House of Commons Hansard Debates for 17 Dec 1990

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for the new clause tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West, and I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will do the same.

Many of us--I believe everyone on the Opposition Benches--regard the arguments against capital punishment in principle and in practice as overwhelming, but there is one argument which this year must be regarded as the strongest argument of all : the risk that innocent men and women will be hanged if capital punishment is retained. It is no good the hon. Member for Ryedale saying that that is an argument for improving the law. It is, and we must all struggle to improve the effectiveness and justice of the law. But some errors will occur, as they have occurred in every judicial system.

This punishment is distinguished from other punishments by the fact that, once the error has been made, there is no prospect of redress. Again, I share the Home Secretary's view that, after 15 years' wrongful imprisonment, a large sum of money is nothing like compensation for the period of life that has been lost. But compare that with hanging a man or woman who has been wrongly convicted and one begins to understand why a civilised society should not even risk that happening--not in 10 or 20 cases since the war, but in one case in a lifetime.

5.45 pm

When we last debated this subject, the hon. and learned Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) told the House that, since the war, there had been 10 cases of men and women convicted of murder who subsequently were found to have been convicted without appropriate evidence and their sentences and convictions were quashed. He told the House that nine of them had been subsequently released and one had been executed. This time the total is certainly 14, although it may be more. We know that the Guildford Four were wrongfully convicted. I have no doubt that, had the capital sentence been in operation, the Guildford Four would have been hanged.

Mr. Dickens : Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that, because evidence was found to be unsafe and sentences were overturned, it does not necessarily follow that people were innocent? All those who escaped from the Maze prison to bomb again and murder other people, including one of our colleagues, did not have a trial by judge and jury. That is a silly argument.

Mr. Hattersley : Knowing the propensities of some Conservative Members, I was careful not to use the word "innocent" but to say "wrongfully convicted". I am opposed to hanging people who are wrongfully convicted. The question of evidence is important. Innocence is, in one sense, irrelevant. If a man or a women is wrongfully convicted by a court, clearly that person should not hang. The hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mrr. Dickens) tempts me to go on longer than I had intended because he made a point which other hon. Members raised earlier and which, no doubt, will be raised later : the idea that we may have to pay the price of hanging the occasional innocent man to deter others.

Let us assume that capital punishment is a deterrent. The hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth will recall that I do not accept that assumption, but even if that is so, the idea that we might say, "It is worth it to deter a few murderers," and that we should hang a man or a woman who has been wrongfully convicted is barbarous.

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I am sorry to put it in such dark language but it makes us too like the murderers themselves for me to be comfortable with such an idea. Were capital punishment in place in general or for terrorist crimes, the Guildford Four would be dead. It is no insignificant fact that today the so-called, once-alleged Birmingham bombers come up for the second appearance before the Court of Appeal. I have no doubt that those men would be dead as well had capital punishment been in operation during that terrible time in 1974 when they were caught, prosecuted and convicted--in my view, wrongly--for the crimes in the two Birmingham public houses. I do not understand how, with those examples of wrongful conviction and possible wrongful executions hanging over us, anyone in the Chamber can vote for the return of capital punishment in any of its forms.

I shall certainly vote against all the new clauses, other than that tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West, which I shall support with great enthusiam. It is a matter of privilege and pride for me to think that all my right hon. and hon. Friends who go into the Lobbies tonight will vote against the return of capital punishment.

Several Hon. Members rose --

The Chairman : Order. I remind the Committee that the House has determined that our proceedings should conclude no later than 10 o'clock. I have the names of at least 20 right hon. and hon. Members who seek to catch my eye. Unless speeches are reasonably brief, I am afraid that some will be disappointed.

Mr. Ivan Lawrence (Burton) : I do not see the slightest reason why those of us who advocate capital punishment should be on the defensive in this debate. Judging by the speeches made so far, we appear to be outnumbered, but it is time that we went on the attack nevertheless.

