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Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman's time is up.

2.27 pm

Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire) (LD): Given that there will be a free vote on the motion, my guidance to my party colleagues is that they should support the motion and resist amendments (a) and (b).

In the aftermath of the Northern bank robbery in Belfast, I have been frustrated to the point of anger on a number of occasions by the fact that so little of the proof, evidence or intelligence that the Government claim to possess has been made available to Opposition politicians. The Government say that that information has led them to believe that the IRA was responsible for the crime, but they have been determined to keep everyone else in the dark, even though other parties have expressed a genuine and ongoing commitment to the peace process.

Neither I nor any other member of my party has ever said that the IRA is innocent, but we have said that the Government must reciprocate our good faith by showing us the evidence for their claims. I am glad to say that the Government responded recently to my request for more information. It is available only on Privy Council terms, through the office of my party leader, but
 
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I am grateful nevertheless. I hope that complaints or objections lodged here or in the press will not be necessary for Ministers to include us in the information loop in the future. But let us not be churlish. People from both sides have learned something from that and I am grateful for the dialogues that we have had since then.

Mr. Kevin McNamara (Hull, North) (Lab): The hon. Gentleman is now creating two classes of Members: those who will be privileged to have the information and those of us who will not. There are other grounds for believing what the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach have said. After 10 years of very hard work—showing a devotion to something that no two leaders in these islands have ever done in history—they would not have put it all at risk by making that statement if they did not believe it entirely and wholeheartedly. While I accept the point on weapons of mass destruction, and while I voted with the hon. Gentleman yesterday because I do not believe that people should be incarcerated without being given the evidence upon which they are being incarcerated and an opportunity to contradict it, on this occasion I am prepared to believe, and do believe, both leaders of both countries.

Lembit Öpik: On the first point, the hon. Gentleman is right that my comments imply two classes of politician. Indeed, they exist: we have Privy Councillors and the rest of us. Let me make it clear to him that I have not been privy to the information that I have discussed—the dialogue has been directly between my leader, who is of course a Privy Councillor, and others—but I do register my belief that those of us who have now been actively involved, as the hon. Gentleman has, for many years do reasonably expect to be involved, on the basis of good faith, in the sharing of information.

On the second point—let me be very clear about this—the Government have in many ways enjoyed a great deal of good will since their election success in 1997, the year in which they formed the Government, but to be honest, much of it has now been squandered. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the weapons of mass destruction debacle, which was used to justify a war, when we now see that no such evidence existed. Any member of the Government or the Opposition is entitled to be a lot more cautious these days and in future, and to require a higher level of evidence before important decisions are made with our support.

Having said that, I think that the Government have made progress, which is welcome. Furthermore, events have moved on and, notwithstanding the Government's resistance to sharing important information with other Members of the House, the Independent Monitoring Commission has made some very important statements and I would be inclined to believe them. Lord Alderdice, whom I know well and respect greatly, is one of the influential thought leaders on these matters, and if he and the IMC believe that the IRA were involved in the robbery from the Northern bank, I would say that that in itself is important, albeit secondary, evidence to suggest that that is the case.

Secondly, and even more importantly, I think that the killing of Robert McCartney dwarfs even the appalling nature of the Northern bank robbery. That is because of the sheer violence of the occurrence, the tragedy that flowed from it and, most significantly of all, the
 
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apparent involvement of the IRA in dissuading witnesses from coming forth. That offence, perhaps more even than the Northern bank robbery, causes me to believe that we have little option other than to introduce the financial sanctions that have been proposed by the Government.

Mr. Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP): Would the hon. Gentleman like to consider that, in addition to the offences that he has outlined, the fact that we have significant information from the Chief Constable and others that three of the four Members are in fact members of the IRA army council would add to the weight of evidence that he has outlined and should motivate Liberal Democrat Members to vote in the Aye Lobby tonight?

Lembit Öpik: The information that the hon. Gentleman highlights is, either through fact or assumption, pretty much known to us and has been for a long time. I know his position. I think that he has never felt comfortable with the granting of office facilities to those individuals, in large part for the very reason that he outlines. I have taken a different view. My feeling is that providing office access to these individuals has been, on balance, helpful to the peace process and to increasing pressure on Sinn Fein to try to bring its own house into order. That is a legitimate difference of view, but today's debate and the question of sanctions against Sinn Fein on the direct evidence indicating the seriousness of recent crimes is actually a slightly different matter, and probably not influenced directly by that information.

Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby) (Con): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way because I am following his argument closely and I want to question his logic. He said that giving the Sinn Fein MPs office space has moved towards encouraging them down the road of good and proper parliamentary democracy, yet actually we have had the Executive suspended in Northern Ireland for over a year because of Sinn Fein activity. Not just that, but we have had the extraordinary behaviour of Sinn Fein-IRA, which are inextricably linked, and he has just admitted that he accepts that three of those MPs are on the army council. They are the IRA itself.

Lembit Öpik: The hon. Gentleman has slightly misunderstood what I said because he believes that I have implied that the office space granted to the Sinn Fein Members has necessarily contributed to—I will try to quote him now—its adherence to parliamentary democracy. That is not what I said. I said that the fact that they can operate within the walls of Parliament has actively helped us—certainly those of us who have been involved from Opposition parties—to commence dialogue with Sinn Fein, which I genuinely believe has altered that organisation's comments in the public domain and pressured Sinn Fein to put pressure on the IRA to come into line. The reason we are here today is because Sinn Fein has evidently failed in what I believe to be its duty to bring the criminal activities of the IRA into order.
 
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The hon. Gentleman will also know that paragraph 13 of the joint declaration made it absolutely clear that it was not acceptable to have an underlying level of either violence or criminal activity, and that those could be considered to constitute a violation of the ceasefire. This is why we are here, because I think we have to recognise that Sinn Fein must be brought to account for what has been going on with the IRA, but here is the irony: had we not given those facilities in the first place, we would not have the sanction to impose now. And the double irony—[Laughter.] I am delighted that Conservatives finally recognise the importance of the influence we can now wield. Conservative Front-Benchers disappoint me by failing to understand the seminal importance of what we are doing. We are seeking to normalise Sinn Fein's operation when it comes to being a political party. I, for one, believe that we have gone some way down that track but, crucially, the fact that Sinn Fein has itself in a mealy-mouthed and vague way begun to condemn some of the activities of the IRA of late, can only be as a direct result of the pain it feels as a result of these sanctions. Others in this Chamber may disagree with that point of view, and I am happy to allow the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) to intervene, but they must surely recognise that the entire political process in Northern Ireland has been characterised by such difficult decisions, by the Labour Government and previously by the Conservatives.

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