Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Bill

Jeffrey M Donaldson Excerpts

Money resolution: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

My right hon. Friend feels strongly about this matter and has considered it in depth in his role as Chair of the Defence Committee, which has started a new piece of work on it. In my discussions with representatives of veterans and victims groups in Northern Ireland, the firm view that this was not the time for amnesties. I well understand and will discuss the steps that could be taken, but I caution him about his interpretation of the comments that he has heard. That was not what I saw with my own eyes or in the evidence that I have received, but I understand his view. We are consulting, which I will come on to in a moment, and I would welcome the Defence Committee’s views on the consultation. I am also happy to work with him on the inquiry that he has started.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

To echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and for the sake of clarity, this debate is not between two sides that want an amnesty. For the record, the DUP does not support an amnesty for anyone connected with Northern Ireland. We do support a statute of limitations, which is not an amnesty. This House should never equate the men and women who stood on the frontline—I had the privilege of standing beside them—with those who skulked in the shadows. That is not what this debate is about.

[Karen Bradley]

The right hon. Gentleman has been a leader in this area for many years, and I pay tribute not only to his personal experience, but to his leadership on this matter and his role in the Stormont House agreement and other matters since. I also want to put on the record my thanks for his help and support when I was the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and he was the Northern Ireland representative on the first world war steering group. His leadership there has led to some magnificent and wonderful commemorations in Northern Ireland and a real bringing together of communities to recognise the sacrifices that were made 100 years. I had the privilege of being in northern France two weeks ago for the Somme commemoration—perhaps it was only last week, but it feels like a lifetime ago—which was a wonderful tribute to him and his work.

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[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

Let me begin where the Secretary of State ended, in saying that there can never be moral equivalence between the acts of the broad mass of those young men and women who were asked to serve in Northern Ireland at the behest of our society and those who instead sought to damage, maim and kill through the paramilitary groups of either side. As with other Members, I wish to pay tribute to those who served our nation. I wish also to follow the words of the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) in recognising as well the important role of the RUC during the troubles.

I recognise the argument put forward by the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon), and he rightly was struck by and acted on the claims farming that he saw as a result of the situation in Iraq. However, there is no equivalent that reads immediately across to the situation in Northern Ireland, and it is important to establish that, even though I recognise that his motives are honourable in what he proposes.

I again follow the Secretary of State’s line in saying that there is currently a consultation on the historical inquiries, and it is important that that is allowed to take place and to go forward. It is important that we take the opportunities of the Stormont House agreement to move forward in the way that she outlined. In the debate on Second Reading, I said that we should make progress with exactly those kinds of institutional arrangements. It is important that we bring things to a rapid conclusion in the interests of victims on all sides.

The right hon. Member for Sevenoaks was challenged by the hon. Member for North Down on why the RUC/PSNI has been left out of the amendment. It is helpful to quote Mark Lindsay, the chair of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, who says:

“Let me be clear: This organisation is totally opposed to any legislation which proposes an amnesty”—

a loaded word—

“for any crime. That’s any crime, whether committed by a police officer or terrorist from any side of the divide. Society must now decide, whether the solution is a political solution or a criminal justice solution.”

He goes on to say that it would be a “monstrous injustice” to his members were we to go down those lines. It is important that we listen to those words.

I met Mark Lindsay recently, and one point that he made to me was about the enormous importance of the Police Service of Northern Ireland having the trust of people across all communities. One way to damage that trust would be to open the PSNI up to the accusation that it somehow gained special treatment for its members, when the Police Federation for Northern Ireland does not want that kind of special treatment. That is important.

In response to the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), I should say that even the leader of the Democratic Unionist party, Arlene Foster, has expressed her own doubts about going down this road. She makes the point that the DUP has not been pushing for this as a party, and her concern is that it could lead to demands for a wider amnesty. That is important because, as the Secretary of State said, she has to sign off the legislation as compatible with the UK’s human rights obligations under international law—not things that we can change or arbitrate; things that we have signed up to as part of the UK’s global commitments. These are things that the UK signs up to as exemplars to be applied not just here in the United Kingdom but all around the world. They give us the freedom to criticise those who transgress human rights obligations. A strong body of opinion—I know this opinion was given to the Defence Committee—makes it clear that if the state is seen to act partially in a way that denies victims access to justice, it is transgressing its obligations under international law. In particular, if in doing that the state is seen to be partial and to be protecting state actors while not offering the same kind of procedure to others, the state is, in that partiality, accused of breaching its wider human rights obligation.

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

The comments by the leader of my party were directed specifically at the legacy proposals for Northern Ireland. To legislate for a statute of limitations on the narrow ground of Northern Ireland would not in our opinion be appropriate, because it would exclude deployments in the Gulf war and Afghanistan. It needs to be done on a UK-wide basis. My party would be supportive on that basis, but not if it is exclusively about Northern Ireland, because that would open it up to the risk that it would be used by others to try to bring about an amnesty, which is not what it would be.

[Tony Lloyd]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that clarification, which leads me to begin to bring my remarks to a conclusion.