Why are we having another debate on capital punishment? We are having another debate because Parliament is the sounding board of the nation and because, if the public opinion polls are right, the nation is overwhelmingly in favour of the restoration of capital punishment. Those whom we represent are entitled to hear us discussing and debating the issue, giving our reasons for and against and taking the matter seriously because it goes to the heart of our fundamental security and stability that law and order should be preserved. We are taking the opportunity presented to us by the Criminal Justice Bill to suggest new provisions. That is why we are here.

Since we last debated the matter some two years ago, 1,500 people have been murdered. I believe in capital punishment because I believe that a substantial proportion of those 1,500 people would still be alive had the deterrent of capital punishment remained. That is what the debate is all about ; it is about whether capital punishment would save the lives of innocent victims. If it would not, there is no excuse for it. If it would, it is a live issue. Moreover, the majority of people in Britain regard that as the reason for the restoration of capital punishment.

Mr. Wilshire : Will my hon. and learned Friend give way?

Mr. Lawrence : My hon. Friend has intervened on several occasions. He will forgive me if I do not give way, because I must try to be brief.

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It seems to those who think that the debate should not be taking place are those who oppose capital punishment. Those of us who are in favour of it take every reasonable opportunity to raise the matter in the House and to ensure proper discussion. Whether we win or we lose, those whom we represent will know that this Parliament is taking the subject seriously.

Those who oppose capital punishment wish life imprisonment to remain the ultimate deterrent. Let us examine that proposition. Has not life imprisonment been the most utter failure as a deterrent? Five years before the abolition of capital punishment, there were 290 murders a year on average. In the past five years, there have been 647 murders a year on average. Since the abolition of capital punishment, the number of murders has more than doubled.

In 1972, 2,000 crimes were carried out with guns and weapons. Last year, 10,000 crimes were carried out with guns and weapons. That means that there has been a fivefold increase.

In the 24 years before the abolition of capital punishment, 14 police officers were murdered : in the 24 years after its abolition 53 police officers were murdered. That means that there has been a fourfold increase.

Between 1963 and 1989, 59 people in England and Wales were killed by people who had previously been convicted of homicide. Had capital punishment remained, many of those criminals would not have been there to murder their second victims. So it cannot be said that life imprisonment--the alternative to capital punishment--has been a success ; it has been a failure.

It is argued that one cannot prove that capital punishment is a deterrent. I concede at once that that cannot be proved conclusively and scientifically as it would be preposterous to suggest that one could ask 10,000 people whether they were in fact deterred from committing murder by the fact of capital punishment. However, much of the evidence tends to suggest that capital punishment is a deterrent.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary put an unfavourable interpretation on the United States statistics, but let us examine them. In 11 of the 12 states where capital punishment has been restored and where executions have been carried out, there has been a reduction in the murder rate. Of the 12 states without capital punishment, the majority--seven--have seen an increase in the murder rate and four a reduction. In one, the rate has remained the same. That suggests that the existence of capital punishment in American states has been responsible for the reduction in the murder rate.

Mr. Janman : My hon. and learned Friend has been describing the murder statistics for Britain and the United States. As he rightly said, the murder rate per million of the British population rose from 6.3 to 12.7 between 1964 and 1989. In other words, the number of murders more than doubled. In the United States--a country which I do not think many would regard as less violent than Britain ; it is probably more violent--the murder rate per 100,000 of the population rose from 7.1 in 1970 to 8.4 in 1988. Capital punishment is available in many parts of the United States. We have abolished it. The statistics are clear.

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Mr. Lawrence : I thank my hon. Friend for making a further point in favour of the United States statistics. I realise that the causal links are not always clear, that hand guns are readily available in the United States and that that is a complicating factor. I concede that there is some conflicting evidence, but the trend is clear : in the parts of the United States where capital punishment has been restored and implemented, there has been a fall in the number of murders committed and in the murder rate. That is also consistent with the analyses made in universities. Professor Erlich of Chicago university showed that there was evidence of capital punishment having had a deterrent effect in the United States up to 1969. I know that that has been challenged, but the challenge has also been rebutted. At any rate, there is a respectable, logical, sensible, scientific argument to support the deterrence proposition. Kenneth Wolprin of Yale university drew the same conclusions using United Kingdom statistics dating from before the abolition of capital punishment. It is true that the evidence can be read both ways, but it cannot be said that there is no statistical evidence to support the deterrence theory.

