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Mr. Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire): The Bill is a little unusual in comparison with related Northern Ireland legislation in that there is no time limit on the life of the commission. The prevention of terrorism Act, for example, has to be renewed every year.
Would there be any benefit in prescribing the need to renew the commission's existence annually? The default position would then be that the commission would cease to exist and the terms of the Bill would be terminated, rather than the current situation in which the Bill will continue indefinitely unless some other measure comes before the House. I should be interested to hear the Government's reasoning as to why a renewal provision has not been included in the Bill. Perhaps they might want to consider such a provision.
Dr. Godman:
I might have had some sympathy for the amendment moved by the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Ross) if it had read "30 September 2000". This is not a helpful amendment, although I listened with a good deal of sympathy to what the hon. Gentleman had to say. These murderous people--these highly skilful negotiators--may deliberately procrastinate and prevaricate in any discussions concerning the location of the remains of those people; nevertheless, I believe that the clause makes much better sense unamended.
On the other hand, I have a good deal of sympathy for what the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik) said about assessing the work of the commission over six months or a year. The hon. Member for East Londonderry is right that such legislation should not be allowed to continue indefinitely.
I can assure the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Sir B. Mawhinney) that I expressed some reservations about the Bill on Second Reading, but the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire has come up with a useful suggestion here--an assessment or review should be undertaken and we, as Members of this House, should be allowed to assess the effectiveness of and the progress made by the commissioners in this deeply difficult work. I say that because there have been some allegations that one or more of the bodies may be buried in Scotland.
It may take time to carry out effective searches in Scotland if those allegations have any substance, so I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister to take on board what the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire said.
Sir Brian Mawhinney:
The cement that holds debates in this Chamber together is our acceptance of the good intentions and the good will of other Members, even if we doubt their judgment. We are in grave danger of attributing to the IRA the same sort of generosity of spirit that normally characterises our debates.
Perhaps I may trade on my accent for a moment. What is extremely clear to me from Irish history is the inability of the English to get inside the minds of the Irish. Had they been better able to do so--and vice versa--the history of the past 800 years would be very different, and we probably would not be having this debate.
A promise has been made by people whose whole purpose in life was to terrorise the whole of Northern Ireland by whatever despicable means they could lay their hands on. They thought not a jot about killing, barbarism, multiple murder--whatever it was, they turned their hands to it with gusto and without a thought for the victims and the victims' families.
Now those people are saying that they might let us have nine bodies back, but they want us to jump through a number of hoops before that can be achieved. Fine. We are critically examining the Bill--the Government have thus far got their Bill without any Division in Committee. The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Ross) was right to say that this open-ended commitment provides multiple opportunities for propaganda over the months and, for all we know, over the years ahead. The instinctive reaction to that comment in the House is, "Don't be silly, Brian, it couldn't be years. That would be too awful for the families of the victims to contemplate."
That is our decent way of thinking, but those people are terrorists, and they do not think the way we think. The Bill provides at least the opportunity for more and more propaganda. That is not in the Minister's best interests as he seeks to govern in Northern Ireland.
Mr. Barnes:
If the Bill is to be an opportunity for propaganda by the IRA, it will have to do better than it did when it issued the initial statement to the Press Association, because it was a public relations disaster for the IRA. It referred to nine bodies, rather than the 14 that we think are buried, and it listed what it claimed were the crimes that it believed those people had committed. I am sure that that badly backfired on them in Northern Ireland
Sir Brian Mawhinney:
One of the nice things about the hon. Gentleman and I is that we go back a long way. When he was in opposition and I was in government we, by and large, saw eye to eye on security matters. I understand his point, but if he will forgive me for saying so, he is thinking about this matter as normal, decent people would. According to the Minister--I believe him, I am not questioning him--the IRA statement produced the Bill, which produced this debate, which will produce a debate in the Dail and which will produce open-ended legislation. That powerful message is ringing out around the world. Although I instinctively buy the hon. Gentleman's decent analysis, these people march to the beat of a different drum, and the House must understand that.
