NORTHERN IRELAND

HC Deb 15 February 1971 vol 811 cc1221-84

4.15 p.m.

Mr. James Molyneaux (Antrim, South)

I ask for the indulgence of the House, the more so because Ulstermen are not by nature non-controversial, and, further, because I recall the advice given to new Ulster Members at the beginning of this Parliament by the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), when he suggested that we have a duty to bring reality into what is sometimes a rather academic debate.

The right hon. Gentleman's words on that occasion impressed me greatly. They were typical of his civilised approach to our problems when he was Home Secretary. Even those who viewed the consequences of certain policies with a degree of pessimism and foreboding never doubted his sincerity and his genuine desire to help. For personal reasons also, I have cause to be grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I understand that he played some part in retaining the constituency boundaries as they were at the time of the General Election, which had the effect of leaving me in South Antrim with an electorate of 144,000, the largest in the United Kingdom. It was probably for that reason, and not for any special merit of mine, that I received almost 60,000 votes, again a United Kingdom record.

By contrast, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State proposes now to slash my electorate to a mere 108,000, still the largest, but, after all, a poor reward for my having joined him in our nocturnal exercises in the Division Lobby, which, undoubtedly, are doing a great deal to improve both our figures—though I think that the House will agree that the improvement in my case has been rather more apparent than in his.

Grateful as I am for the opportunity to discuss the Home Secretary's responsibilities in regard to Northern Ireland, I recognise that my predecessor, Sir Knox Cunningham, could have opened this debate with far more skill and greater eloquence, and, may I say, with a heavier punch. Nevertheless, I shall do my best, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cardiff, South-East suggested, to deal in realities and try to set the level of this debate above that of charge and countercharge at this critical time in our history.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is at this time mainly concerned with the activities of the illegal I.R.A., I shall, at the risk, perhaps, of appearing to speak in defence of the Irish Republican Army, say that I have noticed that people on this side of the water tend to regard members of that organisation as, so to speak, Irish "skinheads" of some sort, tending to heap abuse upon them and their anarchist allies. In fact, in their modem form, they are a powerful force, well organised, well led, financed by brilliantly executed bank raids north and south of the Border and by generous grants from Eire Government funds, with or without the sanction of the Members of that body. They are by no means to be underestimated.

The present Irish Republican Army assault on Northern Ireland began in 1956, and this first stage lasted for some six years. It failed because the security front consisting of the Army, the Ulster Special Constabulary and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, backed by resolute government, could not be broken. The attackers therefore were unable to hold any area long enough to impose their will, intimidate the population and force them to co-operate.

In 1962, the I.R.A. General Staff called a halt to permit reorganisation. There then followed the greatest rethink in the history of the Republican movement. Its leaders realised that they were working against time, and I can remember, when on a business trip to Dublin in 1965, being told by a senior officer of the Republican movement who, strangely enough, mistook me for a sympathiser: We must strike soon before our people in the North are demoralised by education grants and the Welfare State. They worked hard. They recruited, brilliant leaders of the extreme new left,. and this time they got it right. I quote their conclusions which are contained in an authentic I.R.A. document issued early in 1968: Our STRATEGY, if it is to succeed must be the perfect blending of Politics and violence … at the most opportune time and under the most favourable circumstances. … We will not succeed in winning support for our policy and ideas by mere propaganda publicity: We must at every possible occasion involve ourselves in any agitation or issue that is part of Republican policy, and it should be made known to the public at large that Republicans are involved and helping in the particular cause at issue. For instance, in one area recently there has been a series of protests and demonstrations regarding poor and inadequate housing conditions, the majority of the members of the committees which were responsible for organising the protests are members of the R.A. By 1968, they were ready to resume the offensive and, with anarchist leaders of brilliant intellect, they enlisted the help of the protest industry and the publicity industry. This time, the security front cracked, not, I would hasten to add, through any fault of the men on the ground. This enabled them to set up their communes and impose their will on those who lived in the so-called "free" areas. They established their own courts, executed their own sentences and collected their revenue in the form of protection money. I might say in a lighter vein that there were compensations for the people in those areas because, I am told, they did not have to worry about such matters as motor taxation, television licences and, for all I know, income tax which beset the rest of us lesser mortals.

With stage 2 completed and the bases secured, the inevitable third stage has now developed, and we are now seeing for the first time in Western Europe a demonstration of urban guerrilla warfare.

Our Army has met this honestly and with great courage, all the greater because they realise that there is no easy way out. Even when the long shooting phase is over, they will have great difficulty in extricating themselves because of the apparent decision of August, 1969, that the Army should replace the civil power instead of merely supporting it.

The military were implicated still further by the implementation of the Hunt Committee's Report, which contains some admirable sentiments but which, as everyone now realises, was not realistic in its conclusions. Had its terms of reference included investigation into the I.R.A. and had it been possible for it to recommend the disbanding of that body, then of course a civilianised Royal Ulster Constabulary would have been acceptable. Consequently, as my predecessor in South Antrim predicted in 1969, … the Army has been given an impossible task and will be engaged in that task for years, not months. One shares the anguish of the relatives, families and friends of those who are killed and injured, and one appreciates the enormous strain on the troops. Like the Royal Ulster Constabulary before them, they have had to endure a deluge of abuse after every incident—exactly the same, word for word and lie for lie. Chapter 1, paragraph 1 of the anarchist textbook apparently decrees that automatic charges of brutality should be made after every incident, with synthetic evidence to follow at early convenience. Their accusers are not naive enough to imagine that the Army, too, will be disarmed, disbanded and phased out, but they believe, with a certain amount of justification, that others will waver if enough manufactured complaints are produced.

When theories and policies are upset, it is not unusual for people to indulge in witch hunts. So it is in this case. The latest victim is the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. Hon. Members will have seen the critical article in The Times last Friday, and I believe that Universe has now joined in the chorus.

While I concede that the church was probably unwise, even in its own interests, to become involved in the offensives of 1968–69, I am bound to say as a Protestant that it is monstrous to suggest that church men are now shirking their duties. What can they do? How long would a priest or Catholic layman survive in one of those commune areas if he went in and proceeded to exhort people to obey the lawful authorities if that lawful authority was nowhere in sight?

As for the general problem, it may possibly save time later in the debate if we discard the solutions which, quite frankly, are non-starters. The first and most popular is the suggestion of getting the three Governments round a table. That is an attractive but futile idea since the I.R.A. and their anarchist friends are utterly opposed to all three Governments. They are equally hostile to Stormont and to Dublin. What possible good could come of any agreement reached between the three Governments?

Another suggestion sometimes put forward is that of direct rule from Westminster. This is what the Ulster Unionists wanted originally in 1921. That again would make not a scrap of difference to the attitude of the gunmen.

The reforms which most of us would support are surrounded by an odd superstition that, in some way, they are relevant to the situation in which we are now involved. But in my opinion this is not so, and I want to quote one of the brilliant leaders of the new left who have been actively involved in the troubles and demonstrations. I refer to a certain Michael Farrell. He is on record as saying: We don't want reform in Northern Ireland —we want revolution in Ireland. It appears therefore that they would be equally opposed to everything which could be put forward. I would not associate myself with Michael Farrell and certainly I would not accept anything that he stands for, but I have no reason to believe that he is untruthful or dishonest. When he says that he wants revolution and not reform, I have no choice but to believe him.

There is another suggested solution. It was originally mentioned by the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic. It is that all licensed guns should be called in. However, I do not think that there is much evidence that licensed arms have been a factor in any of the disturbances. I doubt very much whether machine guns, nail bombs and booby traps are held on licence, in any case. If we had taken such a course, the same measures would obviously have had to apply to Eire, or the hardware would continue to come across the border in the dead of night.

Perhaps we could move from those rather futile suggested solutions to those which might be effective, but some of which might not be acceptable to some people. The first is internment. I have an open mind on this. I think that it could be done successfully in Eire, and probably will be done there, but I doubt whether it can be done by Stormont without another deluge of criticism.

The second suggestion is that we might open up the communes and free the Catholic people inside from intimidation, and therefore deprive the I.R.A. of its bases. But that would provoke protests, and no doubt liberal opinion would demand a retreat.

We might try to re-establish the authority of the R.U.C. by restoring its protective equipment, but no doubt Republicans would also regard that as some kind of provocation.

The fourth suggestion that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State might like to consider is giving greater help from Scotland Yard. I understand that the Scotland Yard men in Northern Ireland at present appear to act with greater firmness and confidence than their counterparts in the R.U.C. I think that this is simply because they have been consistently supported and defended by successive Home Secretaries.

In the longer term we might work towards bringing the security forces under one agency, and that agency must obviously be the Stormont Parliament. Here again we would face a certain amount of vocal opposition.

But the power to decide resides here in this House. If we reject all the workable solutions, we burden the Army with this heavy responsibility for many years, with the risk of deeper involvement if the forces of international subversion decide at any time that the British Army must be bogged down and kept off the world scene.

I am not entirely without hope. Provided people in the United Kingdom are realistic and recognise the real nature of the problem, and provided too, that future Stormont Governments and Parliaments are assured of automatic support from this Parliament and future Governments here when the next offensive is launched, I think we can look to the future with greater confidence.

The vast majority of people in Northern Ireland are keen to make their contribution to the greater unit of the United Kingdom, just as we, their representatives in this House, try to play our part. Collectively, Ulster men and women will do what is asked of them, as they have done in the past, both in peace and in war.

4.33 p.m.

Mr. Gerard Fitt (Belfast, West)

It is the custom of the House to congratulate a maiden speaker, and I heartily congratulate the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux), in conformity with the traditions of the House. But, needless to say, I am diametrically and vehemently opposed to every sentiment that the hon. Gentleman uttered.

The debate is taking place ostensibly on the responsibilities of the Home Secretary for affairs in Northern Ireland. From that point of view I welcome the debate, because we are asked to state our attitudes and listen to the Home Secretary say whether he will accept the responsibilities that have devolved upon him under the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. For far too many years, since the unnatural partition of the island of Ireland, every successive Home Secretary has signally failed to live up to his responsibilities. All Home Secretaries have neglected to bear the responsibilities placed upon them by the 1920 Act. So here today, after 50 years of Unionist Government in Northern Ireland, with the tragedy that is on almost every doorstep of innocent people in the City of Belfast, we are forced to look at what the partition settlement brought about in 1920.

There are people, possibly throughout the United Kingdom, but particularly in Northern Ireland, who will say that Ireland was partitioned because a majority of people in the six counties of North-Eastern Ireland wanted to maintain their connection with the United Kingdom. That is only one part of the answer, because in fact Ireland was partitioned on the worst possible basis of all. Ireland was partitioned because there was a 65 per cent. Protestant majority there in favour of maintaining links with the United Kingdom and a 35 per cent. Roman Catholic minority who wanted to be part and parcel of a sovereign, independent Irish nation.

All the seeds of turmoil and tragedy that we are discussing were sown at the very second that the Act became law. Whether the Unionist Members of Parliament at Stormont at that time had the approval of the Government here or not, it meant that they were handcuffed to a decision taken in this Parliament, and they had to discriminate. It was the job of the Unionist Party, as it would have been of any other political party there at the time, to perpetuate its own existence. That is recognised in politics. The only way in which the Unionist Party could perpetuate itself and ensure a continuation of its rule of Northern Ireland was by discriminating in favour of the 65 per cent. Protestant bloc and against the 35 per cent. minority in Northern Ireland. Whether the Unionists liked it or not, no alternative was open to them. I am prepared to concede that there may have been many people within the ranks of the Unionist Party who did not like having to take such decisions against one-third of their fellow countrymen, but that is what has happened for 50 years.

