Robert Hamill Inquiry Report

Debate between Claire Hanna and Chris Bryant

Monday 14th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful for the hon. Member’s comments. It is vital that all those in public office exhibit candour. That is as important for police officers as it is for anybody else, as became painfully apparent throughout the process of trying to get justice for those involved in the Hillsborough disaster. That applies equally to the PSNI as it did to the RUC. The hon. Member is right that these are now primarily matters either for the PSNI directly or for the Justice Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive, and I am sure that they will want to go through the report with a fine-toothed comb.

It is not only that nobody had said until today that this was a murder; nobody had decided on what the cause of death was until today. I urge hon. Members to read the report, because it goes in some detail into precisely what happened, and it makes for very distressing reading.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South and Mid Down) (SDLP)]

I thank the Minister for his very thoughtful statement. I was in sixth year in 1997, and the nightclub that Robert Hamill’s killers were leaving was a haunt of mine and my classmates. I think that is why this murder remains in my memory so viscerally. It was so brutal, so sectarian, and led to so many years of injustice for the family. As happens so often, a proper exploration has uncovered collusion. That has been the case certainly not for all RUC officers, but for far too many. It is painful and difficult for society, but the Minister will know that suppression does not aid the healing and reconciliation that we need.

It is also impossible to ignore the context of that murder, and the 20 other human lives wasted around the time of the Drumcree stand-off in those years. Does the Secretary of State agree that disclosure must be properly addressed in the body that he is currently legislating for, and that it is a bleak, dead-end campaign to reopen wounds as deep as Drumcree?

[Chris Bryant]

I think everybody wants to condemn sectarianism, but the truth is that it is awfully easy to stir it up, in every society in the world. What is striking in the report is not only some of the terms of abuse that were shouted from one side to the other; a couple of witnesses also referred to the fact that when Robert Hamill’s body was being stretchered into an ambulance, people were shouting, “I hope he dies.” We need to remember the bitterness that sectarianism can instil in people’s hearts, especially when people are gathered in large crowds. Anything that we can do to calm sectarianism is a really important part of my job, and that of all those involved in the politics of Northern Ireland.

The hon. Member makes a very fair point about disclosure. We will talk about the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill in a couple of weeks’ time, and that is one of the issues that we will address.