the future?

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on that. He rightly says that at the heart of this is the need to take Northern Ireland forward on the basis of a cross-community consensus and that that consensus was broken down by the protocol, because not a single Unionist Member of the Assembly supports it. Therefore, we did not have a basis for moving Northern Ireland forward. That is important because the Executive and Assembly have important roles to play in the implementation of the protocol. I had Ministers, members of my party, who were in Departments and being required by the protocol to implement key elements that they felt were harmful to Northern Ireland. That was simply not a sustainable position. I do not want to be in the place again where I have to appoint Ministers at Stormont to Departments where they are required to implement measures that harm Northern Ireland’s ability to trade within the UK.

For us, the way to resolve the issues and move us forward lies in restoring Northern Ireland’s place within the internal market of the UK. Let me be clear that, as we have said from the outset, we are not looking to erect a hard border on the island of Ireland. I am not looking to create barriers to trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland; I do not want that for dairy farmers in Lagan Valley, beef farmers or whoever is wanting to continue with the arrangements that are there to facilitate cross-border trade. Coca-Cola is based in Lisburn in my constituency, and the Secretary of State visited recently. Some 80% of the products it produces in Lisburn are sold in the Republic of Ireland. I do not want Coca-Cola to have difficulty in trading both within Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Equally, I do not want the businesses in my constituency that have been impacted by the protocol to be inhibited in their ability to trade with the rest of the UK. The protocol inhibits that and that is the difficulty it creates.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Bill

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 29th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare]

Clearly, the vast majority of MLAs want Stormont up and running. They want to do 100% of their jobs seven days a week, rather than the 50% that they are able to do at the moment. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that he has robustly explored employment law—and if he has not, that he will do so—and that it would allow only for those who refuse to attend to have a pay cut? Those who wished to attend but could not because somebody was exercising their veto should not see their income reduced through no fault of their own.

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

Like Sinn Féin did four years ago.

[Simon Hoare]

Precisely—I agree.

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[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle). May I begin by thanking Government Ministers, particularly my hon. Friend the Minister of State and his officials for many briefings and conversations that he has facilitated for the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs and for me personally? That really is appreciated. There are rumours of a bromance breaking out between my hon. Friend and me, but it is nice that we are working together so closely.

Many, if not all, Members of Parliament—I would probably say all Members and everyone in the country at large—would wish the doing of politics to be normalised in Northern Ireland, which is an integral part of the United Kingdom, yet here we are again, having to deal with pressing matters through the use of emergency legislation. That is a real sadness, and I contend that such a situation would not be tolerated in any other part of the UK. At some point, we have to try to find a focused way of trying to deliver normalised politics.

I fear—and I understand precisely why the Secretary of State and the Government have introduced the Bill, which has my full support—that we are falling into a trap. The functioning and delivery of devolution, and the changes that many people would like to see delivered to the protocol, are two distinct, divorced and separate workstreams. We should not stand idly by and allow their conflation in the minds of people across the country. In 2022, no party worthy of that name, against the pressing economic backdrop that we face, should ever have a right to veto or walk away at any time, as I said earlier, still less now. I listened to the intervention from the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson), the leader of the Democratic Unionist party, about whether or not the reduction of pay was intended to drive, cajole or whip his party back to Stormont. I do not see it that way, but it is the clearest signal possible to members of the public that Parliament gets it and understands what full public service is. If people decide to exercise the veto which currently exists, clearly there should be an opportunity to deliver better value to the taxpayer by reducing the remuneration package. I have always been keen and hot on that, and I hope that the Secretary of State exercises that power under clause 10, which uses the word “may”. However, I very much hope that he does.

I welcome what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said in recent weeks about the process or impetus that could spur a review of the rubric on which we base the formulation and establishment of the Executive. I paraphrase, but he has said in terms that he would respond if there were overtures from the parties in Northern Ireland, from the grassroots up. That is probably the right approach, and I urge my right hon. Friend—he probably needs no urging—should those overtures be made, to respond positively to try to address them as quickly as possible.

Clause 10 says that the Secretary of State “may” make a determination; I think that he has to and that it should be done speedily. I know that many people wish that the law allowed him to differentiate between the MLAs who want to be in Stormont doing their job and those who have decided not to for reasons that are perfectly respectable. As we all know, however, any decisions that we take do and must have consequences.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

The Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee alludes to differentiating between MLAs who want to do their job and those who do not. Does he make the same differentiation between MPs who want to do their job and those who do not, but still get remunerated?

[Simon Hoare]

Yes, I do. At the end of the day, irrespective of which forum people are working in, that is taxpayers’ money. If one is prepared to do only a portion of the job, there should be implications for that. A teacher could not say, “I’m only going to teach boys called George or girls called Helen, and everybody else can go hang,” and expect the full package of remuneration and all the benefits. Likewise—again, I am grateful for the Minister of State’s briefing—I wish that clause 10(5) were not in the Bill, although I understand the complexities, because there should be knock-on implications for pensions as well. That needs to be looked at in due course.

