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Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : First, I should like to comment on the speech by the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Rev. William McCrea). Some may think it

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strange that one who has spoken as often as I have should be called at 8.14 pm on a subject that is so important to the United Kingdom. In response to the hon. Gentleman, I register a personal sadness that so many on this side of the water for one reason or another have not taken more interest in the affairs of Northern Ireland. I am guilty of that as, like my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone), I want to refer to a particular matter, but I hope that it will not be interpreted as meaning that I do not care about the wider and general issues involved in the agony experienced in Northern Ireland.

I address my parliamentary colleagues of all parties. Anyone who has been a Member of Parliament for as long as I have, or anyone who sits in the House of Commons, almost by definition is not easily shocked. We become ever more resigned to the ways of the world. However, I should like to raise two issues that greatly shock me, and I shall start with the one that shocks me least.

In an appendix to his evidence to the Royal Commission on the press in 1977, the former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson revealed that

"seven burglaries of the homes of members of my staff took place in the three months before I announced my resignation".

He continued :

"Within a week of the announcement of my forthcoming series of interviews with David Frost on Yorkshire Television, the contracts section of Yorkshire Television was burgled and papers examined". He went on :

"My political secretary has had two burglaries from her home Shortly before Easter 1977, a break-in took place in my study in my home in Buckinghamshire."

I make that 19 burglaries. In most of them nothing was taken, although in all of them papers had been rifled through. One can match all those incidents with what Peter Wright says rather sooner than one would think.

I shall not go on about Harold Wilson's disquiet about those matters, but I stress that it is an all-party affair. I was as deeply shocked when I saw with my own eyes an extremely nasty document referring to the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) in a personal capacity. It was marked with the stamp of the Army headquarters at Lisburn.

I do not believe that Labour or Conservative Prime Ministers should be smeared in that way. I repeat that if Wilson and Heath suffered, as did Ted Short and William van Straubenzee, certain politicians from Northern Ireland suffered much more. I admit that what happened on this side of the water was less than what happened to the colleagues of some of those in the Chamber. But politicians can look after themselves, and that brings me to the second matter which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East said, will not go away. Generically it must be called Kincora and the Wallace affair. I am utterly shocked by what has emerged about Kincora and the knowledge that vulnerable boys in the care and guardianship of the British state were repeatedly abused over a period of time. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East was right to say that it took place over a considerable time. That knowledge was in the hands of the intelligence services of the state but was withheld for a considerable time from the proper police services of the

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state. I repeat that, were I in the shoes of Sir John Hermon, whom I do not know, and the RUC, I should be simply livid at what happened.

I refer to an answer that I received on 21 June 1990 from the Minister of State. I make no complaint about the fact that temporarily he is not in his place. In an oral question I asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

"what information his Department received concerning obstruction into the process of inquiry into alleged sexual abuse of boys and the Kincora boys home."

In his reply the Minister of State said :

"I do not believe that any relevant information was withheld from successive inquiries."

Well may my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East smile. I then asked :

"What evidence does the Minister have for that opinion? Does he share the disgust of many of us that for some reason the interests of the security forces apparently took precedence over the interests of vulnerable boys in care in a real sense and under the guardianship of the nation?"

The Minister replied :

"My opinion comes from my study of the papers on the matter. I would share the concern that the hon. Gentleman expressed if I thought that the facts were as he described them. I do not believe that they were ; the RUC had information, but as Sir George Terry's report explained, that information was acted on not immediately but some years later."--[ Official Report, 21 June 1990 ; Vol. 174, c. 1105.]

Naturally, I sent a copy of the Hansard report to Colin Wallace. In all the dealings that I have had with him he has not yet brought information to me that proved in any way to be false. He has impressed, under scrutiny, some of my right hon. and learned Friends, including my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer). They made very careful inquiries. I intend, therefore, to put on the record Mr. Wallace's reply to the Minister. He said :

"I have just read Mr. Cope's disgraceful reply of 21 June to your question about MI5 withholding information about the Kincora scandal from police officers engaged in the Terry inquiry. Quite frankly, I think Government Ministers now treat Parliamentary questions with utter contempt and make no attempt whatsoever to provide proper answers to any queries raised by Members."

I have always been treated with courtesy by the Minister of State. He is a great improvement on some of his predecessors. Mr. Wallace continued :

"For example, the BBC's Public Eye' programme demonstrated very clearly that :

(a) Both Army Intelligence and MI5 were aware of the Kincora situation in the mid 1970s ;

(b) MI5 refused to allow one of its senior officers, Ian Cameron, to be interviewed by the police about the scandal."

