Lord Murphy of Torfaen
Main Page: Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Murphy of Torfaen's debates with the Cabinet Office
(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberI am extremely grateful. We will now move on with rather greater dispatch, I hope.
2. What plans he has to publish his conclusions on legacy issues in Northern Ireland.
My right hon. Friend the Minister of State and I have been meeting a range of political parties and victims’ groups to discuss the issue of dealing with the past. So far, we have not found consensus. While the Government have a role to play, the way forward on this matter must come from within Northern Ireland.
The Secretary of State is of course right that solutions must come from within Northern Ireland, but he will realise that there is now widespread opposition to his proposal for a semi-inquiry into the Pat Finucane case. Does he understand that by going ahead with his proposal, £1.5 million is likely to be wasted, and will he now rethink?
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question, and I pay tribute to him, as I did last week in the statement. I am sorry that we disagree on this. He committed to a public inquiry, but he then passed the Inquiries Act 2005, which was the stumbling block. We inherited a complete impasse; this was going nowhere. We think that by accepting the conclusion of the Stevens inquiry, which is possibly the largest police inquiry in British history, and by having the family to Downing street for a fulsome apology, we can now concentrate on what is really important, which I raised with the family when I first met them—namely, to get to the truth as fast possible. That is why we have gone down this route of appointing a well-respected international lawyer and giving him very wide powers to get to the truth by December next year.