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4.32 pm
Mr. Andrew MacKay (Bracknell): I start on a personal note by thanking the Secretary of State, the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), and the Prime Minister for the consideration that they have shown my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and myself in taking us, step by step, through the latest developments. As I shall point out later, there are matters of doubt and disagreement, but we appreciate the courtesy that has been shown to us.
The measure inevitably goes back to the Belfast agreement. I emphasise again that the Opposition wholeheartedly support the agreement; we supported it when it was brokered a year ago last Easter, and we do so unreservedly today. However, we have always maintained--as has the Prime Minister--that we cannot dine a la carte on that agreement. It only works if it all hangs together; it was a huge compromise and everybody has to play their part.
We strongly endorsed elements of the agreement: the constitutional change in the Republic, which meant that it no longer had a legal claim over the north and that
it allowed the people of Northern Ireland to decide their own future; and the setting up of a devolved Administration so that, after so many years of direct rule, the people of Northern Ireland--or, more significantly, their elected politicians--were able to have a considerable say in running their part of the United Kingdom. We were especially anxious to ensure that there would be decommissioning of all weapons illegally held by paramilitaries, whether republican or loyalist, and that there would be a total end to violence.
What we did not like, but reluctantly swallowed because it was part of the total package, was the early release of terrorist prisoners back on to the streets. We fully understood when the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister started to release those prisoners back on to the streets after the House passed the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998: it was clear that the Government had to show their good will and their commitment to the men of violence before they would start to decommission.
However, by the end of September, a significant number of terrorists had been released early and there was no sign of any decommissioning of illegally held arms and explosives by any of the paramilitaries whose political associates had signed up to the agreement. Since the end of September onwards, the Leader of the Opposition and I have continually called on the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State to halt the early release of terrorist prisoners until there is decommissioning of illegally held arms and explosives.
A bargain was struck in Belfast last Good Friday, and both sides have to keep to that bargain for it to work--it has to be balanced. The Secretary of State says that decommissioning only had to take place over a two-year period ending May 2000. I put it to her that any reasonable observer would say that, if people are supposed to decommission all their illegally held arms and explosives over a two-year period, the fact that not one gun or one ounce of Semtex has been decommissioned after 14 months of that two-year period, which is the stage we are at now, indicates that the paramilitary parties have failed to fulfil their part of the bargain, so it would be right and proper for a halt to take place in the Government's early release of terrorist prisoners.
Marjorie Mowlam:
The Good Friday agreement says that decommissioning is an obligation, not a precondition. We all want decommissioning to happen as quickly as possible, but there was no timetable in the Good Friday agreement. What the deal gives us is a timetable from next week for full decommissioning. That is the difference and why this is a good Bill to have.
Mr. MacKay:
I put it to the Secretary of State that I wish that that were so, but there is no specific timetable in the legislation. If I catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall move amendments to the Bill--
Mr. Donaldson:
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Robert McCartney (North Down):
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. MacKay:
I shall respond to the Secretary of State first and then give way. There is no specific timetable in
Mr. Donaldson:
On the question of what is meant by decommissioning and when it should happen, may I quote from a letter from the Prime Minister to my right hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble), the leader of my party? It is dated 10 April--Good Friday--last year and is signed in the Prime Minister's own handwriting. It states:
Mr. MacKay:
I shall give way once more but, because we are time limited, it must be the last time.
Mr. McCartney:
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he agree that one of the most telling factors in the referendum campaign were the public pledges given in the Prime Minister's own handwriting that there would be a direct nexus between decommissioning and the release of prisoners; and that those pledges remain dishonoured and unfulfilled?
Mr. MacKay:
The hon. and learned Gentleman might recall that the Leader of the Opposition and I were campaigning for a yes vote in the Province on the same day as the Prime Minister made his handwritten pledges. I welcomed those pledges, and I think that they made a significant difference in ensuring a yes vote in both communities. Since then, many people in Northern Ireland who voted yes have felt badly let down. Today, we have an opportunity to put that right, if our amendments are passed.
If we had been listened to, and if decommissioning had started because of the halt to terrorist prisoner releases, we would have no need for this debate and legislation today. We all want a devolved Administration in Northern Ireland, and we want it to include the maximum number of people of the widest diversity. We want it to be inclusive. We certainly want it to include all those who were elected to the Assembly and have sufficient seats to become Ministers under the d'Hondt formula.
To ask the people of Northern Ireland and my Unionist friends to sit in a devolved Executive with Ministers who represent paramilitaries who have not begun to decommission is a very tall order, as I am sure that the Secretary of State will agree. That is why the Leader of the Opposition and I have continually said that everyone must jump together. In other words, Ministers should be appointed only when decommissioning has started. That is why I so strongly commended the Prime Minister's Hillsborough declaration, in which he and the Taoiseach
said categorically, after lengthy negotiations with allthe parties in Northern Ireland last Easter, that, if decommissioning started, ministerial appointments would be made.
Sadly, through no fault of the Prime Minister, the Hillsborough declaration was not implemented. It is worth noting why. It was because the paramilitaries and their political friends, both republican and loyalist, refused point blank to decommission. The Prime Minister had, therefore, to go back to the drawing board and had extensive, and no doubt exhaustive, discussions with all the political parties in the Province.
Mr. Seamus Mallon (Newry and Armagh):
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. MacKay:
I should like to finish this point, and then I shall certainly give way.
The Prime Minister had exhaustive discussions with all the political parties only a few weeks ago. At the end of those discussions, he came up with a blueprint that invited the House and Unionists to set up an Executive in which Unionists and others would sit as Ministers with Sinn Fein representatives, without any decommissioning. I found that unacceptable. However, the Prime Minister then said, "There will be failsafes. I am inviting you to set up the Executive and, within a few days, there will certainly be penalties for any of the paramilitaries who do not decommission." That, I reluctantly concluded, was the only way forward.
We therefore supported the Government because, as the Prime Minister eloquently said on the steps of Stormont, in an article in The Sunday Times and at the Dispatch Box a week last Monday, that would put whoever was not prepared to move forward completely on the spot. Under those circumstances, providing that the agreement was legally binding, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State would have had our wholehearted support and we would have advised Unionists and others to agree to be Ministers in that Executive.
I shall quote from the significant article by the Prime Minister in The Sunday Times of 5 July. He said:
"Furthermore, I confirm that in our view the effect of the decommissioning section of the agreement, with decommissioning schemes coming into effect in June, is that the process of decommissioning should begin straight away."
Mr. MacKay:
I entirely accept what the hon. Gentleman says: that the Prime Minister, who obviously and genuinely wants decommissioning to take place as soon as possible, just as I do, has made commitments--including the commitment in that letter to the First Minister designate--which, to be frank, have not been fulfilled.
"Within days of devolution, the paramilitary organisations, including the IRA, must notify intention to decommission. If they don't there's a failsafe that unwinds devolution.
I agree wholeheartedly with all that. The Prime Minister continued:
Within weeks they must decommission. The process is then verified by an independent commission, headed by the highly respected General de Chastelain."
"This failsafe will be put in legislation and made automatic".
One can imagine our disappointment, then, when the failsafes were not included in the legislation that we finally saw early yesterday evening.
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