This is a regrettable but understandable Bill. As the Secretary of State said, no Secretary of State would want to introduce this kind of legislation. Next year is the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement—we say that so flippantly; it has been hard-baked into our DNA as if it has always been there. As well as providing a moment for celebration and looking to the future, that provides us with an opportunity to look to the past and what led to its creation. We must never take its benefits for granted. Is it perfect? No. Does it deliver the process that we had hoped for at the speed that we had intended? Of course not, but let us not take it for granted. Let us all put our shoulders to the wheel to make sure that, across the communities, we can celebrate the huge strides for peace that it presented.

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

It is a privilege to speak with you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am delighted to follow my esteemed colleague and friend, the right hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart).

In speaking to the Bill, I will limit my remarks to a small number of areas. The first is the matter of MLAs’ pay, which has been alluded to not only in the Chamber but more widely as a significant contributor to the moving of the Bill. The Secretary of State helpfully introduced the Bill last week. I shall quote from what he told us:

“It is also unacceptable that Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) should continue to receive full remuneration from the public purse when they are not fulfilling their Assembly duties”.

That is the justification for that portion of the Bill.

I presume that if I were to ask the Secretary of State—which I may well—whether his Government are acting with a very even hand in relation to all aspects in Northern Ireland, and whether he wants to ensure that what he applies to one community is applied equally to the other, I would not see him in any way diverting from that. Indeed, I can almost see him nodding in acclamation: that the Government want to treat everyone equally, and that that has been the sum and substance of what he and previous Secretaries of State have said on previous occasions.

If this Government are treating everyone equally in respect of the potential to reduce MLAs’ salaries—on the basis of what the Secretary of State has said in introducing the Bill about it being unacceptable that they should continue to receive full remuneration from the public purse when they are not fulfilling their duties—I trust that he has had some level of conversation with the Leader of the House on the almost reprehensible nature of the fact that there are MPs who do not fulfil their duties in this House. Having done some research and received answers to parliamentary questions I have tabled about representation moneys, I know that they receive funding of not thousands, not tens of thousands, not even hundreds of thousands, but millions of pounds. In the past 10 years, those who do not fulfil their duties as Members of Parliament in this Parliament have received £10 million—ten million pounds—so I trust that, in conjunction with this Bill, the Northern Ireland Office has had conversations with the Leader of the House about wanting to treat everyone equally. I am sure that those conversations have taken place and that they have been along the lines of, “We’re going to introduce this Bill to ensure that MLAs don’t get the full remuneration from the public purse, but you’re going to have to introduce something similar in this House, so that Sinn Féin MPs or anyone else who doesn’t fulfil their duties also don’t receive remuneration from the public purse.”

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I am curious as to whether the hon. Gentleman knows that Sinn Féin Members do not receive their parliamentary salaries.

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[Mr Campbell]

I am well aware of that. The remuneration I am talking about does not include salaries, but it does include all other expenses, including representation moneys, and the total amount in the last 10 years was in excess of £10 million—for not performing their public duties. That is not the responsibility of the Secretary of State, but it is the responsibility of the Leader of the House.

[Claire Hanna]

Is the hon. Member’s point that he would like the salaries of his party colleagues’ staff stopped as well? That seems to be the logical extension of what he is saying. I think we are all agreed that abstentionists should not receive a salary, but if he is saying that the issue is that there are office costs and other remuneration, is he proposing that they are taken away from MLAs?

[Mr Campbell]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. I think she knows full well that that is not what I am suggesting. I was quoting the exact reference from the Secretary of State in introducing the Bill: “full remuneration from the public purse”. That should apply equally to Sinn Féin’s allowances and representation money. Action should be taken on that. It has been requested and sought for many years. I will leave it there and hope that the Leader of the House will introduce such a change. It would be entirely unacceptable if she were not do so.

We have discussed this Bill on many occasions and also the need to get back into Stormont, which all of us share. My party is a devolutionist party. I have served for many years in various capacities under the devolutionary settlement of Stormont, so I want to see Members back doing their jobs. However, it is a mistake to keep referring to a variety of problems and say that they could be solved if Ministers were back at their desks. Ministers were at their desks when hospital waiting times got worse. The A6 dual carriageway in my constituency is almost finished, but it has been almost finished for a year, and that has been mostly under devolution. Unfortunately, the road remains unfinished. I hope that no one will suggest that we should get back into devolved Government so that the roads can be finished. I hope that no one will suggest that we should get back into Government because the waiting times in various hospitals are getting worse. They were getting worse under devolution. Yes, I want to see devolution work, but let us not create straw men for others to knock down.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does my hon. Friend also accept that the £670 million hole in the budget occurred when the Executive were sitting and that, this time last year, the Sinn Féin Minister could not get agreement from any party—not one party—in the Assembly to his budget?

[Mr Campbell]

Not only is my right hon. Friend right, but the Secretary of State alluded to that. He was extremely critical of the overspend that the devolved Government had achieved. I just think that we should be more circumspect when we talk about getting back into devolved Government. We come back to the point that my good friend the right hon. Member for Beckenham made just before I rose to speak, which was that there is one issue that prevents devolved Government from returning—with all their faults, which must be remedied—and that is the protocol.

Again, I hope that the Secretary of State, the Minister of State or anyone else will not use the other straw man, which is preventing the return of a hard border, because everyone knows that that will not happen. It was never going to happen. It was raised to pressure our Government; that is the reason that it was raised. That is why Leo Varadkar, when he was Taoiseach, threw down the front page of The Irish Times, which showed a border post ablaze in the 1970s, and said to Messrs Macron and Merkel that we cannot go back to that. Our Government took fright and would have agreed to anything rather than this false assertion that violence would return.