I have some sympathy with the amendment of the hon. Member for East Londonderry because I do not trust terrorists not to pocket what decent people offer them and then look for something more. I suspect--although I do not expect them to say so here--that the Government have already decided that the IRA does not like deadlines, because deadlines mean that what the IRA does or does not do can be measured and assessed in the context of a formal framework. As all hon. Members know, we are currently exploring that very issue in relation to the difficulties over decommissioning.
It might benefit the Government, acting on behalf of us all, to fix a date. If these people are serious, there is no advantage in stringing out the process. If it were done, 'twere well it were done quickly--and if it is not done quickly, we must ask why not, and what is coming next. A deadline would help to concentrate minds, and would enable the Government to say that they had acted in an humanitarian way on behalf of families, that there was benefit for the IRA, but that there was a line beyond which there was no reasonable excuse for going.
The Minister may say that we know of only nine graves, and that we should hold out an opportunity in regard to the other five. I could understand that argument if I were still involved in such issues, and I shall not vote for the amendment; but I shall ask the Minister to consider something else.
Dr. Godman:
Does the right hon. Gentleman think that there should be a deadline for a review of the legislation, and an assessment by the House of Commons, or does he think that a deadline such as that suggested by the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Ross) should operate?
Sir Brian Mawhinney:
I was coming to that. First, I was going to ask the Minister to consider the arguments, and then return to them in another place.
The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik) said that there should be a review. That is one option; another is for the Minister to set a deadline, and to add a clause allowing the Secretary of State to return to the House at some future date to reactivate the legislation if he or she was satisfied, for perfectly legitimate reasons, that some years later information had come to light that had not come to light now.
I am not trying to bind the Minister to a specific date, because there is an element of uncertainty; but he is being too open-ended, thus allowing for the possibility of
manipulation. The people with whom he is dealing are not like him, or like me: they are people who have spent their lives terrorising the community. I hope that while--presumably--rejecting the amendment, the Minister will tell us that the Government will at least consider the issues again, with a view to acting when the Bill is in another place.
Mr. Thompson:
I support the amendment, and the imposition of a time limit. I understand that the IRA has announced that it has found, or knows the whereabouts of, these bodies, and is not revealing the whereabouts only because it fears that it might be liable to prosecution were it to do so--or that those who carried out the act would be liable to prosecution. The aim of the Bill is to prevent the prosecution of such people, and the prosecution of those who might be prosecuted as a result of evidence obtained from the bodies.
It seems to me that, if the people concerned know where the bodies are, once the Bill has been passed there is no reason why they cannot immediately say where the bodies are. Therefore, it will be only a short time before it can be discovered whether the IRA's statement is correct. After the bodies are then exhumed or found, there is no necessity for the Bill to continue. If, at a future date, terrorist organisations indicate that they have discovered other bodies, there will be no reason why the Government cannot bring a fresh Bill to the Commons, to be passed just as quickly as, no doubt, the current one will be.
Of course, I do not expect the Government to agree to that because although de jure, Northern Ireland is governed by the United Kingdom, there is joint authority. Almost all the major decisions that are taken in Northern Ireland have to be agreed and supported by the Republic of Ireland.
That is confirmed by the agreement that has been reached between the Government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of Ireland. It says:
"The agreement shall continue in force until terminated by mutual agreement of the two Governments and shall thereafter cease to have effect in so far and to the extent necessary for meeting any liabilities or disposing in an orderly manner of any remaining assets of the commission."
The Bill says:
"This section shall cease to have effect at the end of such day as the Secretary of State, after consulting the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform of the Government of Ireland"
may appoint. The agreement means that termination has to be by mutual agreement. A member of a Government of a foreign state--the Republic of Ireland--has a veto over the affairs of this part of the United Kingdom, contrary to what is mentioned in the Bill. The Minister should perhaps address that point when he comes to the Dispatch Box. I certainly support the amendment.
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