The 35 per cent. minority were forced to live in areas like Derry, Newry, Strabane, Ballymurphy, the New Falls Road and Ardoyne, all names now heard daily on television and seen in reports of riots in Northern Ireland. They were ghettoes deliberately set up by the Unionist Party, areas deliberately isolated from industrial expansion. I remember coming here in 1966 and asking how other hon. Members would feel if there were 25 per cent. unemployment in their constituencies. I was referring, of course, to the city of Derry, and I appealed for any economic assistance that could be given by the Government here to ease the situation in Derry. I do not know whether the British Government believe that they did a good job, but the unemployment figure there were down from 25 per cent. to 19 per cent., and now it is 29 per cent. Fifty per cent. of the males in the Ballymurphy area are unemployed. In Newry the figure is 23 per cent. and in Strabane 29 per cent. Those are all areas where there is a nationalist, anti-Unionist majority. Despite all the objections from the Unionist Party, I contend that that unemployment resulted from deliberate industrial isolation. With all the financial assistance and industrial incentives given to the Unionist Party to attract industry, all the industrial development took place in Belfast and the area within a 30-mile radius of that city. That is where the Unionist majority is now, and where it has always been.

The Unionist Party never had any right to claim the six counties of Northern Ireland. In 1920, as in 1971, the Unionists' strength was in the city of Belfast and in the surrounding areas to a radius of 30 miles. Had Ireland been partitioned according to the wishes of the people, there would not have been the partition which we now know. Tyrone, Fermanagh and part of South Down and Armagh and other areas would not have been in the six counties, but an Act of this Parliament created a situation for which the then Home Secretary here was responsible and partitioned Ireland on a most unnatural basis.

I do not want to refer too much to the speech of the hon. Member for Antrim, South, but he seemed once again to be advocating further repression. Since partition in 1920, Northern Ireland has had the Special Powers Act, the iron militia known as the B-Specials, an iron R.U.C. and all the attachments that I can describe only as the trappings of a police state. If that repressive legislation has been a failure, as it has been shown to be, because, after 50 years of repressive legislation, we find ourselves facing a period of tragedy in Northern Ireland, how can further repression relieve the situation? I have no hesitation in saying that further attempts at repression will only exacerbate the situation and escalate existing tensions, and they might lead to a tragic toll of death, particularly among innocent people, not only in Belfast but throughout Northern Ireland.

What are the British Government to do in this situation? The hon. Gentleman blamed everything which has happened in Northern Ireland in recent years on the I.R.A. That is patently incorrect. I know, because I was involved in political life in Northern Ireland long before the hon. Gentleman. I should not be in the least surprised if the hon. Gentleman told us that the I.R.A. was responsible for the failure of Rolls-Royce. He and his party have seen the I.R.A. under the bed on each and every occasion. They invented it when it did not exist. I am prepared to say here and now that there are more Irish Republican Army men in Northern Ireland today than ever before in the history of that State.

As I have said here and at Stormont, I have never supporWted the Irish Republican Army in its campaign of violence in Northern Ireland. I have opposed it at all times and I shall continue to oppose anyone who initiates a campaign of violence which can only kill and maim innocent people. I have no hesitation in re-stating that position and nor do I make any apology for it.

The hon. Gentleman said that the I.R.A. was engaged in a war against the British Army, in a campaign to do away with the constitution of Northern Ireland. He conveniently forgot that in August, 1969, after a long hard battle had been won in this House, a battle for social justice in Northern Ireland and to bring about reforms in Northern Ireland, to bring about equality of citizenship and a state of affairs in which there would not he first-class and second-class citizens, one feeling a little superior to another, with all the seeds of discontent that that sows, the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) visited Northern Ireland.

He said that he was amazed and appalled by what he found in Northern Ireland. The very fact of his using the words condemned the inability of his predecessors to take account of what was happening in what was allegedly an integral part of the United Kingdom. My right hon. Friend said that he was amazed by the situation and he set up the Hunt Committee, with the concurrence of the Northern Ireland Government, and the Cameron Inquiry. The Cameron Report confirmed the charges which I had levelled throughout the years I had been in this House.

Some Unionist Members opposite must have been extremely embarrassed by the conclusion of the Cameron Report. I am not being specific because I know that there are honourable men in the House representing Northern Irish constituencies. In a radio interview last week, the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) said that he had hoped that the Northern Ireland Government would have carried out the reform programme without any nudging from this Government, that reforms should have been made many years ago. But when I was asking for those reforms, the hon. Member said that they were not necessary. However, eventually the day of reckoning arrived.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary came to Northern Ireland and met the people, and, to the best of his ability, took whatever steps seemed necessary to bring about a just society, and a reform programme was initiated. I had hoped that the reform programme would immediately be escalated as the troubles became evident. I proved to be incorrect.

The then British Government gave unstinting support to the Unionist Government, then led by Captain Terence O'Neill, who was subsequently forced to resign by the right-wing extremists of his own party. The new Prime Minister took office and did exactly the thing which everyone in Ireland hoped would be the last thing he would do—he surrendered to the right wing of the Unionist Party. During the reign of Captain Terence O'Neill we had a Portadown parallel and three of the men most prominent in that Parliament, fighting tenaciously to retain influence and impose their right-wing views, continued in the Government of Northern Ireland, and one is now the Minister of State at the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Mr. R. Chichester-Clark (Londonderry)

Before the hon. Gentleman gets too far away from what he was talking about, discrimination and so on, may I ask him whether he has not read with satisfaction that Sir Edmund Compton said the other day that the average citizen in Northern Ireland was better treated by Government than the average citizen in this country? I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would wish to applaud that.

Mr. Fitt

I have read the report. I must make it clear that Sir Edmund Compton is at variance with the valid criticisms made by Lord Justice Scarman who was appointed by this House to inquire into what was happening. It cannot be said that Sir Edmund Compton was all right and the Cameron Report all wrong, because most people in the United Kingdom who are aware of the situation are agreed with the findings of the Cameron Report.

Mr. Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Ardwick)

My hon. Friend will remember that Sir Edmund Compton would never have been appointed as Ombudsman to Northern Ireland but for the pressure of hon. Members on this side of the House, against the resistance of hon. Members opposite.

Mr. Chichester-Clark

Will the hon. Gentleman also bear in mind that the Northern Ireland Government have appointed a Commissioner of Complaints to deal with complaints about local authorities? I wonder whether he will be able to persuade his hon. Friends to do the same thing here so as to introduce a similar form of democracy here.

Mr. Fitt

If the hon. Gentleman wants a Commissioner for Complaints he should have discussions with his right hon. Friends on the Front Bench.

Throughout this period we had a state of uncertainty in Northern Ireland with one-third of the population callously and effectively excluded from taking any part in the government of the country. There was one party in control at Stormont and a permanent Opposition because of the political and religious bias built into the State when it was originally set up. People were not allowed to participate in the running of their country. These people were not all members of the Irish Republican Army, they were people who wanted to play a part. We are now having to answer for those sins.

What steps are the British Government prepared to take? The reforms promulgated with the co-operation of the Stormont Government would never have taken place had it not been for the fact that there was then a Labour Government in power here. To the man in the street in Northern Ireland those reforms mean nothing. There was talk about unemployment. Before these "reforms" unemployment in Derry was 19 per cent. Now it is 27 per cent. If this is "reform" then it is unacceptable to the unemployed.

The Minister of State at the Ministry of Home Affairs was well known as an opponent of the moderate Unionists within the Northern Ireland Party. He was appointed to placate the energies of the right wing, then being directed towards unseating the present Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. The first thing he did was to issue, day after day, all sorts of gun licences. At present in Northern Ireland there are 72,000 guns issued on licence. In 1969, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East was in Northern Ireland there were 69,000 such guns. My right hon. Friend thought the situation so serious then that he said that he felt there were far too many guns held throughtout Northern Ireland. Far from there being an improvement there has been a deterioration. It was highly irresponsible for the Minister of State to issue guns in such a discriminate way. The hon. Member for Antrim, South said he did not believe that the guns held on licence had been used during the troubles. Certainly there were machine guns used and I strongly condemn this, but there were people who lost their lives as a result of shotgun fire. The shotguns could have been on licence from the Ministry of Home Affairs. I am not sure whether they were held on licence by Catholics or Protestants, but they should not have been made so freely available.

The hon. Member, who will no doubt be supported by his hon. Friends, blames all the shooting going on at present on the I.R.A. Much of it is its responsibility, but there have been a lot of incidents recently in Northern Ireland with no conclusive proof as to the involvement of the I.R.A. I do not think that hon. Members are prepared to forget that in October, 1969, there was a violent outbreak of gunfighting in the Shankill Road, not in the Falls Road, and the shooting was done by people who at one time called themselves Unionist supporters. We cannot put the total blame for all the violence in Northern Ireland on one section of the community.

The people living in my constituency of Belfast, West will remember for as long as they live the terrible holocaust which took place in 1969 when 500 homes were burned to the ground and eight lives lost. My right hon. Friend was able to see the terrible devastation in Bombay Street. Those people will not forget that and neither will their sons or daughters. Almost everyone in Northern Ireland has memories if not of last week's or last year's troubles, then of troubles in the '20s, '30s, '40s, '50s and '60s.

How can a State, built upon such a shaky foundation, ever hope to continue and to emerge as a just society, bringing together warring sections within it? I believe that it is an utter impossibility. In Northern Ireland at present we have 48,000 unemployed. A civil rights meeting in Belfast yesterday was addressed by a prominent member, he is either the chairman or deputy-chairman of the Irish Congress of Trades Unions. He is quoted in the Press this morning as saying that there were still basic discriminations taking place in Belfast shipyards and engineering works.

Mr. James Kilfedder (Down, South)

Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that if the citizens of the Irish Republic who are at present in England, Scotland and Wales, had not immigrated to this country but had stayed in the Republic the unemployment situation in the Free State would be far greater than it is in Northern Ireland? Would he not further agree that because they immigrated to this country for good wages they helped their country, whereas the unemployed people in Northern Ireland—a large percentage of them in the areas mentioned—will not go to work because of unemployment and maternity benefits and such assistance?

Mr. Fitt

I regard that remark as totally irrelevant to the debate. All I would say is that there would not be any MI or many main roads in Britain if that migration had not taken place. In addition many of the hospitals here would be badly understaffed.

We recognised that there was a great deal of animosity fear and hostility towards the B Specials. Then it was disbanded and the U.D.R. took its place. At that time we appealed to the Labour Government to ensure that recruitment would make the regiment representative of the entire community. The fear was expressed that what would happen would be that the B Specials would join the U.D.R. en bloc. We were given guarantees that recruitment would be slowed down to such a level, perhaps not so as to exclude people of a certain religion from joining the force, but at least to make it less attractive.