A hard border is not on the equation. It will not be implemented. Everyone accepts that that is the case. The Government have to deal with the one thing that prevents us from getting devolved Government back up and running—the one thing that has introduced the Bill that we are discussing today—and that is the protocol. Sort out the protocol and we will get back into government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

If you have any seats.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

Yes—if you have any left.

[Claire Hanna]

You are doing a great job yourself.

We began that work by tabling amendments to the Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Act 2022 to introduce an alternative election of First Ministers—[Interruption.] We do that work despite the chuntering from a sedentary position of people who just say no, who just nag from the sidelines, who are blocking good governance, and who, day by day, move more people towards considering and exploring a new Ireland—[Interruption.] Those on the DUP Bench below me have no interest in making Northern Ireland work, have derided and mocked people like me for wanting to do so, and have shown that they are unwilling or unable to do that. Those who vote for that party to protect the Union should really take a strong look at the strategic direction that is being provided and the value that they are being given for their vote.

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[Mr Gregory Campbell]

I accept what the Minister says about Sinn Féin MPs not getting salaries but, if there is to be a reduction, we cannot reduce something that is not given. The only thing they get is representative moneys and allowances. No attempt at all has been made to cut those moneys and allowances for not doing their job, despite repeated attempts to raise it with successive Leaders of the House.

[Mr Baker]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point with great passion, and I think we agree with one another that it is not a good thing to have abstentionist MPs, although I have to say I have met Sinn Féin MPs a number of times in London and found them to be very constructive—to a much greater extent than I expected. They do not draw any pay, and we do not anticipate reducing the pay of MLAs to zero, nor do we anticipate taking away their allowances. Members of the public watching this debate will see that we are behaving reasonably in relation to MLAs.

I thank everyone who has participated in this debate. We are absolutely determined to do what is necessary to restore the Executive in Northern Ireland, which is going to mean reaching a negotiated conclusion on the protocol, and I look forward to doing so.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Committee of the whole House (Order, this day).

Oral Answers to Questions

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

The Government are clear that we will never accept any moral equivalence between those who upheld the law in Northern Ireland and those on all sides who sought to destroy it. The legislation seeks to deliver better outcomes for all those most affected by the troubles. It is important to remember that that includes the families of service personnel, more than 1,000 of whom were killed during the troubles. The Government will continue to engage with those most directly impacted by the legislation about their concerns and how these might be addressed. The Second Reading of the legacy Bill in the House of Lords will take place in a couple of weeks’ time.

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

Has the Secretary of State accepted the cold, hard fact that to have any legitimacy the final outcome of the legacy Bill needs the support of innocent victims and relatives of those murdered by terrorists, just as in the wider political realm any outcome of the protocol talks needs support across the community or it, too, will be doomed to failure?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Yes, I absolutely understand that point. Everything that we have been doing since I became Secretary of State is about trying to engage and consult more with those who had issues with the legacy Bill. It is never going to be a perfect solution to this particular problem, because no perfect solution exists. However, we will do our best to address all the concerns that people raise with us.

Northern Ireland Residents: British Passports

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered British passport ownership by Northern Ireland residents.

I am thankful that this debate has been called and placed on the Order Paper today. I am also glad to see the Minister in his place.

The issue that I wish to raise unites people of all backgrounds, traditions and preferences in Northern Ireland in terms of their nationality, whether they describe themselves as British, Irish or Northern Irish. Here in the House of Commons, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee has looked at the issue on several occasions and, again, there has been unity, with hon. Members from the DUP, SDLP, Alliance, the Conservative party and the Labour party all agreeing on the issue. It is uncontroversial with everyone except, it would seem, the Home Office. The issue was first raised by me back in 2005 via a private Member’s Bill, which had insufficient parliamentary time and therefore did not proceed. So, what is the issue?

Our Government and, indeed, successive Governments have accepted that people in Northern Ireland can describe themselves and be accepted as British, which is what they are under the United Kingdom constitution, Irish, if they prefer to be known and regarded as Irish, or Northern Irish, if they wish to be so. Indeed, the census results released last month demonstrated that a vast majority of people describe themselves in a multitude of ways and a combination of those three ways. The position with passports is that residents in Northern Ireland, whatever their background or description, can apply for an Irish passport and there is no additional cost or form filling as a result of Irish Government action taken several years ago, which regards them as Irish if they so choose.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank my hon. Friend and colleague for bringing that forward. He is right. My father, who is not with us anymore, was born across the border and yet grew up as British when he moved to Northern Ireland. Does my hon. Friend not agree that those who may be born a mile or two across the border, have lived in Northern Ireland all their lives and have happily paid their British tax with their British national insurance number are entitled to pay the same amount as anyone else under the same circumstances? It really is illogical. My hon. Friend has pursued the matter at some length and we look forward to the Minister giving a decent response to a matter that has been outstanding for a number of years.

[Mr Campbell]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head in a succinct way, which I hope to elaborate on over the next few moments.

