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Mr. Ingram: I have much sympathy with the idea of helping with funeral costs. Let me explain how we have handled the matter. I explained earlier about the inter-agency approach and the need to consider all the ways in which we can deal with the sensitivities and ensure maximum protection and support for the families. We have been actively considering how to provide support after the bodies are returned to the families for burial.

I am in a difficulty, because I have an understanding that the matter will be resolved, but I am not in a position to say exactly how. We may be in a better position to say precisely how the issue has been resolved, to the satisfaction of everyone in the House and of the families, when the Bill is in another place. That deals specifically with the funeral and burial costs, and I am hopeful that the issue will be resolved shortly.

The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Ross) showed a good knowledge of the compensation system, as did the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth). They know the complexities of the legislation, although it has been refined and improved over the years, in 1988 and 1991, to give more flexibility to the payment of compensation in lump sums. Because it was likely that hon. Members would raise the issue, I sought authoritative legal advice, which was that the families of persons whose remains were recovered would not fall within the compensation scheme because of the three-year limit. I could go into further detail, but that would be turgid and I ask hon. Members to accept my assurances on the issue. Having said that, the legal advice is just one opinion and others could reach a different conclusion. However, I believe that the advice is robust.

We must consider whether to put specific provision for compensation into the Bill, as new clause 2 seeks to do. However, that would affect the underlying principles of the compensation scheme, and we must remember that many people, going back some years, still feel dissatisfied with the compensation that they received. For that reason, we asked Sir Kenneth Bloomfield to undertake a detailed examination of the compensation scheme and its fitness for its purpose. The review should be ready soon. I had hoped that it would be available even sooner, but Sir Kenneth and those advising him have been given an extension of time because of the complexities of the scheme. However, I do not wish to raise false hopes that the review will produce answers to all the problems with the compensation scheme. At least we have shown a willingness to get to grips with the issue and examine ways to deal with it.

I concluded that to introduce a one-off approach in the Bill could pre-empt Sir Kenneth's report and might not be the best way to deal with the issue. It could also be

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unfair to the large community of victims who already feel aggrieved. We have to be careful with such sensitivities. We are considering the issue of compensation, but new clause 2 would not be helpful. The families of "The Disappeared" victims have experienced unique circumstances, but the prime motive behind the Bill is the recovery of the remains so that the families can give their loved ones proper burials. On that basis, I ask the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire to withdraw his new clause.

7.45 pm

Mr. Öpik: I am satisfied with that reply. The Minister has responded positively to the important question of funeral expenses and I accept his response in good faith. After hearing the Minister's comments and the contributions from other hon. Members, I am even more convinced that the compensation scheme is very complicated. I still hope that the Government will take serious steps--I believe that the Minister said that they would--to explore how to ensure that the particular nature of the suffering of the families of the disappeared victims does not mean that they are excluded from the compensation scheme.

The Minister is right not to wish to make a complicated system more so with piecemeal solutions, and I hope that a strategic solution to the whole issue can be found, notwithstanding the hope that the situation will be resolved by new peace in Northern Ireland. If the Minister can devise a solution for the funeral expenses problem, he will make a big statement about the Government's genuine commitment to try to ease the suffering of the families. The Minister has given me the assurances that I was seeking and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Bill reported, with an amendment.

Order for Third Reading read.

7.47 pm

Mr. Ingram: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

We have had a detailed examination of the Bill today. Only a few amendments were tabled, but we had a wide-ranging debate from which we have all learned something. We also had a useful debate on Second Reading.

The Government's position is clear: we want to end the suffering of the families of "The Disappeared". We fully recognise that some right hon. and hon. Members, who are equally concerned about the families, have worries about the protections in the Bill. Some hon. Members are also concerned about the Bill in case no information comes forward and we are duped by those who have promised to provide information. However, we examined that point in considerable detail and discussed at whose door the blame would lie.

Those hon. Members who are critical of the Bill see it as a risk not worth taking. In answering the points raised by the amendments that were tabled, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and I have had to strike a delicate balance in reaching judgments on the totality of the Bill. We have tried to supply the facilities and the mechanisms to ensure that if any information is provided, we can act on it.

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The issue is complex and sets new precedents. On Second Reading, we accepted that--as with the Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning Act 1997--the Bill does not sit comfortably alongside other aspects of the upholding of the normal rule of law. However, the circumstances are unique and we are taking a risk to try to alleviate the suffering of the families that has gone on for far too long.