What has happened since the election of the Conservative Government? My hon. Friend the Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard) asked whether the Government were sticking to the same policy of limiting recruitment to the force in the hope that it may recruit members of minorities. He was told in no uncertain terms that the pledge given by the Labour Government meant absolutely nothing to the present Government. That means that the majority of members in the U.D.R. are former members of the Ulster Special Constabulary. How can we expect a community that has lived in fear of the B Specials simply to accept a change of uniform? There is a good deal of antagonism towards the U.D.R. and I urge the Government to take a close look at this because it appears that former B Specials are being given duties in directions that appear to be politically opposed to the English Government. They are acting in a very nasty way by unnecessarily holding up traffic and carrying out searches. I hope that the Government will look at this matter because the U.D.R. is in existence and I know that the House wants it to succeed.

We have heard about what were called reforms but which were not reforms—the U.D.R., the unemployment figures, housing and the issuing of guns. Allied to all this there is economic back-tracking by the Conservative Government. They do not have the same philosophy as my hon. Friends and it would probably be much against their will if further aid was given to Northern Ireland to the detriment of other regions of the United Kingdom. If this happens it will prove to be absolutely disastrous because if there is any increase in unemployment in Northern Ireland it will only mean that more men will be standing idle on street corners and there could be something which fortunately has not yet happened on the streets, namely a sectarian war.

I have no hesitation in saying, having lived in Northern Ireland all my life and having read Irish history, that this is the most dangerous period which Northern Ireland has undergone in its long history. The infliction of pain on ordinary decent people who are caught up in the ghettoes in Northern Ireland, with riots taking place on their doorsteps almost every night, is unparalleled.

I know that the point I am about to make is a very touchy one and I accept it as such, and possibly some of my hon. Friends will not go all the way with me on it, but I must refer to what has happened in Northern Ireland as a result of searching by the British Army over the past two or three weeks. There is absolutely no doubt that the searches con- ducted by the British Army in the highly emotional areas led to the trouble which has occurred in the past two or three weeks. The British Army is obviously acting on misleading information because the number of illegal arms found in the houses which were searched was almost negligible.

For example, a fortnight ago ten houses were searched in one street. One shotgun was found, and that was held under licence. The search was carried out at ten o'clock in the morning in a Catholic area in the Kashmir Road. There is an industrial establishment on the other side of the Springfield Road where the vast majority of the employees are non-Catholic. Once those employees saw the British Army searching that Catholic area, they stood behind the Army. They made rude gestures with their fingers, jeered and sang party songs which naturally caused retaliation from the other side. This built into a devilish situation. One had to be there to appreciate the emotions which were felt. This was all brought about as a result of the Army acting on misleading information.

I suggest that before the Army acts on information it should be very careful that it is not being used by some illegal force, be it the I.R.A. or the Protestant extremists—because either of them could give misleading information—with the intention of creating a confrontation.

I stress that I am not speaking as a Catholic Member of Parliament. I am a Socialist Member of Parliament. There is a majority of Protestants in my constituency and many of them voted for me, against their tradition, at elections in which I have been elected as a Member of this House. I am speaking on their behalf as well. The hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) knows that to his disadvantage.

Mr. Kilfedder

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Fitt

Not on this occasion.

Mr. Kilfedder

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Fitt

The hon. Member will have an opportunity to speak.

In 1969 it was proved conclusively that most of the arms were not used by those on the Catholic side because it has been proved that they did not have them then. Every newspaper report and analysis made has proved beyond all possible doubt that any arms which were held at that time were held by people who formerly considered themselves to be members of the Unionist Party.

Members of the Catholic community bitterly resent the fact that the vast majority of the searches of the British Army are taking place in Catholic ghettos and no attempt seems to be made to disarm the other warring side of the community. I should like to see every missile and firearm in Northern Ireland, belonging to both Protestants and Catholics, thrown on a bonfire and burned, but one can understand the feeling of the Catholics. They say, "We are being disarmed, but what will happen if there is a repeat of August, 1969? We shall have no means of defence at all".

The Minister of State for Defence (Lord Balniel)

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's point about the importance of troops being very sure of the ground on which they embark on a search, but he will appreciate that in the last 12 months something approaching 40,000 rounds of ammunition and about 282 different types of weapon have been found in searches. He will appreciate that we take great care before embarking on searches to ensure that the information is reasonably reliable.

Mr. Fitt

Ten houses in the Kashmir Road were searched and one shotgun was found which was held under licence, so the Army could not have taken care before that search was initiated. Those are the facts, and they are not in dispute. The Army must have been acting on misleading information on that occasion.

The Army should carry out searches all over Northern Ireland to ensure that illegally-held arms are taken from people who might attempt to use them to cause violence among the community. One would hope that the Army could be effectively withdrawn from Northern Ireland and that a massacre would not take place in its wake. One would hope that the R.U.C. would be readily able to enter every district, street, village, town and hamlet in Northern Ireland as a police service—we do not like the word "force" in Northern Ireland; we have had it for far too long.

Can we entirely blame the Catholic people in Northern Ireland for having suspicions about the R.U.C.? Eleven members of the R.U.C. were found to have been involved in a ferocious attack on the Devenney home in Derry and a person appointed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East, namely, the former Inspector General in Northern Ireland, said that he had no doubt that they were involved. The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland said at the Dispatch Box in Stormont, "I appeal to the guilty men involved in this incident to make themselves known. I appeal to any member of the R.U.C. who knows the guilty men to tell us who they are so that we can take appropriate action against them". But there was not a murmur. Those eleven men are still members of the R.U.C. They did not own up to what happened, and neither did their many friends in the R.U.C. who must have known who had been involved in what took place at the Devenney household on that tragic evening.

Why should people in Northern Ireland have great confidence in the R.U.C.? People in Catholic areas look at an R.U.C. man and say," That is possibly one of the men who beat the brains out of Mr. Devenney with a police baton". [HON. MEMBERS: "0h."] This is what people are saying. Mr. Devenney was beaten by the police and he died. That is one reason why we cannot have the confidence which we should like to have in a civilianised police force.

Mr. John E. Maginnis (Armagh)

rose—

Mr. Fitt

I will not give way.

I know that many hon. Members are absolutely straining at the leash to contradict every word I have said, but what I say is that there must be no rearmament of the R.U.C., and that there must be no attempt to use the draconian powers of internment, because if there were any attempt to bring about internment in Northern Ireland it would bring about not only a holocaust in Northern Ireland but a great tragedy to the people of that island and of this island as well. Internment itself would solve absolutely nothing, and I am happy to say that some hon. Members on the Government side today agree with me that internment is not the answer to the present troubles in Northern Ireland.

What is the answer to this? We have heard the hon. Member for Antrim, South say that there is no answer, or that the only answer must be replacement—

Mr. Molyneaux

I did not say anything of the kind and I hope the hon. Member will kindly withdraw that remark.

Mr. Fitt

What the hon. Member said was that reforms in Northern Ireland were not necessary, that we were engaged in international subversion, that there were Marxists and Communists fomenting trouble in Northern Ireland. That is not true. There is certainly no Communistic influence in Northern Ireland at the moment. If there is, it is very, very minor. Hon. Members here know that those who are referred to as the Provisional Wing of the I.R.A. are bitterly opposed to Communism, and that has been made very clear only as recently as this morning. Though they are called Marxists they are probably more against Fascism than international Socialism.

In the situation in which we find ourselves today I believe that a new political initiative must be taken by this Government. There must be a realisation that things can never go back to what they were before 1968. We cannot go back to the 1920 Act as that has been found to be wanting. There is no Act of Parliament which is sacrosanct. I have heard it repeatedly said in this House that no attempt must be made to tamper with the 1920 Act. I have often questioned the validity of that sort of thinking, because the world is changing—there are men on the moon; the Tories have nationalised Rolls-Royce.

Certainly the 1920 Act has been proved to be wanting. I suggest that that Act, however, made some provision for proportional representation in Northern Ireland, and I believe that proportional representation would do a lot to take the heat out of the present situation, because I believe that moderately minded people who are opposed to violence, be it from Marxism or from wherever it may come, be it from the Unionist side or from the Catholic minority side, would see it as one positive step which should be taken.

I am not being partisan, but I think that another positive step which could be taken within the next 24 hours would be the release of the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. McManus) from prison to look after the interests of his constituents. That would certainly do a great deal to help. I believe that that man is in prison for carrying out a protest not against the laws but against one of the most corrupt Governments which has ever existed in Western Europe. I believe that he acted with great courage, and I believe the Government could afford to be magnanimous and to release him to look after the interests of his constituency.

The position has changed. The 1920 Act is no longer the instrument by which to govern Northern Ireland. The world is changing, and there are many well-intentioned people, including hon. Members on the other side of the House, who have come to the full realisation of the fact that the position in Northern Ireland cannot be maintained as it is. We have seen the tragedy which occurred in Korea and we see the tragedy now in Vietnam. Ireland, too, is a small country, and Ireland must live in amity and concord with the people of this island. Many Irishmen have given their lives to ensure that democracy should prevail in this part of the United Kingdom. I hope that the new Conservative Government will realise that some positive action should be taken in Northern Ireland immediately to ensure that a firm programme of social justice and reform is implemented in Northern Ireland, and that the Government will realise that the Irish people must be given the opportunity to govern their own island.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Stratton Mills (Belfast, North)

The hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) says that the world moves on, but I could not help feeling, listening to his speech, that it is a speech I have heard him make so many times before. I do not wish to raise the temperature, but he showed a very negative attitude and, listening to him, one feels very much indeed a sense of despair. I would say this. I do not want to dwell on thoughts of the past, but just to say this in relation to him. He has an opportunity now, as the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, in this tragic situation in which we find ourselves in Northern Ireland, to act like a statesman, and I hope he will not throw that opportunity away.

There is not very much point in going over the emotions which the hon. Member stirred this evening, and I want to make a very brief speech. I represent the constituency of Belfast, North which includes the Shankill Road, the Crumlin Road and the Ardoyne, areas which have had more than their fair share of trouble. How striking it is that in the election before last, when I was opposed by a militant I.R.A. Republican, and the television sets have lately been filled with the activities of militant I.R.A. Republicans, when there was the secret ballot -how many votes did he get? Out of 72,000 votes of that electorate he got 2,400. I think this puts very much into perspective the tragedy in our community today. In the secret ballot box the gunman does not win. Where there is mob rule in certain areas, that is a very different situation.

In our debate in June, a debate which followed a tragic weekend when constituents of mine were killed by gunfire across the Crumlin Road, I made a brief speech in which I recounted to the House those events, and I said then, and I say again tonight, that the people of Northern Ireland are entitled to peace, and it is in their interests, whether Protestant or Catholic, to have peace, but it is not in the interests of the gunmen.

My hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux), whom I congratulate on his maiden speech, referred to the activities of the I.R.A. The extent that the members of the I.R.A. have engaged in a reign of terror in parts of Belfast is very considerable. I am not arguing here today that the I.R.A. is the sole cause of all our problems or that the removal of the I.R.A. will dispose of all our problems, but I am arguing that in the very severe security situation with which we are faced now this must be number one priority both here and in Stormont. We have seen the I.R.A. reign of terror, and I do not care whether they be Provisionals or Traditionals or what you will, but their reign of terror, the shooting, the executions, the tarring and feathering, the protection rackets, no civilised society can stand much longer.

One example was given me by an employer last weekend, who said that, on the occasion of the I.R.A. funerals the previous week, some of his employees wanted time off to attend them. He said "But I know you: you are all decent Catholics. You will not be associated with a body like the I.R.A." They said that they had no alternative, that they had to go, that this had been made clear to them by the roughnecks. The areas to which I am referring—

Mr. Eric S. Heffer (Liverpool, Walton)

There are roughnecks on the other side as well, unfortunately.

