High Court Judgment (John Downey)

John Baron Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robertson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I do not want to go back to the Downey case in too much detail, because I am trying to make progress, but it was an extraordinary judgment.

I also question who received these letters: who are the on-the-runs? If a completely innocent person received a letter saying that they were not wanted by the police, that would be extraordinary. It does not happen; there has to be a reason why people were on the run. What exactly does “on the run” mean? What were they suspected of doing? What did they fear the police thought they might have done to put their names forward? Why did they need confirmation that they were not wanted? That is central to the whole debate.

I am also concerned about the number of letters that appear to have been sent out. I am not quite sure of the exact figures, but those I have suggest that 221 letters were sent out, with 10 being provided by the Prison Service, which I find a little confusing, and four by the Government of the Republic of Ireland, which I find a bit worrying. That is according to the statement made by the Secretary of State a couple of days ago. We are told that that does not amount to an amnesty, but what about the royal pardons? Again, the advice I have received is that those are normally issued following a miscarriage of justice, not to prevent a case from being brought against a person in the first place, and that prompts the question of what the pardons were issued for.

The timing of this issue is unfortunate, as I said during the urgent question. As we speak, the PSNI is advertising for people to come forward as witnesses to the Bloody Sunday killings of 1972.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

Will the Committee’s inquiry also examine what seems to be a contradiction in that the final sentence of a written statement of 25 March states:

“If the Government had been presented with such a scheme on coming to office, we would have stopped it.”—[Official Report, 25 March 2014; Vol. 578, c. 16WS.]

That prompts the question of why the letters continued to be issued.

[Mr Robertson]

We will certainly ask about that, and I do not know why it was not devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly when a Justice Minister was in place—a Justice Minister who confirmed to me and other members of the Committee that he did not know anything about the scheme. I do not know why the matter was not devolved, but it is something we will consider.

As I was saying, the PSNI is looking for people to come forward as witnesses to the Bloody Sunday killings. Let me say straightaway that I do not believe in any amnesties. If republicans have committed crimes they should be charged, if loyalists have committed crimes they should be charged, and if members of the security forces have committed crimes they should be charged. This seems to be a one-sided scheme. In 2005 the Government tried to open it up to everybody, but it was rejected by all parties and withdrawn because we do not believe in amnesties. It seems, however, that there is a scheme for certain members of the community but not for others, which cannot be right.

My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) is quite right and the Committee will certainly consider why this issue was not devolved following the devolution of policing and justice in April 2010. We also published the terms of reference on 11 March. They are quite comprehensive and we want to carry out a full and deep inquiry. We do not want it to run on for ever, but we will certainly do it properly and interview a range of people including past and present Secretaries of State, Ministers, police officers, relevant civil servants, and others. The first session will be held next week with former senior police officers. Yesterday we appointed two eminent barristers—I cannot name them at the moment—including a Queen’s counsel, to become special advisers to the Committee during this inquiry.

It is important to recognise the progress made in Northern Ireland over the past 16 years, but there are no amnesties and no excuse for violence. The rule of law must be upheld by all concerned, so although I regret the need to delve into the past once again, it is sometimes necessary to do so in order to secure the future.

Northern Ireland

John Baron Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That this House notes the ongoing discussions in Northern Ireland chaired by Dr Richard Haass on a number of important issues including the legacy of the Troubles; recognises the deep sense of loss still felt by the innocent victims of violence and their continuing quest for truth and justice; acknowledges the valour and sacrifice of the men and women who served and continue to serve in the armed forces, the police and the prison service in Northern Ireland; and is resolved to ensure that those who engaged in or supported acts of terrorism will not succeed in rewriting the narrative of this troubled period in Northern Ireland’s history.

It is a privilege to move the motion standing in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) and other colleagues on dealing with the past in Northern Ireland. First, I wish to record an apology on behalf of my right hon. Friend. As Members will be aware, he is attending a memorial service in his constituency to mark the 20th anniversary of the Shankill bomb on 23 October 1993, in which nine innocent people tragically lost their lives.