Japan, a country whose achievements we admire, has the lowest murder rate in the developed world--one can almost call it the western world. Along with 50 other countries, Japan has not only continued to use capital punishment, but has extended it to other offences to which it did not apply before--to drug trafficking and rape in particular. Those countries have done that precisely because they believe that it is a deterrent. The IRA certainly believes that it is a deterrent. I have heard it suggested that that is not so, but when, in December 1975, I moved a motion in favour of the restoration of capital punishment for terrorist offences, the then head of the IRA issued an ultimatum. He said that, if the House reimposed capital punishment for terrorist offences, he would hang three British soldiers for every member of the IRA who was convicted and hanged. If that was not a threat, I do not know what it was. The head of the IRA made that threat because he believed that the existence of capital punishment would seriously undermine the effect and influence of the IRA. What other justification could he have had for threatening the House?

Before I came to the House, I spent much of my time as a criminal lawyer. In the 1960s, I defended a number of serious villains and I asked all of them whether the existence of capital punishment had deterred them from committing more serious crimes. Invariably the answer was yes. They said, "When we thought there was a risk of being hanged, we did not take guns with us when we committed a crime, and we did not take mad tearaway juveniles with us in case they pulled the trigger and people died as a result." I know that this evidence is anecdotal, but it comes from an impeccable source. I was told by people in the 1960s who had committed serious crimes that, when capital punishment had been available, they were deterred from committing such offences.

We must also consider common sense. The simple fear of being caught is not enough to deter people from committing crimes. People must be afraid about what might happen once they are caught. No one is much worried about being caught if, once he is caught, he gets only a pat on the head and tuppence out of the poor box. He will continue to offend for as long as he wants. The size of the sentence is the deterrent, and the real deterrent is the ultimate sentence of death.

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6 pm

The ordinary people know as much as any expert about what deters people from committing serious crimes. The overwhelming majority are in favour of the restoration of capital punishment precisely because they believe that it would deter people from murdering innocent people and that innocent lives would be saved.

The police are at the sharp end. They have to fight in the streets with the murderers. The Police Federation has stated that capital punishment would be a deterrent to the criminals who use violence and kill. The Police Federation's view is good enough for me. Taking all my evidence of deterrence together, there should be no more nonsense spoken in this place about there being no evidence that capital punishment deters.

Rev. Ian Paisley : Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that, in Northern Ireland, the Police Federation, which represents the men on the ground who must work on when their colleagues are murdered, believes that capital punishment should return, but the senior, high-ranking officers who have been referred to today, and those of similar rank who have never been under attack or murdered, claim that there should not be a return to capital punishment?

Mr. Lawrence : It is clear that there is more evidence that capital punishment deters than that it does not.

If we do not have capital punishment, we must have life imprisonment, but that has failed. There is some evidence that capital punishment deters some people from committing murder. We need not ask how many people would be deterred, although that number might be significant. Bearing that in mind, what are the objections to the restoration of capital punishment?

It has been said that capital punishment is wrong in a civilised society. However, with so much lawlessness, why do we presume to have a thoroughly civilised society?

It has been argued that human life is sacred and that that is a reason to resist the restoration of capital punishment. But the life of the murder victim is also sacred and we should care about that person as well.

We are also told that retribution is wrong. If retribution were the reason for restoring capital punishment--and it is not my reason--I should rather we had retribution organised by the state after laws of evidence and proper court trials than retribution in dark alleys and streets at night because the law is incapable of protecting the innocent.

It has been said that capital punishment is contrary to God's teaching, but that depends upon which page of the writings concerning the Almighty we consider.

It has been said that capital punishment will create martyrs, and I understand that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is afraid of that. But if we are to have martyrs, I believe that it is better that their martyrdom is celebrated once a year than that they be perpetual martyrs while they serve life imprisonment. That is what has happened to many people who are serving life imprisonment.

Mr. Roland Boyes (Houghton and Washington) : What about the Guildford Four?

Mr. Lawrence : I shall consider the Guildford Four in a moment.

