High Court Judgment (John Downey)

Debate between Mark Durkan and Stephen Pound

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Pound]

Let me say this unequivocally: absolutely, that is the law. Where there is evidence of criminality, the law must run its course. If the person is living in a foreign jurisdiction, that is an issue we have to consider. I regret the use of the expression “get out of jail free” card. No one is walking around with that in their pocket; that is not the case. I hope that these matters will come out when the House gets to consider the various reports, certainly the review led by Lady Justice Hallett.

While there are the issues of legality and fine points of law, the one thing that most people reading Hansard or listening to the debate would be struck by is the immense courage and bravery of many of the speakers who have, from their personal experience, expressed their views. I particularly praise the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) for refusing to allow himself or his party to go down the nihilistic road of destruction and tear down the structures because of this issue. That is a courageous statement that would not be massively popular with every single element in his constituency, and he deserves praise and credit, as does his party, for making it.

The hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) said—I think that this resonates with many of us, and I will never forget it—that the matter we are discussing today has undermined the peace process, not underpinned it. It is that serious. We have to realise that this is not a minor administrative issue; it is a major point that has to be considered in depth, and I very much hope that the three inquiries will do so.

I want to leave time for the Secretary of State to respond to those points. As the Prime Minister said, this is not the time to unpick the peace process. It is not the time to say, simply and in the name of expediency, that everything that has gone before should be forgotten. It cannot. We have heard from many speakers today how painful, raw and fresh the wounds still are. We cannot forget. We have to analyse and discover what went wrong, and we have to be open and honest about it. The fact that the current First Minister and Justice Minister were not privy to all the decisions is profoundly regrettable. I say no more than that, but I am sure the House will appreciate how much of an understatement that truly is.

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Mr Woodward) for his contribution, which was extremely frank, open and helpful, and I very much hope that he will be involved in the various inquiries.

We have spent this afternoon talking above all about a time of great darkness when things happened that we regret. Every single one of us must bend every bone and strain every sinew to ensure that if we achieve nothing else in this House, it will be a move forward from that darkness into the light, where we can be open, honest and transparent, and where there is a better future for the people of that very brave part of the United Kingdom, because, frankly, they deserve no less than that.

With that in mind, I support the inquiries. I am very grateful for today’s contributions and apologise for not being able to respond in detail to some of the points that have been made. However, I will ensure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath will respond—I can assure the House of that—and profoundly hope that when this matter is again ventilated on the Floor of the House we will have more information.

[Mark Durkan]

My hon. Friend says that, in the interests of truth, he will ask the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) to address the answers he gave saying that there was no scheme. At the time the right hon. Gentleman announced the withdrawal of the Bill, he said he would have to come back to the issue. That did not necessarily mean that he would come back to it in the House, but he did say that it would have to be addressed through other means. That is one of the reasons why some of us asked at subsequent talks, “What is happening about the on-the-runs?”, but we were basically told, “Shut up about it, because nobody else is worrying.”

[Stephen Pound]

If I have learned one thing in my life, it is that such language should not be used when speaking to people such as my hon. Friend or to any Member of this House, least of all Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies. I will certainly carry that message back. I think that the point my hon. Friend made earlier about precedent is one to which we will return, because it is of profound concern. If this document had no legal standing, did it create a precedent?

This has been a sombre and sober occasion. It is appropriate that we have been discussing matters of great moment this afternoon. I profoundly hope that the occasions on which we have to have such debates become fewer and fewer. May I thank all 15 hon. and right hon. Members who have contributed to this debate? Nothing that has been said on the Floor of the House this afternoon has been less than greatly impressive. It demands attention and will be acted upon.

Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

Debate between Mark Durkan and Stephen Pound

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point, but I do not believe that the answer is to have a general ban on donations from people living in the Irish Republic. If we were to say that anyone living there who wanted to make a donation had to be registered on the list of electors there, that would go some way towards strengthening the provisions. If there are loopholes that allow moneys that would otherwise be unacceptable to arrive in the north, and if those loopholes are being used to “wash through” money, mechanisms will have to be put in place to stop that happening. Declarations would have to be made in relation to any such money. I would have no problem with a requirement for such declarations, not only from those giving the money to say that it was truly coming from them and not from someone else, but from those receiving it. That would fix minds quite clearly. That is where the responsibility should rest, and that is where the law should be targeted.

I represent a border constituency. Many of the people who make significant investments in businesses there and make a significant contribution to the economy, not only in Foyle but in the whole of the north-west, live in the south. Some live just a few miles across the border, others live further away. Many of them originate in Derry. There are many families in Derry whose cousinage is in Donegal and in many other parts of the south—

[Stephen Pound]

Including Mayo.