Today we remember the families of John Desmond Frizzel, aged 63, in whose fish shop the bomb was exploded; his daughter Sharon McBride, aged 29, married to Alan with one child; George Williamson, 63 years old, married with two children, and his wife Gillian Williamson, 49 years old; Evelyn Baird, 27 years old, married with two children; her daughter Michelle Baird, seven years old, a schoolchild; Leanne Murray, 13 years old, a schoolchild; Michael Morrison, 27 years old, married with three children; and Wilma McKee, 38 years old, married with two children.

Today I am sure that all right hon. and hon. Members will join me in saying that the tragic loss and pain suffered by those families and the thousands of innocent victims—whether Protestant, Roman Catholic or of other faiths—killed or maimed in Northern Ireland, here in Great Britain or elsewhere during our troubled past will never be forgotten by those of us who cherish the value of human life, reject violence and pursue peace as the only way forward for Northern Ireland. Today we especially remember the families of the victims of the Shankill bomb.

I also wish to acknowledge the presence of the Secretary of State. I am aware that she had other obligations and commitments this week outside of the United Kingdom, and we appreciate her presence today.

Discussions between the political parties at Stormont have failed to achieve sufficient consensus on dealing with the legacy of the troubled past to which I have referred. Therefore, the First Minister and Deputy First Minister have invited Dr Richard Haass to chair discussions about this and related matters such as parades and protests, flags, emblems and symbols. Dr Haass is assisted in this work by a small team, including Meghan O’Sullivan, who is his vice-chair of the talks presently under way.

I also acknowledge the work of the previous Consultative Group on the Past, led by Lord Eames and Denis Bradley, and the recommendations set out in its report. However, I must place on record the fact that many of those recommendations were rejected at the time, not least because of the schism that exists at the very heart of the debate on the past and the definition of a victim.

The Democratic Unionist party remains firmly of the view that we cannot equate the perpetrators of terrorist violence with their innocent victims, yet that is precisely what the current law does in Northern Ireland under the Victims and Survivors (Northern Ireland) Order 2006. This is a law that the DUP seeks to change, and for that reason I have proposed a private Member’s Bill that is due to be given its Second Reading in December. My Bill would ensure that an individual killed or injured as a result of their own act of terrorism or convicted of a terrorism-related offence as defined in law would not be classified as a victim for the purposes of deriving any benefit from schemes designed to assist victims and survivors.

I referred at the outset to the Shankill bomb and the innocent people murdered by the IRA in that incident. One of the IRA terrorists on that day, the bomber Thomas Begley, was killed when the bomb exploded, and his accomplice Sean Kelly was seriously injured. When convicted of this heinous crime, Sean Kelly was given nine life sentences—one life sentence for each life he had destroyed—yet under the early release scheme that formed part of the Belfast agreement, Kelly was released after serving just seven years in prison. That is less than one year for each life that he destroyed that day on the Shankill road.

That is an enormous burden for the families of those victims to bear. Michelle Williamson, whose father and mother were murdered by Sean Kelly, campaigned vigorously to prevent his release. Regrettably, Kelly walked free. To have this injustice compounded by the fact that the law currently defines the IRA bombers Sean Kelly and Thomas Begley as victims in just the same way as the nine innocent people who died that day on the Shankill road are defined as victims is an outrage. It is an affront to decency and the rule of law, and it is something that this Parliament should act to change. For the sake of the nine innocent people who died on that terrible day 20 years ago to this day, I trust and pray that parties throughout the House will support the necessary change to the legislation.

That is fundamental to finding an agreed way forward on dealing with the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland. On the definition, let me be clear: whether the innocent victims were murdered by those IRA bombers or by the Ulster Volunteer Force gang known as the Shankill Butchers that operated on the Shankill road, or whether the victims were Protestant or Roman Catholic or of other faiths or none, it does not matter. There cannot be equivocation between the innocent victims of terrorism and those who perpetrated those acts of terrorism. The principle applies in all cases. Those who commission or commit murder cannot be equated in a definition with their innocent victims.

