Stormont House Agreement: Implementation

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered implementation of the Stormont House Agreement.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I know you have taken an interest in these matters over the years. I welcome colleagues who have taken time out to attend the debate, including the Minister. I look forward to his response.

Although policing and justice issues are now devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive—at least for the next few weeks—the legacy of our troubled past remains a matter for this Parliament and the Government of the United Kingdom to deal with. Let me remind colleagues that, during what we call the troubles in Northern Ireland, there were more than 3,500 deaths, of which more than 2,000—60%—were murders carried out by republican paramilitaries, mainly the Provisional IRA. More than 1,000 murders were carried out by loyalist paramilitaries, amounting to 30% of the overall total. British and Irish state forces were responsible for 10% of deaths during the troubles, almost all of which occurred as a result of entirely lawful actions, where police officers and soldiers acted to safeguard life and property. Let me restate that for the record: the paramilitary terrorists were responsible for some 90% of the deaths in the troubles, and state forces on both sides of the border for 10%. I want hon. Members to hold that statistic—that fact—in their minds during this debate. I apologise to colleagues, because this is a very complex issue and I need to take some time to go through the background and the issues we are still dealing with in Northern Ireland.

There are some 3,000 unsolved murders in Northern Ireland linked to our troubled past. What a terrible legacy that is—one of pain, loss and in many cases a deep sense of injustice. It is a well-accepted principle that in a democracy no one should be above the law and yet, as will become clear from my remarks, there appears to be one rule for those who have served our country and the Crown and another for those whose objective was to destroy it. Unfortunately, those legacy issues were not adequately addressed, never mind resolved, in the Belfast agreement on Good Friday 1998.

Instead, in that agreement, the Government of the day agreed to release early from prison those prisoners sentenced for offences linked to the troubles in Northern Ireland and who were members of a terrorist organisation on ceasefire, in support of the peace process. In effect, the terrorists who had been found guilty of crimes including murder were released from prison after serving only two years in jail. For many of them, that was the limit. They included, for example, the notorious Shankill bomber, from the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds). Sean Kelly was convicted by the courts in Northern Ireland of the murder of nine innocent people in a bomb explosion on Shankill Road in Belfast. He was sentenced to nine life terms in prison, but under the terms of the Belfast agreement he was released early, having served less than one year for each life that he destroyed.

In addition, and beyond the terms of the agreement, in September 2000 the then Secretary of State, Peter Mandelson, announced that the Government would no longer seek the extradition of Provisional IRA prisoners who had escaped from prison, including several who escaped from the Maze prison in my constituency in 1983. They were allowed to return home; they were no longer sought to be brought back and put in prison, where frankly they belonged. They included convicted terrorist Dermot Finucane—the brother of the late Pat Finucane, about whom we have heard a lot in the past—who was the former head of intelligence and the head of southern command of the Provisional IRA. He was a very senior figure in the Provisional IRA, and he escaped from prison and was allowed to return home. Kevin Barry Artt, who was convicted of the murder of the deputy governor of the Maze prison, escaped and yet was allowed to return home without having to go back to prison. I could go on with the list of the concessions that have been made to Sinn Féin and the IRA over the years in relation to those who were convicted of, or are alleged to have committed, very serious crimes.

In 2001, the then Labour Government sought to extend that further to introduce an amnesty for all members of terrorist organisations on ceasefire. On 4 May 2001, the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Dr John Reid, wrote to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and said:

“In the Hillsborough statement of 8 March we accepted publicly for the first time that it would be a natural development of the Early Release Scheme to discontinue the prosecution of pre-Good Friday Agreement offences allegedly committed by supporters of organisations now on ceasefire.”

Crucially, Dr Reid went on to say that the proposals, which would be enacted into legislation,

“should exclude members of the security forces from the amnesty arrangements”.

In other words, a terrorist who had committed crimes, including murder, before the 1998 agreement would be granted an amnesty, but a soldier or a police officer alleged to have committed an offence would not be the beneficiary of such an amnesty. Thankfully, through parliamentary opposition, that reprehensible scheme was defeated and the secret deal that had been done was thwarted.

But it did not stop there. Having been frustrated in that attempt to bring in an amnesty for terrorists, the Government of the day did another secret deal, issuing letters to paramilitary prisoners and suspects wanted for questioning about terrorist offences to say, “You may now return home. The police will no longer question or arrest you in connection with offences committed before 1998.” We did not know of the existence of that scheme, and it was only finally exposed when John Downey was brought before the courts here in London on charges linked to the murder of four soldiers in the Hyde Park bombings of 1982. What happened? Downey produced his letter—that “get out of jail free” card—and the courts threw out the case against him. He was allowed to walk free, without being prosecuted for the offences he is alleged to have committed.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

When I was serving in Northern Ireland, my regimental band was blown up in the Regent’s Park bombing on the same day. A few hours later, I took a patrol out in the New Lodge area of Belfast, as the news of the bombing was coming through. The soldiers under my command showed unbelievable restraint in the face of taunts about that terrorist incident. Does the right hon. Gentleman understand the feelings of the people who showed that restraint, day in, day out, only to see now a one-sided judicial process that could take people of that era—people of my age and older—into court for alleged crimes committed during that period?

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

Yes, I do understand entirely the strength of feelings. I have many comrades with whom I served in the Ulster Defence Regiment in Northern Ireland, and they are daily subjected to headlines in our local newspapers such as “Off the hook” over pictures of convicted terrorists. The hon. Gentleman can imagine how my comrades feel too, having put their lives on the line to bring some of those people to justice. Similarly, members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, who went out to investigate the crimes, now find that the people they put behind bars can walk free, some of them as the result of the use of the royal prerogative of mercy.

