Patrick Finucane Report

John McDonnell Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

This report is about state collusion and state complicity. I cannot think of a country anywhere else in the world that would have revealed in more detail, with no holds barred and no documents held back, the full extent of that collusion, and stood up, put its hand up and said, “This is what went wrong. This is what we apologise for. This is how we will make sure it never takes place again.” I recommend that the hon. Lady look at paragraph 113, where de Silva talks about his “Lessons for the future” and states:

“It is essential that the involvement of agents in serious criminal offences can always be reviewed and investigated and that allegations of collusion with terrorist groups are rigorously pursued. Perhaps the most obvious and significant lesson of all, however, is that it should not take over 23 years to properly examine, unravel and publish a full account of collusion in the murder of a solicitor that took place in the United Kingdom.”

I believe that Desmond de Silva is saying that that is what has been done; that is what has been laid bare. It has not taken a public inquiry; it has taken a Government to open up everything and say, “Let’s get the truth out. And here it is.”

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

If the Lawrence and Hillsborough families have taught us anything, it is that the families will not go away until they see justice in their terms. In an Adjournment debate I sought in 1999, I read into the record statements made in 1989 by an Under-Secretary at the Home Office. He had said that “a number of solicitors” were “unduly sympathetic” to the cause of the IRA, adding that these statements were made on the basis of “advice” and “guidance” from people “dealing with the matters”. Pat Finucane was murdered three and a half weeks later. The inquiry has said that there is no basis for any claim that the then Under-Secretary intended his comments to provide a form of political encouragement for any attack on any solicitor, but these words were certainly unwise and they contributed to a climate in which solicitors were made vulnerable—not only Pat Finucane, but Rosemary Nelson. Because these were statements by a Government Minister, does the Prime Minister’s apology extend to an apology for those expressions by the then Under-Secretary?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me first respond to the hon. Gentleman’s point about Hillsborough. There was a public inquiry and an inquest, but they were, in effect, faulty. It took an act by Government, with the Bishop of Liverpool, to lay open all the information. The families have thus been able to see the truth and, hopefully, they will be able to get that new inquest. I would argue that in this case that is what has happened: there was this full police investigation, but instead of having a public inquiry we have opened up and given all the information that is necessary.

On Douglas Hogg, I ask the hon. Gentleman to read the report carefully. It finds that Douglas Hogg was briefed in a way that he should not have been briefed, that that compromised him and that therefore what he said was unfortunate. But the report does not find that he in any way encouraged the action that took place or in any way knew about it. I would encourage the hon. Gentleman to read the report very carefully in that regard.