Mr. Mills

I am making a single point in a brief speech. The areas to which I am referring are the Bogside, the Falls, the New Lodge Road, Ballymurphy, the Ardoyne—the areas where this reign of terror is most intense and where the security responsibility rests with Her Majesty's Government, in that the Army plays the dominant security rôle.

One must ask what is the aim of the I.R.A. in those areas. It has three aims. The first is to raise the Protestant areas in flame and to get them sucked into a civil war type situation. I have on many platforms tried my best to warn people of that real danger, and have said. "Leave it to the security authorities."

Their second aim is to create solidarity among the broad section of the Catholic population who have not been involved in these disturbances. Their third—this particularly comes home to this House—is to sicken the House, Whitehall and British public opinion, so that they throw up their hands in despair and say, "What can we do? We are being dragged into this mess." I ask the House to remember that those are the three aims of the I.R.A. and to say clearly that they cannot and must not win.

I want to speak in the quietest possible tones and not to raise the temperature but I must refer to the two I.R.A. funerals in Belfast last Tuesday. The tricolour flag was carried on the coffins and this is immensely provocative in many areas of Belfast. Shots were fire at the start of the funeral. Some people accompanying the coffin were wearing I.R.A. uniforms, and I believe that that was deliberately aimed not to provide so-called military honours to a comrade, but to set the city in flames by stirring up sectarian hatred. It is a matter of some happiness, to me at least, that they failed in their object on that occasion.

I said that the people of Northern Ireland, Protestants and Catholics alike, were entitled to peace. This was something that I tried to put a couple of weeks ago—that things have not gone entirely satisfactorily in some of the areas for which the Army was responsible. That means no attack on the Army, it means no going back on the 1969 security division—but this is a fact.

The Economist quoted myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) a week ago as saying that we and the Stormont Government had been pressing for the Army of 7,000 to be placed under the control of the Stormont Government. In a letter published this week in the Economist—I want to repeat this here today—I make it clear that that was not our intention and that they were entirely misinformed on the point.

What my hon. Friend and I did want to do was to examine the Army's rôle inside the 1969 structure in the areas for which they have prime security responsibility. I was interested in a statement in the article in the Observer yesterday by the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), with which I very much agreed: Our troops are not trained to cope with gang warfare in dark streets or children hurling explosives … and he went on to outline the problem. This is absolutely right. This is very much where both Governments have to some extent put on blinkers.

These are areas where the Army will be carrying out the dominant security rôle for at least some years, and it is unrealistic to imagine that this is not so. It is also equally clear that ordinary soldiers, with basic army training, coming to these areas for four months, with the best will in the world—not that I am attacking them—are not equipped to do this job—I am glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cardiff, South-East goes with me on this point.

Much of the trouble is that the Army is being asked to carry out a rôle for which it is not, by its very nature, fully equipped. Of course it was right in the first months—but after 18 months, two years, three or four years? Does that really make sense? A good deal of thought will have to be given—I am not sure whether it is being given—to some force based on the Army Military Police type of unit, walking around these areas, and after the end of the present disturbances, perhaps with not so many submachine guns in evidence, but playing that kind of rôle in those parts of the city.

I believe that it is in dealing with this problem as the first priority that the House can make its main contribution to bringing peace to the people of Northern Ireland.

5.27 p.m.

Mr. John Mendelson (Penistone)

The hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Miils) referred to the particularly difficult and arduous task of the Army in Northern Ireland. This is my main reason for intervening in the debate. Affairs in Northern Ireland, as an integral part of the United Kingdom, are an issue for all hon. Members at all times—this is generally accepted—but there is an additional responsibility for every hon. Member to direct his attention to the position of our young soldiers over there in these very difficult circumstances.

It is always easy to come away from any visit to Northern Ireland, particularly since the troubles started in 1969. with a one-sided picture. If the hon. Member will forgive me—I do not want to raise the temperature—I thought that, although there was a lot of sound sense in what he said, he did not follow my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) in a firm public condemnation of extremists on his own side—[Interruption.] Not this afternoon, I mean. I know that he has said this on other occasions, but in this particularly difficult situation, it would have helped his case and been good for public opinion if he had said that as well tonight. It is essential at all times to realise that so many people wish to give one a completely one-sided case when one goes to Northern Ireland that we must always start with a firm condemnation of extremism and provocation on both sides in this tragic outbreak.

Mr. Stratton Mills

In a short speech, I did not want to go over ground already covered. I fought an election on the matter in June and won overwhelmingly by it.

Mr. Mendelson

But in the shortest speech, I am arguing that it should be the first point that any speaker makes. If one makes it first, however short one's speech, one cannot fail to make it.

On the position of the Armed Forces, I want to put on record the positive impression that I received shortly after the outbreak of the troubles in 1969, when I went with an unofficial "commission", a group of hon. Members, to the trouble spots in Northern Ireland and talked to the local people. One of the main impressions I got at that time was that it was broadly realised that the Army was doing an essential job. This was agreed not on all sides but on most sides, and it is important to have this on the record today. For example, I met some of the civil rights leaders, for whom I had the greatest respect because I found that they were impelled not by any particular philosophical or religious prejudices but because they were anxious to bring the civil rights position in their part of the world up to date. Some of them told me that they were convinced that it was right for the Army to be there and that the Army had simply been saving lives and so on.

That was at that time. We cannot fail now but to notice, judging by what one sees on the streets of Belfast today, that there has been some change of attitude towards the Army. In earlier debates in this House some hon. Members predicted that this change of attitude would occur. In my submission, that would have been no reason for not doing what Governments of both parties in this country have done. It was essential at that time to save lives and to send the Army there. It was easy then to say that there might be a change of attitude; but if any Government acted on supposition, nothing would be done in circumstances such as these.

We must also remember that many people who were manning peace committees and who have done impressive work were of the opinion that it was essential that our soldiers should be there to do security work. Indeed, these peace committee workers frequently said that their efforts were effective only against the background of the presence of the Army.

Since that time there has been a great deterioration. Our soldiers are now having to operate in totally different circumstances—in situations which are quite unnatural to their normal duties, are different from the tasks for which they were mainly trained and are strange from their ordinary purposes. Nevertheless, it would be dangerous for the Government to reach hasty decisions in this matter. I am not suggesting that there is any likelihood of the Government reaching hasty decisions. Indeed, I have no reason to think that they would do so. However, it would be wrong for a hasty decision to be reached about the need to maintain our Armed Forces there at any rate for the time being.

I could not go with the hon. Member for Belfast, North in suggesting that some special force, or perhaps the R.U.C., should now be given the task of maintaining security in these critical areas. That would be going back to a far more dangerous state of affairs than obtains even now.

Mr. Stratton Mills

I deliberately referred to a force based on the existing military police forces, expanded for work in these areas.

Mr. Mendelson

I appreciate that, but there is the implication—this has been the cause of some of the criticism on his side of the fence in Northern Ireland—that, somehow or other, it should be a force of which the section which he represents would be more convinced that it would know how to winkle people out and do a tricky job in certain streets. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the people I have in mind who have advanced this argument. Criticism of the Army has never come from only one side, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the extremists on his side of the argument have been critical of the Army. Indeed, they were the first to be so.

Her Majesty's Government must take note of the new dangers to which the Army is being exposed there. These dangers should increase, rather than reduce, the care that is shown in allowing a build-up of other paramilitary forces in Northern Ireland. For this reason I urge a statement from the Home Office today—and perhaps from the Minister responsible for the Army—giving a definite reply to the specific questions that have been asked. When the Measure to establish the new defence regiment was passing through the House, and we were in Government, I thought, or assumed, that there was no controversy between the two Front Benches over the policy which my right hon. Friends were putting forward; namely, that there should be allowed only a slow build-up of this new defence regiment so that there would be time for people from all sections of the population to make their way into the regiment and to avoid the collective transfer of thousands of Specials directly from their previous units into the new regiment. That was the purpose and policy of Her Majesty's Government and we must now be told definitely whether this policy has been adhered to. We must also be told what the precise position is today.

I thought that it was important common ground at the time that this was a desirable policy to pursue. Anybody who is thinking in terms of reducing the burden on the Army in future—I deliberately say "in future"—must ensure that there is no continuation of the deep suspicion that here is merely an operation of the Specials in a new guise. If that suspicion were to be aroused, the dangers would be increased, especially if that were to happen at a time when one began to withdraw at any rate a part of the Army and to hand over matters to a different force.

On the political side, we must accept as a fact of life the deterioration in the position of the Army there. There have been accusations concerning searches, and criticisms of the conduct of individual soldiers. These matters are largely inherent in this sort of situation. There are bound to be individual cases of bad behaviour in a situation of occupation. People who are occupied or who regard the presence of an Army as being an Army of occupation will always complain of individual incidents and acts of misbehaviour.

By and large, real difficulty arises because this fact is inherent in the situation. I am certain that since the debates of 1969 the Army has been doing an extremely good job and that the work that our soldiers have been doing could not have been done better by any other armed forces. Because more people—certainly more than in 1968—are criticial of the way in which the Army is doing its job, the political situation is brought into the centre of the picture.

The time has now come when Her Majesty's Government must have serious discussion about the situation with the Government of the Republic of Ireland. I appreciate that this is an issue which must always be approached with the greatest possible care. Morover, I have always held—I have said this on many occasions, as I did at Question Time earlier—that one of the most positive factors to arise when the troubles first started in 1969 was the fact that there was constant and reasonable contact between the Governments in London and Dublin. The time has not yet come for the relevant documents to be published, but when that time arrives I think it will be shown that that contact played an important part in keeping the situation reasonably sane.

I urge the Government now to go a step further. On returning from Belfast at the time of the 1969 debates I said that I had been assured by many people there, and particularly by the civil rights people, that the frontier was not the issue. On occasions I have been severely attacked at meetings for expressing that view, but I still adhere to it. Indeed, the policy of my right hon. Friend the then Home Secretary contained that view. The issue was civil rights and it included the whole question of doing away with discrimination, the provision of job opportunities and the rest.

On the political front, the Government must hold absolutely fast to all the reforms which were initiated when we were in office. Any suspicion that they are being weakened or that there is a wavering in the desire to implement them—there is evidence to show that progress with some of these reforms is not proceeding half as fast as desirable—would be highly dangerous.

We must not be frightened by the extremists on the Protestant side. We have a grave responsibility for the wives and duties of our soldiers. They have no choice. They have been directed to go there as soldiers. The time has come for there to be serious discussions between the Government in London and the Republic of Ireland about possible approaches that might lead to joint initiatives which might help in the present situation. Accusations that they are beginning to sell the pass, that they intend to change the Constitution, and all the rest of the accusations that are bound to be made must not frighten the Government. The Government will have the support of the many of us who have always known how delicate the matter is; and that the issue of civil rights is not the only issue. They must realise that more and closer contact with the Government in Dublin is necessary.

Let no one amongst those who are now the extremists on the other side of the argument, whether they be special parts of the I.R.A. or any other specially organised body misunderstand the fact that none of us who have sympathy for the civil rights movement, for the movement against discrimination and for the movement against what was at the time a police state imposed by Stormont, can in any way ever extend that sympathy to those extremists. Let them be quite clear that we regard them as nothing but murderers when they go about the streets attacking young soldiers who have no particular individual conflict with them.

