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12.8 am
Mr. David Maclean (Penrith and The Border): We have before us an order setting out a new period for decommissioning which will end at midnight on 22 May. We have to ask ourselves whether that is an appropriate time scale, and whether decommissioning or progress towards it can be achieved in three months and 10 days. I shall stick narrowly in my remarks to the terms of the order.
If we are to come to any sensible conclusion about whether decommissioning can be achieved or whether the order makes any sense in setting a cut-off point of 22 May, we have to ask ourselves what decommissioning is expected to be achieved in that time scale. I listened with great interest to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson), who speaks with deep knowledge of these matters and with the authority of someone who lives in the Province and who is affected, as are his constituents, by decommissioning or the lack of it.
I took issue with my hon. Friend--prematurely, as I found when he elaborated on his point--when he said that General de Chastelain's report called for proper decommissioning; that is the destruction of weapons. I intervened to say that not only had General de Chastelain called for that, but the law of land dictates that it should happen. The order is made under section 2 of the Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning Act 1997, and section 3 dictates what decommissioning consists of. It says that decommissioning will take place in four ways. Either there will be the
In the four options for decommissioning, which were presented to the House in the 1997 Bill and passed into law, and under which General de Chastelain must operate, rightly, the only alternatives for decommissioning are that the weapons will be transferred to the commission and destroyed; deposited for collection somewhere, collected by the commission and destroyed; destroyed by the terrorists themselves; or the terrorists will give sufficient information to the commission, so that it can get its hands on them and destroy them.
In every case, we are talking about the destruction of weapons. That is important. I wish to speak on the order only because of all the talk and propaganda emanating from the IRA--it has mainly emanated from Sinn Fein-IRA recently, but perhaps it has come from other terrorist organisations as well--that there is a new form of decommissioning. There is alternative decommissioning, where the weapons are not destroyed, but locked away in a barn, or bunker somewhere; they will be put out of use and not used for the time being. Because the bombs are at arm's length and not being used, there are no hands on the guns that are hidden in a bunker, and only the terrorist organisations know where that is, decommissioning has taken place. What an obscenity that is by any sense of natural justice or morality. It is also illegal under the 1997 Act.
I am not trivialising the debate, but, by way of example, I wish that I could go to my chief constable and say, "I will not bother renewing my shotgun licence because I have it locked in the cupboard and do not intend to murder anyone in the foreseeable future. I do not need a licence." Is this country no longer a nuclear power because its nuclear weapons are in a bunker and we do not intend to use them because that is our position? Certainly, however, we have not decommissioned those weapons.
It would be an absolute obscenity if we were to allow ourselves to be fooled by Sinn Fein-IRA, or any other terrorist group or paramilitaries, into accepting a
definition of decommissioning that did not provide for the destruction of the weapons as the House agreed in the 1997 Act. Therefore, putting them in a bunker, hiding them away out of arm's reach, or, as my ancient ancestors used to do at the time of Culloden, hiding them in the thatch knowing that they would use them again on some future occasion, is not decommissioning.
If we are to have progress in Northern Ireland, we must have decommissioning as intended by Parliament--by the House and by the other place--when it agreed section 3 of the 1997 Act. The order asks us to extend the deadline to 22 May, so that that form of decommissioning can be carried out.
It is my contention that we should approve the order tonight, because it is perfectly possible for the paramilitaries, within the proposed time scale, to comply with one of the provisions of section 3. Given all their recent mutterings and propaganda, I suspect that they will not transfer their weapons to the commission within three months and 10 days, nor will they destroy the weapons themselves. However, they might provide sufficient information to the commission for the purposes of collection and destruction by the commission or its designated agents. However, the information provided must lead to the collection and destruction of weapons.
In the past few days, there has been a massive outpouring of Sinn Fein-IRA propaganda: although General de Chastelain has said that there has been no progress, the IRA insists that there has been. Its representatives think that they can come up with another form of words that we might naively accept, suggesting that progress can be made towards decommissioning by the IRA providing the information that, at some time in the future, it might possibly consider thinking about decommissioning its weapons.
Mr. Field:
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, because it will save me making a contribution. He emphasises what Sinn Fein-IRA have been saying during the past few days, of which there has been great coverage, but does he recognise that the country is also concerned about the weapons held by the other side and that, although they may have been silent, we want them to participate fully in the process?
Mr. Maclean:
Absolutely--I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for making that point. I have spoken of Sinn Fein-IRA in the past few days, but I have mentioned other paramilitaries as well. I have as much contempt for paramilitaries of other persuasions as I have for Sinn Fein-IRA. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for allowing me to emphasise that point, and honoured that he thinks that any contribution that I can make might save him from making one. I consider that one of the most important things anyone has ever said to me in the House, because I respect his judgment. I shall try not to make him change his mind by going on at length and undermining my case.
I accept that the whole country wants progress to be made toward decommissioning. We want there to be genuine peace, but there can be no genuine peace in a democracy when people have weapons at their disposal. The only weapons that we in this Chamber, from both sides and of all persuasions, have at our disposal are to argue with the Minister, to use such oratorical skills as
are available to us and to sign early-day motions. We come here with nothing except the democratic authority of our constituents to argue, to plead, to beg and, occasionally, to try to ambush the Government by outvoting them on some matters, although I doubt whether we shall manage it in this Parliament. We use the weapons of our democracy, of the Chamber and of the House.
No Member of Parliament who has taken the Oath can bring to the Chamber any other weapon such as threatening the use of violence, bombs or bullets unless we give them their way. It can never be acceptable in any democratic society for politicians in the Government or the House to wield the arguments at their disposal backed up by the democratic will of the people, while others come to the process armed to the teeth with weapons. That is why we must have genuine progress on decommissioning.
Mr. Ingram:
I always like the right hon. Gentleman's contributions. Will he consider section 10 of the 1997 Act, which further defines the meaning of "destruction" as including
Mr. Maclean:
I have read section 10 and when the Minister referred me to it, I immediately turned to it, as one should. I accept that making something "permanently unusable" is a form of destruction; however, I do not accept the paramilitaries' suggestion that locking their weapons away in a bunker and so putting them out of their reach for the time being constitutes destruction within the meaning of the Act.
I am happy to accept the proposal to put the weapons out of arm's reach, if that is done by General John de Chastelain. If the paramilitaries hand their weapons over to General de Chastelain and the commission, and he locks them in a bunker--even if he puts them away somewhere and does not physically destroy them or melt them down--I am happy to accept that that would put them permanently out of reach or make them permanently inaccessible within the terms of section 10 defining destruction, as described in section 3.
Weapons cannot be permanently inaccessible and out of use if the paramilitaries claim to have hidden them away somewhere and seek to assure us that they are permanently out of use and out of arms' reach. That is not plausible; it is not acceptable. That is why there is deep concern in the House and in the country that the Government may be misled by some of the statements made by the paramilitaries in the past few days.
"transfer to the Commission mentioned in section 7, or to a designated person"
of firearms, ammunition and explosives for destruction; or those firearms, ammunition and explosives will be deposited
"for collection and destruction by the Commission or a designated person".
There is a third option: those arms, explosives and ammunition will be destroyed
"by persons in unlawful possession"
--the terrorists and paramilitaries themselves. There is a fourth option: information will be provided
The paramilitaries and terrorists must provide information to the commission on arms, explosives and ammunition, so that the commission itself can collect and destroy them.
"for the purpose of collection and destruction by the Commission or a designated person".
"making permanently inaccessible or permanently unusable"?
I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman is taking a hurried look at the Act, as I should have thought that he would have read that part of it.
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