HC Deb 22 May 1969 vol 784 cc660-9

The following Questions stood upon the Order Paper:

Q9. Mr. FISHER

To ask the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement arising from his meeting with the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.

Q13. Mr. MCNAMARA

To ask the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement concerning his discussions with the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson)

With permission, I will now answer Questions Nos. Q9 and Q13 together.

In view of the interest of the House in the discussions, I felt that I should reply at some length to these Questions.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, the noble Lord the Minister of State, Home Office, and I had a useful exchange of views with Major Chichester-Clark and his colleagues on matters of common concern, including the momentum of social reform in Northern Ireland, security and public order, and the prospects and plans for the Northern Ireland economy.

On social reform, we were glad to hear from Major Chichester-Clark that the Northern Ireland Government intend to introduce, at the earliest possible moment, legislation to provide that the next local government elections shall be held on the basis of universal adult suffrage and without any element of multiple voting. The Northern Ireland Government are proposing to defer the local government elections which would otherwise be due in May, 1970, until October, 1971, by which time a reorganised pattern of local government for Northern Ireland will have been established.

The Northern Ireland Government aim to publish this autumn a White Paper making detailed proposals for the perimeter boundaries, functions and finance of the substantially reduced number of new local authorities. The Northern Ireland Ministers affirmed their intention to ensure that the important task of designating electoral areas within these new authorities will be carried out in a way which will be clearly seen to be fair and impartial.

We were also told that the Northern Ireland Government hope to issue to their local authorities during the summer a model points scheme for allocation of houses. While it would be impracticable to oblige local authorities to adopt a particular scheme, all authorities will be expected to submit for approval a scheme of demonstrable fairness which can be published and made available to potential applicants.

On procedures for remedying grievances, as the House already knows, Sir Edmund Compton will be taking up his duties as Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration for Northern Ireland as soon as the relevant Bill receives the Royal Assent. Northern Ireland Ministers also propose to introduce in the present Session of their Parliament a Bill to establish machinery to consider citizens' grievances against public authorities other than central Government Departments. This machinery will deal with grievances arising from the operation of local authorities.

We discussed the Special Powers Acts and the particular question of the derogation to the European Human Rights Convention which has to be entered because of certain regulations made under those Acts. Northern Ireland Ministers appreciate our desire that this source of embarrassment should be removed as soon as possible, but, clearly, this will require, first, a period of calm.

I expressed to Northern Ireland Ministers our desire that the commitment of troops for guard duties at vital installations in Northern Ireland should be discontinued as soon as possible, but accepted that they must remain for the time being. The Northern Ireland Ministers outlined to us their plans for increasing recruitment to the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which we are agreed was desirable.

Finally, we had a lengthy discussion about employment prospects and industrial development in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Fisher

While completely supporting the policies of toleration, moderation and reform so courageously pursued by Captain Terence O'Neill, and the very good start that has been made by the new Prime Minister, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to agree that it would be wise not to press Major Chichester-Clark to go faster than majority public opinion in the Province will support, since to do so might be counterproductive and perhaps even dangerous?

The Prime Minister

This is always a problem with which one must deal in this type of situation, because there were, of course, very many years when these problems were not dealt with urgently enough. We all recognise the great courage of Captain O'Neill in pressing on with these matters, which we discussed with him, and, indeed, the price he paid for so doing.

I was reasonably satisfied yesterday, on hearing the plans of the new Government, that what Captain O'Neill fought for will now become a reality, and within the urgent time-scale which all of us regard as being necessary.

Mr. McNamara

Is my right hon. Friend aware that he and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary deserve the congratulations of all hon. Members and of all the people of Northern Ireland for the very strong stand that they took in recognising these problems—in recognising them even before many hon. Gentlemen opposite were prepared to admit that they existed?

Will he confirm, while we welcome all the advances that have been made, that there is still a reasonable amount of suspicion, which is understandable, because of the delay announced by my right hon. Friend in the holding of local elections in Northern Ireland and in announcing the abolition of the invidious Special Powers Act?

The Prime Minister

There will always be a certain degree of suspicion and unease because of the many years, even decades, when these matters were not tackled. The report which my right hon. Friend and I heard yesterday enables us to justify to the House the statement that progress is now being made; and in the matters I listed in my statement the House will have noticed that a considerable number of them are matters for legislation within the present Session. The Ombudsman Bill has, I understand, already gone through the Commons in Northern Ireland and is now in the Senate.

I do not think that there is justification—I have thought a lot about this—for suspicion about the postponement of next year's local elections. The existing local government system of Northern Ireland is quite indefensible. If we were to have elections next year, even with the present boundaries of the constituencies, the ward boundaries would be indefensible.

I think that the Northern Ireland Government are, therefore, right in streamlining the number of constituencies into a much smaller number, in announcing their plans in a White Paper this autumn, in scrapping next year's local elections, and then getting the ward boundaries based on a system which will be seen by everyone in Northern Ireland to be fair and impartial.

