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7 pm

Mr. Worthington: I thank the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) for tabling his new clause in such general terms, thus enabling Labour Members to record our horror at last night's events at the Aldwych and to convey our sympathy and support to victims and their families. We must pledge all our help to those who are recovering from the maiming inflicted by people who regard any member of the human race who is passing through the centre of London as a legitimate target. We also thank the emergency services for the work that they have done in harrowing circumstances.

The Governments of both the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland must proceed with determination on a united path to a political settlement by peaceful and democratic means. Overwhelmingly, that is what the people of both north and south want. Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ms Mowlam) and I went to the Republic to meet the Taoiseach and the Foreign Minister, Mr. Spring, and the leaders of the other parties in both Government and Opposition. We were able to thank them for the strength of their condemnation of these appalling acts, and for the warmth of their support for the people of Britain in the face of such atrocities. We were made aware of the huge determination there, as here, to achieve the peace that can and must prevail.

Rev. Ian Paisley: Did the hon. Gentleman meetMr. Reynolds, who is on record in the Dail as having said that our Prime Minister goaded the IRA to bomb London? Was that the message that the hon. Gentleman received when he visited the Republic?

Mr. Worthington: As I said, we met the Taoiseach, the Foreign Minister and the leaders of the parties. At present, of course, that does not include Mr. Reynolds, but he is on our visiting list: we should like to talk to him, and to anyone who can help the peace process.

I understand why the hon. Member for Spelthorne tabled the new clause, but we consider it unnecessary.I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not mind my saying that he did not say much about what was in it. In fact, it merely gives the Secretary of State power to extend the Act--if it becomes an Act--by a year in 1998. Whatever happens in 1998, the position will not be the same as it is today, whatever Government are in power: we can say that with complete confidence. What is significantly different is that--following our encouragement--the Lloyd review has been set up to examine all aspects of anti-terrorism legislation. The flaw in the argument advanced by the hon. Member for Spelthorne is that nothing that has happened in Great Britain over the past fortnight or so is affected by the Bill.

Mr. Maginnis: I would not like the hon. Gentleman to misunderstand the significance of the legislation, or to

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mislead the House inadvertently. A degree of co-operation is necessary between all police services in the United Kingdom, and between the United Kingdom and the Garda Siochona, the police service in the Irish Republic. The EPA is essential to the RUC's job of collating intelligence, and thus has an effect on the rest of the United Kingdom. That was well proven in the case of the Heysham bomb, which was intercepted just before the ceasefire.

Mr. Worthington: I could not have inadvertently misled the House, because the hon. Gentleman did not give me time to do so. What I said was that the legislation did not apply to citizens of the United Kingdom. We recognise that the PTA and the EPA are linked, however, and we encouraged the establishment of the Lloyd review to introduce anti-terrorism law applying to the whole United Kingdom. I believe that members of the hon. Gentleman's party would welcome that endeavour, and I think that he will acknowledge that I have not inadvertently misled the House.

Mr. Maginnis: I said that I hoped that the hon. Gentleman would not do so.

Mr. Worthington: I think that, if the hon. Gentleman could, he would go on to say that I did not do so. The new clause is inappropriate because the Lloyd review will consider the EPA and the PTA, and whatever Government are in power will have to take on the arguments advanced by that review.

I do not think that the Government consider the present anti-terrorism legislation ideal; the Opposition certainly do not. It contains flaws. The Government have presented this measure as a two-year sticking plaster. We hope that the wound will heal in two years, but we also hope that the Government will not wish to extend such legislation for more than two years: both Government and Opposition recognise the flaws in it.

Mr. Mallon: I shall be brief, as I do not wish to prolong the debate or pre-empt the Bill's Third Reading. I support the position of my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) on the legislation. I have made my position very clear. I do not want to see it in place for one minute longer than is necessary, and neither, I am quite sure, does any hon. Member. It is important that we do not allow--I certainly cannot allow it--something to stand on the record which by implication suggests that the constitutional parties--if I may use that term--that attended the forum have not denounced and rejected utterly and without any equivocation violence of any kind. That has been done, and if anyone has any doubt about that, that person is not looking at the reality of the situation.

Reference was made to the report of the Forum for Pace and Reconciliation. The only point that I want to make about it is that there is a nationalist consensus on the island of Ireland. We can call it a pan-nationalist front or a nationalist consensus. We can put whatever name we want on it, but there was one, there is one and there will be one, and it is based on three things: first, that violence has no place whatever in our country, in our society or in solving any difficulties that we have on the island of Ireland. I stand by that nationalist consensus.

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Secondly, if people have the right to self-determination, as the Government stated in the framework document, they also have the right to decide how they exercise that self-determination, and the people of Ireland have exercised that right to self-determination. The exercise of it must not be done by violent means. I stand by that nationalist consensus. The third element, to which reference was made, is the principle of consent. That principle is held by all the parties, with the exception of Sinn Fein, on the island of Ireland. It was built into the Sunningdale agreement in 1973. It was in the Anglo-Irish Agreement and underpinned it in 1985. It underpins the joint framework document. It underpins the joint declaration. It is there by a very distinct implication in section 20(e) of the Mitchell report. There can be no doubt in anybody's mind that there is a nationalist consensus. It is based on those three things and none other.

To the hon. Member for Spelthorne, who presented his case with great clarity, and to the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. Maginnis), who made the innuendo about the constitutional parties on the island of Ireland, I make this one point. Would hon. Members prefer that there was not a nationalist consensus based on those three principles, which are non-negotiable, cannot be deviated from and will not be diluted?

Mr. Robert McCartney: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the pan-nationalist front or the nationalist consensus, if that is the appropriate term, all had one thing in common: they were dedicated to a united Ireland, but not all of them were dedicated to a united Ireland by consent or by non-violent means, because that consensus, that pan-nationalist front, included Sinn Fein associated with the IRA, which did not and has not subscribed to the rest of the constitutional and nationalist view that consent and non-violence were part of that consensus?

Mr. Mallon: I am rather confused by the hon. and learned Gentleman's point. I have identified the three principles on which nationalist consent or a pan-nationalist front--whatever one likes to call it--is based. They are not negotiable. They will not be diluted. They will not be changed, for whatever reason, because they are the very basis of democracy.

Can the hon. and learned Gentleman imagine a set of circumstances in which the Irish Government--whatever party or parties formed it--the Social Democratic and Labour party, all the other parties, excluding Sinn Fein, in the island of Ireland, and the Government of the United States of America would ever resile from the three principles: that one can achieve one's objectives only by peaceful means; that one has the right to determine how to exercise one's right to self-determination; and the right to consent, because the opposite of consent is coercion? Yes, I am in favour of a united Ireland. Yes, I am entitled to the right to work for and create a united Ireland through peaceful, democratic and political means. I demand that right, because it is a democratic right, but no one has any right in the name of the Irish people or Irish unity to use violence at any time, in any place and in any way.

7.15 pm

Mr. Maginnis: I admire with respect the passion with which the hon. Gentleman makes his point. I feel, however, that, in his reference to me, he is tilting at a

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windmill, because I did not suggest in any way that he was ambivalent about violence. I asked whether the parties that sat in the forum and assented to its report would, as well as repudiating violence, work actively to expurgate the anarchists whom we know as the IRA. That was the question that I asked him, and I hope that it cast no aspersions on his integrity, as it was never my intention to do so.

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