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Mr. Murphy: The hon. Gentleman is aware, of course, that the decision regarding on-the-runs would have to be taken in the context of acts of completion, to which the joint declaration referred. The Government would not do it in any other context. As far as his other general point is concerned, I agree in the sense that victims are not on one side or the other. In the case of most victims in Northern Ireland, their names would not be known outside their families or friends, but they were victims nevertheless. We must remember them on such an occasion, in the same way that we remember others.
Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby) (Con): It is all very well the Secretary of State praising the armed forces, police and Prison Service, who are public servants doing a very difficult job under dangerous circumstances. It is all very well him saying in his statement that the Government seek to establish the truth about the actions of all those involved in the troubles. But the perception is different, as we have heard from the Unionist Benches and elsewhere. The perception is of a Government bending over backwards to accommodate Sinn Fein and the IRA. If we are to have inquiries, and if we are to seek the truth, will the Government take up the cudgels on behalf of public servants, to whom they owe a duty of care, and who were murdered in the course of their duties protecting this country, and have an inquiry into the collusion and activities of Adams and McGuiness and other IRA people who may have murdered British public servants, and perhaps an inquiry into Warren Point and other unexplained and unresolved massacres?
Mr. Murphy: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the inquiries are about establishing the truth about
collusion, and the state has a deep responsibility to try to find out the truth in that respect, whoever did it. He is right to point out that not only those people with whom we are dealing today but many thousands of others have died in the troubles in Northern Ireland, across the board and across the political divide. Everybody in the Chamber will have heard what he said, and a number of Members have already indicated that they agree with the points that he made.
Hugh Robertson (Faversham and Mid-Kent) (Con): I am sure that no one on either side of the House would condone a policy of extra-judicial killings. Will the Secretary of State bear in mind, however, that many of those who served in the security forces in Northern Ireland in the late 1980s and early 1990s did so in the belief that they were fighting a war, and that they were doing so against a terrorist organisation that was extraordinarily well financed and armed, that had the ability to fade back into the civilian population at will, and was widely regarded as the most successful and brutal terrorist organisation in western Europe at that time? Will he ensure that this inquiry is conducted against that backdrop, remembering that, rather than judging by the standards of today?
Mr. Murphy: Obviously, the way in which the inquiry is conducted will be a matter for the tribunal. The people who chair these tribunals must, first, have the confidence of people right across the political divisions in Northern Ireland—otherwise, it would be pointless—as well as a keen understanding of what the hon. Gentleman rightly refers to. Over three decades, some terrible things happened in Northern Ireland. More than 3,500 people perished in Northern Ireland in 30 years, and there are some terrible tales to tell. I am sure that the people engaged in these tribunals will be very much aware of the point that he rightly makes.
Mr. Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP): Can the Secretary of State be more precise about the attempt by the Government to put a cap on the cost of the inquiries? He alluded to the cost of the Saville inquiry and will be aware that allusion was made this week in the national press to the fact that, arising from the Bank of Credit and Commerce International collapse, additional tens of millions of pounds may be expended on the Saville inquiry.
Mr. Murphy: No, I cannot, because I have not yet considered the detail of it. One of the reasons why we have decided to use these particular Acts of Parliament is that they provide me with the opportunity to cap and to look carefully at costs and expenses. There must always be a balance in terms of ensuring that the tribunal has a proper opportunity to discover the truth and is working properly, and at the same time ensuring that the public purse is not forgotten because, as other Members have said, if we take money from one part of our budget, less will be spent on other aspects of public services. That is an important factor. We will be looking in detail at the matter.
FCO Travel Advice
1.29 pm
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a statement about the review of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's travel advice, which I am publishing today as a Command Paper.
Given the constant rise in international travel and in the face of the threat from global terrorism, FCO travel advice is used more and more and is rightly under more scrutiny than ever before. It must be timely and consistent, and must carry public confidence. Much has been done in recent years to improve the quality of the advice, but I believe that we can do more. I therefore announced a review of it to the House in a written statement on 10 December last year. In summary, its terms of reference were to review how FCO advice could best help British travellers to make informed, responsible decisions about possible risks overseas, particularly from terrorism; to assess the proper balance between information, warning and advice, and assess how they could best be presented; and to assess the wider implications of travel advice—in particular how, in responding to a terrorist attack, we can ensure that prudent precaution does not become overreaction, which risks playing into the hands of the terrorists.
