Stormont House Agreement: Implementation

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) on securing the debate. However, I do have to say that, as someone who participated in many of the negotiations in the process—some of which he discussed—and in particular has always been pushing to ensure that we keep the promise that was made in the Good Friday agreement about properly addressing legacy issues and tending to the needs of victims, I do not accept a lot of his recounting of the history of the process. Indeed, I would have to say that he has disremembered a number of key points.

In relation to dealing with the past, in a number of the negotiations that took place after the Good Friday agreement the Social Democratic and Labour party, at times the Alliance party and the Women’s Coalition were all saying that the question of victims and the past needed to be dealt with, but it was quite clear from the two Governments that the parties that did not want the past dealt with were the main Unionist party at the time and Sinn Féin.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the negotiations in Hillsborough in 2003. It was then clear. Three parties suggested that a victims’ forum be established to move forward on issues of the past because the Governments and their parties were failing. Again, that did not happen because of Sinn Féin and the Ulster Unionist party, but of course the Governments continued to proceed on what they said was their commitment from Weston Park in relation to the so-called on-the-runs. That led to the legislation to which the right hon. Gentleman referred—the Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill in 2005. Contrary to what he said, that Bill was providing opportunities for certificates of amnesty to be given to members of the security forces or anyone else. Anyone could get certificates. In fact, anyone could turn up and get a certificate for anyone else—that is how wide open the scheme was—and it could all happen in secret, with victims not knowing or being told. If anyone found out, the Secretary of State could put on an additional seal of secrecy. I am proud of the fact that the SDLP led opposition to that. Did the Democratic Unionist party make that a deal breaker at the time in the negotiations for the restoration of devolution? It did not. It was the SDLP that fought on that, because the DUP was happy to go along with some aspects of the amnesty scheme, provided that it extended to members of the security forces as well.

The right hon. Gentleman also referred to the establishment of the Historical Enquiries Team. Paul Murphy was Secretary of State at that time, and he told me very clearly that I, as the SDLP leader, was the only party leader who was pressing for anything to be done in relation to historical enquiries. I was the only person who lobbied for that team to be established and the only person who lobbied for funding. Of course, it could not be provided for in statute because there was not agreement from the other parties. So we have the DUP complaining about the very things that it opposed and helped to prevent. Similarly, in terms of the Stormont House agreement and the prior discussions on Haass and everything else related to dealing with the past, the DUP stood in the way of getting an agreement as well.