Patrick Finucane Murder

Robin Swann Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

The right hon. Member recounts some of the terrible murders, and I have myself met, as I am sure others have, the only survivor of the Kingsmill massacre and heard at first hand the truly chilling story of what happened on that day. First, considerable resources are now being given to the independent commission, and it is important to recognise that, because it has a huge task on its hands. I hope others will come forward to the commission to avail themselves of what it can offer.

Secondly, and I have said this to other Members in answering their questions, in this particular case a commitment was made twice, and I think it is important that we honour it. We also have to recognise in this particular case that the Court held in 2019 that all of the investigations—I accept what the right hon. Member said about them and their extent, and of course they involved the expenditure of public moneys—did not meet the requirements of article 2. Faced with that, and faced with the quashing at the end of 2022 of the decision of a previous Secretary of State not to call an inquiry pending further investigations, it has fallen to me to look at this and to decide how we are going to go forward. I have set out my reasons as clearly as I can hope to do.

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

Will the Secretary of State clarify that he has now ended any opportunity for the families and loved ones who still held out hope that there would be an inquiry into the death and murder of their loved ones at the hands of terrorists across Northern Ireland? Is he saying that the only opportunity for them is to go to the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery—an organisation that does not have the full support of the communities of Northern Ireland and does not have the support of and has been queried by many of the families who have lost loved ones? Can I just seek clarity from the Secretary of State that he is saying to those families that their only opportunity for truth, recovery and justice is to go through this organisation, and that he will not engage with them about a further inquiry?

[Hilary Benn]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that the independent commission should not be the only opportunity open to them. That is why I have indicated that this Government will restore civil cases, and we will restore inquests in the first instance in those cases where they had been brought to an end by the legacy Act. I agree with him that it would be quite wrong if one was to say that there was only one route, denying people—the families—the rights to inquests and civil cases that apply in all other parts of the United Kingdom. That was one of the things about the legacy Act that was so profoundly wrong. It did not say that we were going to establish a new body and people could use that route, but could also use the other two—inquests and civil cases—that had been available to them thus far; it shut those other routes down. That is part of the reason why the legacy Act was so widely opposed in Northern Ireland. I must be honest that it will take time, because it will obviously require primary legislation to deal with the bit of the legacy Act that stopped the inquests and the civil cases, and that will flow from the consultation I am currently undertaking.