The Irish Government took action because they regard citizens on the island of Ireland as Irish citizens, if they choose to be so regarded. Unfortunately, our Government have not done the same. There are those who are resident in Northern Ireland, and have been for decades, who must be able to do the same for a British passport as those who choose to be Irish can do for an Irish passport, yet they are not permitted to do so. We have an open land border with more than 280 crossing points along its 300-mile length and we are all familiar with the issue in relation to the protocol, the EU and all those things. Over decades and for generations, communities and families have traversed this open border for business and socialising. For that reason and because of the common travel area, successive British Governments have indicated that they do not mind which nationality people prefer to have.

According to UK law, anyone born before 1949, when the Republic of Ireland left the Commonwealth, who wishes to become a British subject can do so, but anyone born after 1949 cannot. That means that if someone were born in the Republic in 1950 and the day after their birth moved to live in Northern Ireland, became a UK resident, grew up and became a UK taxpayer and UK voter—in one famous instance they sat in the British establishment of the House of Lords—they would still not be regarded as a British citizen, because they were born at the wrong time. People born a few miles across the border are disadvantaged in this way. They have to go through the same naturalisation process as people coming from the other end of the earth in order to be regarded as British citizens. This has obviously created angst and annoyance.

We now have a tale of two passports. One is a passport of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which people like me cherish and will have for as long as we live, as will our children and grandchildren. The other is of the Irish Republic, which some people in Northern Ireland are forced to have because they cannot have the passport they associate with their sense of identity, allegiance, loyalty and belonging. They are British, but they are forced to have an Irish passport, because they of an accident of birth a mile on the wrong side of an open border.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has campaigned on the issue for many years. Does he agree that it has been clear throughout the peace process and indeed stretching further back that the British Government have been incredibly generous to those who want to take Northern Ireland out of the Union and have made Northern Ireland an incredibly accommodating and welcoming place for them? Does he agree that they have been generous on citizenship and dual identity and such issues, but when it comes to supporting those who believe in the Union, choose Northern Ireland as their home and who have been British citizens for the majority of their life, the generosity does not stretch that far?

[Mr Campbell]

My hon. Friend’s comment is very appropriate and accurate. In fact, many draw on the contrast of how our Government treat those who want to break up the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland compared to those who would prefer that we remain, because we are, in the words of what is more than a cliché, better off together.

The issue at the moment is that some people have an Irish passport because they need it to travel, but they would prefer to have a British passport. The Home Office in effect say to them, “Just naturalise. Just pay the £1,330 to get what is your right.” If they go on to the Home Office website—I hope the Minister can read this paper even from this distance, as I have enlarged it—the first page reads:

“Check if you can become a British citizen”.

They already are! That is what they demand. That is what they have been for decades, and then the Home Office says to check if they can become a British citizen. There is nothing more insulting or demeaning than to have that on the Home Office website. It tells them, “Well, of course you can avail yourself of British citizenship, now trot along and fill out the necessary form. Then apply for the passport and you will get one.”

Meanwhile, the neighbour in the house next door—or, in some cases, family members who were born at a different time—may want to have an Irish passport and may never even have visited the Irish Republic. They simply go along to the post office and ask for an Irish passport application, fill it out and attach the necessary fee, and an Irish passport comes in the post. The Irish Government have declared that they are prepared to recognise those people as Irish if they choose to apply for a passport. We want our Government to do exactly the same.

People have chosen and demanded to be regarded as British because they have lived here virtually all their lives—in some cases, for 60 or 70 years. They should not be forced down the route of applying for citizenship and going through the naturalisation process, which applies to people who come from thousands of miles away. That is particularly true when the same Government say repeatedly to everybody in Northern Ireland, “We accept that it is a diverse place.”

Successive Governments have repeatedly said they accept that many people regard themselves as British—I hope they will remain so—while some regard themselves as Irish. Each United Kingdom Government here in Westminster say that they accept those people’s right to be so regarded—except when it comes to the symbolic matter of owning a passport. What greater symbol is there of a person’s sense of belonging and nationhood, of who we are and what we are, than a passport? It describes who someone is and, if they are overseas and get into difficulty, to whom they should go for assistance. However, these thousands of people are regarded differently.

I understand that the Minister is Minister of State for the Northern Ireland Office, and that this is primarily a matter for the Home Office to resolve, but I hope that he will acknowledge in his response the hurt and anguish that people have felt over many years. I hope that he can relay to the Home Office the fears, views and demands of people who want this insult rectified.

Successive Home Office Ministers have come to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and tried to defend this, saying that they do not regard some of these people as the people of Northern Ireland, even though they have lived there all their lives. This is indefensible and it cannot be sustained. I hope that the Minister will take action with his colleagues in the Home Office, whose responsibility it is primarily to respond. I hope they will deal with the matter satisfactorily for all concerned, because there is nobody in Northern Ireland who objects to this proposition.

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[Mr Baker]

The hon. Member makes his point with great clarity, of course. However, I observe that in public administration there are quite often moments, particularly around transitions and edge cases, that look absurd on the face of it.

Before I get on to my notes, I will make two points. Representing Wycombe, I have observed that geography is very different from what it used to be. The internet has shrunk the world immeasurably, and many of my constituents are closely in touch with events and people thousands of miles away, so geography has a slightly different meaning these days. I will also pick up the point on hurt and anguish; if I have learned one thing in my few weeks as Northern Ireland Minister, it is the decades—possibly centuries—of hurt and anguish that have built up on one another. I do take those issues very seriously, knowing how deeply felt they are. The hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) has spoken with great passion, and I know he sincerely means everything he has said.