I believe that to be true. Colin Wallace continued :

"(c) Although an Army Intelligence officer informed detectives on the Terry inquiry team about his knowledge of the matter in 1982, no reference to his evidence was made in the official report written by Sir George Terry, the conclusions of which were given to Parliament. Indeed, Sir George Terry even claimed that military sources had been very frank and he was satisfied that military intelligence knew nothing about the scandal."

However, Colin Wallace added :

"You will recall that on 7 June, in reply to a question from you about the Public Eye' programme, Mr. Cope"--

the Minister of State--

"confirmed to Parliament that James', the Army Intelligence officer who appeared on the BBC programme, had indeed been interviewed by the police in 1982, but that the programme contained no material about Kincora not available at the time to Sir George Terry's inquiry'."

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I am satisfied about the credentials of James. He is no particular friend of Colin Wallace--in fact, not a friend at all. He is a very Christian man ; I use the word "Christian" in the sincerest sense, a sense which I believe that I share with Northern Ireland Members of Parliament. Mr. Wallace continued :

"The issues which Mr. Cope refuses to address, therefore, are : (1) Did MI5 refuse to allow Ian Cameron to be interviewed by detectives from the Terry inquiry?

(2) If so, what were the grounds for refusal and how can he justify his reply to you"--

that is, to me--

"on 21 June?

(3) Why did Sir George Terry fail to record in his Report MI5's refusal to co-operate with his investigation?

(4) why was no reference made in Sir George Terry's report to the information provided to his officers by James', the former Army Intelligence officer?"

Those questions have to be addressed. Colin Wallace continued : "I think you will agree that had Parliament known of MI5's refusal to co-operate with the police on this issue there would have been a very justifiable outcry from many Members."

If any hon. Member thinks that I am taking up the time of the House, I ought to point out that I sent to some Northern Ireland Members--who, I believe, gave it to their colleagues--a copy of the letter because they have, as they have said, a genuine interest in the matter. Colin Wallace continued :

"The Government's behaviour on the Kincora issue is utterly deplorable."

That is his judgment. The subject will not go away. If Ministers believe that this is being dragged up just by the bloody-minded Members who represent Brent, East and Linlithgow, they should realise that a good deal more than that is at stake. Collin Wallace continued :

"There have been widespread cries of indignation in Parliament and the media over child abuse scandals such as that in Cleveland, but almost total silence over Kincora which went on for almost 20 years with the full knowledge and approval' of Government agencies. The Government should be hunted from office by every decent person in the country because of its cover-up of this disgraceful episode." This is not a party political matter. I must say that bluntly both to Colin Wallace and to anyone else who thinks so, though I do not believe that he is motivated by party political issues. I believe that this is a moral issue. I had a great deal of sympathy for the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster when he asked why we make such a fuss about things on this side of the water, yet when the same occurs in the north of Ireland there is a cut off. That attitude may have led to the displacement of Robin Chichester-Clark, Stratton Mills, Rafton Pounder and several hon. Members who represented Northern Ireland when I first came to the House. I can see that they came to political grief because of the collective attitude of the House of Commons. Colin Wallace made available to me his rather important letter from Mr. Miller of the Ministry of Defence. I refer to one paragraph : "You attached to your letter of 23 April seven documents which you suggested support your allegation of a smear campaign by Crown servants against Members of Parliament. As to the document which you identify as a draft of the synopsis of part 1 of Clockwork Orange, you have provided no information to indicate that its references to Harold Wilson were the work of anyone but yourself. I am aware of no substantive evidence that such drafting received any official sanction, nor that the use of such material was ever authorised. As to the remaining documents, it is not evident from them that any was written by a Crown servant with

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intent to smear Members of Parliament or that they were ever used by Mr. Mooney or any other Crown servant for that purpose. In the letter that you addressed to the Prime Minister on 12 May, you sought to justify a number of allegations by quoting from the transcript of a telephone conversation between General Leng and Mr. Penrose. In fact, General Leng has given a firm assurance to government officials that he has no knowledge of any capaign, under any codename, by Crown servants to smear Members of Parliament."

I put that on the record because it is important to the remainder of my remarks. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East, I doubted whether any of those sources had been cross-checked. I realise that it is a heck of a sweat delving back into the past, but the issue and the background are such that we as a nation cannot afford to be lazy. The letter continues :

"As regards Mr. Calcutt's inquiry, contrary to the allegations in your letters of 12 and 18 May, there is no question of the Government or officials attempting to influence individuals in the way you suggest or of putting pressure on them not to give evidence to Mr. Calcutt. I have nothing to add to the conclusions of the Report made available on 14 May, to which your letter of 18 May also referred. Finally, I understand that the Home Office is currently considering the representations made on your behalf concerning your conviction, and will be replying shortly on the matters raised."