Mr. Lubbock

While welcoming the firm commitment to the changes announced by the right hon. Gentleman, may I ask him whether he is satisfied—I appreciate that he has more or less answered this question—that it is necessary to defer the local elections for a year, considering that the necessary legislation to alter the ward boundaries and reform the electoral system could take place in the next Session of the Northern Ireland Parliament and still be in time for elections in October, 1970? Is he aware that an immense contribution to the creation of a peaceful atmosphere in Northern Ireland would be the immediate rescinding of the Special Powers Act?

The Prime Minister

I really answered the first part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question earlier. I believe that what is proposed is right. It would no doubt be possible to rush the local government elections in that way on the new boundaries, but there has been so much suspicion—indeed, so much justified suspicion—in the past about the local ward boundaries and the rest that I think it right that time should be given for the creation of fair and impartial machinery to give everybody confidence that when the local government boundaries and local government units are set up, they will properly represent the views of the people of Northern Ireland.

The second part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question is a point which we pressed strongly on Capt. O'Neill; the embarrassment which the Special Powers Act represents for the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. They were urgently considering a move to meet us on this point. They were very willing to do it, but in the very week when progress could have been made we got the disastrous explosions which cut off the water to Belfast, and so on. In the circumstances, nobody could blame them for not proceeding further.

They now feel, and I agree, that there must be a period of quiet and a restoration of confidence in the security of these installations—security against events of this kind—and then I think that they will be ready to move as quickly as we would want to press them to get rid of the Special Powers Act.

Mr. Fitt

While expressing my deep gratitude to my right hon. Friend for the great interest and concern which he has shown for the battle for civil rights and social justice which has been raging in Northern Ireland recently, may I ask him whether he is aware that in the recent formation of the new Northern Ireland Government there was an intake of extreme right-wing people who may attempt to prevent the new Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from implementing reforms? Would my right hon. Friend assure the House that he will keep a watchful eye on that type of person?

The Prime Minister

The representatives of the Northern Ireland Government who visited Downing Street yesterday and discussed these matters with my right hon. Friend and myself were fully representative of the new Government. I saw no reason to doubt that what the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland told me fully represented the views of the Cabinet which he leads. Mr. Faulkner was there, Mr. Andrews was there, Mr. Porter was there, and I felt that they were speaking as one in accepting not only the need for reform but the timing which Major Chichester-Clark proposes.

We shall remain watchful; that is necessary in this situation. The best way to ensure that there will be the rapid progress made which the whole House desires to see made is for Northern Ireland to have a period of calm and quiet—and I am referring to extremists of one point of view and the Paisleyites who have been demonstrating in Edinburgh. I believe that there is at long last a desire and possibility in Stormont to do the job which must be done.

Mr. Heath

As the Northern Ireland Government are now carrying through the reforms which we have supported under both Captain O'Neill and the present Prime Minister, and as the right hon. Gentleman himself has stated that he is reasonably satisfied with what is being done, will the right hon. Gentleman state unreservedly and clearly that much the best thing for Northern Ireland now is that the Northern Ireland Government should be given a full opportunity to carry through these reforms? Will he state clearly, which he has not yet done, that progress should be unimpeded by extremists from any quarter at all?

The Prime Minister

If the right hon. Gentleman had been a little less busy preparing that question—it is a good, fair question—he would have heard me answer it before he got up to put it.

I said that what Northern Ireland needed now was a period of calm and quiet. I deplored any interference with that calm and quiet, whether from extremists, on the one hand, or Paisleyites, on the other. I said that we want freedom from that, because I am convinced that the Northern Ireland Parliament realises not only what needs to be done and the time scale, but the urgency with which it needs to be done.

I repeat that, and make clear that Her Majesty's Government have not only deplored violence from any quarter or provocation from any quarter; we agreed, at the request of the Northern Ireland Government, to the provision of troops to safeguard installations against violence.

Mr. Heath

I am grateful to the Prime Minister for making it absolutely plain that this applies to the extremists behind him just as much as it does to extremists elsewhere.

Mr. McNamara

On a point of order. Is it in order for the Leader of the Opposition to say that there are extremists sitting behind my right hon. Friend who favour the use of violence in obtaining civil rights for the citizens of Northern Ireland?

Mr. Speaker

The Leader of the Opposition did not say all that the hon. Gentleman says he said. It is not out of order for the right hon. Gentleman to say that there are extremists in some parts of the House.

The Prime Minister

I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Oposition imported that note into a series of exchanges in which the whole House was, quite rightly, feeling some satisfaction with the report which we had yesterday and with the part which all parties in this House had played in pressing the Northern Ireland Government to take this action. I very much regret that he should have used that phrase, even if it was in order. We have consistently deplored violence, whether or not it has come from across the border, for whatever purpose. The question of the border is not and has not been at issue in those discussions. I have made our position very clear on that. If we are to talk about extremists sitting behind any right hon. Gentleman—

Sir Knox Cunningham

Say it!