Turning to matters of law, the right to apply for and hold a British passport is wholly contingent on the holding of British citizenship. It is perfectly possible to remain a British citizen even if someone chooses not to hold a British passport, or if they acquire and hold another passport. The people of Northern Ireland are guaranteed specific protections under the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, and they are considered by the agreement to be

“all persons born in Northern Ireland and having, at the time of their birth, at least one parent who is a British citizen, an Irish citizen or is otherwise entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of residence.”

The two birthright protections of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement guarantee this group the right to identify and be accepted as British, Irish or both, and the right to hold both British and Irish citizenship. The protections recognise the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland and do not apply more widely. The UK Government are steadfastly committed to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, and those provisions are given full effect in law, which provides for British citizenship to be conferred at birth.

In that context, non-British nationals living in Northern Ireland would need to obtain British citizenship in order to receive a British passport, just as they would anywhere else in the United Kingdom. I think that is the heart of the matter. I have heard clearly the point made by the hon. Member for East Londonderry. It is the difference between identity and the administrative and legal status of citizenship.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

I accept what the Minister says, and it is the repeated mantra that we have got from the Home Office. However, he alluded to the unique circumstances that pertain to Northern Ireland. That is what successive Governments of recent vintage have always done. Does the Minister not understand and accept the unique circumstances of the case that has been made, and that this is why the Home Office should act?

[Mr Baker]

I certainly do understand the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland, and the hon. Gentleman is very articulate and once again makes his case with great clarity. However, I have to tell him that unique circumstances in those matters apply in a great many places in the UK, including in my own constituency in some number. They are not the same unique circumstances, by any means, but I am gently trying to make the point that there are large numbers of people in the country who would claim special circumstances. The Government are under an obligation to deal fairly with everyone in the UK. The hon. Gentleman will remember some of the unfortunate circumstances of the Windrush affair, and there are other people who have had various difficulties. There are people in my constituency who, although they were born elsewhere, have lived there longer than I have been alive. They may or may not have British citizenship or a British passport, but I am glad to represent them.

Let me turn to some of the specific points that the hon. Member for East Londonderry made. He said that there are 40,000 people resident in Northern Ireland who were born in Ireland after 1949, and there is a sense of unfairness that they are made to apply for naturalisation. He enlarged a piece of the website that I could not quite read, but he made his point with some force. The crux of the matter is that an Irish national can naturalise in the same way as any other long-term resident who now considers the UK their home. I appreciate that at the heart of the sensitivity is the fact that people who identify as British, who were perhaps born not far from the border, but on the other side of it, are being told that they need to naturalise. He made the point clearly that for those who are British but were born on the other side of the border, this is a matter of utmost sensitivity.

The Government are treating those people—from an administrative point of view, they are not British citizens and they need to naturalise—in line with other nationals who reside here in the UK. We are glad that they feel at home here. We are of course glad that they identify as British—that they choose to be British—and we welcome them. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the case of our noble Friend in the other place. In order to ensure that we treat everyone in the UK fairly, they need to naturalise to make their nationality align with their identity.

That is the key point, and it is a matter of administration and law—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman shakes his head. I know that that is unsatisfactory to him, but we do not want to assume that all who identify as British necessarily wish to align their nationality. He might well ask whether it could be made easier and quicker for people of Northern Ireland who were born in Ireland to apply for naturalisation, but the requirements are made in statute. Irish nationals would enjoy more favourable provisions for naturalisation should they wish to apply.

One might ask why the Irish-born people that the hon. Gentleman represents have to naturalise at all. Under the common travel area, Irish people do not need to naturalise to reside in the UK. The common travel area provides that British and Irish citizens have the right to enter and remain in the other state without requiring permission. That is provided for in law, which the hon. Gentleman knows very well. They can make the decision to become a British citizen when they are ready to do so, as with any person who wishes to become British.

I think that the hon. Gentleman wants me to make specific commitments, but I have to disappoint him. The Government are very clear on the need to treat people fairly right across the UK. If we were to make special exemptions for the people he recognises as being on the cusp of a border, we would find ourselves in some considerable difficulty administratively.

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.”

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 24th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

I have not seen it yet, but I hope we will soon see something from the Irish Government to ensure that in both jurisdictions we are working to make sure that people have as much access to information as possible.

Written reports of the commission’s findings will be provided to the families or survivors who request an investigation. The reports will also be made publicly available, to provide accountability by ensuring that wider society can access the commission’s findings and understand and acknowledge the events of the past.

After we published our Command Paper, many individuals and organisations told us that an unconditional statute of limitations for all troubles-related offences was just too painful to accept. They said that we must not close the door on the possibility of prosecutions, however remote the chances might be. We have also heard from those in our veterans community who are uncomfortable with any perceived moral equivalence between those who went out to protect life and uphold the rule of law and terrorists who were intent on causing harm. Of course, there never could be a moral equivalence of that type.

For the reasons I have just set out, we have adjusted our approach to make this a conditional model. To gain immunity, individuals must provide, if asked, an account to the new commission that is true to the best of their knowledge and belief. That condition draws parallels with aspects of the truth and reconciliation commission that was implemented in South Africa, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) outlined. The commission will require individuals to acknowledge their involvement in serious troubles-related incidents and to reveal what they know.

