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2.56 pm

Mr. Peter Robinson (Belfast, East): I well understand why Government Members seek to dilute the importance of this debate, but this debate goes to the

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heart of a crucial matter in British politics as a whole: the extent to which we are entitled to trust the Prime Minister.

The central issue of the debate relates to decommissioning. Newspapers and others have made attempts to quantify what has to be decommissioned in Northern Ireland. I shall read out a list that was prepared by Jane's Intelligence Review, much of which was repeated in the Daily Mirror, The Guardian, The Irish Times, and Magill Magazine, which indicates the best estimate of what has to be decommissioned, about which the Prime Minister and General de Chastelain were speaking.

It is believed that the Provisional IRA still holds 6,000 lb of Semtex explosive, 588 AKM assault rifles, 400 other assorted rifles, 10 general-purpose machine guns, 17 DShK heavy machine guns, three 0.50-calibre heavy machine guns, nine SAM-7 missiles, 46 RPG-7 missiles, 11 RPG-7 launchers, seven flamethrowers, 115 hand grenades, 600 handguns, 40 machine guns, 31 shotguns and 1.5 million rounds of ammunition. That list does not start to take into account the IRA's capacity to manufacture its own explosives and ordnance. The right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) referred to home-made mortars, and we know of the IRA's use of fertiliser to make explosives. Therefore, when a right hon. or hon. Member says in the House that at least there seems to be no argument but that what was put beyond use—whatever that term means—was "substantial", little definition is provided by the word "substantial". As General de Chastelain said to me, "One man's substantial may well be another man's insignificant." In reality, without an inventory of what has been put beyond use and the way in which it has been put beyond use, the word "substantial" holds little meaning for any of us.

Many speakers have expressed the wish for the process to have been more transparent, but it was this House that passed the legislation—this House that refused to make the process more transparent, even though my colleagues and I asked for it to be more transparent. Indeed, we were vilified for doing so. I remember the right hon. Member for Upper Bann, who is now a great fan of transparency, telling us in the past that we should trust General de Chastelain. The right hon. Gentleman asked, did we not believe that eminent general when he said that items had been decommissioned? Now, the right hon. Gentleman himself does not trust the general sufficiently to leave it to the general's word alone. He now requires a transparency that on earlier occasions we asked for, but he did not.

Of course there should be transparency. I even argue with the term "decommissioning". To me, decommissioning is either a voluntary or a forced act of handing over weapons to be destroyed. The IRA is trading weapons for concessions, which is something very different from decommissioning.

There was a carefully laid plan and there were several steps in the choreography. The first step was that early in the morning the Prime Minister would announce that there was to be an Assembly election. In response to that, Gerry Adams was to appear on our televisions to use some carefully crafted language to tell us that the war was over. We were then to have an IRA

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endorsement of Adams's statement, followed by General de Chastelain's statement, which was to be followed by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann telling us that he would behave himself in future and would not bring down the institutions if the IRA happened to carry out some terrorist activity. All that was to be followed by a statement from the two Prime Ministers. They were to outline the price that had to be paid for the IRA's endorsement of the process. That price was to be the giving of a free ticket to on-the-run terrorists. It was to be paid by removal of security installations from the border and elsewhere in Northern Ireland. It was to be paid also in that in two years policing and justice powers would be devolved to Northern Ireland to allow people such as Gerry Kelly, a convicted Old Bailey bomber, to become the Minister with responsibility for policing and justice. No doubt he would be the IRA's choice for the post of our justice spokesman.

The Prime Minister played his part and called the election. Mr. Adams appeared on our television screens and with contorted language made it clear that the process would be conditional on the Belfast agreement's being implemented in the way that the IRA wanted. He made it clear also that further implementation was required. That was endorsed, not surprisingly, by the IRA as it was conditional.

It was then that the general took the stage. He was working within the remit given to him by the House, by the Government and by their partner, the Government in the Irish Republic. He was acting within the terms of the arrangement that he had with the organisation with which he was dealing. The result was that he did not give the detail that the public in Northern Ireland wanted. I suspect that if he had given the detail the public in Northern Ireland would not have been satisfied. The sense that I have, to use a word that has already been expressed in the Chamber, after having met the general is that only a small proportion of the weaponry has been destroyed.

