Pat Finucane

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell—that rather exposes the idea that we are not being quite so genuine when other Members occupy the Chair.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) on securing the debate and on his extremely powerful contribution about the merits of a public inquiry into the killing of Pat Finucane. We have heard from Members with real lived experience of Northern Ireland about the merits of such an inquiry, and we have heard powerful, heartbreaking testimony about that murder and about many more from the troubles that remain unsolved and were never fully investigated.

Let me respond first to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), because he makes a powerful case. He and my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) are right to say that none of us is arguing for a hierarchy of victims. All of us want to see truth and justice delivered for the families of victims of the troubles, just as they would have received had their loved ones lost their lives anywhere else in the UK.

One of the tragedies of the troubles is that the killing of Pat Finucane was not distinctive enough to merit a public inquiry. Such brutal murders—many of which have never received even the pretence of an investigation, let alone one that is fully compliant with article 2 —numbered in their thousands, as the hon. Member for Strangford said. That remains one of the most significant and enduring elements of the Good Friday agreement that we have yet to deliver on in Westminster.

It is therefore reasonable to ask why the killing of Pat Finucane merits a public inquiry and more attention than any other murder during the troubles, not least the killing of police officers, veterans and civilians. As has been spelled out, however, the answer dates back to the Weston Park accord and the findings of Judge Cory, who recommended public inquiries into a number of murders. As we have heard, of the four inquiries that he recommended, only the killing of Pat Finucane remains outstanding. None of the subsequent investigations has met the legal standards that are held by the British Government. All have fallen short of the public inquiry that for too long the Finucane family have been campaigning for. Disgracefully, they have been forced yet again to take the Government to the highest court in the country in order to be told that the Government remain in breach of article 2 of the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act 1998.

As we know, the Court stopped short of directing the Government to set up an independent inquiry, but the Labour party is clear, as indeed are the Finucane family, that it is the only legal way forward for the Government to proceed. If the Minister considers that they can meet their obligations in another way, we believe it is incumbent on him to lay out what options he considers are available to the Government.

Northern Ireland is a society that has made so much progress towards reconciliation in the past two decades, but the intervening years have served to demonstrate that families, communities and society as a whole will struggle to take the difficult remaining steps towards reconciliation until a solution is found to deal with the legacy of the past. It is dangerously naive to think that a veil can simply be drawn over so many atrocities and outrages that occurred over so many years.

We have an opportunity now for Northern Ireland to escape the grip of the past with a mechanism that delivers the truth about what took place. As my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) said, Operation Kenova and the outstanding work of Jon Boucher demonstrate that that is still possible, that there is a way forward and that a victim-centred approach can deliver the truth. That is what the majority of the victims, including the Finucanes, have been fighting for all these years. They have been fighting for a truth process that acknowledges the injustice of the past, clears their loved ones’ names and enables reconciliation. That was the essence of the Stormont House agreement and the basis on which consensus was reached. I say to the Minister, achieving that will be impossible without building that consensus.

Everything that has been achieved in Northern Ireland has been achieved on the basis of consensus. The Belfast, St Andrews, Hillsborough Castle, Stormont House and the New Decade, New Approach agreements were all made possible by painstakingly building consensus across communities and parties, and in partnership with the Irish Government. It would be foolish to think that that legacy should or could be any different.

Ministers committed 10 months ago to find that broad- based consensus on legacy, underpinned by the Stormont House mechanisms, so the departure from that approach in March this year caused enormous anger and shock from victims and people across Northern Ireland society. Trust in the Government’s approach has been understandably fractured in Northern Ireland. We are desperate for the Government to get this right.

I will repeat in public what I have said to the Secretary of State in private. We will work with the Government and help them to achieve consensus on this issue in a way that respects the Stormont House agreement and delivers on legacy. There must be no party politics for Labour and the Conservatives on this. As co-signatories to the Good Friday agreement, we deeply feel the duty for Westminster to get this right, whichever party is in power. It falls to our generation of politicians to take grave decisions and finally deliver on legacy.

I say to the Minister, it is time for the Northern Ireland Office to start engaging. I urge the Government to think carefully about their next steps, to work to build that broad-based consensus. Families have had to campaign for too long for the basics that would have been afforded them, had their loved-ones been murdered anywhere else in the United Kingdom. If we do not resolve this now, victims and survivors will be here in another 10 years’ time having the same debates, and the people of Northern Ireland will continue to suffer for our collective failure.