It is important that that should be made clear. It is important to make clear that the attitude of many of us to the civil rights movement is quite different from our attitude to those people, so the Government need not be worried on that score. If the Government took the initiative that I suggest they would get many supporters, and they must not be frightened that attacks on them by their extremist opponents on the Protestant side will leave them in an indefensible position.

I have tried briefly to indicate certain lines of action that could be adopted now in this serious situation. I have deliberately not concentrated too much on detail, because to do so would not help —something must be left to the Government's judgment—but I believe that the general lines I have indicated will find widespread support throughout the United Kingdom.

5.42 p.m.

Captain L. P. S. Orr (Down, South)

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) will find in the course of what I have to say that though we may have points of disagreement we also have common ground between us. Lest he should chide me for an omission, let me say quite clearly that all of us will echo his words when he said that whatever sympathy we may have for one side or the other in the argument, all of us jointly utterly condemn any attempts to bring about any solution by force or by violence, or by provocation to force or violence.

I join with others in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) on a notable maiden speech, and also on his luck in the Ballot which has allowed us to have this debate at this time. I hope that our discussion will follow the tone set by him and by the hon. Member for Penistone, and that we shall seek a calm appraisal of the present situation with the sincere desire of assisting those who are responsible for finding sensible short-term and long-term solutions. I may say with, perhaps, sorrow to the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) that we do understand the position, that we do have sympathy with it, but that he should not allow that to lead him into what I might call verbal street fighting. I shall seek to deal as I go along with the points of substance that he made.

Some of us who put our names in the Ballot suggested as a subject the current situation in Northern Ireland, but the Chair quite rightly ruled that subject should be narrowed to the responsibilities of the Home Secretary in regard to Northern Ireland. That brings us immediately to what I would call the underlying point of the entire debate: where does Ministerial responsibility in all this Northern Ireland situation reside? The hon. Member for Belfast, West knows as well as any of us that where anything at all goes wrong in any situation someone asks: whose fault is it? Who is the Minister responsible? Which Government are to be blamed and which to be applauded?

A good deal of the anxiety and confusion in the public mind in Ulster results from this lack of definition of Ministerial responsibility. Up to the deployment on the streets of the garrison in support of the civil power it was the common convention of this House that matters which had, under the Act of 1920, been devolved on the Government of Northern Ireland were left to that Government, and Ministers here refused to take any responsibility for them whatever. We now have a situation in which Ministers take responsibility for a whole range of matters governing Northern Ireland affairs, but time and time again, while taking responsibility for a Question they will quote the other Government in the Answer. For example, the Home Secretary when answering a Parliamentary Question here about policing will do so by saying that he is told by the Government of Northern Ireland that there is normal policing everywhere.

But let us now look at the security situation in respect of one actual event and one hypothetical event. The actual event is the funeral which took place on Wednesday afternoon. I am using that event only in order to examine this question of Ministerial responsibility and not with a view to arousing any feelings. The funeral was that of a man who had been shot by a soldier in the course of a previous riot or trouble of some sort.

The funeral assembled, the coffin was draped in the tricolour and was escorted by a guard which, as my hon. Friend has said, was an armed guard. The funeral proceeded not along the line of route which would normally be expected but through the Protestant area where it was most likely to cause the maximum of friction. Everyone has seen the television pictures of the funeral, and this open and calculated defiance of law, and authority, designed for provocation. What one asks, and what the citizens ask, whether they be Protestant or Roman Catholic is: "How is it, and whose responsibility is it, that the law is set at nought and open defiance permitted in our streets?". They ask the question of their representative in Parliament, but what answer is given to them? That brings one to the nub of the problem. Does one say that the fact that this open defiance of the law occurred was the fault of the General Officer Commanding?

Mr. Heller

I accept the hon. and gallant Gentleman's point, but, to put the record straight, does he agree that such provocation—marches of this type, though perhaps not with funerals—have taken place on the other side and that therefore his analogy could be used for extremist groups?

Captain Orr

I always seek to be fair. I could well have taken some such analogy, but there has been nothing comparable with what happened last Wednesday that I could quote from any quarter. In any case, I take it as an illustration, because it is the most recent.

Who was responsible for this act of open defiance of the law? The citizen asks for redress, and he is entitled to an answer. Was it the fault of the G.O.C.? Was it the fault of the chief constable? Was it the fault of the Ministry for Home Affairs in Northern Ireland and of the Northern Ireland Government? Does one go for inquiry and redress to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence? Or is it the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary? In other words, are we even in order to discuss it in this debate?

This is what causes the confusion in the public mind and where the whole trouble lies. The five authorities I have mentioned appear to be responsible for the direction of the maintenance of the authority of the established Government. It is impossible to satisfy public opinion unless there is a clearer definition of who is responsible for what.

An attempt was made at a division of responsibility when my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence saw the members of the Northern Ireland Cabinet. A communiqué was then issued which stated, amongst other things, that the Ministers noted that because of the constitutional position of Northern Ireland the commitment of the Army in aid of the civil power necessarily involved a division of responsibility … This division of responsibility makes it essential not only that the two Governments should act, as they do, in concert but that there should be at every level the most effective liaison. This one accepts. … At the level of operational command within Northern Ireland they were fully satisfied that the machinery of the Joint Security Committee over which the Prime Minister as Minister of Home Affairs presides is an effective instrument for its purpose. Is the Joint Security Committee an effective instrument for its purpose? Do the events of last week and the situation on the ground suggest that it is an effective instrument? Let us suppose that the Committee meets and comes to a conclusion about a proposal. Let us assume that it decides that a large area must be searched with all the disruption and the provocation—if you like—that that may cause. The Committee will come to a decision. It is presided over by the Minister for Home Affairs in Northern Ireland, who happens to be the Prime Minister at the same time. A decision on policy is made. Who is the Minister responsible for the decision on policy? Is this a matter which I advise my constituents to take up with their Members in the Parliament of Northern Ireland? Or is it something which I myself must take up—with what Minister—here? Is it with the Secretary of State for Defence? Or is it with the Home Secretary?

The purpose of all this is to try to define where the ministerial responsibility is, because it must finally reside somewhere. To continue in the present state of confusion will cause the continuance of anxieties and fears and encourage a general feeling that everybody is passing the buck to everybody else. It may suit Ministers both here and at Stormont, it may even suit Opposition Leaders, to leave the question opaque.

Mr. James Callaghan (Cardiff, South-East)

The hon. and gallant Gentleman can leave me out of it.

Captain Orr

I am delighted to hear that.

Mr. Hugh D. Brown (Glasgow, Provan)

The hon. and gallant Gentleman is making a reasonable point. Before he leaves this illustration, will he tell us what he suggests should be referred to the Joint Security Committee? Was it the route of the funeral march? Was it the draping of the tricolour over the coffin? Was it the carrying of firearms? Or was it the use of firearms? He should be more specific.

Captain Orr

I will be more specific, but I was using the incident as an illustration. If the funeral had followed the route recommended by the police, a considerable amount of trouble could have been avoided. It is a miracle that there was not an explosion. It says a tremendous amount for the forbearance and everything else of the Protestant community that night that there was not the most appalling riot as a result of this.

My point is not to conduct an inquest into that event. Whatever one may think should have been done about the incident I am concerned to ask: who is the Minister responsible? The House should address itself very carefully and cogently to this question.

I come now to my hypothetical incident. What happens on the ground if it is believed that in a farmhouse or in a house in a street there is a cache of arms or that the farmhouse or house is being used for subversive activity? Presumably the information will come from the special branch in the Ulster Police. The information is presumably sent to the chief constable. He then, presumably, says to the Army, "I want this investigated", or "I want this house"—or "farmhouse"—" searched".

What happens on the ground? Is it done by the police? Do the police say that they will search and that they will ask for Army support? Is the Army support automatically forthcoming or is there a long procedure whereby the matter is referred to the G.O.C.? If the nature of the proposed operation is one that the G.O.C. thinks should be referred back to London, is it referred back to the Ministry of Defence? Or does it go through the Home Office? It is a question to ask, and people who are deeply concerned about the security situation must ask themselves what exactly are these channels and where they can put their finger upon Ministerial responsibility. I hope that my right hon. Friend will seek to define a little more carefully the area of responsibility.

Mr. John Gorst (Hendon, North)

Before my hon. and gallant Friend leaves that point, could he give us some guidance as to where he feels the responsibility should lie?

Captain Orr

That is a fair question, but it is one which I shall not answer because I think it is for the Government to decide which is the most effective place for Ministerial responsibility to lie. It is perfectly plain that Ministerial responsibility for the Army, when the Army is performing its customary r—le of the defence of the United Kingdom, must lie with the Ministry of Defence. That is obvious. The protection of the Northern Ireland frontier, which is a frontier of the United Kingdom, and prevention of internal subversion, I have no doubt, is a proper matter for the Ministry of Defence when the Army is used for that purpose.

The peculiarity of the situation is that the Army is deployed in support of the civil power, and we have the anomaly that the civil power happens to be the only subordinate Government within the United Kingdom. This is an anomalous situation. It is difficult. It strengthens the argument of some people who suggest that one would be better without the local Parliament, but I am not going into that kind of constitutional argument at present. All that I am saying is that the Ministerial responsibility for law and order upon which the safety and security of humble homes depends ought to be more clearly defined.

Let me come to one other area on which I think there ought to be some discussion as to where Ministerial responsibility lies. One hon. Member spoke about the Irish Republic. What happens in the Irish Republic is of immense importance in this situation. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs is the Minister responsible for dealing with the Irish Republic. But my hon. Friend the Minister of State for Defence and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department are responsible for the security of Northern Ireland. To what extent are they involved in dealings with the Irish Republic? To what extent, for example, is there any co-ordination of intelligence in the present situation?

It is a truism that the Irish Republic, willingly or not, possibly unwillingly so far as the present Irish Republican Government are concerned—the territory of what is supposed to be a friendly State—is used for the purpose of allowing the enemies of the United Kingdom, the enemies of authority within the United Kingdom, to group, to train, to arm and to escape if necessary. I do not think this is disputed on any side.

What troubles me is how the present Irish Government, whose good intentions one would accept, can be sustained or helped to see that their writ does run, which in fact it is perfectly plain throughout large areas of the Irish Republic it does not. This gives us very grave concern. What I want to know is whether or not my right hon. Friend the Home Secre- tary feels that in so far as intelligence and that kind of thing is concerned he has any responsibility for the matter.

I was going to deal with one other small point of Ministerial responsibility, but perhaps I have laboured it enough. The great problem—and this is why my hon. Friends and I have so far concentrated our discussion upon the security situation—is to explain to all decent people in Ulster—Protestant and Roman Catholic alike—how it is that with, I think, 14 battalions of the Army behind the civil power we cannot yet achieve order in our streets. There are immense difficulties. I join with hon. Members in saying that no Army could possibly have done as well as our Army has done in the present situation. I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) said, that in a four months tour of duty the Army are doing a job which they were never trained to do and which is an extraordinarily difficult one, and that we owe them all so much. But still, with all the difficulties, it is almost impossible to explain to public opinion why this situation must continue.

The hon. Member for Penistone— I come directly to something which he said —was arguing that there should be a new political initiative of some kind. He envisaged tripartite talks or something of that sort between the three Governments. I recognise the sincerity behind what he said, but I could not think of anything not only more futile but more dangerous in the present situation. What would such a conference, if it were called, set out to achieve?