Rev. Martin Smyth: I have been listening with care to the hon. Gentleman's argument. Is it not a question of trust also, and the IRA showed that it did not trust the Prime Minister, because it held the general incommunicado? As a result, the decommissioning did not take place on the Monday. Instead, it took place after a statement had been made by the Prime Minister on the Tuesday morning.

Mr. Robinson: I touched on that matter with the general. I think that logistically he had to make himself available somewhere in the Republic of Ireland before the event occurred. I assume that he was held by agreement by the Provisional IRA. It shows the tawdry manner in which the entire process has been undertaken. A covert operation was taking place and the general was put in that position.

As for the issue of substance, I outlined to the general during our meeting with him what amounted to 1 per cent. of the intelligence guesstimate of the IRA's stockpile of weapons. Actually it was slightly less than 1 per cent. of it. I asked him whether he considered that to be substantial, and of course he did. If the IRA still holds 99 per cent. or even a percentage less than that of the weaponry that it had, we can set against that the

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remarks that have been made by Andrew Sens that the IRA had handed over weaponry that could have caused death and destruction on a huge scale. I asked whether what the IRA still retains could cause death and destruction on a huge scale, and of course the answer was yes. Let us not get the idea that the IRA has suddenly handed over its weaponry and that it is just a matter of someone publishing the inventory so that we might know the truth.

According to reports from those who were standing outside Cunningham house, the headquarters of the Ulster Unionist party, as the general was on his feet, they were beating the walls in anger that they were not getting the detail that they required. If the community in Northern Ireland is confused about anything, it is about how the leader of the UUP could have 15 meetings with the leadership of Sinn Fein-IRA. One of those meetings lasted for between 12 and 14 hours. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were not tied down to the detail of what General de Chastelain would be allowed to say. That is bewildering. It is the most unbelievable folly that star negotiators in the UUP could sit for hour after hour working out all the choreography in the greatest detail, handing over statements one to the other, and not bother to ask what the general would be allowed to say.

The requirements for greater visibility and how the IRA is saying one thing and doing another have little meaning in the community in Northern Ireland. That community just gasped in amazement at the breathtaking incompetence of the leader of the UUP and his fellow negotiators.

For my part, I viewed the Hillsborough press conference and the exchanges that followed it as being of no advantage. I have a transcript of what the Prime Minister said at the press conference. He said:

"It is deeply frustrating for this reason that obviously we are both privy as the two Governments to what the details"—

not just information, and not the sense of it—

"of the decommissioning were and I think it is, well it is more than a little frustrating frankly they are not able to be put out into the public domain where people can see them and where opinion and particularly unionist opinion here can make an assessment."

Nick Robinson of ITN—no relation—intervened. He asked:

"Are you saying that if people knew what you know about what the IRA have done in terms of decommissioning, they would have the confidence, and why can't we know what you know, is it because the IRA won't let us know, they won't give permission or is it because the general won't say?"

The Prime Minister responded:

"Well that is a very good point and let me explain it. Yes I believe if people knew the information that we have been told then yes they would have been satisfied."

He went on to say:

"It would be more than faintly ludicrous if we were in a situation where a substantial act of decommissioning had taken place, where the details"—

again, "the details"—

"are known by the two Governments and by the body in charge of the decommissioning but the public don't know."

That is not a sense of it, not an informed guess and not a vision that he had somewhere on the road to wherever,

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but the details given to him by the general. The Prime Minister added:

"We do know a certain amount of the particulars, yes and those are important."

When we heard those words I knew immediately that the Prime Minister was bluffing. I knew that because on several previous occasions when I met General de Chastelain he made it abundantly clear that the rules under which he was operating were that he would give only the written reports to the Governments and such general descriptive terms as he would give us, but would not give them the detail—the inventory—until the process of decommissioning had been completed. He had made that clear on the two previous occasions when we met him, and on the occasion to which I am referring he made it clear once again. The Prime Minister was attempting to convey the impression to the people of Northern Ireland, and particularly the Unionist community, that he had the detail of what had been decommissioned, and that if only they knew what he knew they would be satisfied that a major and substantial act had taken place.

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