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Mr. Heald: May I put an alternative view to the hon. Gentleman? He and I agree about hardly anything politically, but he would take up a constituent's case with Ministers and in correspondence, and he would take up issues with public authorities. The point is, though, that if he is not satisfied, he will take up the matter here. He will question a Minister, table written questions and speak in debates. He uses his unique privilege—for it is both a legal and a parliamentary privilege—to stand up for his constituents. The truth is that a Member of Parliament cannot be effective unless he does that.

We do not believe in associate status. We do not believe that there is such a thing as an associate Member of Parliament—a second-class Member of Parliament. If a Member is elected, his democratic responsibility is to take his seat and do the job that he was elected to do.

Mr. Walter : It was suggested a moment ago that this was some form of punishment, and the word "sanction" has been used. Privileges and benefits above and beyond the rights of Members who do not take their seats were granted to these Members. Surely it is wrong to call this a punishment; we are simply withdrawing a benefit.

Mr. Heald: I thank my hon. Friend for expressing that view. I am rather worried about the idea of using the way in which the House arranges its allowances and office facilities as a Government sanction that can be used either to punish Members or to reward them in some way. That should really be a matter for the House. I am glad that the Leader of the House is in charge of today's debate, but—I do not know whether other Members agree with this—I feel that, in respect of our facilities and the terms on which we are Members of Parliament, we should all be equal in this place. The essential fact is that these benefits and facilities are available to those who are elected and then take their seats.

Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West) (Con): Is not the essential fact that these alleged Members do not regard themselves as Members of Parliament? They are fantasists. They consider themselves to be the legitimate Government of the whole of Ireland. That is the problem.

Mr. Heald: As usual, my hon. Friend makes his point in his own inimitable way.

Mr. John Gummer (Suffolk, Coastal) (Con): Is not the real issue that if people who happen to espouse—quite mistakenly, in my view—the concept that the structure that we have is entirely unacceptable manage to attract the majority of the votes in a democratic election, we must accept that that election has taken place? The question with which we must deal is how we can represent that fact, while not providing large sums of money for all sorts of other activities. I was against giving these people the money in the first place, but it seems to me that there must be some kind of recognition
 
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that the electors—mistakenly, foolishly, stupidly and sometimes criminally—elected them. There is a median line to be found, and the House must try to find it.

Mr. Heald: My right hon. Friend makes an important point. We should also bear in mind that at the time when the elections took place in 2001—the House's decision was made shortly after that—the atmosphere seemed to be one of encouragement. Since then—I am sure that this applies to electors in Northern Ireland as well as those of us who are present today—we have observed something that is, as the Leader of the House said, rather dispiriting. Over the past three years, at the same time as claiming taxpayers' money here, Sinn Fein has remained linked to an armed and active terrorist organisation, the Provisional IRA. Those are not just my words. The Republic's Defence Minister, Mr. Willie O'Dea, went much further. The British Government often use the words "inextricably linked"; he said:

"We are no longer prepared to accept the farce that Sinn Fein and the IRA are separate. They are indivisible".

We have no reason to disagree with that.

The Justice Minister in the Republic, Mr. McDowell, has named three senior members of Sinn Fein—including two Members of the House of Commons—as also being senior figures on the IRA's so-called army council. I am not in a position to dispute that either. We have ample evidence of the extent to which the IRA controls a vast criminal empire to finance its operations. We now know that at the same time as members of Sinn Fein were involved in negotiations that could have led to their being Ministers in the Government in Northern Ireland, the IRA was planning the biggest bank raid in British history.

Rev. Ian Paisley : The hon. Gentleman should bear in mind that yesterday's newspapers quoted the head of the police in Northern Ireland as saying that he agreed that the two Members of the House of Commons were members of the IRA's army council.

Mr. Heald: That builds on the point that I have made.

Sir Patrick Cormack : Is not the nub of the issue the fact that these people are associated with, and have probably been involved in, criminal and terrorist activities? Is it not rather paradoxical that later today we shall impose control orders on those who are probably not terrorists, while giving all the privileges of the House to those who probably are?

Mr. Heald: My hon. Friend makes his point extremely well. Moreover, whereas in the context of those orders we are asking for a sunset clause and being told how unreasonable that is and how such a clause would weaken the legislation, in this instance the Minister is introducing one.

Mr. Hain: It is not a sunset clause.

Mr. Heald: It is a sunset clause—[Interruption.] The Minister is saying something sotto voce, but it is exactly that.
 
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According to the Irish Prime Minister, the bank raid would have been known about at the highest level of Sinn Fein. As one former senior member of the IRA said yesterday, if that were not the case it would be like Britain going to war with Iraq without the Prime Minister knowing.

The Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Hugh Orde, is in no doubt about where the responsibility for the bank robbery lies; nor is his counterpart in the Republic, the Garda commissioner Mr. Conroy. In blaming the IRA for the Northern bank robbery and a number of other recent robberies in Northern Ireland, the Independent Monitoring Commission was emphatic:

"In our view Sinn Fein must bear its share of responsibility for all the incidents. Some of its senior members, who are also . . . members of PIRA, were involved in sanctioning the series of robberies."

Since then, we have seen evidence of money laundering, in addition to the intimidation, beatings, shootings and murders that continue in nationalist areas. That was illustrated recently by the brutal murder of Robert McCartney by members of the IRA following a row in a Belfast bar.

I, for one, pay tribute to the family and friends of Mr. McCartney for their courage in standing up to the IRA in their efforts to secure justice, and I join those who have expressed their utter disgust at the IRA's offer to shoot those whom they deem responsible. How that contrasts with the dignity of the family who want to see the guilty men brought to court and subjected to due process!

As the McCartney family have said, they want justice, not revenge. They want people to go to the police, not engage in the law of the wild west. Yet even today, despite the warm words of Sinn Fein, we learn that the family still believe that witnesses are being intimidated. Last week, Sinn Fein announced that it was expelling seven members in connection with that incident. What normal political party has to expel a group of its members for involvement in murder?

Jeremy Corbyn: Obviously, the killing was atrocious and appalling, but does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that at last week's Sinn Fein conference the Sinn Fein leadership made it very clear that people should come forward and go to the police so that the due process of law could take place?

Mr. Heald: I know from past debates with the hon. Gentleman that he reads The Guardian. He should read its front page today.

In the light of all that, we welcome the Government's decision to take action against Sinn Fein Members. We opposed the original decision to grant these concessions in December 2001, and we argued for its reversal following the suspension of the Assembly and Executive in October 2002.

In our view, however, the motion does not go far enough. We do not believe that the suspension should be time limited to only 12 months. What is the justification for that? We take the view that Sinn Fein Members should lose access to all, not just some, of the facilities
 
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at Westminster that the Government granted to them in December 2001. Amendment (a) would remove the sunset clause and make the removal of facilities and allowances permanent; amendment (b) includes reference to the office and other facilities as well as the allowances.

In justifying the decision of December 2001, the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), the then Leader of the House, was adamant that the concessions were justified by progress made in the peace process. Today we can see that, because of Sinn Fein-IRA, there has been no devolution for two and a half years and there has been a succession of breaches of the agreement and the ceasefire. On the Government's own logic, we should be reversing the changes that were brought about in December 2001.

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