The review process included wide consultation with those who have a stake in the travel advice, including parliamentarians, the travel and insurance industries, users of the FCO website, the media, British businesses working abroad, victims of terrorism and their families, and destination countries.
Travel advice is an important and growing public service. British people made almost 60 million trips abroad in 2003, three times as many as 20 years ago, and more than 15 million UK nationals live overseas. Every week the travel advice pages on the FCO website receive an average of 280,000 hits, and 1,600 people receive travel advice through our telephone call centre. Alongside the continuing growth in travel, however, has come the rise of international terrorism, which aims not only to take innocent lives through indiscriminate attacks but to spread a general sense of fear and instability in order to undermine our freedom and prosperity.
Our travel advice must inform people of the threat from terrorism, and when the threat is acute it will inevitably lead to some disruption, but at the same time we must ensure that we do not do the terrorists' job by causing too much of the very disruption that they seek. Our intelligence services, the police and all concerned with public safety work extremely hard to discover and disrupt terrorist plans and to break up the networks that support terrorism; but it is in the nature of intelligence on terrorism that sometimes nations will not have enough knowledge to prevent attacks, as we saw only too tragically in the outrages in Madrid on 11 March. When we do have specific evidence of extreme and imminent danger from terrorism abroad, we will of course warn British nationals against travel, but in the case of a general threat issuing a prescription against travel will, I believe, only achieve widespread disruption, which is exactly what the terrorists want. It is unlikely to make people safer.
We in Britain lived for 30 years with the threat of Irish republican terrorism. Our response was to be alert to danger, to take sensible precautions and to make our own informed judgments about the risk. At the same time, we did not let normal life come to a halt. Indeed, letting normal life go on as much as possible was itself a weapon against the terrorists. Our travel advice needs to strike that important balance, making public safety its prime concern while minimising the disruption that terrorists wish to cause. We must give people the information that they need in order to remain vigilant and make judgments about risk and security, as they have to do every day, while allowing normal life to continue to the greatest possible extent. We must also ensure that our responses to terrorist incidents and threats are consistent. The public and all those with a stake in our advice need reassurance that our approach is rigorous, and based on a sound assessment of intelligence and a balanced approach to the risk.
We are bound to reflect on charges that the approach has sometimes varied. In the aftermath of the bombing of the British consulate general in Istanbul in November, for a period—on my authority—we advised against all but essential travel to major cities in Turkey. That was consistent with our current approach, but the Turkish Government made representations to us that no such prescriptive advice was issued in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 atrocities in respect of travel either to New York or to the rest of the United States.
Although by its nature the threat and the fear of terrorism are hugely amplified by any one incident, it is by no means the main cause of death abroad of United Kingdom citizens, as notified to our posts. In 2002, according to figures that can be found in the consultative Command Paper, 1,427 British citizens died abroad. Of the 316 who died from non-natural causes 158 died in road accidents, 62 in other accidents and 29 as a result of terrorism.
On the basis of the arguments that I have set out, including the crucial balance between danger and disruption, the review recommends that in the case of intelligence-based terrorist threats we should first give the best possible and most timely description of the terrorist threat, both global and by country, so that travellers can make informed judgments and take appropriate precautions. Secondly, we should only go further and warn against travel in situations of extreme and imminent danger—that is, if the threat is sufficiently specific, large scale or endemic to affect British nationals severely.
We all live with the threat of global terrorism. Our response must be not panic but commonsense precautions. The public will only trust our advice on the terrorist threat, first, if they do not think that we advise against travel on the slightest pretext in order to cover our backs, and secondly, if they feel confident that any specific, credible threat that might affect their travel or their behaviour overseas will be conveyed to them. The review recommends that we ensure that our warnings have real teeth by confining them to specific, large-scale and imminent threats, while in other situations giving people the information that they need in order to make informed judgments about the risks they may face and the precautions they can take. We will of course continue to warn against travel, when appropriate, for reasons not based on intelligence on terrorism—for
example, when the danger stems from civil disturbances, coups or other causes. That includes geological causes such as earthquakes and volcanoes.This and the other recommendations and conclusions of the review are, I believe, well argued and persuasive. As I have said, they reflect widespread consultation. Given the importance of the issues, however, I want to ensure that everyone with an interest has the chance to have their say before I make any changes. I therefore invite Members of both Houses, along with all those with a direct interest in travel advice, to offer their views on the review and on the quality of our advice more generally. That further period of consultation will continue until the end of this month. I shall then announce appropriate revisions to our travel advice system in Parliament.
I look forward to hearing Members' views in the coming weeks.
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