Of course, this is not the only challenge we face in dealing with the legacy of the past. This summer has been a stark reminder of the difficulties surrounding very sensitive issues that we desperately need to address and resolve. I am bound to say, in the absence of the Sinn Fein Members elected to this House, that their attitude in the summer and recently has not helped to create an atmosphere in which we can make progress.

I refer specifically to an event that occurred in Castlederg in August when we witnessed a blatant glorification of terrorism by senior members of Sinn Fein. Castlederg is a small town in County Tyrone near the border with the Irish Republic. Many terrorist atrocities were committed there during what we call the troubles. The IRA waged a vicious sectarian campaign against the local Protestant community and especially targeted the security forces.

This August, republicans held a commemoration event in Castlederg to unveil a memorial to two IRA terrorists, Seamus Harvey and Gerard McGlynn, who 40 years ago, like Thomas Begley, were killed by their own bomb. I cannot understate the insensitivity of this event. Initially, republicans even sought, as part of the commemoration, to have a parade past some of the locations where the IRA had murdered people in Castlederg.

The speeches that were made on that day, most notably by the Sinn Fein Member of the Legislative Assembly, Gerry Kelly, were undoubtedly interpreted as a glorification of terrorism, and rightly so. Mr Kelly was convicted of trying to blow up the Old Bailey in London in March 1973. In his speech, he asserted that his actions were not acts of terrorism. I ask every Member of this House the following question: if a gang that includes Mr Kelly plants a bomb outside a courthouse in a public place and that bomb explodes, killing one person and injuring more than 200 people, is that an act of terrorism or something else? My understanding is that that is an act of terrorism as defined by the law of the United Kingdom and international law. We have the ridiculous situation whereby republicans are trying to redefine what terrorism is and to recast the actions that they perpetrated during the troubles. They are trying to explain away the heinous nature of those actions by some form of twisted justification. That will not do and we will not stand for it. There can be no redefinition of terrorism in Northern Ireland.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues on raising this important issue. It is important that we do not paper over the fact that terrorists committed horrendous crimes during the troubles. We should all congratulate the civilians and soldiers on their courage and steadfastness at that time. Will he admit that it is important to remember those terrorist acts if only because, in remembering the horrendous nature of those crimes, the Province stands a better chance of having a brighter future?

[Mr Donaldson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct and I will speak about commemoration and dealing with the legacy of the past in a moment.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Baron Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That is not the thinking. Of course we want a process whereby constituents, through a petition, can call for the recall of their MP. But because the main way that we throw MPs out of Parliament is at an election, there should be a cause for the recall to take place. That is why we have a Standards and Privileges Committee. That is why it now has outside members and why it has the power to suspend Members of Parliament and to expel them. I believe, but we can debate and discuss this across the House, that before we trigger a recall there should be some sort of censure by the House of Commons to avoid vexatious attempts to get rid of Members of Parliament who are doing a perfectly reasonable job.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

Q8. Some of us on the Government Benches believe that Government plans to replace 20,000 regulars, including the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, with 30,000 reservists will prove a false economy. The present Territorial Army mobilisation rate of 40% suggests instead that we need 50,000 reservists, and financial incentives will mean that an ex-regular reservist will be on a better scale of pay than a serving brigadier. Given that we have already raised this matter with the Secretary of State, and further to our letter to the Prime Minister on 9 April, will my right hon. Friend meet us to discuss this and other concerns, including the wisdom of this policy in this increasingly uncertain world?

[The Prime Minister]

I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend and discuss these and other issues. In the spending review, we produced £1.5 billion to provide the uplift for the Territorial Army that it requires. I am absolutely convinced that it is right to have a different balance between regulars and reserves, as other countries have done, but obviously it is absolutely vital that we get that new recruitment of our reserve forces. That is why the money is there.

