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Marjorie Mowlam: I implied, and I shall make it clear now, that we believe, as did the previous Government, that our handling of the difficult issue of decommissioning should be in line with the Mitchell principles. In articles 34 and 35 of his report, Senator Mitchell said that it was not necessary for decommissioning to take place before talks started or for
it to wait to the very end, but that it should happen in parallel, while the talks took place. That confirms the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan). That is our position, and that of the previous Government, and we shall work hard to achieve that.
There is some agreement on that issue, but we would be misleading ourselves if we believed that there was close agreement. We and the Irish Government are working towards achieving such agreement, and I hope that we shall have a chance to do so with the other parties when the talks open tomorrow.
Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South):
Will the right hon. Lady confirm that decommissioning is not one of the Mitchell principles? It was part of the proposals and not one of the principles, which we accepted.
Marjorie Mowlam:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He is right, and I should have clarified that point. There must be an unequivocal restoration of the ceasefire before people can enter the talks, and an agreement to the six Mitchell principles. All parties must make a commitment to democratic and non-violent ways forward. We cannot expect anyone to sit in talks with people who are negotiating while using violence when it suits them. There must be that commitment if people are to have faith in the ceasefire and to negotiate. The decommissioning issue has delayed the talks for many months, as my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk, West knows.
We must get some momentum into the process when the talks start again tomorrow. Hon. Members who are present tonight and those who are unable to be with us because they are in South Africa have sat for many months trying to reach agreement, and have so far failed. We together with Senator Mitchell, the Irish Government and participants from all the parties must make a strong, concerted effort to get some impetus on decommissioning, or the process will be held up again.
Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire):
The Secretary of State rightly said that the ceasefire was the important consideration, and she referred to words and deeds. We are waiting for the words from Sinn Fein, and then the deeds must be verified. It may be fruitful to consider establishing a publicly funded, independent body to monitor events in the period leading up to Sinn Fein entering talks. That would ensure that people from both communities could present examples of what they thought were violations of ceasefire principles, and those could be checked and reported to the House. Such a procedure could be fruitful in the context of laying down terms for what the deeds have to be after the words have been pronounced.
Marjorie Mowlam:
I understand the guts of what my hon. Friend is trying to achieve. I agree with the principle of where he is trying to go. However, if we waited while another independent body was set up and for a ceasefire to enable Sinn Fein to take part in the talks and to agree to the six Mitchell principles, we would be setting different conditions from those that are set for loyalist paramilitaries. In that sense, we must treat people equally and fairly. That is not to undermine my hon. Friend's basic point, that we must be sure that the words and deeds
I have said that if the words are strong, they will make the deeds have lesser weight. If people said tomorrow, "This is the end of the war; the war is over," the deeds would be of less importance. However, if the words were the same as they have been on earlier occasions, we would need the deeds, and we have said that the deeds will be judged by me. I shall look carefully at them in the round so as to take into account all the different aspects. I shall do that fairly and honestly.
Mr. Seamus Mallon (Newry and Armagh):
As someone who will be in those talks tomorrow morning and who has heard the Secretary of State speaking about the Mitchell principles, may I ask her for an opinion on whether all the other parties who will be sitting around the table in the talks in Castle Buildings tomorrow are adhering to the same Mitchell principles that she has enunciated?
Marjorie Mowlam:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for a difficult question. It is a difficult judgment to call. There is no doubt that, faced with the violence over the weekend, and particularly the case of the RUC man who was taken out of a pub and kicked to death in Ballymoney, it is difficult to be sure that both sides are being treated equally. The difficulty is that we have to be sure of our facts before we act. From the evidence that has been provided to me up to now, I believe that the groups related to the loyalist groups in the talks, the Combined Loyalist Military Command, have not been associated with the violence. We assume from the evidence that we have received that other groups are related to that violence.
It would not be unfair to say to the hon. Gentleman that I am considering proscribing some of those groups. We need to wait for tomorrow's talks, because it is a matter for consideration in the talks process, as the hon. Gentleman knows because he has been in the talks more than most. The foundation of the talks procedure is that someone has to make a formal complaint. It is ultimately up to the two Governments, but I should like to wait for more evidence, see whether the parties have moved together and look at the evidence that they present. If it reaches that point, we can then sit down with the chairperson, Mr. Mitchell, and the Irish Government to review the situation.
If there is a violation of the six Mitchell principles, we shall look at that, but I hope that we can keep in the loyalist parties, if that is possible, because they have a been a plus in the process. On the grounds that I set out earlier in my speech, we should like, if we can, to make the process inclusive of Sinn Fein, but it has to give us an unequivocal ceasefire and the commitment by word and deed to the six Mitchell principles, so that we know that there is a commitment to the democratic process.