[Mark Durkan]

Including Mayo, as the shadow Minister says. I was also glad to hear earlier from the Liberal spokesperson, the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd). Perhaps we have a gathering of the Mayo association here today. I speak as a grandson of Mayo myself, rather than a son.

The point needs to be recognised that there are many people in the south whose roots are in the north. Many of them have business and professional links with the north, and many of them undertake public appointments there. Thankfully, they are appointed not only by nationalist Ministers. Those people from the south can have a legitimate input into the democratic governance and well-being of the north, and I see no reason to preclude them from doing that through duly registered political donations if they wish to do so.

We have heard the arguments for and against the dual mandate. I made my own decision on that a number of years ago when I took the personal step of saying that if I was elected as an MP again, I would give up my seat in the Assembly. I did not believe that the dual mandate could be sustained any longer. On that basis, I also resigned the leadership of my party, because I did not think that anyone could seriously try to lead a political party in Northern Ireland without being in the devolved Assembly.

I took that step after we had been frustrated in our attempts to change the rules. During various negotiations and initiatives, some of us had made the point that we needed to draw a line under the dual mandate. We said that the parties needed to agree on a date or a point in the electoral cycle when dual mandates would stop, but it was impossible to reach agreement on that. I recall debates in the Assembly in which the Democratic Unionist party voted against any such move against dual mandates. It praised them, saying that they were the best thing since sliced bread and that they were saving us money. Then, in the wake of the pressures resulting from the expenses scandal, the DUP suddenly started playing leapfrog over the rest of us. It suddenly wanted to get rid of dual mandates, too. In many ways it hid behind the Kelly recommendations, saying that if an outlying date of 2015 were set, that would be the target date towards which it would work.

Historically, the dual mandate could be justified by the uncertain circumstances that existed in Northern Ireland. Indeed, it is arguable that many people were able to do great work carrying dual mandates, not least John Hume and Ian Paisley when they were in this House and in the European Parliament. Along with their Ulster Unionist colleague, they were able to do productive and effective work in Europe and to bring home significant benefits. As with the question of openness over donations, however, public expectations have moved on. People can see that circumstances and standards have changed. Change changes things. That is probably the most underestimated fact in politics and democratic life. We need to move on.

If a limit is, rightly, set on dual mandates in this House, the Bill should also make provision for that in respect of any possible membership of Dail Eireann. Any such provision should apply not only to MPs but to Teachtai Dala. It would be right to extend that to Members of the House of Lords and to Members of Seanad Eireann as well. If the rule specifies membership of one legislative chamber and one only, it should apply regardless. I agree with the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) that that should apply whether or not the proposed abolition of Seanad Eireann goes ahead. I hope it does not; I would much prefer to see reform of that good constitutional tool. The fact is that people should be members of one legislative chamber and one only.

As to the size of the Assembly, I made the point in an intervention that the position on which parties were negotiating at the stage when we negotiated the agreement was broadly based on a 90-member Assembly, with five Members for each of the parliamentary constituencies. It was not the case that it was a matter of principle that we wanted the Assembly elected from the existing parliamentary constituencies. The point was that if we were going to get an Assembly established on the back of an agreement, it had to be on the basis of some existing constituencies, and the parliamentary constituencies were obviously the available and relevant ones.

The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 creates five-year parliamentary boundary reviews, but I think that will cause problems, not just in respect of the potential impact of boundary reviews in parliamentary terms, but in Assembly terms, too. What might appear to be a small change in a constituency in parliamentary terms could be very significant for Assembly members. Somebody’s well-established Assembly bailiwick could be directly split in a way that might appear marginal to the parliamentary constituency, so I think there are difficulties there. I know that there has been some discussion in the Assembly and Executive Review Committee about whether the Assembly still needs to rely on or stick to absolute coterminocity of Assembly and parliamentary constituencies for the long term. If we end up having a difficult experience from five-year boundary reviews—I hope this will be revised in the future so that we can move to something more sensible than having reviews for every single Parliament—the Assembly might well be advised to consider something different.

The position on the number of Members was, as I said, five for each constituency. If, under the boundary reviews, the number of constituencies is reduced, that will obviously reduce the number of Members in the Assembly in turn. In the context of previous negotiations, including those in Leeds castle and elsewhere where there were reviews and half reviews of the agreement, the SDLP put forward its views, but there were no takers for the changes, just as when we offered proposals to improve the transparency of the Assembly and to make it a bit more robust as a chamber of accountability.