I also want to point out the Bill's limitations. In many ways it is wide ranging, but it has its limiting aspects. It does not provide an amnesty, or immunity from prosecution. Others may use those words, but that is not what the Bill is about. The protections in the Bill are specific and are triggered only when relevant information is given to the commission. The protections do not set a precedent, but the Bill provides the families with perhaps their only chance of burying their loved ones with dignity. The Government believe that the opportunity for the families to enjoy that basic human right is of immeasurable value when compared with accepting the measures set out in the Bill.

There is a risk, of course, that those with the information will decide not to come forward. I cannot guarantee that they will come forward, as has been said repeatedly. However, once the mechanism for providing information is in place, the responsibility for choosing to ignore it will be theirs, and theirs alone. That would be a heavy responsibility. If they ignore the mechanism that the Bill puts in place, they will show that they have no humanity and no concern for the families or for the society that they purport to be helping to move to a peaceful environment.

By passing the Bill this evening, the House has provided an opportunity to bring this painful episode to a close. I hope that the House of Lords will give it a passage as speedy and sympathetic--and a scrutiny as close--as it received in the Chamber today. That will help people to understand the measure, and its importance.

7.51 pm

Mr. Andrew MacKay (Bracknell): Conservative Members have never hidden the fact that we find it obnoxious and outrageous that there should ever be a need for a Bill such as this. It is a permanent blot on Irish history that grieving relatives have not been able to bury their dead properly because of the actions of terrorists. The fact that the IRA and other terrorist groups did not have the common humanity to tell the authorities--even anonymously--where the bodies were gives us an insight into their mindset. That information would have put to rest the minds of those grieving relatives.

The balance is a difficult one to strike, but I agree with the Minister that the views and sensitivities of the victims' relatives are paramount, and more important than legislation which, in other circumstance, no hon. Member would want to be passed in this House.

In addition, I echo and understand what the Minister said about his inability to guarantee that the terrorist organisations that committed these vile murders will come forward with the appropriate information to the commission. I deeply agree with him that they should: it will be yet another disgrace if they do not. I hope, for the sake of the victims' relatives--whose agonies none of us can begin to imagine--that at last their grief can come to an end.

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In conclusion, I hope that the paramilitaries and their political associates will not use the Bill as a bargaining ploy to be turned to their political advantage in talks, now or in the future. I do not think that the House or the people of Northern Ireland would ever forgive them if they did. I hope that the evidence and information are brought forward in a proper and correct way.

7.54 pm

Mr. Roger Stott (Wigan): First, I apologise to the House for my absence during most of the debate, but my party's Whips saw fit to put me on several Committees considering statutory instruments today, so I have been like a yo-yo, in and out of the Chamber in the fulfilment of my other functions.

As the House will know, for a long time I was Opposition spokesman on Northern Ireland. I spent much time there, and still do. While I was the Opposition spokesman on these matters, both terrorist organisations were involved in a full-scale war, with each other and with the people of Northern Ireland.

I do not claim any monopoly on feeling deeply about the pain and suffering of families who had lost loved ones. My feelings were shared by many other Labour Members, and especially by my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara). All hon. Members who have spoken in this debate have expressed their genuine and specific points of view and concerns.

From time to time, I recall two appalling atrocities in Northern Ireland. The first took place in a fish shop in the Shankill road, and the second at the Rising Sun bar at Graysteel. I visited both scenes--unsung, and without the presence of television cameras--to talk to the victims and their relatives. At Graysteel, my arrival was a moment of special poignancy. It was a cold November day, with the wind blowing over the Foyle. The bar was boarded up, and I wanted to pay my personal respects to the families who had lost loved ones in that appalling Hallowe'en night atrocity.

A gentleman came around the corner, and asked if I was all right. When I said that I was fine, and that I had come to pay my respects, he invited me into the bar for a cup of tea. That gentleman owned the bar, and was present when the terrorists came in and shot their victims in cold blood. They murdered that man's 80-year-old father in front of him.

There is a finality about the fate of the victims of atrocities such as that, in that their loved ones and families can give them a decent, Christian burial. The families will never forget, and their love for their relatives will continue for their rest of their lives, but there is a finality when burials are done properly.

However, the people who are the subject of the Bill do not know where their loved ones lie. They have not known that for perhaps a quarter of a century. If the Bill gives us an opportunity to try to find the remains of people who suffered at the hands of terrorism, and to restore those remains to their families so that they can be given a decent, Christian burial, I have no problems in supporting it tonight.

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