House of Commons Hansard Debates for 2 Jun 1997 (pt 37)

Mr. Canavan: The right hon. Gentleman rightly laid emphasis on a bipartisan approach. However, when Sir Patrick Mayhew was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, he said that he did not want to introduce immediate legislation based on the North commission report on marches. Can we expect a bipartisan approach if the new Labour Government introduce appropriate legislation? Will we have the Opposition's support?

Mr. Ancram: The hon. Gentleman is asking for an entirely blank cheque. That has never been a part of any bipartisan approach. Sir Patrick Mayhew introduced certain elements of the North report, and he rightly believed that, because of their possible implications, other elements required further consideration. We hope that the Secretary of State will talk to us about her proposals--as Sir Patrick Mayhew consulted her about his position--and we will consider any proposals that she makes according to whether we believe that they can work. I am sure that she, too, will wish to consider that aspect of the matter in deciding possible legislation.

I join the Secretary of State in hoping that the Social Democratic and Labour party, having made its protest, will now return to the forum to re-create the breadth of dialogue that will give real hope to the Province. In Northern Ireland, staying away must become a weapon of the past. I hope that taking part will become the message for the future.

I therefore welcome the order, and I wish the Government Godspeed in their endeavours to achieve agreement. I cannot with honesty declare that I shall miss being in Castle Buildings tomorrow, but a little bit of my heart will be with the Secretary of State when she starts the talks.

Marjorie Mowlam: I should like to answer the right hon. Gentleman's question about meetings with Sinn Fein after the discovery in Poleglass at the weekend. There is no doubt that that was a very serious incident, involving a large bomb which could have caused massive destruction if it had been detonated. As I said, meetings between officials and Sinn Fein depend on events. Currently no other meetings are scheduled. After Sinn Fein and officials met last week, no meetings were scheduled for this week. We shall, however, keep the situation under careful review, especially when a decision on further meetings is taken.

Mr. Ancram: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that clarification, and I am sure that she is right to adopt that attitude.

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I wish the forum well in building an understanding on which a new future for Northern Ireland can be established. The Opposition support the order.

12.1 am

Mr. Seamus Mallon (Newry and Armagh): Without joining the love-in, I should like to wish the Secretary of State well in the years to come. I extend that wish to the other Ministers who have come to the north of Ireland and who are making and have made contributions to the process. I thank them for that, and I wish them well.

I am not a great adherent of bipartisanship, because I believe that, when issues are really serious, it can be a drawback and have a stifling effect. It can prevent the type of thinking and dialogue which is essential in crisis situations.

We should ask ourselves one simple question. Is there not an air of unreality about a situation in which an hour and a half of parliamentary time is provided for a debate on the re-creation of a body, such as a forum, while there is insufficient parliamentary time to establish the North commission and powers that will probably be needed to stand between the future and another summer such as we had last year?

Today's debate is a microcosm of that air of unreality. It also shows us that, by becoming too cosy in a forum such as the House, we may be stifling thinking and debate and placing them into a cocoon, rather than stimulating them. I believe that this debate is nothing but a cocoon around some of the real issues. The forum is not important in terms of solving these problems. As the former Secretary of State said, it is a new opportunity

"to listen to the view of others . . . in order to promote dialogue and understanding."--[Official Report, 18 April 1996; Vol. 275, c. 859.]

The present Secretary of State has reiterated that, and it is a wise and noble thought. The reality, however, is that the forum was a price paid by the previous Government to the Unionist Opposition, who had sufficient numbers in the House to demand the price and get it. The price that they demanded was the forum, which in fact has no role in the negotiations. That is the honest position.

Mr. Andrew Hunter (Basingstoke): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Mallon: I will give way in a moment. I have outlined the honest position. If we want to fool ourselves for the next hour or so that what we are doing tonight is of great import, that is grand--but do we want to face the reality?

Mr. Hunter: I have heard the hon. Gentleman's argument before, but there is something that I do not understand. In the Republic of Ireland, a forum was established to promote dialogue and understanding. The hon. Gentleman supported it and his party took part--he may even have done so himself. What is the fundamental difference between that attempt in the Republic of Ireland to promote dialogue and understanding and the lesser role being played by the forum in the Province of Northern Ireland?