Some of those who talk most about transparency and accountability resisted. I remember Peter Robinson saying at Leeds castle, “Well, we do not want that much accountability.” The proposals did not even go as far as saying that there should be a formal opposition in the Assembly, but sought to ensure that there were ways of holding Ministers to account to the Assembly. One way of doing that was that after budgets, all Ministers would make statements on what they were planning to do with the moneys allocated to them rather than hide behind one statement by the Minister of Finance.

As other hon. Members have said, the question of opposition is important. When we negotiated the agreement, just as we were clear that the Government would be inclusive for those parties that wished to exercise the right to take their mandate into ministerial office, so, too, the scrutiny and accountability role of the Assembly had to be inclusive. Some of us, perhaps naively, envisaged that members of the Ministers’ own parties would challenge them and put questions to them; unfortunately, that is not what we have. Anyone looking at the Parliament channel, for example, is likely to see question time and debates, and there are more plants than at a garden centre! It is not what we wanted—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) mentions vegetables in particular, and I am sure his party colleagues will be delighted by that proud reference and strong endorsement.

The discussion that many people are having is important. What it reflects is not necessarily the absolute need for an opposition that some have seized on; it is more a feeling that there is not enough challenge, scrutiny or debate. Some people think that real debate ends up falling to “The Nolan Show” or other talk-back radio programmes, but questioning and challenging decisions should be taking place in the committees of the Assembly and on its floor. We should have other types of committee —more cross-cutting committees, for example, with the sort of teeth that the Public Accounts Committee has. They might be rated more highly not just by Ministers but by civil servants than they are under the current committee model. As other hon. Members have said, there are a number of things that we can look at.

On the appointment of the Justice Minister, we recognise that there are a number of anomalies. The proposed changes seem neatly to answer the problem of the d’Hondt excess enjoyed by one party, which goes against the proportionality provisions and the inclusion promise of the agreement. I fear that in resolving the anomaly in the proposed way, however, we will end up creating a predicament for the system and potentially for a party that could find itself typecast, particularly through the role of the Justice Minister, in ways that might well prove frustrating in the future. Other parties might find that frustrating or might abuse their sense of frustration. We need to be careful that in fixing one problem, we do not create another problem for the long term or build a permanent abnormality that imposes an obligation or a limitation on any particular party.

House of Lords Reform

Debate between Mark Durkan and Stephen Pound

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

In years to come, when the proud constituency of Camborne and Redruth is mentioned, one speech will spring to the memory: the glorious suggestion of the Saga Chamber or the pensioners’ Parliament, where the old, the tired and the formerly famous can shuffle off to some distant spot where they will do no harm; where the dust will slowly settle, the clocks gently unwind and the ermine capes float through the detritus of torn Order Papers and House of Lords Hansard; where, like in the dying days of the court of Emperor Haile Selassie, no wages are paid; and where, like in the great zoos of Addis Ababa, giant pachyderms sink to their knees and surrender to starvation. There, in the House of Lords, a few people with their last breath will say, “Well, at least we weren’t out there causing trouble. We had been put somewhere safe. And who have we got to thank for it? Let us look to Camborne and Redruth.”

I suggest that there are other, better ways. I am not entirely sure that we suffer from a democratic deficit; I think we suffer from a flipping democratic surfeit. I, as an honest burgher of a sophisticated west London borough—Ealing, obviously—am represented by three first-class councillors; an MP of certain qualities, that is to say myself; a member of the Greater London authority; Members of the European Parliament; and Tony Blair, who certainly represents me in some forum somewhere, because he represents us all all the time. Do I really want somebody to be trailing his escutcheon through my constituency every few years, touting for votes, presumably on vellum and hand-engraved? There would be nothing so vulgar as an election, but I am sure that there would be some process, which would no doubt be worked out in North East Somerset. Do we really want that? I think that we probably have too much democracy.

There have been a few occasions on which people have sat down and thought about whether they actually needed a second chamber. One thinks obviously of the great Philadelphia convention, but some of us also think of the 1937 constitution of the Republic of Ireland. Those great legislators sat down and said, “Do we need a second chamber?” They came to the conclusion that, by and large, it was a fairly good idea to have one. I will not ascribe any ignoble motives to that, but it might have been a form of care in the community. To this day, Ireland has the vocational panels. The original idea was that there would be vocational panels to represent all aspects of modern Irish life. That is why people such as Oliver St John Gogarty, in between being thrown in the Liffey, and W. B. Yeats were Members of the Seanad Eireann. To this day, Ireland has the cultural and educational panel, the agricultural panel, the labour panel, the industrial and commercial panel, the administrative panel, and, of course, the national university of Ireland panel and the university of Dublin panel. I miss people such as A. P. Herbert who were elected to this place from the universities. Why does the university of West London not elect someone? If it cannot elect them to here, let it be to the other place.