Let me turn to a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green and others. The provisions will also apply to individuals who have previously been provided with the so-called on-the-run letters, or letters of comfort. When issued, those letters confirmed whether or not an individual was wanted by the police, based on evidence held at that time. However, I want to be crystal clear that the letters have absolutely no legal standing and cannot be used to prevent prosecution under this new approach.

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

On the OTR letters, some of us stated at the time, and have done since, that the only way that the people of Northern Ireland and across the UK will be able to understand and believe that the OTR letters are null and void is when a person in receipt of such a letter stands in a court of law and the judge says, “Irrelevant. The case will proceed.”

[Brandon Lewis]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. That is why I made the point I just made, which I will repeat because I want to be absolutely clear about this: these letters have no legal standing. They cannot and will not be accepted and they cannot be used to prevent prosecution under this new approach. The new body’s investigations will continue regardless of people holding those kind of letters.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is right. It is a sadness that there has been that dearth, which has led to huge frustration and has compounded the agony. He is also right to remind the House that each individual victim or survivor or victim’s family will respond to these things in different ways and will have different requirements from the process. We should be very careful not to resort to language such as, “This now delivers closure,” or, “This draws a line.” It will deliver closure, answer questions or draw lines only when that person is satisfied, and there will be myriad ways in which people will be looking for that satisfaction.

The Government are to be congratulated on the tangible policy evolution since what many of us recognise was the rather ill-judged, and certainly wrongly toned, written ministerial statement of March 2020. The Secretary of State and the Government are to be congratulated on facing into this issue. If there were easy solutions, by God they would have been delivered by now. If we want this to work, we have to make sure that this too-long-neglected issue is dealt with, and it has to be through this Bill. So much time has been spent on it and so many years have been spent discussing these issues that I cannot envisage—I could be wrong; I often am—

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

Hear, hear!

[Simon Hoare]

There was no need for such an endorsement; it is nice to see the collegiate nature of the Select Committee burgeoning on the Floor of the House.

As I was saying, I cannot envisage this or any other Government, or any other Secretary of State, devoting future time and energy to trying to resolve these issues, so I am tempted to say that although the Bill needs some amendment, it will be this or it will be nothing at all.

As we know, the politics of Northern Ireland can be different and difficult and testing. I am inclined to think—this may be a strange way of looking at it through the wrong end of the telescope—that it is possibly a good thing that no one and no constituency of interest in Northern Ireland is claiming absolute victory or absolute defeat. To me, that would have suggested that the Government had got it wrong. There is within the Bill the potential for something for everybody who has a legitimate interest in this issue.

I will turn to a couple of specific points. On the programme motion, eight hours for Committee, albeit on the Floor of the House, and one hour, as I understand it, for Third Reading is simply not enough. Physically, this is not a huge Bill in terms of the number of clauses, but it is a mammoth Bill in terms of history and issues. A sceptical Northern Irish audience needs to be given full comfort that full scrutiny will be given to the Bill and the proposed amendments to it. I suggest to the business managers—such as the Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury, who is on the Treasury Bench—as much as to the Secretary of State that the Bill should be given at least four days for Committee and half a day for Third Reading. That would give comfort to those people who want to make sure that the solution is properly scrutinised.

My Committee will be looking at the Bill, so I do not want to prejudice its deliberation, but I will make a few observatory suggestions. The Secretary of State appoints to the independent commission for reconciliation and information recovery. I would like to see a parliamentary vote affirming those appointments, which would give the body extra legitimacy. On the commissioners, I would certainly like a seat to be reserved for an international participant; I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Justice Committee. He referred to South Africa, but there are lots of people with United Nations experience. Again, they will add credibility, independence, a new voice and a perspective that should give extra help to those people who are looking to get the proposals over the line and to invest their faith in the commission. There also needs to be an oversight panel to the commission, as we have with Kenova, which could include groups representing victims, the Veterans Commissioner and others.

We need to accept, with regret—I am perfectly honest about that—that Stormont House is dead. We can flog it as much as we like, but it is a horse that will not get out of the stable. It is gone. It is that ex-parrot. That is unfortunate, but it is true. The need for coalition building remains alive, however, and the need for the Government to take people with them is as strong as ever.

Clearly, as the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) said, the Bill will work better if the Republic is engaged and on side. I agree with him that north and south are two sides of the same coin on this, which have equal weight and responsibility to bring forward solutions that are binding and that can command support and confidence. I hope that the Irish Government will try to meet in the middle, and I would urge them to do so, to try to build that consensus and that joint approach.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I rise, like many of my colleagues did, to explain my opposition to the Bill as it currently stands. As has been explained by several of them, the issue here is about justice and truth. This year, 2022, is the 50th anniversary of the worst year of the troubles in Northern Ireland. In 1972, almost 500 people died as a result of the troubles, as we euphemistically call the period.

Just before Christmas last year, I went to an innocent victims’ group and asked them to organise an event that would commemorate that 50th anniversary, and they gladly did so. I and some of my colleagues attended the event in St Columb’s cathedral in Londonderry just a couple of months ago. The reason that I did that, and many of the other things that have occurred, is that there has been a tendency throughout the troubles and since their ending—hopefully for good—to equate perpetrators with victims. Unfortunately, we can trace that back to what happened after 1994.

