Hillsborough

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Maria Eagle

Wednesday 12th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am sure that the Attorney-General will listen carefully to what my hon. Friend says. As I have said, a number of apologies have been made over the 23 years by police, newspapers and others. I think that what matters is that you have to properly think through what has happened, what went wrong, what was got wrong, what it is necessary to apologise for, and then really mean it when you do so. I feel that it is very important the Government apologise as clearly and frankly as I have today because there is proper new evidence showing that the families were right, that an injustice was done, and that that injustice was compounded by the false narrative that, if we are frank, I think lots of people went along with: we all thought there was some sort of grey area and asked why all this was going on. That is why it is necessary to pay tribute to those MPs, newspapers and family groups who kept the faith and kept campaigning because they knew an injustice had been done, they knew it was wrong and they suffered in the way they did. It is for newspapers to decide what to do themselves, and I think it is important that they really think it through and feel it before they do it.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I join others in thanking the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition for the way in which they have apologised on behalf of all of us for what has happened over the past 23 years. I know that it will be of some relief to the families. Even for those of us who have campaigned on this issue for many years, this report is profoundly shocking. Is it not indicative of the utter failure of our legal system that it has taken the suggestion by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and me of a wholly exceptional arrangement to bring out, into the public domain, documents, truths and facts that were already there? This is new evidence only in the sense that it has been published. Does this not have a profound implication for how we deal in future with disasters and things that go wrong? What lessons can we all seek to learn from that?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes an extremely important point. It deserves a proper, thoughtful, considered answer, which is what we should try to address in this debate in the House of Commons. As has been said, there was a public inquiry, a coroner’s inquest and, quite rightly, by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), a judicial inquiry into what had happened, yet these processes did not turn up what the Bishop of Liverpool and his patient panel, with the full disclosure of information, have turned up. We need to ask ourselves why that happened. What needs to change when we investigate these things? I do not have the answers today, but my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary can think deeply about it before the debate in October.

Saville Inquiry

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Maria Eagle

Tuesday 15th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me say to the right hon. Gentleman that I absolutely want us to get to the truth on all of those dreadful murders. As I said, ought former paramilitaries to come forward and give information so that we can clear up murders and so that people can bury their loved ones properly? Yes, they should—absolutely. I can see members of the SDLP nodding at that.

As for Martin McGuinness, he must answer for himself on the evidence he gave to the inquiry. Let me read the relevant paragraph:

“In the end we were left in some doubt as to his movements on the day. Before the soldiers of Support Company went into the Bogside he was probably armed with a Thompson sub-machine gun, and though it is possible that he fired this weapon, there is insufficient evidence to make any finding on this, save that we are sure that he did not engage in any activity that provided any of the soldiers with any justification for opening fire.”

The right hon. Gentleman is right that in the end, we want the truth to come out about all the murders, and we want to know all the information, but in respect of the Government’s responsibility for bringing clarity on Bloody Sunday, I think Lord Saville has done us a service. I think people from all parts of Northern Ireland, from all parts of all communities, should welcome the fact that although we might not have clarity on everything that happened, we have clarity on one bad thing that did happen. Let us not make that a reason for not welcoming the clarity of what has been said today.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Prime Minister on the clarity with which he has set out, in his words today, the Government view on the publication of the Saville report. Does he agree that as this report is digested and looked at in great detail—difficult though that may be—across all communities in Northern Ireland, what really matters for the future of Northern Ireland and all its people in all its communities, is reconciliation, leaving the past behind and moving to a new and brighter future for Northern Ireland?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is right that what we really want is reconciliation and working for a shared future, and everyone working across all communities to put the past behind them, but I think we all know that there is still some work to be done on the past, because loved ones remain unburied and murders remain unsolved. That is what the Historical Enquiries Team is there to do. We have to try to do those things at the same time. We must uncover and come to terms with what happened in the past in a way that can allow families to move on, but at the same time we must recognise that Northern Ireland’s shared future will be about economic growth and people working together, whatever tradition they come from.

Debate on the Address

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Maria Eagle

Tuesday 25th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have got two homes, but I am afraid that neither of them is in Wales, so I will not actually be able to vote.

The right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham mentioned the Wright reforms. We will ensure that Select Committee Chairmen and members are voted for by Members of Parliament and not appointed by the Whips. I have mentioned fixed-term Parliaments; we will be legislating for that, and also for a referendum on the voting system. So our political reform is all about cleaning up Parliament, and passing powers from the Executive to the legislature and from the legislature to the people.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman explain how setting an artificially high level to defeat the Government in this House in a no-confidence motion can look like anything other than gerrymandering, when he is cutting the number of MPs in this House and appointing more peers in the other place, allegedly to save money? How is that new politics?

[The Prime Minister]

I am the first Prime Minister in British history to give up the right to go to the Palace to choose an election at a time that suits them. Everyone in the Opposition stood on a promise in their manifesto to introduce a fixed-term Parliament. If there is to be a fixed-term Parliament, there has to be some way of trying to make sure that it is a fixed-term Parliament. That is why the hon. Lady voted to support a 66% threshold for the Scottish Parliament.

[Maria Eagle]

rose—

[The Prime Minister]

I will happily give way again, but let me make one more point first. Do Opposition Members really want to go through the whole experience of 2007 again, when we had a Prime Minister wondering whether the time was right for wandering off to the Palace and whether or not they would win? I quite enjoyed 2007, I really did. It was great for Conservative Members. Does the hon. Lady want to go through that again?

[Maria Eagle]

I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman can convince the country that he is not really trying to stitch up a majority in the Commons for a lot longer than he might truly own one. If he is appointing new peers to ensure that the coalition has a majority in the House of Lords, while at the same time requiring a Commons vote of more than 55%, which is more than all the Opposition parties can muster, before the Government can fall, is it not stitching up the House and—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I remind the House that interventions must be brief.