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8.50 pm
Mr. Trimble: Before I mention general points, I want to raise one matter of detail to which I referred on Second Reading, and which my hon. Friend the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. Maginnis) pursued in Committee but which has not been answered and dealt with adequately. I refer to the provisions relating to terrorist fund raising and financing. The terrorist funding unit has been operating for a number of years and it has been most successful in restricting the flow of finance to terrorists. The effect may not be immediately apparent, but that activity is important in striking at the roots of the terrorists' ability to cause mayhem and disturbance. It is essential, particularly in view of the events of recent days, that the existing powers remain on the statute book in an effective form.
Labour Front Benchers said that the anti-racketeering provisions are being moved from the Bill to ordinary legislation, and it is right for that to contain measures to enable the courts to confiscate the proceeds of crime and the ill-gotten gains of persons involved in organised crime. However, the provisions in the draft order dealing with the proceeds of crime are not effective in replacing section 57 and the associated schedule of the emergency provisions Act. The Minister referred to that matter in Committee and wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, saying that he would table an amendment to the proceeds of crime order. Unfortunately, I have not seen the text--I understand that it is not available--so I have to go by the Minister's letter to my hon. Friend, in which he stated:
Doing so will mean that the provisions of the order would apply to offences under the prevention of terrorism Act, and the provision for financial investigations under the order would then be available. However, that does not go far enough. The order enables the financial investigation provisions in article 49 to be available where there is an investigation into whether any person has benefited from any criminal conduct, which will be defined by reference to offences in the prevention of terrorism Act. I see two problems with that. When dealing with terrorist financing, there may not be a personal benefit. Also, we are still referring to the committing of an offence. I note in passing that offences under the Act are rarely brought successfully. If it is necessary to bring a conviction under that legislation, the provisions will rarely bite.
Compare those restrictions with the width of provisions in the emergency provisions Act, which enable an authorised investigator to be appointed where there is any investigation by the Royal Ulster Constabulary into the existence of the resources of a proscribed organisation and of funds that may be applied or used for the commission
or furtherance of acts of terrorism or in connection with them. There is no requirement in existing legislation for an offence to be committed, or for a person to be convicted of an offence or to have benefited. The wide existing provision focuses on the resources of proscribed organisations and the funds that may be used in connection with the commission of terrorism.
Although it seems from the Minister's words that an effort has been made to broaden the provisions in the proceeds of crime order, they are not as broad as the Act's existing provisions. If we are faced, as we appear to be, with the renewal of the terrorist campaign, it is extremely important--especially at present--to be able to attack terrorist financing. There is reason to believe that in recent months, terrorists--particularly the IRA--have been running short of funds. Although they have been able to keep going with the $1.5 million that they raised in the United States last year, that source of finance may cease to become available to the same extent, in view of the renewal of violence. It is extremely important that the power is broad and wide enough to cover terrorist financing.
Sir Patrick Mayhew:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the way that he explained that fairly technical matter. The hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. Maginnis) has received a letter from my right hon. Friend the Minister of State. It is certainly not our intention that future legislation shall be in any respect less broad than at present. I give an undertaking that the matter will be examined, with a view to securing that at least that principle is implemented. We will examine the matter fully and carefully.
Mr. Trimble:
I thank the Secretary of State for his intervention and assurance. I remark in passing that that is another good reason for having the other place, even in its present form.
No one can seriously contend that there is no need for the Bill. I wish that there were clearer, more forthright acknowledgement of that fact from Labour Front Benchers. They voted against the Second Reading, giving various reasons. The truth was evident from the conduct and body language of the Opposition spokesperson. It was a question of looking over one's shoulder, at certain elements among Labour Back Benchers who seem to exert inordinate influence over the mind of the hon. Member for Redcar(Ms Mowlam), who leads for the Opposition.
Over recent years, I thought that the Labour party was moving to a more honourable and forthright position on the need to combat terrorism and I was sorry to see that element of backsliding. I was also sorry that this evening there was not a more forthright acknowledgement of that need and a realisation of the change in circumstances. When one considers the ground that Labour advanced for voting against the Bill on Second Reading--the fact that the provision for internment remains in the legislation--it is clear that that provision would be resorted to only in the most extreme circumstances, but it is also clear that we might be faced with those circumstances.
Those who have followed the Dublin press over recent weeks may have noticed the reference in a few interviews by journalists who were able to speak to the leadership of
Sinn Fein-IRA to the belief that exists among the leadership of Sinn Fein-IRA that a sharp, savage campaign--those were the adjectives used in the Dublin press--in England would break the Government's will. Perhaps we have seen only the first instalment of what may be about to come. There is a significant and serious risk of a savage campaign, given the language that was used in the Dublin newspapers.
Against that background, it would be criminally irresponsible to foreswear the use of the power of internment. That power exists to be used on a pragmatic basis according to a judgment as to whether or not it will succeed. It has been used successfully many times over the past decades, but on one occasion it did not have the desired success. It is a matter of analysing the reasons for success in some cases and failures in others and the failure to judge when it is appropriate to resort to it. It may well be that, before too long, circumstances will arise when it will be necessary to resort to it. If those circumstances exist and there is the prospect of a successful exercise of that power, clearly, it should be used.
There would, however, be a difficulty with an immediate recourse to that power. It is now fairly clear that the bomb that exploded in docklands close to Canary wharf was organised by a tightly knit group within the IRA, based almost exclusively in the Republic of Ireland and that, in all probability, the bomb was manufactured in the IRA's usual bomb-making factories in the Louth area. According to journalists' reports over the weekend, the operation was directed from Monaghan, the telephone warning came from just outside Drogheda and all the indications are that the persons who ran the operation were physically located in the Irish Republic. That is not to say that they were natives of the Republic; some of them are natives of Northern Ireland who are now domiciled in the Irish Republic.