Mr. Michael Ancram (Devizes):
I congratulate the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on her appointment, and I thank her for her gracious tribute to her predecessor, Sir Patrick Mayhew, and for her words of welcome to me. I am not sure where she got the idea that my current position was temporary. Perhaps she knows something that I do not. I have to wait and see what happens.
I think that we all understand the difficulty of the task that the Secretary of State has undertaken, and I know that those Conservative Members who have held her high office will appreciate the difficulty of that task. In past weeks, we have seen some of those difficulties. We saw them over the weekend with the land mine that was planted by the IRA, with the horrific murder of Constable Greg Taylor of Ballymoney--I think that the whole House would join me in sending our condolences and sympathy to his family--and with some of the preludes to the marching season. I do not think any of us, on either side of the House, believe that she has an easy task ahead, and we wish her well.
The Secretary of State asked about the bipartisan policy. Tonight is perhaps an indication of that, as I certainly, on behalf of the Opposition, welcome the order. It fulfils undertakings that were given, both by her party and by mine, when the forum was suspended that it would be brought back into being at the same time as the talks resumed. She has cut it pretty fine with the talks starting tomorrow, but that commitment has been fulfilled and I welcome it.
I think I can say on behalf of all of us that we wish the Secretary of State success in the negotiations that begin tomorrow. I know from my personal experience that from 10 June onwards such negotiations are not easy. They are hard, complicated and sometimes frustratingly slow, but they are essential because they are the right way forward if an agreement is to be found in Northern Ireland. I realise, as I am sure the right hon. Lady does, that there are no short cuts, no quick fixes and no magic wands to be waved, and that this process can be taken forward only by painstaking negotiation, which is designed not just to achieve negotiating results, but to build confidence and to give the necessary reassurance which can make substantive progress possible. That, of course, must always include grinding out the details of the Mitchell recommendations and principles.
We can all use those terms easily, but when it comes to applying them in terms of creating confidence in the negotiations, we all know that they are much more complex and difficult than that. I am sure that, during the coming weeks and months, all the participants at Castle Buildings in Belfast will come to the table determined to try to find a way through the difficulties that we had before the talks were suspended in March, and to find a way through to the substantive negotiations that are their purpose.
The talks process was designed to be inclusive, but as we know, it is still without Sinn Fein. It is worth sometimes reminding ourselves that, although we talk about the process being incomplete, nine out of 10 parties are
represented, which between them represent 85 per cent. of the people of Northern Ireland. That is, on any view, a majority of both communities and perfectly capable of taking the process forward, if necessary.
At the moment, it seems that that is all that is available, because, as we know at this time, there has been no unequivocal restoration of the ceasefire. There has been no restoration of the ceasefire at all. Some people thought that there might be a de facto ceasefire, but that view was dashed on Saturday when the land mine was planted by the IRA, giving a message contrary to any idea that the IRA intended at this time to eschew violence in pursuance of its political objectives. I am afraid that the message that that gave was depressingly familiar. However, it emphasises the fact that we cannot negotiate with the republican movement or its representatives until they accept the democratic principles and the fact that only by exclusively peaceful methods can they pursue their political objectives.
That is why, in the statute that the right hon. Lady will have to operate if ever the time comes when she does invite Sinn Fein, she will be looking not just at whether there is a ceasefire in word and deed, but at whether there is a commitment to exclusively peaceful methods and a commitment to adhere to democratic principles.
We have watched with interest the contacts between the right hon. Lady's officials and Sinn Fein. We have always exercised the greatest caution in that respect, although the option was always available. I am sure that she will agree that adherence to democratic principles cannot and must not be fudged--it has to clear if there is to be the confidence that will allow the process to be taken forward by all those participating. I should be interested to know whether, in the light of the incidents over the weekend, any consideration has been given to whether there will be further meetings.
I also welcome the indication that the right hon. Lady gave us again today that the Government are continuing with the policy followed by the Conservative Government--namely, that the democratic process cannot be held to ransom by one political party. If a party excludes itself, as Sinn Fein is doing at the moment, the process must go on without it. If it comes in later, it must accept the position that it finds within that process and not expect the process to start all over again.
It is perhaps ironic that the forum being resurrected by the order is open to Sinn Fein, and has been since last June's elections. Sinn Fein could and can still take its seats there. It is indicative of what I believe to be an a la carte approach to democracy--as we saw when its two Members of Parliament wanted to have the facilities of the House without participating in our deliberations--that it has not taken its seats in the forum.
In welcoming the order, I recognise that, as well as a fair amount of politics over the past year, the forum did prove that it was hard working, that it was ready to look at the details and that it was not all about rhetoric. When it was set up it was envisaged as a forum for Northern Ireland's elected representatives to discuss issues relevant to promoting dialogue and understanding, although I think that it is fair to say that the ways in which it sometimes did that were not necessarily the first that one would think of as relevant in that context.
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