The Prime Minister

—I must remind the right hon. Gentleman that my hon. Friends and many hon. Members on his own side of the House are showing very great patience about the need for reform, considering that responsibility lies so heavily on those who had responsibility in Northern Ireland for 50 years.

Miss Devlin

While congratulating the Prime Minister on his useful discussion, may I ask him whether any steps have been taken by the Prime Minister or by the national Government at Westminster to ensure that such useful discussion is, in the time stated, translated into useful action which will be beneficial to the people of Northern Ireland, which to me is more important than removing the embarrassment of the British Government in the European community?

Since the reason for maintaining the Special Powers Act at the moment rests on the various explosions in Northern Ireland, does he not feel that such special powers might also be translated into effect in the Parliament of England, Scotland and Wales lest someone should happen to blow up something here? I believe that if, as the Prime Minister appears to convey, common law cannot deal with such practices in Northern Ireland, it cannot deal with them here either.

The Prime Minister

I am sure that the hon. Lady will use her very great influence on people who might be tempted to think in those terms not to develop such tendencies on this side of the Irish Channel.

On the main part of her supplementary question, concerning the Special Powers Act, she will be aware that in previous reports to the House about discussions with Captain O'Neill it was made clear that this was one of five issues which we discussed with him. My report this afternoon shows that there is not only full awareness of but determination to deal with four of those five issues quickly and by legislation in the Stormont Parliament.

As I said earlier, no doubt within the hearing of the hon. Lady, I believe that there would have been a ready and speedy response to our proposals concerning the Special Powers Act in April and that they would have been considered by Captain O'Neill's Government but for the devastating explosions and the damage which they did to thousands of citizens who had their water and other essential services cut off. In those circumstances, not a Government in the world would have gone on with what was proposed concerning special powers until they were assured that there would be a period of law, order, peace, calm and quiet.

Sir Knox Cunningham

Does not the Prime Minister think that in the matter of extending the usefulness of the Ombudsman by other methods he might do well to follow the lead given by Ulster?

The Prime Minister

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for supporting the reforms that we have pressed on Captain O'Neill, because he was the only Ulster Unionist Member of Parliament not to sign the Motion on the Order Paper last December. He could have provided a valuable lead there, because of his well-known influence with certain quarters who badly need a lead in Northern Ireland.

Sir Knox Cunningham

What quarters?

The Prime Minister

Quarters that listen to the hon. Gentleman—and that should be enough to condemn them.

In reply to the hon. Member's question about the Ombudsman—and this at least was a serious point—we had to press the Stormont Parliament to apply, for the actions of the Stormont Government, the same procedures as we have in this House for the actions of the Government of the United Kingdom as a whole.

Sir Knox Cunningham

Will you follow the lead?

The Prime Minister

They are following our lead, yes.

Sir Knox Cunningham rose—

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman must control himself.

The Prime Minister

On this matter they are following our lead and applying the procedures to the Stormont Parliament.

What I have announced this afternoon, which does not come under the heading of Ombudsman—perhaps that is what the hon. Gentleman had in mind—is that I was told yesterday that they are proposing to introduce legislation which will enable them, outside the Government, to deal with complaints against other public Departments and local authorities, and to provide machinery for the examination of grievances.

When that Bill is through, they will be ahead of this House and of the hon. Gentleman. I have on a number of occasions said that we are studying the question, but, of course, local authorities in Britain, be they Conservative or Labour controlled, are very different from many local authorities in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Heffer

Will not my right hon. Friend agree that his acceptance of the wide principle of calm in this situation should not be interpreted to mean that we will not continue to put proper Parliamentary and governmental pressure on the Northern Ireland Government to oppose the bigots who will do everything possible to stop one man, one vote, in Northern Ireland?

The Prime Minister

The hon. Gentleman is really putting the point that was put by the Leader of the Opposition, and I entirely agree with my hon. Friend on this matter. What we are appealing for—and I was glad that he emphasised his support for this—is an attempt to stop the feeling that reforms are more likely to be achieved by rioting in the streets or blowing up installations than by getting decisions in the Stormont Parliament, which is the legitimate place for them.

We shall, of course, in this House, all of us, all parties, the Government and hon. Members, press the Stormont Government to get on with these Measures. After yesterday's report, I am satisfied that they are determined to do so.

Mr. Stratton Mills

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his recognition of the need for the retention of the Special Powers Act in the present circumstances, and his condemnation of violence from whichever quarter, are greatly to be welcomed? Will he pay tribute to the Stormont Government for going forward with these reforms?

The Prime Minister

I have done so, now and on previous occasions. There was some doubt, following the fall of Captain O'Neill whether they would press on. I am now fully satisfied that everything for which he is working will be carried through on a reasonable time scale.

I have already stated the position on violence and the Special Powers Act. I felt that it was not unreasonable that they should postpone their ideas of abolition when these explosions occurred, but that does not mean that the Special Powers Act should continue for an indefinite period. There must be a period of calm, quiet and orderly behaviour before that action can be taken. We shall be pressing them at the right time to do it if they are not already doing it.