Another feature of the operation that ties in with what was happening before the ceasefire was the recruitment of "lilywhites"--persons from the Republic with no previous background or involvement in terrorism who are, therefore, unlikely to be picked up by the security services and the police in Northern Ireland, England or Wales.
The fact that the roots of the operation lie in the Republic of Ireland shows that immediate recourse to internment would not be successful from the point of view of authorities in the United Kingdom. If the authorities in the Republic were to act, however, it would be an entirely different matter. Those authorities have a duty to take action and to ensure that their territory is not used as a base from which to launch attacks on another country.I am aware of no action by authorities in the Republic to discharge that duty. We have been told that they did not detect the operation and were as surprised as anyone else by the bomb in Canary wharf. That suggests that they had no adequate intelligence on it. I hope that they have taken steps to repair that and that they will take further steps to show that they are prepared to discharge their obligations to their neighbours under international law.
Current events underline the need for a single uniform code covering the entire United Kingdom. The attempt to pretend that Northern Ireland is in some way distinct and distinguished from the problems that apply to the rest of the United Kingdom was exploded by recent events. We made that point a number of times in previous years,
we shall repeat it to Lord Lloyd when he undertakes his review and I very much hope that it will be reflected in his recommendations and in future legislation.
There have been comments on what has been called the peace process and suggestions as to what should be done about it, how to keep it going, advance it and speed up the tempo. I listened to the comments by the hon. Member for Redcar, although I did not find any of her proposals attractive. Nearly all of them are far divorced from what we would find desirable in the present circumstances.
Rather than looking at the detail of the peace process, it would be better to go back to first principles and to consider what has been happening during the past two years. What is called the peace process stemmed from propositions advanced in the autumn of 1993--propositions particularly associated with the hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume). If I may summarise his hypothesis of the time, he said that peace was possible if only the Government made a reasonable response. Underlying his proposition was the suggestion that those involved in terrorism had realised the futility of their actions and wished to get out of the terrorist campaign. They wanted to make progress towards peace and democracy and would do so if only the two Governments gave them the opportunity.
It was quite reasonable for the Government to respond to this hypothesis; no criticism should attach to them for so responding. It is reasonable to say that people should make the effort to achieve peace and should, for that reason, be prepared to take risks from time to time to achieve it.
Over the course of the past two years, the hypothesis has been subjected to tests. The whole point of the Downing Street declaration, particularly paragraph 10, was to provide tests of the hypothesis, to see whether it was genuine, and as the Government said, to create the necessary confidence in it. Now we have seen what has happened. The events of the past fortnight show that even if the hypothesis had some validity two years ago, it no longer corresponds with reality.
I do not say this with pleasure. Over these two years, to be sure, we have expressed a certain amount of scepticism about the hypothesis, and there is a temptation now to say that we have been proved right. But if we have been, I take no pleasure from it. It would have been better if the hypothesis had been right and we had been able to move towards peace and democracy. Events, however, have shown that it is not true.
The fact is that what we had a couple of years ago was an agreement on a stratagem, or tactic. Sinn Fein-IRA embarked on what they called the ceasefire because they had been persuaded that it would be possible, in the event of a cessation of violence, to put together a coalition stretching through Sinn Fein, the SDLP, the Irish Government and Irish America--a coalition that would exert pressure on the British Government.
I noticed in this connection a comment made by Garret Fitzgerald in The Irish Times a few weeks ago, to the effect that when it proved impossible for Mr. Albert Reynolds, the then Prime Minister of the Republic, to obtain a ceasefire on the terms of the Downing Street declaration, he jettisoned part of it and obtained a ceasefire on other terms, giving various undertakings to achieve it. I noticed also that an IRA representative, in an interview last week, used language consistent with this hypothesis. In any event, the real ceasefire was clearly different from the declared ceasefire.
Reality came home to Sinn Fein-IRA in the aftermath of the Clinton visit. Sinn Fein-IRA had been led to believe that Irish America, and its influence with the White house, was their trump card. When the President stood in Mackie's and told the terrorists that their day was over, I think they realised that this was not going to be their trump card. There is reason to believe that the strategic decision to resume violence was taken in December, weeks before the publication of the Mitchell report. Journalist sources certainly suggest that.
So the basic proposition that underlay the peace process has been shown to be false. The bombs that went off in London destroyed the ceasefire, and must also have destroyed any future ceasefire based on the same hypothesis. A great deal has been said about the need to restore the peace process and resume the ceasefire, but it must be realised that there is no prospect of returning to the ceasefire that we thought or hoped existed before last week.
The only ceasefire on offer was suggested byMr. Adams last week. He talked of a ceasefire that would be offered only in exchange for a clear commitment to move immediately to all-party negotiations, without any preconditions whatever, and within a clearly defined time limit. That ceasefire is not worth having and is not one to which we could be party. We could be party only to a process that was genuinely based on a permanent end to violence, which was clearly intended to be permanent and if the parties' actions were entirely consistent with such an intention, with all that entails. That would mean returning to paragraph 10 of the Downing Street declaration and fulfilling what it said about peaceful intent, the democratic mandate and abiding by the democratic process.
"The amendment would relate to the definition of criminal conduct in article 2(2) of the Proceeds of Crime Order. As at present defined that definition of criminal conduct refers to a number of offences but excludes the offences under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. We propose to remove that exception."
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