Mr. John Mendelson

I never said anything about a conference. I said there should be a new political approach. It does not have to be a formal conference in the first place. Apart from that, the hon. and gallant Gentleman has quoted me correctly.

Captain Orr

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I think he suggested in a more delicate form what so many other people, particularly in the Press, are now suggesting, that there should be some kind of tripartite talks, whether formal or not.

Let me explain to the hon. Gentleman where this would be so dangerous. As soon as one promotes an idea that there might be, through inter-governmental talks, some new kind of political initiative, everybody, whatever his stance or attitude in these matters, looks for something to come out of the new political initiative. What is it? The member of the minority, if he is nationalist in outlook in Northern Ireland, looks immediately for some change in the present constitution of Northern Ireland, whatever it might be. The Unionist, on the other hand, looks for a great strengthening, in some way or another, of the attitude of the Southern Irish Government to bring terrorism to an end.

What conceivable changes could be made as a result of such talks? They could not recommend—the hon. Gentleman will go with me here—any change in the frontier. No derogation from the boundary of the United Kingdom could be recommended. I imagine that the hon. Gentleman will agree there, for he himself said that the frontier was not in dispute. There could be no change in that.

Mr. John Mendelson

The hon. and gallant Gentleman should not misquote me as saying that the frontier is not in dispute, for obviously it is. What I said was that I came back from Northern Ireland with the firm impression that the frontier was not the issue in 1968. Civil rights and an end to discrimination was the issue. That is all I said.

Captain Orr

Very well. If the hon. Gentleman suggests that, perhaps, tripartite discussions might produce, or at least leave open the option to suggest, a change in the frontier, what effect does he imagine that would have upon the opinion of the majority in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Mendelson

The hon. and gallant Gentleman is now going too far the other way. I carefully thought out the way in which I put the point. What he is now putting into my mouth is not what I said. I said that I regarded the situation as urgent enough for a new approach to discussions. There are all sorts of things on which the Governments could co-operate. It does not have to be a discussion which starts talking about the frontier. That is what I suggested, and I added that, if the Government were to take that matter up, they would immediately be attacked by the hon. and gallant Gentleman and his hon. Friends in the way he is now doing, and I urged them not to be frightened by that.

Captain Off

Very well. If such talks are not to deal with the frontier, what are they to deal with? This is the point. What possible political initiative could come out of it? The reform programme is on the Stormont statute book. I pray in aid the Guardian, which no one will suggest has been friendly to my party. On 8th February this year, the Guardian said: The struggle in Ulster has long ceased to be about civil rights. For some rioters a deep hatred of Northern Ireland's British connection may seem cause enough. Constant rioting, they believe, is the best way to bring about constitutional change against the will of the majority. They must be shown this is not a real option. In other words, the Guardian makes there the correct analysis, namely, that any constitutional change, any suggestion of constitutional change, or any suggestion of change at all, is in this situation totally counter-productive. It cannot help the Army in the difficult job which it has to do.

I put it to the hon. Gentleman that the whole idea of new political initiatives is not only not productive but wholly dangerous and non-productive. The less we hear of it, the better.

Much more important is the economic situation in Northern Ireland. At this moment—I shall not deploy the point at length because some of my hon. Friends wish to deal with it— unemployment runs at 7.9 per cent. It is not as high as it has been, for I remember unemployment of 9 and 10 per cent., but it is past the 40.,000 mark, and that we regard as dangerous in Ulster.

Clearly, there is a task to be done. But, whatever the financial incentives which my right hon. Friend may produce, whatever the financial incentives produced by the Northern Ireland Government, it cannot be done against a background of civil strife such as we have seen.

I am hopeful. I do not share so much of the despondency which is widely felt. I believe that the solution is, first, an end to talk about political initiatives. I believe that, with proper intelligence, with a proper determination and with a proper co-ordination of effort, the security forces will be able ultimately to lay by the heels the people who are causing the trouble. Those who are causing the trouble are not the ordinary rank-and-file Protestant or Roman Catholic on either side. Those who are causing the trouble are dangerous, evil people, whom the hon. Gentleman rightly condemns. They have to be stopped. As the Guardian said, the point now is that the Army must win.

We all deeply sympathise with the widow of Gunner Curtis, as we did with the widows of the policemen in Ulster who also lost their lives in what is the same battle. It is my hope that we can give some answer to Gunner Curtis's widow, that we can tell her that her loss was not in vain. I do not believe that it was in vain, for what our Army is doing, with our pride and our support, is to maintain the authority of democracy in a British city. If we fail in one British city, we shall fail in others. That is why Gunner Curtis did not die in vain.

6.17 p.m.

Mr. Kevin McNamara (Kingston upon Hull, North)

First, I take up the analysis presented by the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) of where Ministerial responsibility lies, the question whether it lies in this House, in the Security Committee and the Stormont Cabinet, or with the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley).

I remember how the situation arose, and I remember the start of the recent spate of troubles. There was on our side of the House at that time a great demand that the sole authority for security matters should rest here, with my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), then Home Secretary. It was put to us—we accepted it with reluctance—that if that were done the situation of the Stormont Government would become intolerable. So this unhappy dual relationship developed, unhappy in the sense that we are not always certain to whom, or about whom, we may ask Questions.

What is clear is that the logic of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's remarks, as I saw it, is that the responsibility must go either to his right hon. Friend here or solely to the Northern Ireland Security Committee and the Stormont Government. That latter we are not prepared to accept, because it would create again the situation which led to the recommendations of the Hunt Committee and to the situation in which it was felt by a minority, though a large minority, in a part of the United Kingdom that they could not have a fair hearing and that they could not be treated equitably. It was the desire to achieve that end which led to the arrangement which was made.

That must be maintained, because nothing would cause more consternation than to have it felt that the British Army was acting not on the recommendations or advice, or with the consultation of, the Stormont Parliament but under its direction. It would then seem to be losing its great strength in the present situation, no matter how difficult it is, which is that it is an impartial enforcer of law and order.

It is being subjected to tremendous strains and accusations, first by one side and then by another. We could have had a similar debate six or nine months ago when other people would have been making accusations about the British Army like those being made now. If it lost its reputation of being an impartial umpire, the situation would be very black, and it would lose that reputation in the eyes of the minority if it were felt to be directly under the control of the Stormont Government. Hon. Members might regret my saying that. They might regret the whole idea, and I regret it. I regret that that should be thought of a subordinate Parliament in the United Kingdom, but that is the situation. That is why we must keep control here.

Captain Orr

I was shaking my head just now, but not at what the hon. Gentleman said about the Stormont Government. I would have expected him to say it, and it would have been out of character if he had not. What I was shaking my head about was his statement that the Army is an umpire. When the Army is deployed in support of the civil power it is not umpire but an executive arm designed to carry out the law impartially.

Mr. McNamara

When the British Army went into Belfast, as when it went into Derry, it went in as an umpire to separate two warring factions, where the civil power had completely lost control of the situation, and the situation was far more dangerous than it is today. It went in to enforce law and order impartially between both sides, where it had patently broken down on both sides. That is why it went in, and that is the job it is doing. I should be very critical if I felt that it was being used in a partial way merely to act as a buttress to a particular political regime, no matter what was its colour. That is not the Army's role when it goes in to support the civil authorities.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman poured scorn on the possibility of tripartite discussions between the Government in Dublin, Her Majesty's Government and the Stormont Parliament, and he suggested all sorts of fears. He said that if any talks developed they would mean to the nationalists immediately some sort of constitutional change and if they did not get it they would be disappointed. To the unionists they would mean fear of a constitutional change, and perhaps if there were not stern measures against terrorists in the South they would immediately be disappointed, and from the disappointment would emerge more despair. I think that that is a fair summary of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's argument.

Captain Orr

Very good.

Mr. McNamara

On that sort of argument, we shall never advance out of the present slough of despond, because we shall always be afraid of upsetting first one person and then the other. We are in exactly the same situation with the extremists on both sides.

I well remember the attitudes of certain people when Captain Terence O'Neill met Sean Lemass. They had their two meetings and suddenly there burgeoned up hopes of an improvement in the situation. The improvements took place. Captain O'Neill engendered hopes with his policies of progress towards various reforms which he set in train. I criticised them because they were not fast enough, but there was an amelioration of the situation. But for a variety of reasons, including Burntollet, the reactionary attitudes of various members of the then Stormont Government, a harsh infliction of the law, and all sorts of blowings up of feelings, the clock was set back. But there was an important step forward by Captain O'Neill and Sean Lemass.

In my view, we can reach that kind of situation again. Neither side gained on the issues which it regarded as important. The two sides said, rather like employers and trade unions negotiating, "There will be things that we disagree on, but there is an area of interest," just as the trade unionist tells the employer, "You want your goods produced, and I want my wages." It is in that area of interest that a start can be made. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said that there can be no political initiative, that there is no political solution, and started to talk about economics, but I believe that part of the solution lies with discussions of the kind I have described.

Captain Orr

The hon. Gentleman gave negotiations between employers and trade unions as an example. He knows about not negotiating under duress.

Mr. McNamara

Neither Captain O'Neill nor Mr. Sean Lemass was negotiating under duress.

Captain Orr

I am talking about today.

Mr. McNamara

There are occasions when someone negotiates under duress. If Major Chichester-Clark and Mr. Lynch were negotiating today, they would both be under duress. I do not deny that they would be looking over their shoulders. But a start must be made somewhere. We cannot continue to be afraid all the time of people on either side.

It is in the economic sphere that the opportunity for negotiating arises. There is an enormous community of interest between people on both sides of the Border in terms of communications, industrial development and power development, which neither side can afford separately but which they can together afford. There is a unity of interest there, and something could be done. The problems west of the Bann in Northern Ireland are very similar to those in Gael Tacht in the west of Southern Ireland. A joint approach is needed, and it could be achieved. Communications immediately spring to mind. The troubles have affected the tourist industry on both sides of the Border in the past two years. Here is another area where there could be more joint action and help.

Captain Orr

There is obviously a great deal of good sense about what the hon. Gentleman says about economic co-operation. We all want to see this, but it is not what all the ballyhoo is about. When there is talk about political initiatives, this is not what people are talking about. I am certain that it is not what the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) was talking about.

Mr. McNamara

The hon. and gallant Gentleman will say what "political initiative" means to him, and I will say what it means to me. What it means to me is initially people saying, "At least there is an area where we have a common interest. Let us work from there. "This is tremendously important. This is the second point where I disagree with the hon. and gallant Gentleman, because there is a need for such discussion.

However, perhaps I may now turn to my own speech.

There is a general feeling that some of the searches which are being made for arms are being made on misleading information. The noble Lord gave his figures, and I do not dispute them, but a well-known device to cause trouble and chaos is to give false information knowing that the situation will arise in which people become angry and women start beating their dustbin lids. I therefore ask that we should be certain that the information which is given at any one time is proper information. That will always be a chancey business, but this has got to be seen.

I want next to raise the question of the rifle clubs. One of the attitudes of the minority is that when the trouble broke out and there were the riots and the burnings, one of the things which happened was that they had no arms with which to repel the incursions that were made into their ghettos. No matter whether that is right or wrong, that is how people think and what they say. It therefore seems to them reasonable to try to get for themselves arms and ammunition if they are to defend themselves in the future.

