Terrorism: Glorification

Lord Morrow Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, on securing this debate. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, will respond, because he comes with tons of experience of the Northern Ireland situation. I know that this debate in general is about terrorism and the glorification of it at large, but on my immediate left is a victim of terrorism in his family, and the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, was directly a victim of terrorism when she was a youngster at school. Her father escaped, thank God, but not unscathed. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, was also a victim of terrorism, so we know this awful situation at very close hand. We do not have to run around and seek someone. People in my own family and my family circle were victims too. It seems that nearly everybody you know in Northern Ireland was in some way connected and got what I would call the sharp end of paramilitarism in Northern Ireland.

Not that this is very important, but I want to say it anyway, I come from a town in County Tyrone where I worked the best part of my life. The street I worked in was known as the most bombed street of any provincial town in Northern Ireland. In the Troubles, it had 18 500-pound car bombs planted on it. As soon as businesses were put together, another one arrived and the whole thing was blown. But, in the main, people did not turn to violence. They put their heads down, they got on with things and they rebuilt.

We now have a First Minister who tells us that there was no alternative to violence. That is an absolutely outrageous statement. Someone who holds that position should just stop and reflect on what they are saying and the impact that that has. We have lost thousands of people from both sides of the community. The IRA is responsible for 60% of those deaths, 30% are attributable to the loyalists and it is said that 10% are attributable to the forces of law and order, which is not strictly correct in this respect: that 10% figure includes where the security forces intervened or intercepted people on a mission to kill.

For example, there is a small village by the name of Coagh. The noble Lord, Lord McCrea, would know it, as he would have represented it at one time when he was the MP for Mid Ulster. Indeed, Stewartstown, where he grew up as a young fellow, is not far from it. The IRA made a mission to kill in that village on one occasion, and the security forces intercepted it. Now we have a demand asking why these IRA people have not had an inquest.

However, the story does not end there, because in that same village, Coagh, three Protestant workmen were having a conversation one day in a garage repair shop. An IRA squad arrived and just annihilated them as they were standing there having a conversation. That, of course, was designed to create as much antagonism as possible and to get a reaction, but there is no demand for an inquest into their deaths. Why is it that the terrorists are so important that they must have an inquest, but not these three unfortunate souls, who were just having a conversation on a summer’s afternoon when they were gunned down? No, they are dispensable.

In the report that the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, referred to, reference is made to the Terrorism Act 2000. That Act established several proscription offences, including addressing a meeting wearing clothing or displaying articles in public which

“arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation”.

That is still going on. We now have what are called the dissident republicans, who are trying to carry on where others have left off. The PSNI, which would be the enforcement body, are under-resourced and underfunded. If we are going to get on top of the situation, the PSNI has to be given the materiel and the money to ensure that it can give reliable service to the community. Otherwise, we could drift back to terrible times, and not one of us in this Room today wants that to happen.

Surely, it is time. We have a very delicate situation in Northern Ireland and sometimes, we do not fully appreciate in your Lordships’ House just how delicate things can be. If it gets to the stage where terrorism is celebrated, which does happen, and no action is taken, there will be a bad ending. The situation we are in, and where we have come from, needs to be fully appreciated. I hope the Minister will take note, and I am sure he will, because he knows the situation quite well. He has tons of experience and I welcome him to his new post. I cannot think of anybody better to do it than him.