Mr. Mallon: I should have thought that one of the self-evident differences was that at that time there were

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no negotiations in the north of Ireland. Those negotiations had not been set up. We were continuing in a political limbo, and the opportunity existed to create a body which would try to bring Sinn Fein into the political process after the declaration of the ceasefire. It was right to embark on that, but it is also right to remember that that forum was the only all-Ireland political body created on the island of Ireland since partition--and it was blown out of existence by the IRA. It is often forgotten that that all-Ireland body was destroyed by the IRA. That tells us something about their attitude.

I wish to deal now with a few specific matters. Let us strip away the platitudes and some of the things that we have to say. I understand that Secretaries of States and former Secretaries of State, Ministers of State and former Ministers of State, have to say certain things, but I should like to challenge some of them today. It is my job to challenge things, as gently as I possibly can--that is my role.

First, what is decommissioning? It is not something vague or something that the very name can hide. It is the getting rid of illegal arms held by proscribed organisations. I suggest that we look carefully at responsibility in relation to the holding and use of illegal weaponry. I go further and suggest that the primary and fundamental responsibility rests with the two sovereign Governments involved.

There is a cop-out, and the Secretary of State touched on it. The two main parties--the Ulster Unionist party and my party, the SDLP--could not solve the decommissioning issue in the previous section of the talks. We are not Governments, we do not have any powers, we do not have any authority and we do not have any arms, but there are two sovereign Governments in the talks process telling us, "Get on with it, lads; deal with decommissioning." I put it to the two Governments that, as from tomorrow, it should be made clear within the negotiations that the primary responsibility lies with them to effect those changes that will protect life on the island of Ireland.

The political parties will facilitate and will, I hope, ensure, as the Mitchell report says, that decommissioning is addressed and carried in parallel with negotiations. The onus is being put on the smaller political parties--there are three of us here from my party--to decommission the entire organisations of the Irish Republic Army, the Ulster Defence Association, the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Red Hand commandos and the Irish National Liberation Army. There is something unfair and dishonest about that, evading the core of the problem. We shall try to face up to our responsibilities, but the primary responsibility does not lie with the political parties, which do not have arms.

My second point is crucial. We have talked about the Mitchell principles--as opposed to the proposals. Those principles are the logical conclusion of being part of the political process. The conclusions are an adherence to the democratic process and an abhorrence of and moving away from the use of arms. The public perception of the process that I am part of tomorrow is compromised by the violence carried out by organisations which are advised--or whatever--by parties in the negotiations. I am not trying to get rid of anybody--I want everybody in--but it is difficult to sustain the credibility of the talks process when people are being killed, when arms are being used and when breaches of the Mitchell principles are being ignored. Can we afford to continue to ignore that?

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My third point is that I would like the term "the peace process" to go out of the political vocabulary both within and outside the negotiations. Every time I hear or use the phrase, I ask myself what it means. Is it a process towards peace? I do not think so. Peace must be the starting point. Everything else derives from peace. Then there is a political process. It will take time to get the necessary political arrangements. The resolution of conflict in its various forms stems from peace, as does the healing process, which will take generations and will require a sense of space and time. Those processes do not lead to peace. If they are to be successful, they must derive from peace. The problem is difficult enough without continuing violence. Without peace, it will be not just difficult, but almost impossible.

My last point is that consent has been used in the House and outside it. I take some credit for ensuring, in a forum that I attended, that the issue of consent was faced. That was the forum for peace and reconciliation in Dublin, when I was across the table from Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein could not respond. It stayed out of the nationalist consensus on the island of Ireland. All the nationalist parties north and south subscribed to the principle of consent; Sinn Fein stayed outside that nationalist consensus.

The coin of consent, however, has two sides. It is a responsibility of the Unionist political community and of British Governments to ensure that both sides of that coin of consent are fundamental parts of the political arrangements that we have to make. Consent applies to any change in the position of Northern Ireland. My consent does not mean that I have to agree--nor do I agree--with the constitutional position in the north of Ireland. In the democratic process, I must have the right to try to change that constitutional position by peaceful, democratic means. Until I do that, I must have the right to live in that part of the island of Ireland with dignity, with equality, with justice and with a sense of unity of purpose, which is my entitlement.