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It has been said that, if we had capital punishment, there might be reprisals, particularly with respect to terrorist offences. If we give way to such blackmail, the law breakers will be making our law, and that would be utterly unacceptable to society.

It has been suggested that the reintroduction of capital punishment would lead to hostages being taken. But in recent years, the taking of hostages-- I include aircraft hijacks--has occurred in respect of people who are prisoners, not in respect of people who have been subject to capital punishment.

The objectors claim that most murderers know their victims. So what? Why should a victim who is known to the offender have any less right to protection than the victim who is not known to the offender? I do not see the logic in that argument. If the cause of the offence was only passion and there was no premeditated calculation or any time span before the formulation of the desire to kill and the killing, that would not be murder. The jury would acquit of murder. It might convict of manslaughter, but there would be no question of the death penalty being imposed.

If someone is contemplating murder, he might bear in mind the fact that, with capital punishment, if he is caught he may die. If we are talking about the murder of someone who is known to the murderer or of someone in a family, if there is an element of premeditation or calculation by which that person would be convicted of murder, there is time for the deterrent aspect of capital punishment to take effect.

Mr. Hattersley : We have now established that the hon. and learned Gentleman's new clause is intended to provide an omnibus provision for capital punishment, so that everyone convicted of murder, of every category of murder--nothing relating to the 1957

categories--should be sentenced initially to death. If the new clause is accepted, can the hon. and learned Gentleman give us and the Court of Appeal any guidance about which categories he wants to hang? Under the new clause, everyone would be sentenced to death and some would hang and some would not. Until a moment ago, I had assumed that only a small number would go to the gallows, but the hon. and learned Gentleman has suggested that his new clause will send virtually every murderer to his or her death. Is that what he means?

Mr. Lawrence : No, not at all. The right hon. Gentleman came closer in his speech to appreciating the value of my new clause. The point of the new clause is that if, following a death sentence for any offence there is some reasonable argument why the death penalty should not be carried out, in that particular case, the Court of Appeal would say, "Not death, life imprisonment."

It is not a matter of categories-- [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) may laugh and shake his head, but it is not a question of categories. I am not putting down a list of categories under which someone will or will not die. I am describing a situation in which, according to ordinary common sense--and our judges exercise common sense--if anything can be said as to why a person should not die, whatever the category of offence, the sentence of life imprisonment should be substituted.

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It has been said that hanging is too horrible. If that is the case, we could develop other methods, such as those that exist in other countries.

The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook commented adversely on an article in The Sunday Telegraph by Robin Harris. I do not believe that what Robin Harris said in that article was as absurd as the right hon. Gentleman made out. The more people who are aware of, and feel the horror of, the punishment and the taking of life that caused it, the more respect will be engendered in our society for human life and the greater will be the element of deterrence. That is what Robin Harris was saying ; he was not glorifying the circus that surrounds some murders.

Finally, we must consider the possibility of mistakes. That is the most powerful argument against the restoration of capital punishment, and it has been discussed at length in our debate today. I shall address that issue as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary demanded that I should.

To avoid mistakes, as far as humanly possible, is one of the main purposes of the review tribunal in my new clause 3. In essence, I repeat that the purpose of the review tribunal, once the death sentence has been passed, is to ask, "Is there any sensible, humane reason in this case why the death sentence should not be imposed?" The Court of Appeal would consist of three, five, or as many High Court judges as is thought prudent, and they would sit as soon as practicable. I hope that the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook will listen carefully to this point, as it answers some of his questions. I have his rapt attention so far. They would consider any circumstances, not just the circumstances that had been admitted in evidence at the trial, circumstances that surround both the offence itself and the offender.

I must inform the right hon. Gentleman that there are exclusionary rules of evidence. Not everything that emerges during the investigation of a murder case is admissable in a trial. All sorts of details and all sorts of facts about a person and the circumstances are ruled out as inadmissable. From my reading, I cannot remember whether what I am about to say applied to Timothy Evans, who has been found to have suffered one of the miscarriages of justice. It was nobody's fault that Christie, whom everybody believed to be an honourable person, turned out to be a mass murderer. But Timothy Evans would not have hanged if-- [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) will allow me, Timothy Evans would not have hanged if the Court of Appeal, sitting afterwards, had heard evidence that he had the mental age of a child of 12, below the age at which one would expect anybody to have moral culpability. The Court of Appeal would have said, "Even though he did it, he should not hang."