I am unaware of any substantial activity by the Home Office. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East and I know that, before the Calcutt inquiry was established, the attitude of the Home Office Minister was absolutely disgraceful.

How is the Master of Magdalene, Mr. Calcutt, getting on, because he seems to have much to do? I should have thought that there was some urgency about this matter.

On 10 June, Mr. Wallace wrote to the Prime Minister. It is important that the House understands exactly what he told the right hon. Lady, especially as she tells me that someone is replying on her behalf. Normally, I am absolutely reasonable about these matters. Prime Ministers cannot be expected to do everything, but the Prime Minister is in charge of the security services--I do not know who else is--and the buck stops there. I see the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) nodding. Prime Ministers have some responsibility for these matters. I am dismayed by the developments that are taking place in the modern prime ministerial role, because the awful open questions that are asked mean that a Prime Minister has to delve in and be prepared and briefed for the yah-boo of Question Time on everything that affects every Department. That may undermine Cabinet Government, but it also means that Prime Ministers may not have the time to concentrate on matters that they should be concentrating on, such as responsibility for the security services.

I remember that Mr. Macmillan, my first Prime Minister, would transfer anything that did not affect him or relate to the work of No. 10 Downing street. That is how the system should work, and that is why this afternoon I asked the Leader of the House when we shall debate the report of the Select Committee on Procedure and the scandal of oral questions and the syndication of questions. The letter to the Prime Minister says :

"I refer to my letters of 23 April and 12 May to you and to my letter of 18 May to the Secretary of State for Defence. I have now received a response dated 4 June from Mr. J A Miller, Private Secretary to the Minister of State for the Armed Forces." That is the letter to which I referred :

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"Even by the abysmal standard of past MOD answers, Mr. Miller's latest letter is perhaps the most misleading and dishonestly evasive reply I have received to date. Bearing in mind that his reply will almost certainly have been approved by your office and that of the Defence Secretary, the contents of his letter can best be described as a grotesque insult to Parliament. My letter of 23 April had attached to it two documents which contained examples of blatant smears about a number of Members of Parliament, including Harold Wilson, Tony Benn"--

and the hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume).

"Those documents also bore what is almost certainly the handwritten editing comments of Mr. Hugh Mooney, a former Information Research Department officer who was until December 1973 Information Adviser to the General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland. You will have noted that Mr. Mooney's editing marks on the documents do not delete any of the smear material about either the Parliamentary Labour Party in general or the named politicians in particular."

I do not make a great party issue of this, because the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup suffered as much as anyone. The letter continues :

"Referring to those documents, Mr. Miller says : It is not evident from them that any was written by a Crown servant with the intent to smear Members of Parliament or that they were ever used by Mr. Mooney or any other Crown servant for that purpose.' Bearing in mind that the above reply has been sent to me on your behalf, are you seriously suggesting that the documents bearing Mr. Mooney's handwriting were produced by some unidentified person who has no connection with any Government department or agency? Is it your view that the documents were edited by Mr. Mooney knowing full well that they were never going to be disseminated to anyone either inside or outside the Security Forces?"

I propose, when Hansard is printed, to write to Downing street asking for a reply to that question. Mr. Wallace continues : "In the light of Mr. Miller's reply and the thorough inquiries'" --that is gobbledegook ; they were not thorough--

"which you assured Parliament have been carried out into my allegations, I would be grateful if you would explain

(a) How those documents originated :

(b) How the Information Adviser to the GOC Northern Ireland came to be in possession of such documents ;

(c) Why his job required him to edit documents containing political disinformation ;

(d) What was the purpose of those edited documents ;

(e) How part of them came to be reproduced in a Conservative Party pamphlet in 1976."

Time goes on. However, as one who was here at the time and who thinks that those who are either dead or ill, as Harold Wilson now is, have rights, I care about the reputation, controversial though it may be, of a former Labour Prime Minister, and some of his friends also care. I used to talk a lot to Harold Wilson. Like the rest of us, he had his faults, but on this matter, I believe that his sustained anger was justified.We should get to the bottom of this matter because when Harold Wilson wrote his submission to the Royal Commission on the press, his remarkable mind was still fully there. I care what happened 14 long years ago and I think that I am entitled to care.

Mr. Wallace continues :

"Mr. Miller makes no reference to the forged Sinn Fein documents bearing what appears also to be Mr. Mooney's handwriting and which contain information indicating that the Parliamentary Labour Party leadership is not only Communist, but also working in partnership with Sinn Fein against Britain's membership of the Common Market."