On the wider issues of defence that I know my hon. Friend cares about, we will have some of the best equipped forces anywhere in the world. We will have the new aircraft carriers for our Navy, the hunter killer submarines, the joint strike fighter and the excellent Typhoon aircraft, and the A400M will soon be coming into service. Our troops in Afghanistan now say that they are better equipped, better protected and better provided for than they have ever been in our history.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Baron Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

Successful counter-insurgency operations in the past, such as in Malaya, suggest that not one of the preconditions for success—control of borders, good troop density levels, a credible Government, and support of the majority of the population—exists in Afghanistan. Does this not beg for a more realistic assessment of the situation?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We have sought to introduce a strong element of realism, not only in the extra resources and support that are required for our troops in Afghanistan, but in the recognition—I think this is the implication of the question—that there is not a military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan. There must be a marriage of a military strategy, which applies pressure on insurgents who want to disrupt the peaceful co-existence of communities and people in Afghanistan, with a political process of reintegration and reconciliation, so that we can leave Afghanistan—

Bloody Sunday Inquiry (Report)

John Baron Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr Owen Paterson)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of the Report of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry.

This debate follows the publication of the report on 15 June and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s statement in this House in response. I should like to thank the tribunal for its report. I have read it in full, and it is clearly a remarkable piece of work.

Let me reiterate the Government’s clear position on the report. Lord Saville’s conclusions are shocking. What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said, we do not honour all those members of the armed forces who bravely upheld the rule of law in Northern Ireland by hiding from the truth.

I am sure that hon. Members are familiar with many of the conclusions in the report, but I should put on record again some of the tribunal’s key findings. Lord Saville found a

“serious and widespread loss of fire discipline”

by members of support company of the Parachute Regiment who entered the Bogside,

“as a result of an order...which should not have been given.”

He found that

“despite the contrary evidence given by the soldiers...none of them fired in response to attacks or threatened attacks by nail or petrol bombers.”

He also found that many of the soldiers

“knowingly put forward false accounts in order to seek to justify their firing”.

In some of the most shocking sections of the report, Lord Saville concludes that some of those killed or injured were fleeing or going to the assistance of others. The report says that Patrick Doherty was shot while

“crawling…away from the soldiers”.

It refers to Alexander Nash, who was

“hit and injured by Army gunfire after he had gone to...tend his son”.

Lord Saville records that James Wray was shot, in all probability,

“when he was lying mortally wounded on the ground.”

For those looking for statements of innocence, the report is clear that

“none of the casualties was posing a threat of causing death or serious injury, or indeed was doing anything else that could on any view justify their shooting.”

As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said, we do not defend the British Army by defending the indefensible. It is clear from the tribunal’s unequivocal conclusions that some members of our armed forces acted wrongly.

I reiterate the Government’s apology for the events of that day. The Government are deeply sorry for what happened.

Just as the report is clear in its conclusions on the unjustifiable actions that took place in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday, so, too, is it clear in its other findings. There is no suggestion in the report that there was any premeditation or conspiracy by the UK Government, the Northern Ireland Government or senior members of the armed forces. Lord Saville said that there was no evidence that the authorities tolerated or encouraged

“the use of unjustified lethal force.”

The process surrounding the report has been the subject of much controversy. None of us could have anticipated that the inquiry would take 12 years or cost nearly £192 million. Our views on that are well documented, but I firmly believe that it is right that our main focus now is not on the controversies surrounding the process, but on the substance of the report’s conclusions.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I concur with my right hon. Friend’s points. I have seen at first hand the sacrifice of our security forces when serving in Northern Ireland, and their excellent work in preventing a difficult situation from getting much worse. Does my right hon. Friend agree that he should do everything in his power to stop the report being used by one side against another? It is more important to move forward and make progress in the Province in future.

[Mr Paterson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments, which I endorse. Lord Saville and his colleagues go to some length in the report to say that they do not pass judgment and that the inquiry was not a court of law. They were simply trying to establish the facts. My hon. Friend is right that we should use the facts in the report to see how we can move forward and look to a better future. I will deal with that later.