Hanratty is another example. He was convicted because he put forward a false alibi. If he had run the defence of diminished responsibility, he would not have hanged ; he would have been found guilty of manslaughter. The Court of Appeal sitting after that could have heard that there was an alternative defence that he could have run. The court could have called evidence to see whether it was satisfied by it, and if it had been satisfied that he was suffering from diminished responsibility, he would not have hanged.

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I now refer to Craig and Bentley. Bentley was hanged despite the fact that Craig was the one who told him to shoot. Craig could not hang because he was 16. There is a manifest injustice, is there not, in having two parties, both of whom are equally to blame, and one hangs because he is a little older and one does not hang because he is a little younger? That is the sort of matter in which--

Mr. John Maxton (Glasgow, Cathcart) : It is the other way round.

Mr. Lawrence : No, it is not. I wish that the hon. Gentleman would not heckle. The hon. Gentleman is talking nonsense. It is not the other way round. Craig lived and Bentley died. Bentley was the elder of the two. That is precisely the sort of extraneous matter that the Court of Appeal would consider.

One could go further and say that, even if the evidence of identification were so positive that a jury would accept the identification evidence of one witness, the Court of Appeal might say, "Even one positive identification that satisfied the jury is open to the possibility of error, and there should be no death penalty." Even if somebody confessed to the police in circumstances that were utterly impeccable--one could not criticise them--and said, "All right, I did it," the Court of Appeal might say, "That is not enough ; there must be more evidence than one confession before the man will die." He was undoubtedly guilty because he was convicted by a jury and because the evidence was impeccable, but whether a person should die when there is an outside possibility that just one piece of evidence might have been wrong is a matter that the tribunal could take into account.

I now refer to the Guildford Four. It is preposterous for the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook or anybody else to assume that, if there had been the death penalty, all these terrorist offences would have been committed. Because the death penalty deters terrorism, it is one of the reasons why we advance the cause of the restoration of capital punishment. It is equally preposterous to assume that, if there had been the death penalty, police officers would have lied about the circumstances in which they took a statement. Perhaps they would have done, but there cannot be the certainty with which the right hon. Gentleman seems to have invested so much of what he says. If there were the penalty of death and the only evidence against the men were confessions, there is no certainty that a jury would ever have convicted them.

Anyway, the situation has changed--it can no longer occur. These convictions took place in relation to the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six 15 years ago, since when we have introduced the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. That Act safeguards the interrogation of suspects. There is absolutely no reason why every interrogation of a murder suspect should not be tape-recorded and video-recorded, so that there could be no question about the integrity of such investigations. If we had those safeguards, it would be almost impossible for the mistake that happened 15 years ago to happen again.

6.15 pm

Mr. Hattersley : I fear that the hon. and learned Gentleman is wrong in that particular. If what happened in Birmingham and in Guildford occurred again, the men who were immediately arrested would not be subject to all

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the protections of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act ; they would be initially cross-examined under the prevention of terrorism legislation, which excludes those protections.

Mr. Lawrence : That is all the more reason why the Court of Appeal in considering the matter-- [Laughter.] It is no use laughing. The Court of Appeal considering the matter could say, "If these alleged terrorists have not been afforded the normal protections of the court, then we cannot be 100 per cent. sure about the confession evidence". In the case of the Birmingham Six, there is more evidence than the confession to be considered. In the case of the Guildford Four, there was only confession evidence. Even if the confession evidence was beyond reproach, as it might have been under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act--whatever the right hon. Gentleman says about that, although there may be different circumstances in regard to the Birmingham Six--there might not have been capital punishment if there was no corroboration of the confession.

Mr. Seamus Mallon (Newry and Armagh) : I am somewhat confused by the line of the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument. He made the case that there was a substantial inherent deterrent in the death penalty, and he referred to terrorism, especially Irish terrorism. The death penalty has existed for the greater part of 800 years, and it has proved to be anything but a deterrent. Will the hon. and learned Gentleman take on board the fact that the real sea change in Irish life came about as a result of the use of capital punishment in 1916? It changed the course of Irish history from then until now.