I stand strongly with the Secretary of State on the fact that the consultation process is already abroad. That consultation process now should be allowed to come to its full conclusion. That is the right way forward both for this House tonight and more generally for this country. In the context of Northern Ireland, it is important to take on board the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks that the possibility of seeing a wider amnesty will defeat the ambitions of victims of the violence during the troubles and those who were left bereaved by that violence. It could, of itself, allow off the hook those whom we would all want to see—even these years on—brought before our justice system and the courts. Within that, it is right and proper that the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks recognises the force of the argument that this is the wrong vehicle. It is the wrong occasion for this and it will almost certainly lead to the wrong kind of rules—temporary at very best. I do hope that he will consider very seriously whether this is the right approach on this occasion.

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[Sir Henry Bellingham]

My right hon. Friend is 100% right on that point, but we hope very much that there will not be any prosecutions in the future, or any further arrests.

The key point is that our security forces, as has been pointed out, served in Northern Ireland with the utmost professionalism and dedication in an incredibly febrile, tense and dangerous atmosphere. Young soldiers were sent over—volunteers: we are talking not about conscripts, but professional soldiers—and they were the envy of the entire world. Does the Secretary of State believe that any other army from any other country in the world would have showed the sort of restraint that our Army showed in Northern Ireland, as indeed did the police?

Some 10% of the killings in Northern Ireland were carried out either by the police or the security forces. That is a staggering figure. One has to bear in mind that every single case was fully investigated. Soldiers were operating under the law of the land—not under armed forces law under the Geneva convention, but under our own law—with the yellow book or the yellow card, and every instance was fully investigated at the time by the military police, the RUC or other authorities. That compares with the terrorists, who operated under no known code, and whose only aim in life was to kill and to maim, so how can there ever be any equivalence? How can we talk about amnesties, when our armed forces were operating under the rule of law and under the law?

I want to refer quickly to two cases. I will not mention the names, because they may well be sub judice, but I want to illustrate my concerns. First, the leader of a small patrol went into a village after a shooting incident the day before. The platoon had come under fire. A small patrol of four soldiers went into the village in a follow-up operation after an arms find. A suspicious individual was challenged but did not respond. All four members of the patrol opened fire and that person was killed. It was actually a tragic case of mistaken identity. It was fully investigated at the time by the military police and the RUC. All the evidence was pulled together. The rifles and the rounds were subject to forensic examination. After a period of months, all four members of the patrol were completely exonerated and no further action was required or taken.

We fast-forward to 2012. Under the PSNI investigation under the Historical Enquiries Team, the corporal major who had commanded that patrol was asked to go to Northern Ireland to be questioned, which he did. It was explained to him that there was no new evidence and that the existing evidence had disappeared—the rifles had long since been thrown away or whatever, and the forensic evidence was no longer available. After four days of very polite questioning, he was told that there would be no case to answer. He asked whether he could get on with his life and go back to his family and was told that he could. Fast-forward three more years and there was a knock on the door. Eighteen officers arrested him and took him to Northern Ireland. He has now been charged with attempted murder—I will not go into any more details because he has been charged.

I went to a veterans dinner last weekend at the Royal Anglian Regiment. There were more than 100 people at the dinner. Every single person who came up to me said, “What is going on? Can we not do something about this? Many of us live in fear.” In a speech given that evening, a former regimental sergeant major gave an example from Londonderry in 1972 that illustrates the difficulties that our soldiers faced, the fear they were up against and the appalling decisions that had to be taken on the spur of the moment.

In this second case, soldiers went into the crowd to snatch a demonstrator who had been throwing rocks and bricks at the police and soldiers. They snatched the demonstrator and the crowd became inflamed. The company of soldiers turned around and started moving backwards. One of the soldiers was hit on the back of the head by a rock. In those days, the helmets were not as effective as they are now and he fell down with a cracked skull. The crowd surged forward and were about to lynch him. My constituent and four other soldiers opened fire on the crowd and killed an individual. That was fully investigated at the time. It was found that they were operating under the yellow card or yellow book but that incident is now being reinvestigated. No fewer than 10 people at that dinner now fear they are among the 284 Northern Ireland veterans, men in their 70s and 80s, who may well get the knock on the door as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks said.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for what he is sharing with us, which is the reality of the situation. Does he agree, however, that it is not just about the veterans attending that dinner? It is about the young men and women who are looking in on what is happening, considering joining our armed forces and doing what many of us have done in the past—stepping up to the plate and serving the flag and the country. Might they just think again about serving this country if there is a prospect that they might face prosecution if they seek to defend themselves, the public and their comrades?

[Sir Henry Bellingham]

I thank my right hon. Friend—I will call him a Friend—who makes an incredibly important point. At that dinner, a number of former members of the Royal Anglian Regiment made the point that they were trying to encourage and recruit young people. Can they really do that when those people might go into a theatre of war and act in accordance with orders, the law of armed conflict or the law of the land, but be arrested many years hence?

I do not know what the answer to this dilemma is, but I do know that very many people out there are incredibly angry and very worried, and they are looking to this Government to come up with constructive, innovative and workable solutions. If we do not do that, we will not be forgiven in a hurry.