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Rev. Ian Paisley: I want to make it clear that the Prime Minister sees me now—but two years have passed.
John McDonnell: I am so glad that the Prime Minister has made up for past misdemeanours, and that he is not in sackcloth and ashes.
By far the most significant issue is how to move the peace process forward. We should do nothing that will undermine in any way the opportunity for dialogue. During the past 18 months I have been working with a group called the ministry for peace, and we have been considering peace processes throughout the world, including Palestine and Ireland. We have even considered how peace can be secured in Chechnya and elsewhere. One of the most important factors is to maintain dialogue, and to ensure that we use a language that does not impede the peace process.
I pay tribute to the Government for all that they have done in the peace process overall, but before Christmas we had a real opportunity to bring to a conclusion the issue of arms. We could have made a dramatic move forward to secure peace. The talk of sackcloth and ashes and the demands for photographs from one side, and the inability on the other to confront more directly some of the activities of the republican movement, meant that we could not move forward. We now need to discuss how we can move forward.
The McCartney case has made the republican movement address some issues that are overdue. The statement this week about shootings will enable the movement to address those issues, which are from a bygone era and now need to be put aside if we are to make progress towards peace. Therefore, rather than squabble over a motion that will not have much effect, I urge the Government to re-establish the dialogue. I also agree with the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) about ending the side deals. We need to get people back round the table so that we can look at the full implementation of the Good Friday agreement and secure the peace that all of us in this House want.
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3.39 pm
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire) (Con): This is essentially a House of Commons matter, and I very much hope that it will be decided by a truly free vote. The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), in her brave speech, asserted that it would be a free vote. The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) said the same and I know that it will be a free vote for the official Opposition. I would like confirmation from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, when he winds up, that it will be a free vote on the Government side—[Interruption.] Well, I treat every vote as a free vote, but that is not the point that I am making. I hope that every Member is able to vote as a Member of this House, because we are voting about Members of this House.
I am sorry that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is not in his place. In a short debate such as this, at least one of the Cabinet Ministers taking part should be present throughout. It is an insult to the House that neither of them is in his place at the moment.
My position on this issue is simple. We are considering four Members who have been elected to this House—nobody disputes that—whose conduct has been wholly unbecoming to this House. I voted against the resolution in December 2001, but I saw the Government's logic in proposing it. At that stage, there were high hopes for the peace process—some would say misplaced—on the Government's part. There were high hopes that the Sinn Fein Members would play a constructive part in that peace process, but those hopes have been thoroughly confounded since. Far from playing a constructive part, those four Members have been proved time and again to have not only a tainted past, but a tainted present. They have been involved with acts of criminality and acts of terrorism. Although we talk at present of the difference between the suicide terrorist and the IRA terrorist—there is a difference—we should not forget that those who died in Omagh are just as dead as those who died in the twin towers. Those Members have been complicit in acts of terrorism. They are not worthy to sit in this House.
I wished to be constructive in my opposition to the motion, so I tabled an amendment. It was not selected, and I make no complaint about that, but it would have limited the withdrawal of facilities, with a similar sunset clause to the one in the motion. I prefer the amendment that has been selected and I shall give it my support.
I am glad that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is now in his place. I have great respect for him and nobody could even begin to deny his good faith. However, it is bizarre that in a little over an hour's time we will once again debate the Prevention of Terrorism Bill and, as I pointed out to my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) in an intervention earlier, the Government will urge us to allow them to introduce control orders that will be imposed on many people who are probably not terrorists. I do not dispute the Government's good faith or their overriding and paramount concern for public safety, but if they are prepared to do that, is it not paradoxical that, an hour before, they will vote against an amendment that would exclude people who are
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almost certainly terrorists and Members of this House? That is ludicrous and it makes the Government's stand against terrorism hollow.
I regret that. I have many criticisms, which I have voiced in the Chamber, of the manner in which the Government have handled the Prevention of Terrorism Bill, but at no stage have I impugned their good faith in seeking to do what they believe to be right. None the less, I say to the Government that if that is their response to terrorism in general, here they have terrorism in particular—four Members, three of whom are or have been members of the IRA council, who have been involved in acts of terrorism and who have not washed their hands and divorced themselves from those who continue to be involved in acts of terrorism. That is the point. Here we have people who as recently as yesterday announced their willingness to take the law into their own hands, in the form of that extraordinary statement from the IRA—of which Mr. Gerry Adams is still a member and to which Sinn Fein remains indissolubly linked—that gun law can prevail in the United Kingdom. If nothing else can persuade the Government of the logic of my argument, yesterday's statement should surely do so.
I hope, first, that the Secretary of State will assure us that this is to be a truly free vote for every Member of the House of Commons; and, secondly, that Members of the House of Commons will decide whether they truly want to allow access to all our privileges and facilities to people who refuse properly and adequately to represent their constituents in this place, by making speeches, asking questions and so on.
Mr. McNamara: Will the hon. Gentleman accept from us that we are on a one-line Whip on this House of Commons matter, as we received it last Friday from my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip?
Sir Patrick Cormack: Of course I accept that from the hon. Gentleman, who is in every sense an honourable, although I think frequently misguided, Gentleman. In parenthesis, let me say how sorry I am that we have probably heard the last speech from him and from the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon).
Mr. McNamara indicated dissent.
Sir Patrick Cormack: I realise that we probably have about three weeks left in the Session. Both hon. Gentlemen have made a genuinely distinguished contribution to our affairs.
I accept what the hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) says, but I want to hear it from the horse's mouth. We all know that there are one-line Whips and one-line Whips, free votes and free votes; we all know that there is a payroll vote. I want an absolute assertion, which I shall of course accept if it is given, that every member of Her Majesty's Government will have the same right to vote as his or her conscience dictates as any other Member. We are all equal in this place.
I wish to obey your injunction, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I shall not take my full 12 minutes, even though I have been given an extra minute because of the intervention. I wish simply to stress the point that it is bizarre and ludicrous that we should, on one afternoon, move from
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the motion to the Prevention of Terrorism Act and treat so differently those whom we have just cause to suspect of terrorist activities.
3.48 pm
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) (Lab): I shall ensure that I finish in time for the winding-up speeches, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I assure the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) that I do not consider myself part of the payroll vote and that, as far as I am concerned, this is to be an absolutely free vote. If a Minister wishes to make an intervention to confirm the position on the payroll, I shall be happy to accept it.
The hon. Gentleman's final point is important. We are moving from the bizarre to the ridiculous by, in a single afternoon, looking in opposite directions on two extremely important issues. This is described as a House of Commons matter; I prefer to describe it as a democratic matter. The House of Commons is behaving like a golf club in the way it treats its Members.
Where do we get our authority from? Is it from being in the House and from some higher authority above us, or is it from the people who elected us? We must recognise that the Members whose allowances we propose to take away were elected, just like all the rest of us. They have a duty to represent their constituents and during all their election campaigns they made their position clear. In the case of the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Adams), he has made it clear since 1983 that on election he would not take his seat because he did not believe that the British Parliament should have jurisdiction over that part of Ireland.
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