Mr. Lawrence : If I can be forgiven for leaving the Irish aspect of this dispute to the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley), I shall save time, because I am taking up rather a lot of time in dealing with these important matters. To conclude on this point, the possibility of mistake is not a valid reason for refusing to protect the lives of innocent people who would otherwise die if we do not have the deterrence of capital punishment.

I refer now to another attraction--if I may be so bold as to suggest that anything that I have said has attractions--of new clause 3 than the avoidance of mistake. Only if all murder was subject to the death penalty would it be an effective deterrent. The murderer contemplating murder would never know in advance whether he was likely to be reprieved. He would have to assume that he would not be reprieved and that he might suffer the death penalty. That is the secondary importance of the Court of Appeal and the requirement that the penalty for murder shall be mandatory death.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has analysed new clause 3 and has made four criticisms. First, he said that juries would be more likely to acquit. That may be so, but not where the crime is so heinous that everybody feels that death is the only appropriate result that should follow. If there is doubt about the case, it is absolutely right that the jury should acquit. We could have no possible objection to that. If the existence of capital punishment makes juries more concerned to look for doubts and to give the verdict according to any doubt that they find, we should welcome that, not object to it. However, even were the jury to acquit against the evidence, there would often be the possibility of a manslaughter alternative. In any event, no would-be

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murderer would know in advance that the jury was likely to acquit and the deterrent value of capital punishment would still exist. Secondly, my right hon. Friend says that the Lord Chief Justice has said that life or death should be a decision taken by this Parliament. If new clause 3 is accepted, Parliament will indeed have decided that death shall be the punishment for murder. The judges' role will be to be merciful in a proper case. Parliament would have given judges the power to be merciful. I find it difficult to believe that the Lord Chief Justice would be against giving judges the power to be merciful once Parliament had decided that the death penalty shall be mandatory unless there are grounds for mercy. I can see no objection in the Lord Chief Justice's response to what I have suggested and to what my right hon. Friend has said.

Thirdly, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary objects that the Court of Appeal would not have seen witnesses. That is no argument because, in any event, the Court of Appeal seldom sees witnesses before an appeal. However, it does see witnesses in some circumstances and it could in this instance. If there was an argument that required the calling of evidence that was not admissible in the lower court of trial, such evidence could be considered by the Court of Appeal. I remind my right hon. Friend who has come to the position of Home Secretary after Parliament passed these provisions into law, that the Government never considered the fact that the judges in the Court of Appeal had not seen the witnesses to be a valid reason for refusing to allow the Court of Appeal the right to increase sentences. I do not understand why, if it is not necessary to see a witness in order to increase the sentence, it is necessary to see a witness in order to reduce a sentence.

Fourthly, in criticism of new clause 3, my right hon. Friend has said that there would be the possibility of delays in carrying out the sentence and then a media circus would take place. If there are unacceptable delays, the Court of Appeal will have to sit more often. If there are so many murders, it will have to sit every day. Why is it so impossible for the lawyers and the judges of this land to sit regularly and frequently to consider such matters?

As for salacious media interest, why does my right hon. Friend assume that the media would always be in favour of the murderer, never the victim? Why does he assume that such coverage day after day would be good copy? Why does he assume that there would be nothing else on the front pages day after day except murderers--no politics, nothing about the state of the world, no bimbos and nothing about the sexual activities of anybody in public life? Why does he assume that murderers and their victims would always be on the front pages? That is taking that assumption far too far. Avoiding saving innocent lives simply for reasons of bad publicity seems a wholly bad reason. We shall, of course, vote tonight where our consciences lead us, but I shall vote for capital punishment because the alternative has failed and because too many innocent people have died and too many innocent people will go on dying unless there is an effective deterrent, which life imprisonment is not. I shall vote for capital punishment because I believe that it deters some murderers--perhaps many. I believe that we should not only, in the words of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, "shed tears for the victims rather than for the offender" ; I believe that we should take steps to save the lives of the innocent victims,

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not simply cry tears for them. By "innocent victims", I include all those who are maimed through the carrying of firearms and not necessarily only those who are murdered.