Very often in this House and outside, people talk about peace dropping slowly in 1998. In fact, what happened was that, in 1994, the main perpetrators, but by no means the only perpetrators, were the Provisional IRA. Riddled with informers, it decided to call a halt to activities, and the loyalist paramilitaries, who were also engaged in killing, followed suit.

There were then discussions and negotiations for a period of years, resulting in the Belfast agreement, which at that stage legitimised terror—I am glad that some Members have conceded that point. It brought terror into the heart of our political democracy. That is what happened in 1998. People might resile from that and may not like that being said, but that is what happened. We cannot turn the clock back; we are where we are now. I sympathise totally with the Government, as they are in a very difficult position, having to deal with the issue of legacy in a way that will bring comfort, succour and support to those on all sides. That will be almost impossible. Whatever they do, the job will be almost impossible.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank my good and hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene. Does he agree that, in 1994, the Provisional IRA was substantially defeated and that the reason why 1998 occurred is that the Provisional IRA realised that all was lost militarily?

[Mr Campbell]

I thank my right hon. Friend and colleague and say that there is a substantial degree of accuracy in his observation. We have seen the outworking of that over the past five or six years.

Let me come back to those on the Front Bench. They are in an invidious position. Many people in Northern Ireland accept the difficulties that the Government are faced with. I do not meet many innocent victims who realistically hold out the prospect for a successful prosecution and limited jail term for the people who carried out the atrocities against their loved ones. I meet very, very few who say that. Most of them say that there is a limited possibility—a minuscule possibility—that they will receive justice. But what they do say is, “Don’t extinguish it. Don’t put it out for ever and a day.” And that is what this Bill does—extinguishes that possibility for ever and a day. Justice is gone—finished—and never coming back.

That is why the Government must listen to reasoned amendments to make this Bill less unacceptable than it currently is, because I do not think that there will be an acceptable Bill that will command support across the victims’ divide, and across the political divide. None the less, we could, if the Government were open to reasoned amendments, retain the possibility of justice if new evidence emerges—if it does emerge. Victims want to know that their loved one did not die in vain.

[Simon Hoare]

Does the hon. Gentleman therefore agree that the timetable envisaged in the programme motion is woefully inadequate to have a proper debate on those reasoned amendments and to try to address the concerns that he and his colleagues have raised in this debate?

[Mr Campbell]

I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, for that observation. We are in danger of agreeing too much today, but I do agree with what he has just said. Maybe the proposed Bill has done some good.

In all seriousness, however, the Secretary of State made the comment, which I see is now headlining on BBC News, that there is a diminishing possibility of prosecutions. We understand that, but a diminishing possibility is not the same as extinguishing the possibility. That is the difference we must maintain.

I agree and believe that truth recovery can contribute towards people’s moving on and accepting that what is done is done. While they would like to see justice, and still hold out the hope that they might, if they got more information and knowledge about what happened to their loved ones, it would at least bring them some comfort.

A number of people have alluded to the case of a person I knew very slightly, the late Patsy Gillespie. He was what was called a human bomb, strapped into his own van and instructed to drive into an Army camp in Londonderry. The van was exploded, with him and five innocent soldiers also paying the price for the depravity organised by the late Martin McGuinness, who was the second-in-command of the Provisional IRA at the time.

I have an affinity with Patsy Gillespie, because he was an MOD employee on one side of the river, and I was an MOD employee on the other side. Likewise, I have an affinity with two of the three former Members whose plaques are above the door of this Chamber. They died as the result of under-car booby-traps. My family—my wife and two young children, one of them only four months old—were victims of an under-car booby-trap device; thanks to almighty God, it fell off before exploding and killing a man, a woman and two innocent children.

Let us do work with this Bill and try to improve it considerably. As it currently stands, it is totally and utterly unacceptable.

Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

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

This Bill had its genesis in New Decade, New Approach, and we are here today to try to make progress. As its name implies, we are trying to build for the remainder of this decade.

We are less likely to repeat the mistakes of the past if we can learn from that past, and the problem is twofold. First, it is repeated ad nauseam in this House and elsewhere that peace broke out in Northern Ireland in 1998, but the reality and the lesson we should learn is that for the preceding four years the terrorists slowly and gradually learned that terrorism was not the way to proceed. In 1994, four years before the agreement was signed, the terrorists decided that the game was up and that terror was no longer how they would proceed. That was good and long overdue, but people should not misinterpret 1998 as the beginning of peace. The terrorists decided to depart from terrorism gradually and slowly in the preceding years.

Unfortunately, more mistakes were made in 1998. Agreement was necessary and required, and we had all strived for many years to achieve agreement, but in 1998 the terrorists were allowed to be at the table without giving up their guns—some of us said that should not be the case. I can well understand the reasons for their entering the process, but I disagree with them none the less.

We entered into a system that has plagued politics in Northern Ireland from then until now, in which there can be no move forward unless everyone buys into the process. We had the years up to St Andrews and beyond to try to inch people beyond only moving at the pace of the slowest learner in the room. That was the problem, and thankfully we made some progress at St Andrews. Hopefully we will now make further progress as a result of New Decade, New Approach, but how do we embed that in Northern Ireland’s society? How do we depart from the issues that have plagued us for so long when a single party can up sticks and leave, as Sinn Féin did, and bring down the whole system for three years?

