Bloody Sunday Inquiry (Report)

Debate between Stephen Phillips and Gregory Campbell

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

I wish to associate myself not only with the statement that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made to the House earlier this year, but with those by both Front Benchers at the outset of this debate. The Saville report is a unique and valuable report, not only in the life of Northern Ireland, but in that of the whole United Kingdom. Like my right hon. Friend, I am deeply patriotic and I never want to believe anything bad about my country, but from the conclusions reached by Lord Saville and his colleagues, it is clear that something went badly wrong on that Sunday in January 1972. It is my belief that the Prime Minister was entirely right to deliver an apology on behalf of the Government and the nation to the families of those who lost loved ones on that dreadful Sunday.

Where I perhaps part company with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and some hon. Members who have spoken in this debate is on the clarity that has been ascribed to some of the conclusions that the inquiry reached, at least in the minds of some people. I do not for one moment dispute the tribunal’s findings, and they are clear; nor for one moment would I defend the indefensible. With one exception, the tribunal was clear. The firing by the British Army that day was entirely unjustified, and indeed contravened the rules of engagement applying at the time.

However, it is right for the House to bear in mind the fact that Lord Saville’s deliberations with his colleagues and his conclusions took place a considerable time after the events with which he and the tribunal were concerned. He started three decades after those events, and he ended his task nearly 40 years after them. It was a tall order to ask any judge, even one of the standing of Lord Saville, who was so ably assisted by Mr Hoyt and Mr Toohey, to reach wholly unimpeachable conclusions on the events that underpin the tragedy that we are discussing this afternoon. It is more than a tall order to ask a judge to do so some 30 or 40 years after the events in question, often unassisted by evidence owing to the death of those who were present. When a judge in such an inquiry is assisted by evidence, that evidence will be less valuable than it would have been without the passage of time.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

The hon. Gentleman is elaborating succinctly on the tall order of expecting a judge to remember clearly what happened so many years before, but is it not an equally tall order to expect all the witnesses to have a clear recollection of all the events of so long ago?

[Stephen Phillips]

Indeed it is, and perhaps I was expressing myself unclearly. The difficulty for anyone who presides over such an inquiry so long after the event is that when the evidence is oral—that was principally the evidence that was directly relevant to the matters that the tribunal had to consider—it is undoubtedly weakened by the passage of time. The oral evidence was less satisfactory than it would have been much closer to the events in question.

That brings me to Lord Widgery’s report back in 1972. He was able to consider the events much closer to the time, but having read his report on several occasions and for this debate, I have always had, as I have today and as many hon. Members have, a feeling of considerable unease, even if it does not rise to the same level as that in the mind of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey).

The report was produced in a different era by a judge of a different mettle from Lord Saville, who had served in the Army during the second world war and who, in the 10 weeks available to him to deal with the matter, was deprived of much of the evidence that subsequently emerged. It is not my function on this or any other occasion to defend Lord Widgery, great judge as he was in many respects. I suspect that he was hindered by the absence of evidence before him, and by his training, but I also suspect that he was hindered by his outlook. Constitutionally, it was impossible for judges at that time to accept that soldiers from the Parachute Regiment, like policemen, who gave evidence would not be telling the truth when they said that they were fired upon before they fired.

We shall never know the truth of who fired first, but even with the passage of time and having read the report in its entirety, I have little doubt, given the evidence that supports its conclusions, that Lord Saville came much closer to the truth, even on the balance of probabilities, in finding, as he clearly does, that the first shots were fired by the British Army. I suspect, however, that neither we in this House nor anyone else will ever know for sure who fired the first shot. I accept entirely, as do the whole House and the Government, the conclusions that Lord Saville reached, but I have regretted some of the things that have been said about them by some in Northern Ireland, whatever hurt and anguish they might have carried to this day as a result of the events of Bloody Sunday.

I want to say a little about the position in which 1 Para found itself in Derry on that day. The situation was, in a sense, unprecedented in modern British history, and that should not be forgotten when we consider the report and the motion on the Order Paper. It was a situation in part of the United Kingdom in which the civilian authorities had effectively lost control of a British city and had not the means to regain it, even if they had been willing to make the effort. The Official IRA and the Provisional IRA were both active in the area, and there was real concern that there might be violence between the communities on either side of the sectarian divide during the march planned for that day.

That was all taking place against a background of the nationalist anger directed at the Army and the Government that had previously given rise to the many other incidents of violence that Lord Saville dealt with in his report. Referring to the so-called Saturday matinées—the regular incidents of rioting that took place at the corner of Rossville street and William street, a junction known to British soldiers as “aggro corner”—the report said:

“We have little doubt that had the crowd isolated a soldier, it is likely that he would have been killed.”

The British Army was facing such regular instances of rioting at the time in Derry and elsewhere in that part of the world.

In this country, we expect a lot of our young soldiers. We expect their bravery, their loyalty and their obedience, and we are right to do so. Yet soldiers are no more superhuman than the rest of us, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) can tell us. The stress under which they must have found themselves day after day on the streets of Northern Ireland must not be forgotten or underestimated. Their lives were at risk, and no one should doubt that to have been the case. That said, however, following the Saville report, I cannot associate myself with what my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) said earlier. If criminal acts were committed that day, the passage of time should not be seen to exculpate those responsible, and the course of the law will have to follow.

In a very real sense, given these facts, Bloody Sunday was a catastrophe waiting to happen. Whoever fired the first shot, and whatever actually happened on that day, all sides involved in the troubles must shoulder some of the blame. This long-awaited report—perhaps too long-awaited, and certainly too expensive—offers the House, the people of Northern Ireland and the country the ability to draw a line under this awful chapter in our history. The truth is now out, and I hope that this opportunity will be taken, so that we can finally ensure that there is peace in Northern Ireland.