Again, I deplore the attitude that anybody should think like that in the United Kingdom, but that is the way the people think, all the more so because they see an extension of the number of rifles which are held officially and under licence in rifle clubs. It was, I think, my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East who wrote in this Sunday's Observer that irrespective of whether the rifle is legal, it is still lethal. When organisations like the Ulster Special Constabulary Old Comrades Association Rifle Club are being formed, one can understand the fears of the people. We want not only searches in certain areas for arms, but the taking-in of far more arms which are now lying around—over 70,000—and putting them, if necessary, into centralised armouries. Whenever the lads want to go out and have their rifle practice, they should produce a licence, draw out their rifles, say how many shots they are taking and come back and account for them.

There is a positive fear on the part of the minority that the number of arms is being increased legally and under licence. I know that statements have been made at the weekend that more careful thought will be given to this and the position will be looked at, but we not only want it to be looked at. There should be a curtailment, a gathering-in, the establishment of centralised armouries and proper control, so that it seems that the Government are acting impartially between one side and the other. This is important.

Having spoken about political initiatives between the three Governments, I think that there is still need for a lot of political initiative from the Stormont Government. I hope that the Home Secretary will say this to the Northern Ireland Prime Minister. It is legitimate and fair to say that many of the reforms, some of which were initiated by Captain O'Neill, all of which were accelerated and a great many of which were introduced as a result of the promptings of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East, have gone through. Unfortunately, however, to the majority of people they appear to exist merely on paper.

We can all think of examples of constitutions which have been perfect in form and content but which, in practice, have been completely the reverse. That is a feeling that exists. We want, therefore, to see not only the reforms implemented, but a more positive approach to the reforms and a more positive dealing with the problems. I realise that that is difficult to ensure once they are on paper and have been enacted, but, somehow, we must have a positive approach from the Stormont Government that this is happening.

In this relationship, we also must have a more positive relationship between the S.D.L.P. and the Unionist Government. I do not suggest that there should be a sudden conversion on both sides, but one of the major criticisms which was made of Northern Ireland was that all the opposition parties were fragmented; they were little boys with their own native groups of support in their own area and they were nominally nationalist or this, that or the other.

They have now built up, despite many diverse personalities, a strong, effective organisation in Stormont, working to-gether in a manner which has not been seen before in the history of the State. This is surely something which must be encouraged by the Stormont Government for the benefit of healthy politics in that country.

Therefore, the S.D.L.P. must be brought more and more into the confidence of the Stormont Government, in exactly the same way as an Opposition is brought within the confidence of Her Majesty's Government in this country—no more, no less.

Captain Orr

That might not meet with the approval of the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), who is trying to start a new party based on the Northern Ireland Labour Party.

Mr. McNamara

I suggest that the hon. and gallant Member should read what my right hon. Friend said before he accuses him of forming new parties. That would, perhaps, help. Whatever other differences I have with my right hon. Friend—and they are not many—I would not accuse him of starting a new party. For a start, his own position on the National Executive would then become intolerable.

My final point is the question of proportional representation. The Home Secretary will recall that I raised this with him at almost his first Question Time as Home Secretary. It is important to have a way of avoiding the problems of extremism where one can get away from constituencies where one person is outbidding another in the degree to which he is an Orangeman, a Nationalist, a Unionist, N.I.L.P., S.D.L.P., or anything else. We could have a situation in which the bulk of people in a constituency, by the exercise of preferences, could plug for a moderate position.

Normally, I would not plead for proportional representation, but in a situation such as exists in Northern Ireland, in which there is a bitter difference between the parties which exists on religious, almost racial, grounds, there is a way of trying to overcome it by getting into the middle course. I think that this could be done on multi-Member constituencies elected on a proportional representation basis.

That would be an opportunity for the silent majority, to whom Captain O'Neill called in vain, to the moderates on both sides, who, not sinking their differences, not denying their history and heritage, of which each side is legitimately proud, could see a situation in which they could vote and apportion their votes in such a way as to get into the Stormont Parliament a group of people who were not continuously looking over their shoulders to preserve their own political position.

Mr. Chichester-Clark

The hon. Member said that he wanted to see a more positive approach to the reforms. He must tell us what he means by that, otherwise it will sound very much like political nit-picking. Will he tell us exactly what he means and give examples? The most positive step which he could take this afternoon would be to make clear that the reforms are through, that they exist and that there is no excuse now, if ever there were, for the kind of violence that we are seeing.

Mr. McNamara

The hon. Gentleman wants an example. I will give him a few. First, I would like a positive undertaking that the Ulster Defence Regiment will not suddenly be swamped out of all proportion with recruits so as no longer to reflect the balance in the community, which was an undertaking given when the Bill was introduced—

Mr. Chichester-Clark

That has nothing to do with Stormont.

Mr. McNamara

Granted, but the hon. Gentleman is asking me for examples. There is one. My second concerns the housing authority. I want to see it pushed forward positively. It took nearly three years to get it off the ground. I want to see it working. I want to see powers taken from local authorities and concentrated on the housing authority. Then I want to see on such bodies as the housing authority and the police authority a far better representation of the minority groups. In that connection, people appointed to represent minorities should no longer be termed, as they were in the old days, "Castle Catholics". I would like to see schemes for local government reform pushed forward quicker—

Mr. Chichester-Clark

That is not the answer.

Mr. McNamara

The hon. Gentleman wants to know how reforms should be positively implemented. They exist on paper. I want to see them pushed ahead. I want to see elections on the basis of one man, one vote. A whole lot of reforms exist on paper. We want to see them forced through. We fear that people like the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) will think that people will be content with reforms put down on paper, and that they will transform the situation. They will not. A degree of political initiative must come from the Unionists in Northern Ireland, because they are the people in power.

6.41 p.m.

Rev. Ian Paisley (Antrim, North)

I think that I speak for hon. Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies on both sides of the House when I say that we meet under the dark shadow of tragedy. I want to preface my remarks by recording the sympathy of the people whom I represent with those who have suffered in the recent outbreak of violence in the City of Belfast. Those of us who have had the unpleasant task of taking back information to the families whose loved ones will never return feel deeply about these matters, and I am sure that I express the concern and sympathy of all hon. Members for those innocent victims who have been gunned down in our city.

I want to congratulate the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) on his maiden speech. As he represents a very large constituency in the county of Antrim, part of which I represent, I want also to congratulate him on his contribution.

The hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt), with whom I have often crossed swords in another place, has made a number of complaints about the treatment meted out by the Northern Ireland Government to certain sections of the community. They are complaints which are rife on this side of the water. However, it is clear that, on investigation, many statements which have been made about discrimination have not proved to be true.

In that connection, let me refer the House to the Report of the Commissioner of Complaints in Northern Ireland, the appointment of whom was one of the reform measures about which we have heard today. That report covers the period from 22nd December, 1969, to 16th October, 1970, and the Commissioner records that 970 complaints were sent to him for investigation. I remind hon. Members that the Commissioner is not the Ombudsman. He does not deal with complaints involving parliamentary matters but with those concerned with local government, and there is no doubt that more criticism about discrimination has been levelled at local government than anywhere else. It is on local government that much of the opposition and criticism has been based.

The Commissioner of Complaints received 970 complaints, and he records in his report: 307 of these were not in the jurisdiction of the Commissioner, which left a total of 663 to be investigated. But of these 970, only 74 alleged discrimination on religious grounds. I think that hon. Members should take note of those figures.

There are Protestant people in the North of Ireland who feel that they have been discriminated against. The complaints are not confined to Roman Catholics. A recent case in Dungannon was taken to the High Court. It concerned a Protestant man who felt that he had been discriminated against by a local authority.

Of the 74 complaints out of a total of 970, 21 were not in the jurisdiction of the Commissioner at all. That left him with 53 to investigate fully. Of those 53 cases, 10 have now been investigated, and the Commissioner has found that there was no basis for the charge that there had been religious discrimination. We need to get these accusations of religious discrimination into their proper perspective. In spite of all the charges and counter-charges, the person appointed to deal specifically with this bone of contention in our community has discovered that there is nothing like as much discrimination as was thought when his Department was set up.

The hon. Member for Belfast, West also spoke of the housing conditions of the Roman Catholic people. However, I am sure that the former Home Secretary will agree that, when he was in the City of Belfast, he saw Protestant communities living in very poor housing. One hon. Member on the benches opposite spoke of Captain Terence O'Neill. It so happens that his constituency is included in the constituency of Antrim, North which I have the honour to represent in this House and which, indeed, I also represent in another place. Captain O'Neill lived near to the village of Ahoghill where there are 90 houses which are condemned as being unfit for human habitation and, in all, a total of 200 which are very near to that state. I am surprised that some hon. Members look upon the former Prime Minister of Northern Ireland as an apostle of progress. Certainly there was no progress in his own constituency.

In my maiden speech in this House, I made a promise to represent both sections of my community. A member of the hon. Gentleman's Social Democratic Labour Party in another place has acknowledged that in constituency work I represent thoroughly all sections of the community. I intend to carry on that programme, regardless of criticisms which may be levelled against me. It is important that all hon. Members know some of the facts of the situation in our city and in our land.

I do not believe that the root cause of the trouble in Northern Ireland is social. I do not believe that it is because of housing that these riots have taken place. The Ballymurphy estate is a post-war estate and the people there were given good houses, and yet we have had some of the worst rioting on the Ballymurphy estate, as on the New Barnsley estate, which is also an estate of new houses with proper amenities and the other things necessary to good housing. It is not true that there will be rioting only in areas of poor housing, because we have had serious rioting in areas of post-war housing.

I do not believe that the root cause of the trouble is unemployment, although I concede that if a person is unemployed, he is at a loose end, and there is nothing more demoralising for a man than to be unemployed. I believe, too, that the Stormont Government have never regarded it as their duty to seek full employment for the people of Northern Ireland. That is a view which I have pushed in another place. In this day in the twentieth century, it is the duty of a Government to seek employment for their people. But I do not believe that unemployment is the root cause. When at night I look over the court cases which are reported, I find that most of the people taking part in the riots are employed. That is a fact which cannot be refuted.

The real cause of the trouble in Northern Ireland is the great divide between the religious communities. Because of history, the Roman Catholic people think that their future and their welfare is in an all-Ireland Republic, joining a republic which at the moment has written into its constitution a special place for the Roman Catholic Church. The Protestant people of Northern Ireland—not all of them, let it be said, because there are a few who are not and do not call themselves Unionists—feel that their future is with Great Britain and the Union. Consequently, there is a great divide which is built primarily upon the religious affiliations of the members of each denomination.

It is not true that Roman Catholic and Protestant neighbours are sharpening their knives and preparing to gun one another down. Large sections of the community, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, are living in perfect peace. I can point to my own constituency, and anyone who knows the geography of North Antrim knows that the north end, the Glens of Antrim, is strongly nationalistic and strongly republican orientated, and yet in that area, where there is a strong Protestant majority, people live in peace and harmony together. I do not believe that a person must sacrifice his religious principles in order to live as a neighbour with someone who has directly the opposite attitude. I believe that Protestants and Roman Catholics can live together.

However, there is a duty inherent on the Northern Ireland Government—and I emphasise that—to see that justice is done and is seen to be done. There are many Protestant people who do not think that they have had justice done to them, and there are Roman Catholic people who do not think that they have had justice done to them. Until the Northern Ireland Government can establish the right of a man not to be prosecuted because of his religious or political affiliations, but solely on the ground of being a law breaker, there cannot be any real peace in Northern Ireland. That is the basis for any democratic society.

