Patrick Finucane: Supreme Court Judgment

Lord Empey Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I acknowledge the experience of my noble friend and all the time he has spent dealing with Northern Irish matters. I assure the House that this decision has been taken following very careful consideration of the facts, the findings of the Supreme Court judgment, the outcome of the independent counsel review, and the UK’s obligations under Article 2. It is important to remember that the Supreme Court judgment did not mandate a public inquiry, as I said earlier, and it specifically set out that it is for the state to decide.

On another question that he raised, there is no doubt that the collusion identified in this case is, as I said earlier, totally unacceptable. But we must also be clear about the high standards that almost all those who serve in our Armed Forces adhere to, performing in incredibly difficult circumstances to protect this country. So many people from both the Armed Forces and the security services give so much to protecting us, in Northern Ireland and across the UK. Finally, we agree that finding a way forward on legacy that works for all victims is a priority.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, the issue that runs through this particular case and the differing opinions about it is one of double standards. The vast majority of victims have no lobby groups working on their behalf and their cases are barely mentioned. In this particular case, there was collusion; that has been admitted. Why is it that this collusion is clearly an issue for the Irish Government, when the fact that, in the 1970s, senior Cabinet Ministers were involved in the creation, financing, equipping and training of the Provisional IRA is never mentioned? Other legal figures were killed in Northern Ireland, including several elected members of my own party, such as Edgar Graham, Robert Bradford and a number of councillors. There appears to be a different stream for people with big political connections, in the United States in particular, and the rest—the majority—of the victims, who are left to stew in their juice. Why is there no focus on the involvement of the Irish Government, and an apology sought from them as well as from our own?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I have said it before and I will say it again: collusion is totally unacceptable, and this was made clear by David Cameron back in 2012. We believe that the way forward is to allow the independent reviews of the PSNI and the ombudsman to follow their course. To perhaps reassure the noble Lord, as the Secretary of State said on Monday, some new information is being published today from two sources—the 2015 PSNI review, or the de Silva report, and the government-commissioned review by the independent counsel. The new information will, we hope, through the independent reviews, lead to some progress. It includes the failure to identify RUC security services and secret intelligence services officers who failed to warn Patrick Finucane of threats to his life, and the failure to identify RUC officers who probably proposed Patrick Finucane as a target, and I could go on. This is part of the decision to allow these two independent reviews to run their course.