We now have a prolonged period. There may be a difference of opinion on how long that period should be, but at least it should help to concentrate minds for longer than seven days whenever Sinn Féin engineers a crisis. The then Deputy First Minister was clearly unwell, and everyone could see the degree of his illness, and the ensuing crisis that had been engineered lasted for three years. Hopefully we have a bit more time and good will now. We have bought a bit of extra time with New Decade, New Approach, but unless there is good will we will still face the same problem.

Single parties must realise that, for the greater good, we have to try to move together with some form of consensus. No one is going to get everything they want, which is why many of us said about NDNA, “There are things in this that we don’t particularly like, but for the greater good we will buy into the process.” The Government should not take that and say, “We will implement part of NDNA and leave other parts of it on the shelf.” That cannot and will not work. We have to bring matters to a head, as we said we would. It is not a matter of bringing down the system, as has been inaccurately reported in the Chamber today. We are bringing matters to a head, not bringing them down, to try to force an election rather than to destroy the institutions.

My party will support the Bill with whatever reservations we have, and I hope that we can build a future in Northern Ireland that is better than our past.

Ballymurphy Inquest Findings

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. As we have seen, tragically, in the recent past as well as this week, the current system has simply not been working for anybody. It is failing to bring satisfactory, speedy or timely outcomes for families, leaving Northern Ireland with unanswered questions for families within it. That leaves society hamstrung, effectively, by its past. That is why, as a Government, we are committed to finding a way forward that will allow individuals and families who want information to seek and receive those answers about what happened during the troubles with far less delay and distress. We have a duty to the victims and the families in Northern Ireland as a whole to deliver on that.

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

The Ballymurphy families have waited for 50 years to get even this limited form of closure. To compound matters, one of the victims also had a young teenage son brutally murdered by the IRA just two years afterwards. Will the Secretary of State ensure that, whether it is the families of innocent victims in Ballymurphy or shortly afterwards—for example, the Claudy bomb carried out by the IRA in 1972 in my constituency, about which they have received no closure, no justice and no apology—they do not suffer the ignominy of hearing about an amnesty in the next few months?

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman highlights the complexity and sensitivity of the issues and reinforces the point that it has been far too long for people to have to wait to get to the bottom of the truth. Part of reconciliation is the ability to understand what happened—that is hugely important—but it is also about accountability. That is why it is important that the state takes accountability, as we are doing, for what happened in the Ballymurphy case. Others should do the same, where there is relevance for them and actions were taken by them. It is important that we get to the heart of what happened, so that people can have that understanding, accountability and truth.

Northern Ireland

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Lady makes a good point, and it is another example of how, even in an extended discussion such as this one, many more issues have been involved over the past few weeks. She is right to mention social media and people being subject to fake news, bot accounts and so on, and all those things have played a part. The PSNI and, more widely, the Executive and the UK Government are working with social media companies, and people should be cautious and aware of these things. That kind of activity on social media does not help anybody, and the social and digital media companies have a part to play in helping to ensure that such messaging does not spread and risk more violence anywhere on the streets of the United Kingdom.

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

The Secretary of State indicated that there was widespread condemnation of the violence of the past week or so, and he is right. That was not always the case, but thankfully it is now. Two outstanding problems need to be resolved with the utmost urgency. One is the Northern Ireland protocol, which he alluded to, and the other is the position of the Chief Constable. Will the Secretary of State recommit himself to ensuring that those two obstacles to progress can be dealt with in a satisfactory way, so as to take us forward peacefully and democratically?

[Brandon Lewis]

As I have outlined this afternoon and previously in the House, we have a clear focus on the work to move things forward on the protocol in a pragmatic and flexible way, so that it works and delivers for people in Northern Ireland, without hindrance or problem. The entire focus of the Chief Constable is on the safety and security of people in Northern Ireland, and I support him in that work.

Abortion in Northern Ireland

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

As I have outlined, these regulations are about the UK Government fulfilling our legal obligations imposed by Parliament in 2019, and it is about ensuring that women and girls in Northern Ireland have access to the same quality and kind of healthcare that they would have anywhere else in the United Kingdom. As Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, it is right that people in Northern Ireland have access to healthcare in the same way they would if they were on mainland Great Britain.

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

The Secretary of State on a number of occasions has talked about healthcare for women and girls, and we concur—it is important to look after expectant mothers and young pregnant woman—but the one thing he has not mentioned and the one person he has not mentioned is the right of the unborn child. If Parliament is seeking to overlook the devolutionary settlement in that regard and he is seeking to do that, who will look after the rights of the unborn child?

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman has outlined the strength of feeling, and as I said earlier, I appreciate that there are strong feelings on this issue. It is a sensitive issue across the United Kingdom—we refer to Northern Ireland, but I know that people have strong views on this across the House and across the country. He has also outlined, I would argue, why it is right that we ensure and the Department of Health ensures that women and girls have access to proper quality, qualified healthcare and support in Northern Ireland, as they would elsewhere in the United Kingdom, to ensure that they are not being treated unofficially, potentially by people who are not properly qualified to assess the genuine individual needs of any given case. A medical professional is, and that is why it is right that this is done in the way that it is elsewhere in the UK and they get the proper support that they should be and are entitled to.