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Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Inverclyde): The right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Sir B. Mawhinney) said that the members of the terrorist IRA had no clear understanding of the grief and legitimate expectations of the families of victims. The brutal fact, as he acknowledged in his later intervention, is that the IRA has made a harsh analysis of the expectations of those who grieve, and it seeks to manipulate the people so tragically involved. That sickens me to the stomach. Hon. Members will concede that I have repeatedly said that these people are engaged not in a military campaign or guerrilla warfare, but in the most brutal form of terrorism in a mature parliamentary democracy. I have some sympathy for what the right hon. Gentleman said, but having met some of the families concerned, their interests, concerns and legitimate demands should override all else.
4 pm
Mr. Ken Maginnis (Fermanagh and South Tyrone): I do not like being in conflict with the Minister any more than he does, but what he said on Second Reading and reiterated today about no one appearing to care about the victims of violence gives deep offence to ordinary people in Northern Ireland. For 30 years, we have cared for them. They are people among whom we live. They are our friends, people we know. He must recognise that with more than 200 victims of violence in my constituency alone--mostly, but not exclusively, victims of the IRA--there is nothing new in what he says that he wishes to achieve. Rather, what he says that he wishes to achieve is being negated by the way in which he goes about it.
It is not a question of 15 or 16 families for whom we feel tremendous sympathy, but of more than 3,000 people who have died as a result of terrorism in Northern Ireland. For the Minister to say that only the voluntary organisations appear to care is not a condemnation of ordinary, elected Members from Northern Ireland--whatever their political aspirations--but a reflection on the Northern Ireland Office. It channelled 250 million ecu--more than £200 million--that came to Northern Ireland as a peace and reconciliation package to some very undeserving causes.
The money did not exclusively go to such causes; I admit that a large part was employed usefully, although I am not sure that much was of long-term benefit. There is a rather sick joke in Northern Ireland that people have to have served a term in prison as terrorists to become community workers. That generalisation is perhaps unfortunate, but I am afraid that much of the money for peace and reconciliation was channelled through organisations that had a short-sighted approach to what victims of violence needed. The police and the security forces were excluded from any part of the money, although they were at the coal face.
Mr. Robert McCartney:
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government's belated sensitivity and
Mr. Maginnis:
The hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely right. Throughout society in Northern Ireland, horror has been expressed at the way in which money has been expended. I do not doubt that there were good intentions. I do not for one moment suggest that what the Government do is always done for perverse reasons. However, it is wrong for the Minister to point the finger at elected Members from Northern Ireland, who live with the problem, and have lived with the problem every day for 30 years. What concerns me most in all the Minister has said is that he continues to point across the Chamber saying, in effect, "What would you do to recover the bodies of 'The Disappeared'?" The reality is that it is not our responsibility because we have not murdered anyone. We cannot and should not undermine the fundamental law on which our whole society depends in order to make an accommodation for those victims, however deserving they are--and I stress that they are deserving. However, we cannot undermine the fundamentals of the law.
I want to put the Minister right on another point. He tried to compare this measure, which undermines the principle of the law, with the legislation on disarmament. The circumstances are entirely different, although some people would agree with him that there is no difference. However, I and many other people do see a difference, in so far as legislation to get rid of the weapons of war--the illegal guns and bombs--is honourable. It holds out hope for the future of the people of Northern Ireland, if the opportunity to disarm is grasped by those to whom it is offered. However, this Bill is different. First and foremost, as the Minister has admitted, it does not guarantee that one body will be delivered up, although I hope that that will happen. More importantly, it does not ensure greater safety for society in Northern Ireland as a whole--as the exclusion of illegal guns and bombs would do. Therein lies the folly of the measure.
Mr. William Thompson (West Tyrone):
Anyone with any faith in law and order must regard this as a squalid little Bill. Although we understand the humanitarian concerns and the concerns of those whose relatives were murdered, the fact is that the Bill puts humanitarian issues before the rule of law. That should not happen in any democracy. Furthermore, we can see from clause 1 that the Government of the Republic of Ireland is regarded as the Government of Ireland. In legislation, the Government of the Republic of Ireland used to be called the Government of the Republic of Ireland, but now, as a result of the Anglo-Irish agreement and various other agreements, the Government of the Republic of Ireland is designated the Government of Ireland. That is an insult.
Mr. Peter Robinson (Belfast, East):
As the Government have used that terminology in the measure, are they not endorsing a territorial claim? The Government of the Irish Republic are claiming to be the Government of Ireland; that is a claim to the territory of
Mr. Thompson:
I certainly agree. When a previous Bill went through the House, we were told that "the Government of Ireland" was what the Government of the Republic of Ireland wanted to be known as or had designated themselves as. However, the policy of any United Kingdom Government should be not to refer to the Government of the Republic of Ireland as "the Government of Ireland" or to put that phrase in legislation, but to refer to that Government as it stands in relation to the United Kingdom, which is as the Government of the Republic of Ireland.
Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire):
Does not the clause contain a territorial claim in its reference to:
Mr. Thompson:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but it is not relevant to my argument. I accept that the United Kingdom, as I understand it, includes Great Britain and Northern Ireland; however, the issue is not the term we use for ourselves, but the term we use for the Government of the Republic of Ireland.
Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South):
I understand the point made by the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) about the term "United Kingdom" implying a territorial claim. However, several years ago at the Inter-Parliamentary Union conference in Ottawa, the representative from the Dail Eireann moved that the phrase
Mr. Thompson:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Ministers hear Unionist objections, but they do not listen to them or care about them; instead, they ignore them. However, if Members of Parliament representing the nationalists were sitting in the Committee today and making objections, Ministers would be doing everything possible to placate and please them. Ministers do not care what Unionists think.
This squalid little Bill represents an acknowledgement that those who committed the crimes would never be brought to justice. We have been told many times when depredations have occurred that those who have committed the crimes would be brought to justice, but in many cases they never have been. The Bill represents an acknowledgement that the killers in the cases it covers will never be brought to justice. In fact, because of the Bill, it is likely that fewer efforts will be made to investigate those cases and, as a result, the killers will never be brought to justice.
Mr. Robert McCartney:
When responding to the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire
"Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom"?
Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, so the problem the hon. Gentleman raises does not exist.
"the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"
should be deleted. Although representatives of this Parliament opposed the motion, it was passed by a weighted majority of the other nations in order to placate the Irish Republic. In other words, we limit the United Kingdom when we use the phrase "the Government of Ireland" to refer to the Government of the Republic of Ireland.
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