Bloody Sunday Inquiry

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, I served as a Minister in Northern Ireland for a much shorter period than the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney. Several years have passed but his reputation was very high when I got to Belfast in 1997. I remember the day when Mo Mowlam, the Secretary of State, said to me that there was to be a further inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday. I felt an enormous sense of relief because, although I had not been in Northern Ireland all that long, it was very clear that the situation had to be dealt with if any progress were to be made towards a peaceful resolution. I and those around me were delighted.

In the long period between then and now, there was a nervousness about what the report would bring. I believe that we were all mightily relieved when we saw the report and the very positive response to it by the Prime Minister. I never thought that a British Conservative Prime Minister would be cheered outside the Guildhall in Derry. None of us could have anticipated that, even a short time before the report came out.

I do not want to approach this in a mood of self-congratulation for this country, but I do not believe that there are many other countries in the world which could deal with an event which had blotted their past in such an open, honest and apologetic manner as we did. It was apologetic in the sense that the Prime Minister apologised for what happened. That is a sign of strength and we have to build on that strength. We all know that the events of Bloody Sunday were disastrous for Northern Ireland; and they were disastrous for the whole of Britain and Ireland as well. We all know how much support the IRA gained from the events of Bloody Sunday, as it did from a mistaken attempt to introduce internment there.

There is one respect in which Bloody Sunday was different from other tragic events in Northern Ireland’s history and why there was an even greater need for an inquiry into it than into some of the other events—although I shall speak about that in a moment—and that, of course, is Widgery. The fact that Widgery said, effectively, that everything was all right and that the report was widely regarded as a whitewash made it even more important that there should be another inquiry into the events of that tragic day in Londonderry. I understand that it is the first time in British legal history that there has been a second inquiry into the same events, and probably into the same facts.

Some people say—and I understand why because a life is a life however it is taken away—that many other tragic events have taken place there and that many people have been killed by republican and by loyalist terrorists, but one important difference, which has been referred to already, is that our soldiers were the servants of the state of this country. It is right to demand higher standards of those who act in our name than of those who act as terrorists or paramilitaries outside the law. For that reason, I think that the Saville inquiry is different and represents a different mood from some of the demands for inquiries into some of the other events which were not done by the British state.

Nevertheless, although the British Army came out of the events badly in Londonderry on that day, I think we all have a high respect for it. I certainly do. I saw it in action in Afghanistan when I was there briefly early last year. We need to pay respect to the Army, even though on this occasion it is important that we get into balance what happened; the report is rightly critical of it.

I turn briefly to the lessons from the Saville process and the issues for the future. Of course, it was costly and took a long time. Although the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney, made it very clear how important it was to have the inquiry and get those results, and I very much agree, the fact that it cost so much has made it harder to have similar inquiries. That is why the Prime Minister said that there would not be any more public inquiries and the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, said that there would be no more open-ended inquiries. I think that that is a pity, because the process was good. Had it been quicker and less expensive, we could have decided that other issues required an inquiry, but we have been a bit stymied. I understand that, this afternoon, the noble and learned Lord, Lord, Saville, is giving evidence to the Northern Ireland Select Committee in the House of Commons, and that the committee was going to ask these sort of questions. It is a pity that we could not have had those views to hand prior to this debate.

Other events happened in Northern Ireland, and every speaker so far has referred to them and said that we have to do something about them. I do not think that we can just ignore Ballymurphy because there was no whitewash Widgery-type inquiry about it. We cannot ignore it because that also involved soldiers. In Claudy, although no British troops were involved, I think that our Government were in some way complicit in transferring a particular person into Donegal and out of our jurisdiction.

So we have a responsibility to the people of Northern Ireland, because they, above all, are entitled to closure and to some greater inner peace in their minds about some of those events. We call this the Eames/Bradley report for short, but the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, played an important part in the report and in our debate this afternoon. For all the good work that it is doing, I do not think that the historic inquiries team is the best way to deal with some of the events to which we have referred. It is not independent in the sense that the Saville inquiry was independent, and it is burdened with a lot of work on lower level but important issues. We need to find a different way to deal with the outstanding issues.

There was criticism of the report that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, produced, along with Denis Bradley, but we ought to revisit its conclusions because although some of them were criticised very much, others are very relevant today and we would be paying a disrespect to the work that went into that inquiry if we simply said, “We will move on; that wasn’t very good”. I have read it again over the past day or so and I think that there are some very important conclusions in it which are relevant to how we move forward. I am not totally clear as to the best way ahead, but that of course is a responsibility for the Government. All that I hope is that they will look again at the conclusions in that report.

One outstanding issue is Finucane. There have been inquiries into Billy Wright; we have had the report. The Nelson and Hamill inquiries continue. I do not think that we can leave Finucane alone; there is too much concern about it. If we simply say that nothing needs to be done about it, we and the people of Northern Ireland will regret that day. It represents one important item of unfinished business in Northern Ireland and it has to be addressed; we cannot duck it. I do not want to go into a long debate about what happened under the previous Government, but we cannot just move away from that one. Next year, there will be crucial Assembly elections in Northern Ireland, and I would not want the Finucane issue to bedevil the discussions and debate in that election campaign.

I shall refer to just two other issues. The Northern Ireland Bill of Rights is not directly relevant to Saville, but it is indirectly relevant. It has been put into the long grass, although the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission did a lot of work on it. I hope that the Government will look again at it to see what of the report on the Bill of Rights that was put before them is worth bringing into law. That is important.

Lastly, I shall refer to an issue that my noble friend Lady Royall referred to: community policing. In the end, Saville is about establishing a long-lasting peace, and community policing is an important aspect of that at the moment. If any financial decisions were to be announced on the 20th of this month that damaged community policing in Northern Ireland, they would prove many times more costly in terms of lives than the money that would be saved. I urge the Government to think hard. Community policing is now an essential part of the peace process in Northern Ireland, and anything that takes away from that would be damaging to the future of Northern Ireland.

Having said that, I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville, on his report. It was an important day in the history of Northern Ireland when the report was produced. I echo the words of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames: what we need is an ongoing healing process for the people of Northern Ireland. The Saville report is part of it, but we have some way to go.