I shall vote against new clause 4 because treason involves the death of many. It is exceptionally serious and the law should not be reformed only as a side wind in another debate. It also involves the monarch and there should be a proper examination of her interests, which I am sure has not taken place in the short time since the tabling of the new clause. I shall therefore vote against that new clause.

But I have tabled and seek this opportunity to speak to new clause 3 because I want to see the lives of the innocent saved. That is my only purpose. I shall therefore support new clauses 2, 6 and 7 because they are steps towards that end.

Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann) : My colleagues generally take the view that a person who deliberately takes a life forfeits his or her right to life. That is a fairly simply and straightforward view that would apply to all murders. However, I feel somewhat uneasy with that position, for two reasons. First, as has been said, most murders occur within a domestic environment where right and wrong do not separate as absolutely as the proposed penalty of capital punishment.

Secondly, as has also been said, there is the danger of a mistake--the danger that innocent people may be hanged. Undoubtedly, that has happened. As has been suggested, that consideration could lead to the conclusion that the courts should do their job better. It has also been suggested that procedural reforms might assist in that regard. Other reforms have been mentioned recently about the operation of the Court of Appeal, and I have tabled some amendments to the Emergency Provisions Bill which are not irrelevant to this, but that is by the way.

The danger of a mistake and the nature of its consequences are such that there must be some additional compelling reasons to justify a risk, however small, to the innocent. For that reason, I do not favour new clause 3, which has been tabled by the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) because of its general nature. In addition, referring cases to the Court of Appeal is undesirable because, although they may be decisions on matters of fact, the decisions of the Court of Appeal are likely to be treated as precedents. That would be unfortunate and inappropriate in this context.

Having said that there should be some additional compelling reasons to justify the risk of hanging the innocent, I am sure that the supporters of new clause 1 see that additional reason as the need to protect certain persons ; they have mentioned policemen. The supporters of new clause 6 have mentioned prison officers. Those persons are called upon to risk themselves in the defence of the community. I emphasise the words "called upon" because there are circumstances in which it is the duty of police officers and prison officers to expose themselves to risk, and they do so in defence of the whole community.

I have no doubt that there are occasions when the greater good of defending the whole community can justify capital punishment. In saying that, I accept that there may be a risk to other persons, and that it is a matter of balancing the risks. Nevertheless, there may be occasions

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when the greater good of defending the community justifies the resort of capital punishment. For that reason, I support new clauses 1 and 2.

Short of war, the need to defend the community is greatest when we are confronted with terrorism, which is an attack on the whole community. The need to defeat that form of warfare against the community should and does provide a compelling reason for supporting new clause 2. It should be compelling to all but committed pacifists. I disagreed with the Home Secretary on that. It is not right to regard terrorism as an ordinary form of crime, however attractive it may be to do so. Its motivation and character are different. Terrorism is indiscriminately directed against the community. It is a form of declaration of war on society by a group of people. We should not suffer by recognising that that is what it is. That does not make it legitimate. It is a particularly loathsome form of warfare. Indeed, if the international conventions on the conduct of war applied, most terrorist activities would be war crimes and if those who were caught were not wearing a uniform, they would be persons whom, under the prevailing laws of war, the authorities would be perfectly entitled to execute out of hand. One does not suffer by recognising what terrorism is.

It has been suggested that, in the context of terrorism, capital punishment would be counter-productive. I am not sure that the record supports that. There were some interesting precedents in what happened in Ireland this century, particularly in the 1920s. In May 1922, the newly established Northern Ireland Government became responsible for security in the midst of a terrorist war which had started in 1919. The first Ulster premier, Sir James Craig, decided as a matter of policy that he would not invoke the death penalty, and, indeed, he did not do so. He considered that reliance on the death penalty would deepen and prolong the bitterness that existed in the community.

