Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

Debate between Baroness Primarolo and Jeffrey M Donaldson

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Donaldson]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. We have gone a little wide of the Bill in the exchanges that have just occurred, but I think that this matter has been well aired on the Floor of the House. I should be grateful if the right hon. Gentleman returned to the specific provisions in the Bill.

[Mr Donaldson]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

We welcome most of the Bill’s provisions. However, we will want to table a number of amendments in Committee. The past few years have been difficult and challenging. As the Secretary of State said—and she was echoed by the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker)—the Bill, and the manner of the Bill, represents a mark of progress. We are beginning to deal with issues that one might describe as reasonably normal. Nevertheless, there is a legacy that we still need to address. I am not sure that the Bill is the right vehicle for taking the initiative, but there is a need to address elements of the legacy.

Like many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I have not always regarded elements of the peace process as something we could fully embrace. It has been difficult—I accept that it has been difficult for both sides in Northern Ireland—and challenging. Elements of the peace process have caused people a lot of pain and hurt, not least the early release of prisoners, and so on.

However, there is one aspect that goes to the heart of the sense of injustice felt by many victims in Northern Ireland on both sides of the community. I am disappointed that the Bill has not yet provided us with an opportunity to address this and I think it ought to do so. That relates to the definition of a victim. In Northern Ireland at present—this is hard to believe, but it is true—a victim of the conflict, if I may use that term, is defined as anyone, no matter who or what they were, who lost their life in the course of the troubles.

Let us consider that for a moment. It includes, in effect, the people who pulled the trigger, who wore the balaclavas, who were members of illegal organisations, who planted the bombs and who skulked in the shadows if they lost their lives, sometimes through their own actions—killed by their own bomb, as in the case, for example, of Thomas Begley in the Shankill bombing in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds). Thomas Begley blew himself up with his own bomb and murdered nine—I think it was—innocent people that day on the Shankill. Thomas Begley, under the definition of a victim, is as much a victim as the innocent men, women and children whom he killed that day on the Shankill road.

Equally, the definition covers the attack that occurred in Loughinisland in the constituency of the hon. Member for South Down, where six people were killed in a public bar while watching a World cup football game. They were killed by loyalist paramilitaries. The irony is that every one of those six victims is equated with the people who committed the murders. If, for example, one of the loyalist group that killed those six men subsequently lost his or her life, they would be regarded as a victim.

I cannot come to terms with that. I cannot believe that in dealing with the past—and we must address the legacy issues—we can continue to go forward with a definition that says, “If you were a child walking down the street or going into a fish shop on the Shankill road with your mother on a Saturday afternoon and your life was cruelly cut down, you are the same as the person who, that morning, planned the attack, primed and transported the bomb to the scene and then detonated the bomb.” I cannot accept ever that it is right to equate the bomber with the innocent civilian, no matter who or what side the victims came from.