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Mr. Eddie McGrady (South Down) (SDLP): I welcome the Secretary of State's statement as an important contribution to sustaining the peace process in Northern Ireland and furthering the community's emerging confidence in the judicial and security position. The statement is vital from that perspective.
The Secretary of State said that collusion between the state and paramilitaries was outrageous. The six cases—the four that he announced and the other two, into the murders of Superintendents Buchanan and Breen and Lord Justice and Lady Gibson, which are within the jurisdiction of the Republic of Ireland—epitomise in the Northern Ireland psyche the alleged collusion between state and paramilitaries. That is why they are so important. That is not to diminish the pain, suffering, grief, trauma and continuing hurt that all the families in
both our communities in Northern Ireland have endured in the past 30 years. The suffering continues. However, surely it is correct that cases that involve a belief that substantive collusion in murder has taken place between the state and paramilitaries are exceptional, and it is important that they are resolved as far as possible. As the Secretary of State said, the Government have made their decision in pursuit of the truth, not vengeance.In establishing the inquiries, the Secretary of State appears to make a distinction between three cases and the Finucane case. We in the Social Democratic and Labour party fought hard and long at Weston Park for inquiries into the six cases to be established immediately. Will he undertake that, when the conditions are fulfilled for the Finucane case—that must be fairly soon—a similar inquiry will be put in train, as agreed at Weston Park?
Mr. Murphy: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It is important for hon. Members to realise that, without the constant work of my hon. Friend and his colleagues in the SDLP, I would not be announcing the inquiries into the cases of Hamill, Wright and Nelson today. As I have already explained, the Finucane case is different because of the approaching prosecution. It might be useful to quote the Weston Park commitment, to which I referred earlier. It states:
- "If the appointed judge considers that in any case this has not provided a sufficient basis on which to establish the facts, he or she can report to this effect with recommendations as to what further action should be taken. In the event that a public inquiry is recommended in any case, the relevant Government will implement that recommendation."
If the Secretary of State has the power to cap, does that mean that the money will come from the Northern Ireland block and thus be taken from front-line services, rather than from the Exchequer? Will he accept the suggestion that it is better to set a ceiling now than cap later, when it may well be put to him that he is doing so because he is unhappy about the inquiries progress?
The right hon. Gentleman suggests that the Saville inquiry was right and necessary to get to the truth. Does he have any misgivings when some of those who called for it refused to answer questions at the inquiry, and indicated that they had a higher code—the code of the IRA?
Mr. Murphy: The hon. Gentleman is right to ask about the nature of the inquiries and whether they are the same in what they can do. The answer is, of course, yes. Like the Bloody Sunday inquiry, they will have exactly the same powers under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921. They will have the powers of the High Court to compel witnesses to appear and papers to be produced. There is no difference in that respect.
I have not yet reached a decision about costs because we are only now announcing the inquiries. I shall take advice on the matter in the next few weeks and I shall take the hon. Gentleman's words into account. He is right to point to the difficulties that the Northern Ireland block could face in the effect on hospitals, schools, roads, transport and so on. I assure him that the money for the inquiries will not come from the Northern Ireland block, but it will come from the Exchequer and the Northern Ireland Office. Although that might not affect the services that the Assembly will provide when it is up and running again, it will nevertheless affect services to the people of Northern Ireland.
Mr. Kevin McNamara (Hull, North) (Lab): I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement and join him in congratulating Mr. Justice Cory on his work in the past few months.
Does my right hon. Friend accept that the deaths are linked by the belief of the families and their wider communities that the failure of the police to investigate effectively can be explained only by collusion and the involvement of state agents in the deaths, and that that was determined by the need to maintain and protect informants?
Does my right hon. Friend also agree that, by those means, some elements of the security forces under successive Governments have contributed to undermining the rule of law, and that the process that we have created in the Good Friday agreement requires us to face up to our responsibilities? If we rightly expect paramilitary organisations to take responsibility and admit their actions, there is an even greater burden on a democratically elected Government, who are committed to the rule of law, to do the same.
What steps has my right hon. Friend taken to ensure the full compliance of all the military and intelligence services in the inquiries, given the examples of a lack of effective and willing co-operation in the Saville inquiry? What steps has he taken to win the support and involvement of the Finucane family? Barrett was arrested and confessed to Finucane's death in 1991. He was then recruited into special service and the tape of his confession was lost. What steps—
Mr. Speaker: Order. May I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that he has put several supplementary questions to the Secretary of State? In fairness to other hon. Members, I must now ask the Secretary of State to reply.
Mr. McNamara: I beg your pardon, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Murphy: My hon. Friend is right to outline the importance of the families in all the inquiries. I mentioned in my statement that we recognise the grief and the pain that they have suffered.
As I said earlier, the Government are determined to find the truth about allegations of collusion. That is why we established the Bloody Sunday inquiry and the inquiries that we are considering. It is also why the ongoing Stevens inquiry was set up. I hope that there will be co-operation from other Departments and agencies to make the inquiries meaningful. I am sure that that will happen.
Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann) (UUP): I thank the Secretary of State for giving me advance sight of his statement. I have also seen the Finucane report but not the others. Looking at the report, I find it most unfortunate that Justice Cory seems to have failed to understand the circumstances and background of the situation with which he was dealing. I refer the Secretary of State to paragraph 1.183, which contains a slur—I hope an unintentional one—by Cory on Catholic members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. His failure to understand that there were a significant number of such officers in high positions is most unfortunate.
I also refer the Secretary of State to paragraph 1.304, which refers to:
- "The Good Friday Accord and the Weston Park Agreement, which set out the selected cases as an integral part of the Accord".
The references in paragraphs 1.256 and 1.259 to Finucane's background display astonishing naiveté by Justice Cory. His comments about Finucane ignore facts that were known to everyone in Northern Ireland. What steps were taken to give Justice Cory information about the nature of the situation in Northern Ireland, about how the police and the Army operated there, about how people such as Mr. Finucane operated and about the nature of his associations and contacts? Was anything done to try to explain such things to Justice Cory? That is an important point.
It is particularly unfortunate, in view of the very broad definition of "collusion" that Cory has adopted, that he should spread assertions—in fact, accusations—about such a range of people. The report contains a couple of paragraphs in which he attacks the former Chief Constable, Sir Ronald Flanagan. He does not mention him by name, but it is perfectly obvious to whom he is referring. He then makes negative comments about the special branch and the force research unit, and some sweeping comments about the Army and the RUC as a whole. As has emerged from the comments by the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), no opportunity was given to any of those bodies to reply to the accusations that were made. Cory seems simply to have got a document in his hand and proceeded to give his interpretation of it, without knowing anything about the surrounding circumstances or the other considerations involved.
This is not a terribly good basis for governmental decisions, and I fear that the Government have got themselves trapped into proceeding in the way that they are now doing. I know that they have tried to mitigate the effect of Cory by getting him to insert a foreword into the report, and I hope that all right hon. and hon. Members will read that foreword, which contains a
general withdrawal of specific accusations which, if they read the report by itself, would lead them in another direction.I opposed the concept of having inquiries of this nature. They are contrary to the spirit of the Belfast agreement. Indeed, I personally warned the Prime Minister that arranging the Saville inquiry into Bloody Sunday would be a mistake, and so it has proved. It is a pity that that mistake has been reinforced, but if, as a result of this, the truth about Finucane and Nelson comes incontrovertibly into the public domain, there will be some side effects. I mention those two cases particularly because a lot of Wright's background and terrorist activities are in the public domain, and I leave out Hamill because there is no reason whatever to link him with others who have a clear terrorist connection. That does not come out—
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