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I do not take that kind of thing very seriously ; we all have our own views on the Common Market and the allegation was not going to alter very much. However, the taxpayer should not be expected to finance such nonsense against any democratically elected Government. Mr. Wallace continues :

"Perhaps even more outrageously misleading is Mr. Miller's reference to my letter to you"--

that is, the present Prime Minister--

"of 12 May, with which I enclosed extracts from the transcripts of the tape -recorded telephone conversations between Barrie Penrose of the Sunday Times and General Sir Peter Leng, former Commander Land Forces Northern Ireland. In his letter, Mr. Miller claims : In the letter which you addressed to the Prime Minister on 12 May, you sought to justify a number of allegations by quoting from the transcript of a telephone conversation between General Leng and Mr. Penrose. In fact, General Leng has given a firm assurance to government officials that he has no knowledge of any campaign, under any codename, by Crown servants to smear Members of Parliament'." Mr. Wallace says :

"Mr. Miller's comment is typical of the disinformation disseminated by Government sources about my allegations. As you know very well, my letter of 12 May did not claim that General Leng had any knowledge of any campaign by Crown servants to smear Members of Parliament. My letter said"

I have checked this and it is true--

"I attach for your information extracts from the tape recordings of the exchanges between General Leng and the Sunday Times. I think you will agree that they show :

1. Senior Army officers at HQ Northern Ireland were aware in the mid 1970s of allegations of homosexual abuse at the Kincora boys home.

2. That the Clockwork Orange' project originated at the Northern Ireland Office and involved members of MI5.

3. Setting aside the first paragraph of the story which I think is much too strong, the tape recordings do support the Sunday Times account of what the General allegedly said".

I have talked to Andrew Neil, the editor of The Sunday Times, about this and it is a complex story. I suggest that Ministers also talk to the editor of The Sunday Times and get his version of events at first hand. Although I cannot speak for Andrew Neil, I am sure that he will talk frankly to them as he talked frankly to me. Colin Wallace continues :

"You will also recall the following extracts from my letter and the tape recordings."

The document says :

"The first telephone call begins with Barrie Penrose reading to the General an extract from page 28 of Paul Foot's book, Who framed Colin Wallace' in which Paul Foot refers to General Leng and the Clockwork Orange' project.

PENROSE : So, I don't know whether you recall this Clockwork Orange'?

LENG : Well, I hardly recall it and certainly I had no part‡ at all in anything to do with politicians and nor would I. I mean my policy at that particular stage was that we had to play the game straight. We had to find out, we obviously had to do some research into terrorists but there was to be no dirty tricks at all as far as I was concerned, and one or two people, and I don't recall who, came up to me and said to me we'd like to do this, and my answer was always no. The Army has got to be played clean because these things get found out in time."

Page 4 of 27 of the document, which is in my possession, says : "PENROSE : And how many people would have known about Clockwork Orange? Would it I am just wondering ...

LENG : Well, I think the senior Intelligence officer would have known. Broderick [Chief Information Officer] would have known. Mike [Len] Garrett [Chief of Staff HQ Northern Ireland]

PENROSE : And on Kincora you come out absolutely as one would expect, saying there has got to be action on Kincora. Do you recall that?

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LENG : No

Page 7 says :

"PENROSE : You said in the memo according to [Mike] Taylor that the RUC and the social services I think ought to be brought in here because the file named men and boys who were obviously part of this abuse which we all know about since."

Ministers should talk directly to Mike Taylor and I shall ask them whether they have done so. The document continues :

"LENG : Yes, I recall that.

PENROSE : Do you? And you said take action. They waited because obviously there had been other members suggesting this from junior officers, but it was yours that finally convinced Taylor that this was going to happen, but of course it went on for another six or seven years, but again that wasn't your fault."

Page 8 of 27 says :

"PENROSE : It was just to remind you that there were homosexual abuses taking place, namely by the housefather named McGrath. LENG : Yes.

PENROSE who was also the leader of TARA, and of course eventually that was all proven in court some years afterwards, and also a man named McKeague, but I mean this is obviously outside

LENG : Yes I do remember the homosexual insinuations and I do remember saying this is a police business, not ours."

I may be naive but it seems to me that if a Commander-in-Chief, Land Forces says, "This is a police business," someone somewhere should be doing something about it. Commanders-in-Chief, Land Forces are not exactly ignored--at least, I think it would be very strange if they were.

Page 16 of 27 reads as follows :

"PENROSE : The actual operation, I mean Clockwork Orange, when it was first mooted was in fact Denis Payne--several people have mentioned that--who was at NIO."

That must be in the records of the Northern Ireland Office. I confess that I do not know whether the Secretary of State has access to those records, because there is a difficulty with past records. Perhaps the Secretary of State wants to intervene--

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