6.30 pm

In the same year, civil war broke out in the Irish Free State--what is now the Republic of Ireland. The Government of the Irish Free State took a different view from that of the Government of Northern Ireland. About 80 persons were officially executed, and it is believed that about double that number were unofficially executed in killings which were not admitted by the forces of the Irish Free State but were carried out under the direction of the Government. Conventional wisdom among historians and politicians is that those killings permanently embittered the politics of the Irish Republic. But since then, a comparatively liberal Ulster has been racked by successive outbreaks of terrorism while, in what was a repressive Republic, the provisional IRA has a standing order which forbids violence. So one must admit that the Republic's security policy has been more successful.

Mr. Mallon : The hon. Gentleman referred to official and unofficial executions. Perhaps he should amend that and describe both sets of executions as unofficial. The executions were the result of cases brought, not before the courts but before kangaroo military tribunals.

Mr. Trimble : I do not wish to be drawn into a semantic argument on that point. The executions were official in the sense that they were carried out by the lawful authorities of the Irish Free State, acting under the law in force at the

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time, according to the procedures under which the Government operated. Admittedly, the executions were carried out under a regime of martial law, but that does not change the fact that they were official executions at the time. The unofficial executions were those which were not admitted and were carried out by what journalists today would call death squads sent out by Ministers in Dublin for that purpose.

I was examining the contrast between the positions taken in Northern Ireland and in the Irish Free State. In Northern Ireland, the death penalty was not resorted to, yet we have continuing terrorism. In the Irish Republic, the death penalty was resorted to on a massive scale, and it has had peace since the 1920s. New clause 4 reminds us that the death penalty is available for many of the terrorist crimes committed in Northern Ireland. Many of those crimes come within the definition of treason. One could invoke the death penalty, if only people were charged with treason. Clearly, we must ask why, in such cases, people are not charged in the appropriate manner. The charge is available.

It cannot simply be the decision of the Law Officers of the Crown exercising their discretion not to charge people with treason, because that discretion has been exercised in an identical way under successive Governments. It is more a matter of Government policy. Indeed, there was some hint of that in the Home Secretary's speech, when he said that the charge of treason was used only in the case of war. That may explain why no one has been charged with treason in Ulster in the past 20 years.

The Government's inconsistency would be resolved if they supported new clause 4 and removed the death penalty for treason. However, the Home Secretary said that the Government do not intend to do so. I agree with the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer), who spoke to new clause 4, that the answers given were rather poor on that point. Some of us suspect that there are other reasons. It seems that the Shakespearean couplet might apply : "Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason?

For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

One wonders whether the reason why the Government dare not call it treason is that some members of the Government expect, or even intend, that treason to prosper.

That would be in line with the recent speech of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in which he described the objectives of the IRA as "legitimate". I wonder how one of Her Majesty's Ministers can defend that. Nothing is more likely to encourage terrorism than to describe its objectives as legitimate. Nothing is more likely to discourage it than making it clear that the state will use all the legal weapons in its armoury to combat it.

It has been said that terrorism in Ulster, particularly republican terrorism, is a high-status, low-risk occupation. We can do nothing to lower its status, because its status is conferred on it by the community in which it operates, but we can do something to increase the risk, and we certainly should do so.

Sir John Wheeler : The arguments presented to the Committee this evening have, predictably, covered both the moral and practical issues and have been rehearsed many times in the Chamber in previous debates. This is a subject on which many hon. Members on both sides of the arguments have particularly strong and absolute views.

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They are not to be swayed by continued argument, even of the magisterial nature of the arguments delivered to the Committee a few moments ago by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence).

I shall not repeat all the points that have been made. I shall make some points of my own. It would be utterly wrong to reintroduce capital punishment without the most conclusive evidence that the death penalty is a unique deterrent. I contend that no such evidence exists. Worldwide research suggests that the death penalty would not reduce the murder rate but would simply lead to a greater coarsening of attitudes to human life. Little can be proved by citing offence rates over a long period since abolition because over such periods crime rates can vary a great deal for reasons which have no connection with the death penalty. Nevertheless, during the 20 years from 1969 to 1989, the percentage rise in the number of homicides in England and Wales was less than half the percentage increase in all other indictable offences, for most of which there was no comparable change in penalty.

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