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Mr. Wilshire: The hon. Lady fairly makes the point that the fact the Labour party is against internment without trial is not a new message, but are there not new circumstances which ought to be considered? Can the hon. Lady not conceive of the possibility that, if things got worse, internment without trial could be an inevitable response to execution without trial?
Ms Mowlam: If the hon. Gentleman wants execution or internment without trial, fine. If the hon. Gentleman ever forgets the difference between terrorists and us, he is not a member of a democratic institution such as the House of Commons. The difference, and the reason why we want to see the power of internment taken out of the Bill, is that we are a democratic institution. It is the role of the House of Commons to debate and expose to parliamentary scrutiny an exceptional power such as internment or any other power that the hon. Gentleman cares to dream up.
Unless we believe that parliamentary scrutiny works, we do a disservice to exactly the democratic institutions and procedures that we as a Parliament seek to develop in
Northern Ireland. That is why we believe that internment should not be included in the Bill. If the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) or any other hon. Member wanted to seek to introduce such a power, an amendment could be debated in Parliament, and the decision would be for Parliament.
On the issue of remission of prison sentences, the House acted quickly and efficiently last year. If the hon. Member for Spelthorne sees a need for internment, it is surely the role of Parliament to discuss whether the Government should have the power to intern. Such a power should not lie dormant on the statute book for 25 years. We should have the guts to debate internment in the House of Commons if hon. Members express a desire to give the Government such a power. Our objection to the power of internment has been one of our main objections to the EPA for many years.
The Opposition also have doubts about the EPA because we have always argued for safeguards within the legislation. One such safeguard, to which the Secretary of State referred this afternoon, is electronic recording at holding centres. We believe that there should be video or audio taping, or some other such check, for no other reason than to protect both suspects and the police from accusations. Electronic recording would make a real difference to the problem of accusations about what has happened in holding centres.
The Secretary of State has announced this afternoon that there will be video taping without sound. The Opposition would like to see written into the Bill the checks and balances that Mr. Rowe and others have advocated for some time. Even the Secretary of State said back in June that the time had come to write checks and balances into the Bill. We were disappointed that that did not happen. We believe that the time has come for electronic recording. The reviewers believe that its time has come, and I thought that the Secretary of State had got to the point at which he believed that it was necessary. Checks and balances in the Bill would make a difference at the holding centres.
The main argument that has been made against electronic recording is that recordings could get into the wrong hands and create problems. I have read Sir Louis Blom-Cooper's detailed report on the checks and balances that could prevent that problem. The report is sufficient to allow the Government to go ahead with greater safeguards than video without sound would provide. I welcome the introduction of video recording. It is a move in the right direction, but it indicates a degree of indecision and confusion. I see no reason why we should not have gone the whole way and provided the same checks and balances that exist in other legislation such as the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1988.
Another reason why the Opposition have doubts about the EPA is, as the Secretary of State mentioned, the Diplock courts. In our reasoned amendment, we have made proposals which we hope will gain support across the House. We have argued for progressive change because--as the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery implied--one cannot abandon the existing procedures overnight. We cannot just flip from Diplock courts back to jury courts.
We accept that the imperfect so-called Diplock trial procedures cannot be abandoned overnight. We have advocated certifying in rather than certifying out, as that
would be another crucial safeguard. I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate those judges in Northern Ireland who have for many years operated a very difficult and contentious system with great professionalism and courage. That should be acknowledged in the House of Commons this afternoon.
I said in June that, if the current level of intimidation made an automatic shift to jury trials unacceptable--the Secretary of State said this afternoon that his security advice is that it does--we should begin to introduce measures to protect jurors and witnesses from intimidation. We could then begin to return to normality without making the move to jury trials until a material difference had occurred.
Trial by jury is a defining part of our criminal procedures. We are often surrounded by lawyers in the House, and it is important that lawyers are subject--as experts on every subject are--to an element of constraint by common sense and by those who have an uncomplicated commitment to fair play. That is why I consider it important that we return to jury trials.
Mr. Robert McCartney (North Down):
Does the hon. Lady agree that perhaps the greatest travesties of justice in terrorist trials have occurred not in Diplock trials but in jury trials, and in jury trials held not in Northern Ireland but on the mainland?
Ms Mowlam:
The hon. and learned Member is an example of the kind of lawyer to whom I was referring, and he has a detailed knowledge of the facts. I would argue that juries provide an element of fair play and common sense. Is the hon. and learned Gentleman arguing today that he thinks that there should be Diplock trials in terrorist cases on the mainland? If so, I look forward to his sharing that with the House. That suggestion could perhaps be discussed among the legal brethren, of whom I am not a member.
Mr. McNamara:
Is not the point about the jury trials in England to which the hon. and learned Member for North Down (Mr. McCartney) referred that the evidence upon which the juries reached their decisions was contaminated?
Ms Mowlam:
My hon. Friend is right. If the House will indulge me, I shall leave this matter where it is. From what I have heard from the hon. and learned Member for North Down (Mr. McCartney) and from my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), it is clear that we will return to this issue at some point.
I would not wish to leave the House in any doubt that, despite the paramilitary ceasefires in the past 16 months, the Opposition do not deny that killings have occurred. The House will remember the death of the post office worker Frank Kerr; others, such as William Elliot and Michael Harley, have died in the past 16 months. In addition, there were 167 punishment beatings last year. These must stop. The beatings cannot continue if we are to move the democratic peace process forward.
It should also be put on record that the punishment beatings have resulted in two suicides. Eddy McCloskey and Malachy Clarke committed suicide following punishment beatings, and their cases--particularly the latter--were discussed in the House in June.
The links between extortion, robberies and intimidation are becoming clearer day by day, particularly in drug trafficking--a subject that the Secretary of State touched on. Drug trafficking is a tragedy that makes many young lives a misery. To the families of Michael Mooney, Tony Kane, Paul Devine, Francis Collins, Christopher Johnson, Ian Lyons and Martin McCrory--all of whom have been murdered since last April--the professed motive becomes immaterial. For their families and loved ones, the loss is the same and the grief as great.
It is not acceptable to ignore the rule of law and to try to rule communities by fear. The persistence of brutality and intimidation on this level and the terrorising of local communities is especially repugnant when so many are engaged in a genuine search for a lasting peace. Democratic organisations do not use fear and intimidation to gain support, nor do they use pressure to discourage people from taking part in initiatives designed to promote reconciliation between divided communities. In a bipartisan way, the Opposition agree with the Secretary of State on the matter and call on the IRA to stop the murders of alleged drug dealers.
Mr. Ken Maginnis (Fermanagh and South Tyrone):
I am sorry to refer to an earlier part of the hon. Lady's speech, but she took me by surprise when she abandoned her references to "checks and balances" in terms of video recording and the endorsement and advocacy of audio recording. The hon. Lady kept referring to the checks and balances that would prevent such recordings being used for the benefit of terrorists. Will she elaborate on what those checks and balances might be?
Ms Mowlam:
I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for using the expression "checks and balances" in a misleading way. What I meant was that accusations of brutality--as have been made at the holding centre at Castlereagh--do no good either for the people who make the accusations or for the people who are accused and who have no way of proving whether they are innocent or guilty. By "checks and balances", I meant that audio and video recording would allow us to see what is happening. That would be to the benefit of everybody. People such as Lord Colville and Mr. Baker have argued for such recordings to be introduced at Castlereagh and at the Strand, and we would like to see that happen. If I did not make that clear or if I misled the hon. Gentleman, I apologise.
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