Let us ask ourselves the most simple, basic, obvious question: is it really true that the only way in which experts can bring their light to bear is in the upper place? Did the noble Lord Ara Darzi achieve more as one of the finest and most famous surgeons in Europe than as a Member of the House of Lords? Look at the single greatest social change of the 20th century. The person behind that—Beveridge—was not in the House of Lords. He did not have to sit as a Member of the upper House to come up with the extraordinary idea of the national health service. The upper House is not the sole repository of wisdom, and it is not the only place where the great, the good, the bright and the brilliant can go and shine. There are so many other ways.

So do we need the House of Lords? I am not entirely sure, in all honesty, that we do, but as with so many things in this country, let us leave well alone. It is some glorious, great Gormenghast of a building that no one would ever build nowadays, but around which accretions, crenellations, towers and ramparts have emerged over the years. Hardly anybody knows what the original purpose was, but it does little harm, it is attractive, and on occasion it can actually add to the limited pool of intelligence and expertise that exists in this place.

I want to say that I have no ambitions whatever.

[Mark Durkan]

For now.

[Stephen Pound]

At least not this week, no. The difficulty, obviously, would be what level of expertise I would bring to the House of Lords. However, I have to say that I am instinctively opposed to the idea of a replicate second Chamber. We cannot have a dual mandate and have the same level of accountability in two places at once. Man cannot serve two masters; Parliament cannot have two masters.

Civilian Deaths (Ballymurphy)

Debate between Mark Durkan and Stephen Pound

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mark Durkan]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. Wider questions must be asked of the powers that be, in both military command and political oversight, about how the Parachute Regiment was deployed in Northern Ireland in those days. Clearly, the Parachute Regiment’s behaviour in Ballymurphy should have been factored into the thinking about its future deployment. People should have had that in mind when it was decided to send the Parachute Regiment, specifically, to Derry for Bloody Sunday. Of course, the Parachute Regiment must account not just for the deaths in Derry and Ballymurphy, but for the killing of two innocent Protestants, Mr Johnston and Mr McKinnie, in September 1972 on the Shankill.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend’s words hang heavy in the air, and it will take more than the wind of history to blow them away. In a speech last month, my hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) referred to the stigma still attached to the families. Does he believe that an inquiry could finally establish the innocence of the victims, bearing in mind the statements that were released at the time, which appeared to give a contrary impression but were never substantiated?

[Mark Durkan]

Yes, I believe that it could. The state adopted the view at the time that what the Royal Military Police established in its inquiries with the soldiers who carried out the actions would be the official, received version of events. So long as the state does not specifically repudiate that version of events, it will be left hanging there. That is one of the reasons why the families want to see that version properly probed and resolved, not just for themselves, but because there are surely wider questions for us all about how the state could conduct itself in that way and ignore the serious questions that arose as a result.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Mark Durkan and Stephen Pound

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan]

I confess.

My hon. Friend makes the point about the number of amendments in this group, and they aim to ensure not just that the term is fixed at four years, but that the cycle of fixed terms does not clash with the cycle of fixed terms for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland elections. This Chamber has already imposed a UK referendum on those elections next year, and now, under this Bill, the Government want to impose a UK general election on the devolved elections in 2015 as well.

[Stephen Pound]

My hon. Friend, not for the first time and almost certainly not for the last, makes a very powerful and pertinent point. If the Bill proceeds tonight without the benefit of the amendments that we are discussing, it will be not just the political cycle that is locked into a four or five-year time frame, but the economic cycle and so many other aspects of life. They will then be locked into a fixed term. That fixed term will apply not just to Parliament, but to the country, and that is dangerous. It is dangerous if we always assume that, no matter what a Government do, they can get away with it, because there will be no election for three, four or, heaven forbid, five years.

That is the danger, and that is when the markets start to build in an assumption of front-loading and when other countries assume that, although there may or may not be a change of Government in the future, there will not be one at that moment in time. That is when offence is given to all parts of this nation with different traditions, different histories and different days of great and signal importance. There are so many fears, so many concerns, so many worries, and the case made for the group of amendments is so powerful and so much a matter of righteousness that it would be otiose of me to continue to press it any longer.

I sit down, Miss Begg, with apologies if I may on occasion have strayed slightly from the purity of the amendments before us, but I hope profoundly that this House will tonight agree that the people matter more than political fixes, and that somehow this is about the constitution, not about the coalition.