As the result of a report prepared by Lady Justice Hallett into the on-the-runs issue, the Secretary of State of the day, the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers), told the House of Commons in a statement in 2014:

“The Government…will take whatever steps are necessary, acting on the basis of legal advice and in conjunction with the police and prosecutors, to do everything possible to remove barriers to future prosecutions.”—[Official Report, 17 July 2014; Vol. 584, c. 1041.]

She was referring to the future prosecution of terrorists. Since that statement was made, I am not aware of a single terrorist suspect being brought before the courts in Northern Ireland in relation to those matters. The Secretary of State also identified 36 priority cases highlighted in the Hallett report. Those were to be the subject of a review by the legacy investigation branch of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Will the Minister tell us in his response what has happened to those 36 priority cases that were to be reviewed? Are the suspects still wanted for questioning, or have they been told, “No, you’re okay, we don’t need to talk to you”?

I want to highlight a case that I find particularly appalling. Kieran Conway is a self-proclaimed member of the Provisional IRA from Dublin. He claims that he was a senior intelligence officer at the time of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, in which 21 innocent people lost their lives. Conway asserts that he is aware of the identity of some of the IRA members involved in that mass murder, but he has refused to disclose that information. In addition, Conway admitted that he had been involved in a number of shooting incidents, perhaps as many as 100. He claims that a number of British soldiers were killed in some of those shooting incidents that he witnessed.

Kieran Conway is so confident that the UK authorities will not pursue him that he has written and published a book setting all that out and putting it in the public domain. Not only that, but he has appeared on the BBC “HARDtalk” programme, openly boasting of his involvement in those crimes. Has Kieran Conway been arrested and questioned about the claims he makes in his book and has broadcast on other media? No, he has not—far from it. Today, Kieran Conway is a solicitor in Dublin, who acts on behalf of so-called dissident republican suspects in the Special Criminal Court. Imagine the conversations that Mr Conway has with his clients—“Don’t worry, boys. One of these days the Brits will cut a deal with you too. Just keep on doing what you’re doing, just like I did, and I’m walking the streets and advising clients how to evade justice.”

Soldiers and veterans look at all of that and they think, “What is going on?” We know is going on: veterans of our armed forces are getting the knock on the door early in the morning. They find a large number of police officers outside their homes; their homes are invaded and searched. The veterans, sometimes just out of bed, are marched off to a police station, subjected to cross-examination and interrogation about crimes that occurred sometimes 20 or 30 years ago. Those are the men and women who served our country, who put themselves on the frontline and who were prepared to go out and face the terrorists; today, they are waiting again for the knock at the door.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

I join those who have paid tribute to your chairing of the debate, Mr Pritchard. I also join those who have paid tribute to the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson). I have known him for many years. He is a man who always speaks with utter—sometimes painful—honesty, but with the deepest sincerity. Anyone who has any doubt at all about the rawness of these issues should listen to the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, because that rawness still smarts today. We, as parliamentarians, and as co-guarantors of the Good Friday agreement in this country, have an absolute bounden duty to seek to achieve that which we all want: a peaceful, settled and secure Northern Ireland.

I also associate myself with the comments of the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Tom Elliott). I joined him in what I have to say was a slightly unlikely occasion for me: the 12 July parades in Maguiresbridge. I talked to people for whom the border conflict is not a footnote in history but a bloodstained page in their own family lives and their own family bibles—people who actually lived through that horror.

I do not look at this from one particular perspective or another, and I certainly do not look at it with blinkered eyes. However, as the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) quite rightly said, we expect higher standards from our armed forces. I see no comparison between terrorism and military action, but there have been occasions in the past when people in our armed forces have not acted in the best traditions of our armed forces. I do not think that any of us should pretend that there have not been occasions when matters have occurred that need to be investigated.

I do not believe that every single person in any single organisation can be completely exonerated. That might seem offensive to some people, and I apologise, but on behalf of the many who have served in the armed forces, there is no time or respect for people who act outside the law. Yes, it was a horrendous time, but there is still no excuse for anyone breaching their code of honour—and it is a code of honour that one subscribes to when one wears the Queen’s uniform.

However, the Stormont House agreement and the subsequent Fresh Start were about much more than that particular aspect. Hon. Members should not forget that it was welfare reform that ran the whole business into the sand. It is hard to think that it was agreed only in December 2014. At that time the issues were overwhelmingly ones of welfare reform, and also about the size of the Assembly. There were a huge number of other issues, including the winding up of the historical enquiries team and the introduction of another two or three bodies.

At that time, flags and parades was extremely important, as was the past. I pay credit to the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) and all of those involved in winding down the Twaddell Avenue circumstances, which showed that, on occasion, we can actually achieve things. What seemed insoluble a few years ago has been solved, and I pay undiluted credit to all the people involved, at least two of whom are sitting in this room today. However, implementation of the Stormont House agreement is the subject we are talking about today; we are not talking solely about the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

[Richard Benyon]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the world looked at the peace process in Northern Ireland with huge admiration? It did many people sitting in this room enormous credit that they were able to swallow that agreement for the greater good. However, the world is also looking at the United Kingdom in a whole range of ways at the moment, and one of them is how we treat our veterans. This comes down to a matter of great interest for Britain’s perception in the world. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is something the Government would be well advised to consider?

[Stephen Pound]

I do not think that anyone would possibly cavil at the thought of respect for our military, our veterans and the military covenant. Equally, however, I do not think that anyone would say that without exception there has never been an incident in which a person wearing the Queen’s uniform acted outside that code of honour and those rules. That might be uncomfortable to say, but I think that we do our armed forces and our veterans a disservice if we say that they can do no wrong. After all, they are human beings.