Bloody Sunday Inquiry (Report)

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)]

Lord Saville’s final sentence is:

“Bloody Sunday was a tragedy for the wounded and the bereaved, and a catastrophe for the people of Northern Ireland.”

I think Members on both sides of the House would heartily agree with that. I pay tribute to Lord Saville and his colleagues for the thoroughness of their work on the inquiry. I pay tribute to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland for the way in which they have presented the inquiry publicly in the House of Commons. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) who, together with his predecessor, John Hume, fought tirelessly for justice in this very important case. We all pay tribute, of course, to the families of the victims who were killed all those years ago.

In 1998, when the decision was taken to call this inquiry, I was the Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office with responsibility for political development. I did not then and have not even for one second since had any regrets, as it was the right thing to do. It was right in the first instance because we wanted to see that justice was done and we wanted the truth to come out. Secondly, it was right because it was part of the wider political picture in dealing with the peace process at that time and since. I have not the slightest doubt that, had we not tackled the issue of Bloody Sunday as we did, there would not have been a successful peace process. I have no doubt at all in mind about that.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The right hon. Gentleman has, perhaps inadvertently, touched on some of the problems with the Saville report. Many in the Unionist community believe exactly what he has just said—that it was a political decision taken for political reasons with a premeditated outcome in mind that determined the announcement on Saville.

[Paul Murphy]

It depends what the hon. Gentleman means by political. I am not saying for a moment that it was a party political issue. I used the term “political” in the sense that it was part of the bigger picture to achieve peace. Both things together were important. Clearly, the nationalist community, the Irish Government, the American Government and people generally believed that we had to deal with this particular issue in the way that we did. That does not mean for one second that we did not have to deal with the other issues as well—I shall touch on them in a few moments—but Bloody Sunday was part of the problem.

There was a time some years later, after I had become Secretary of State, when I was troubled about the costs. At that time, it fell to me to deal with the direct government of Northern Ireland as well as the peace process, and £200 million is a great deal of money. Money was needed for hospitals, schools and other services to run a society in Northern Ireland, and of course those costs troubled me. They troubled me to such an extent that when some years later I agreed with the Canadian Judge Cory that there should be four public inquiries—into the cases of Wright, Hamill, Nelson and Finucane—we decided to use a different mechanism, through the 2005 Act and other Acts of Parliament, in the hope of making the process cheaper. In fact, the cost of those inquiries turned out to be £30-odd million.

I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Mr Woodward) about Finucane. I gave an undertaking on behalf of the Government that there would be some form of judicial inquiry into the Finucane case. None of that means that we undervalue the loss of the lives of people who served in the armed forces, the security forces or the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Thousands upon thousands of members of the armed forces and the RUC died as a consequence of the troubles, and we must never forget the sacrifice that they made. However, the Army is an organ of the state. In a liberal democracy the state has a responsibility to ensure that the Army does the right thing, and that is why the Saville inquiry turned out as it did.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not see where his argument is leading? It appears that, for political reasons and, he says, to advance the peace process, it was considered necessary to hold an inquiry into what had happened in Londonderry, but it was not considered necessary to hold an inquiry into the deaths of many RUC soldiers and innocent civilians who had been killed by terrorists.

[Paul Murphy]

All that took place over a period of 15 years or so. One of the purposes of the Historical Enquiries Team, in which I was involved, was to enable us to satisfy all parts of the community that we were dealing with the past.

Let me repeat that the primary purpose of the Bloody Sunday inquiry was to establish the truth: to find out what had happened, and whether the Army was culpable. The inquiry found that it was culpable. However, another purpose of the inquiry and, indeed, of Judge Cory’s recommendations, was to maintain the process of bringing peace to Northern Ireland. Ensuring that the peace process continues is a noble cause, not an ignoble one, and if it means that we must deal with the past in whatever form, it is right and proper for that to happen.

The fact that 3,500 people have died over 30 years and tens of thousands have been injured in one way or another must be addressed, and the savagery and wickedness experienced by Northern Ireland in those 30 years was not confined to one side. How should that be dealt with? Let me draw the Secretary of State’s attention to two issues. The first is cost. Of course these are difficult times, but, although this may seem a truism, Northern Ireland is a special case. When Senator George Mitchell concluded the Good Friday agreement on Good Friday 1998, he said that it was the beginning, not the end, of a process. He was right. Since then there have been tremendous developments, in which the DUP and other parties in Northern Ireland have played a huge part, but the process will not end overnight. We must have a system that involves spending money, because we must ensure that if the Northern Ireland Executive have to take on certain responsibilities, their funding must be adequate.

[Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman said that the Army was an instrument of Government and must therefore be accountable. Individuals who were certainly active historically are now part of Government. Should they not now be accountable for their historical actions?

[Paul Murphy]

My right hon. Friend raised that issue with the Director of Public Prosecutions. If there are indications that those people must be prosecuted, that is not a matter for Government, but for an independent body. My point is that if there are any further developments on dealing with the past, the Northern Ireland Executive should not be asked to pay for it.

My second point is this. The Secretary of State mentioned the Eames-Bradley report. Mr Eames and Mr Bradley know perhaps better than anyone else of what happened in the past in Northern Ireland, and I think it unfortunate that the press dealt with only one recommendation in their report. There were other valuable recommendations on issues such as the legacy commission, the reconciliation forum and the role of the Churches, and the Government ought to consider them.

When I was Secretary of State, I went to South Africa to see whether the process of truth and reconciliation there could be applied to Northern Ireland. I concluded that it could not—that there could not be a one-size-fits-all solution, and that Northern Ireland must decide for itself how to deal with the past. However, I also concluded that if the problem was the absence of consensus, nothing would happen. We could not wait for a consensus, but we must seek one.

The position of the current Secretary of State is very different from mine, and that of my successors, when we had to deal with such matters as housing and education. He is in a position to work with the Executive to deal with the issues that reflect the past. I have no doubt that a consensus can be reached, I have no doubt that we will have to deal with it, and I have no doubt that the Executive must address other huge, pressing issues, such as the problem of schools and of dealing with the impact of the comprehensive spending review on the Northern Ireland budget. Those are vastly important issues which must exercise the minds of my right hon. Friends and others in Northern Ireland, but that does not mean that it is not possible to deal with the past as well.

I believe that we cannot face the future unless we deal with the past. The two must be dealt with in parallel. The issue is how they are dealt with, and how consensus is achieved so that people, whether they are Catholic, Protestant, Unionist or nationalist, republican or loyalist, can ensure that we have a peaceful and a prosperous Northern Ireland.