Information for Backbenchers on Statements

Debate between Mark Durkan and Stephen Pound

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan]

I accept what my hon. Friend says. However, I doubt that a new House code of accountability would be able to cover all these issues. It would have to be more like a highway code than an exhaustive and comprehensive law that was specific in all cases. On the basis of case law and application, it could improve, and then Ministers would not be able to claim that they were in any doubt about what it required.

We must also be careful, as Back Benchers who want to ensure that announcements are made in this House rather than being pre-spun to the press and elsewhere, that we do not end up complaining that too many statements are being made and we do not have enough time to spend on substantive legislative business. For another couple of months, I will carry on serving in another Chamber, and that is a common complaint there. We have too many set-piece statements that do not amount to very much and people find it hard to see anything key, important or new in them. Those three words have all been used at various times to describe the test for whether statements should be made in this House.

I sat on the Benches opposite during the last Parliament and heard many statements that did not contain much new. It might have been that the Prime Minister wanted to identify himself with a policy, but the policy itself was not new, and at times we wondered why statements were being made. While we want to press the point that statements should be made in this House rather than being presented through the media or at other set-piece events, we do not want to end up in a ridiculous situation.

The Leader of the House made some useful suggestions. We should not always have oral statements with up to an hour of questions. Often the questions become repetitive and, just as Minister’s statements are accused of spin, so too the questions and the replies can be accused of counter-spin. It cuts both ways. Are there intermediate arrangements that we could have between a written statement, which involves no questions or time for questions, and an oral statement accompanied by a lengthy opportunity for questions? My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) referred earlier to a possible gradation of statements. As the Leader of the House suggested, if a statement were available in writing, it could then be the subject of questions without the statement being rehearsed in the House.

[Stephen Pound]

When I made that intervention, I may have unwittingly caused offence to certain Members representing rural constituencies. The point I was trying to make was that a review such as the 2013 review of the Rural Payments Agency surely is not in the same scale of immediacy as some of the other statements, such as on the implementation of the Bribery Act 2010. Does my hon. Friend accept that we could have a code of prioritisation on this, perhaps even a hierarchy of needs?

[Mark Durkan]

I fully agree with my hon. Friend, although as always the question will be: who makes the judgment, who makes the call? However, so long as people think that an honest judgment has been made and a fair call attempted, the House would be broadly satisfied. It should always be the case that, if a written statement is made without the chance for questions, there should perhaps be a business slot early in the following week in which people can, if they want to, ask questions about a statement. Perhaps there should be an opportunity for questions to be asked about all the written statements made in the previous week.

I do not understand why the House does not sit until half-past 2 on a Tuesday. I understand the argument on the Monday—that Members are travelling from constituencies and want to spend the weekend with their families in their constituencies—but I do not understand why we wait until half-past 2 on a Tuesday. There should be more early-day business, perhaps on Tuesday, and in fact one window for early-day business could be specifically for ministerial statements. That might be an opportunity for people to have a round-up of free-ranging questions about matters that were the subject of written ministerial statements the previous week, and Ministers would have to be available on that basis.

As I understand it, in the Scottish Parliament, Ministers have to be available to answer questions on a fairly free-ranging basis. We could have a special question time slot—it could be done Westminster Hall-style—in the Chamber almost as a special committee of the House, if we do not want to transgress on to other things. There are ways and means to ensure that, even if a statement is tabled in the first instance as a written statement, we can ask questions about it and hold people to account, so that the procedure of the written statement is not abused. That applies to some of the issues raised by other Members about the hours of the House and the times at which we sit.

It is important to have better advance notice of statements. Again, the Leader of the House was helpful when he said that perhaps more work could be done to ensure that there is advance notice of oral statements. I sympathise with my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) who spoke as a new Member on this point. It is bizarre that we can find in our papers all written ministerial statements, which we cannot question, for that day, but nothing about oral statements, unless we have been listening to the radio and have guessed what topics are likely to be the subject of oral statements. If we could have more advance notice, it would help us in our preparation of questions.

We need to ensure, however, that we have a good balance in what we ask of the Government, because we do not want the business of the House to become dominated by set-piece statements and questions. We also want live debates and good interaction in those debates. I appreciate why the Backbench Business Committee has singled out this issue for the first debate under its lead—it is correct in the light of recent experience and also experiences in the previous Parliament. However, with everybody making accusations, we should bear in mind one of the wisest adages I have ever heard about politics: irony in politics is just hypocrisy with panache. Hearing many of the complaints that each side of the House is making against the other about what different Governments have done reminds me of that. We need to remember that Back-Bench Members are not free from sin either.