The hon. Member for Belfast, West referred to the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. McManus). Those who feel as I feel believe that the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone got his just deserts, just as when I was imprisoned twice the hon. Member for Belfast, West said, "Paisley deserves it; keep him in as long as you can". Let it be made perfectly clear that this was not the first charge brought against the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone. He had already had a suspended sentence and the magistrate in this case had no option but to send him to prison. Whether a man is a Member of Parliament, a Protestant or a Roman Catholic, if he breaks the law, he deserves to suffer the full rigours of the law.

But there are those who believe that because of the present situation, what has been termed in Northern Ireland "No Go Areas", a section of the community completely escapes the rigours of the law, and it is important that these things are noted in the debate. It is the foundation of a settlement in Northern Ireland that justice is done and is seen to be done. Until that is established in the land, there can be no firm basis for that lasting peace which every right hon. and hon. Gentleman wants to see.

The hon. Member for Belfast, West said that the slogan of my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South was that this was a fight with the I.R.A. I remind the House that the General Officer Com- manding the troops in Northern Ireland, not my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South, was the first man to make that statement. He is the man on the ground, the army chief who knows more about the situation than any hon. Member. It was he who said that this was a fight with the Irish Republican Army. There is no doubt that such a fight is in progress.

It should also be said that the Cameron Report casts strictures upon and condemned the hon. Member for Belfast, West. I do not hold any brief for the Cameron Report, because I think that it should have been the result of a public inquiry based on sworn statements, but no oaths were taken, there was no room for cross-examination, the witnesses could make statements without there being any possibility of those statements being refuted. That sort of inquiry is useless in this situation. I approved the Scarman Tribunal which was a public tribunal at which sworn evidence was given, where oaths were taken and where witnesses were subject to cross-examination. I do not understand the logic of what the hon. Member for Belfast, West had to say in praise of the Cameron Report which rigorously condemned him.

Mr. Fitt

It was a passing reference.

Rev. Ian Paisley

If the hon. Gentleman reads HANSARD, he will see that he praised Lord Cameron. His words are reported in HANSARD which never lies, which always tells the truth, and which is infallible.

The hon. Member for Kidderminster—

Mr. McNamara

Kingston-upon-Hull, North.

Rev. lain Paisley

I apologise to the hon. Member for Kidderminster, whoever he is. The hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) talked about co-operation between the Government of the North of Ireland and the Government of the Republic. One would have thought that there was absolutely no co-operation between the Government of the North and the Government of the South. This is not true because in the tourist industry there is the closest possible relationship—

Mr. Fitt

You never go there.

Rev. Ian Paisley

It would not be good for my health, as the hon. Member knows. If I went there he would be the very first person to condemn me, so I cannot win on that score. There is the closest possible relationship between the tourist boards on both sides of the Border. They operate joint enterprises. It is also true that there is a great electric scheme going on under which both governments will be in partnership for the supply of light if not of heat in the Northern Ireland situation. There are many other schemes. I remember when the railways of Northern Ireland were being reorganised the Northern Ireland Government negotiated with the Government of the South about the railway line from Dublin to Belfast.

It is wrong to suggest that there is no relationship at all. The people whom I represent and whose views I put to this House would not want any political deal on the constitutional position of Northern Ireland. Even the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) said that there were a million Protestants who had legitimate fears about the position which would arise if there was to be a Northern Ireland Republic. There is no doubt that there are those in the North of Ireland who are determined, come what may, to remain part and parcel of the United Kingdom. Those are the people, the vast majority of people, who would feel, if there were anything that reopened talks on partition, they would feel rightly that they were being betrayed.

The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North also mentioned the meeting between Captain Terence O'Neill and Sean Lemass. That did not take place to discuss a matter of mutual concern between Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. It took place so that Captain O'Neill could say that Sean Lemass now recognises the constitution of Northern Ireland. We were told that this was the way in which the Premier of the Republic recognised our constitution. Sean Lemass, immediately he got over the Border into his own territory, made a statement in which he said, "I have visited the North of Ireland but I will never recognise the constitution of Northern Ireland". Let us be quite clear about that.

There was an uproar about that meeting. Had members of Captain O'Neill's party been with him, it would have been a different matter but that was something he did on his own. He did not trust the members of his Cabinet because he never informed them until Sean Lemass was in Stormont. He said on that occasion that he could not trust the members of his Cabinet because they could have revealed the visit to the Press and there would have been a great protest about it.

It is wrong to say that this meeting between Sean Lemass and Captain O'Neill was the beginning of a new season, because Captain O'Neill's policy concerning Northern Ireland is entirely divorced from the policy of the vast majority of Unionists. He has recently suggested himself as a suitable candidate when De Valera dies—to be President of the Irish Republic! That sort of philosophy will not be accepted by the majority of Unionists in Northern Ireland.

How will this all end? What is the solution to the problem? Those of us who live in the City of Belfast. who go about the country and take part in the political life of Northern Ireland, are aware of many things. The first is that the economic situation of Northern Ireland can no longer stand any more rioting and anarchy. It would be in the best interests of all sections of the community for this violence to cease. I should like to put it on record that I have always condemned violence, whether it comes from the so-called U.V.F. or from different divisions of the I.R.A. Violence has to be condemned and I have always unreservedly condemned it, as I do so again in this House.

No man in Northern Ireland has the right, no matter what his grievance, to take part in subversive activities, and any man who does so does not have the interests of Northern Ireland at heart. Our economic position is serious. There is the position of our great shipyard, of Short Bros., and of Rolls-Royce. More people will be declared redundant and the unemployment figure, which is already a tragedy, will swell out of all proportion. It would be in the interests of every section of the community if violence and anarchy came to a full stop in Northern Ireland.

Roman Catholice members of the community have come to me and have said that in their community they are living in a state of terror. I had a Roman Catholic man with me the other day. He said that certain members of the Republican movement came to his home and asked him, "Why are you not out in the street? Why are you not attacking the troops, throwing stones?" He said, "I do not take part in that sort of action." That man had to leave his home and to seek shelter elsewhere. There are people today who are living in terror from the threats of the Irish Republican Army.

Let me illustrate this. Three days ago a man parked his car at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, which is adjacent to the Falls Road area represented by the hon. Member for Belfast, West. His car was stolen. He went to the police who said, "We cannot go into the side streets of this area. You had better go and look for your car." He looked for his car and found it. He had a duplicate key so he opened the door to drive his car off. Four men appeared at the car and asked, "What are you doing? "He said, "This is my car, it has been stolen. "They said, "If you drive that car we will burn it. You give us £20 and you can have your car again."

He went to the police station again and told the police. The police said, "In the interests of your car you would be better paying the £20 to get it back." These are facts. These things are happening in Northern Ireland. There are areas of the country which are being terrorised.

What is the answer? First it is that justice must be done and must be seen to be done. That is a firm bedrock for any democratic society. This is very important because those who have opposed the Unionist Party—I stand as such an opponent, I suppose that I am one of the most severe critics of the Unionist Party and I am looked upon as a danger to the Unionist Party—have suffered at the hands of the Establishment. But, irrespective of that, justice must be done and it must be seen to be done. The gunmen must be brought to trial, and men who parade in the uniform of the I.R.A. must be arrested and must stand trial.

I want to put on record that, strange to say, I am opposed to internment. I do not think that it is the answer to the problem. I believe there is enough law in Northern Ireland to arrest these men and put them on trial and have them properly dealt with by the court. The very basis of British democracy is that a man is innocent until he is proved guilty. I believe that these men should stand trial, and it seems that there is plenty of evidence to get a verdict against them. If the Northern Ireland Government had the power of internment they would be working on a 50-50 basis. They would say, "We will put that man away because he is a Roman Catholic, we will put that man away because he is an Orangeman. He is a Free Presbyterian, so we will remove him as quickly as possible". That is not the way to intern people. I am therefore against internment. Let these men stand trial and be condemned and be isolated from the other members of the community. This is the way forward.

I emphatically agree with many things said by Ulster Members about responsibility. The 1920 Act makes it clear that the Northern Ireland Government are responsible for law and order in the Province. This responsibility has been taken away. It was not taken away by amending legislation. I feel that there should have been amending legislation so that we might know where the authority lay. But, as far as the practicalities go, questions are being asked about who are responsible for the movements of the British Army.

It would be absolutely wrong for this House to think that criticism of the British Army and its attitude came only from the Roman Catholic sector of the community. It has come also from the Protestant section. It is no use sweeping things under the carpet; it is better that they should come out into the open. There are members of the Protestant community who have laid their complaints legitimately with the proper authorities and they are being investigated.

I have sought to put forward a viewpoint which perhaps has not been put forward in the House before, and I trust that I have made a useful contribution to the debate. I say as sincerely as I can, "Let the rioting and anarchy in Northern Ireland cease. Let the gunmen be brought to trial. Let us get economic prosperity and achieve something for the betterment of every right-thinking member in our Province".

7.14 p.m.

Mr. James Callaghan (Cardiff, South-East)

This is traditionally a back benchers' day, but I hope that the House will allow me a few minutes in which to put one or two views.

The debate has been marked by an absence of recrimination and of personal attack. If we can show this degree of generosity to each other in this House, with the widely differing views which we hold, perhaps we can hope that our example will spread elsewhere; for if there is one thing which Northern Ireland needs it is generosity and tolerance if the people there are to escape from the all-enveloping chasm of fear into which they have fallen.

I spoke after the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) made his maiden speech, and I said that I welcomed his election to the House. Some people thought that my welcome to him was perhaps slightly curious, but I did not mistake my man. I do welcome the hon. Gentleman's election to the House, because I believe that much of what he said today, especially in the last part of his speech, was absolutely true. We all share his condemnation of the gunman and his desire that people should be brought to trial. I am also very close to him in a number of the things he said about the political situation and the social and economic conditions of the people.

There are other differences, but these are important issues and in the few minutes of my speech I do not want to discuss politics or partition or the social condition of the people. I want to discuss two problems: the Army, and the very penetrating questions put by the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr). However, before doing so, it is proper that I should congratulate the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) on inaugurating this useful and helpful debate. Ministers and others sometimes tend to think that debates on delicate situations do not help, but I am sure that the Home Secretary will have no complaint about this debate. The hon. Gentleman put his case very fairly, and I look forward to hearing him speak again on this topic.

I come straight to the question of the Army. In a phrase which I used but which was put to me originally by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt), the Army went to Northern Ireland as "the friends of all the people". My hon. Friend suggested that phrase to me over the telephone. I picked it up, and I hereby publicly acknowledge that. The Army went there, not as umpires, but to try to ensure that if there were differences between the communities, even-handed justice was dealt out on a basis of impartiality between every citizen, whoever he was. It was clearly seen from the beginning—and this was one of the reasons why I was so reluctant to get into this situation with the British Army—that, although we all said with hope that they would stay for only a few days, we believed in our hearts that they would be there for a long time. We could see this situation coming.

There is no future for the British Army in this situation. This is the problem to which the House must direct its attention. I say without denigrating members of the British Army that they are not policemen. They have not been trained as policemen. They are not criminal investigators. They are a peace-keeping force which is entirely removed from the British concept of how a police force operates. I believe that the greatest problem of the Home Secretary and the Government is how to devise a force or a service which will command the assent of the people of Northern Ireland, yet will have sufficient strength and sufficiently good information to be able to arrest the gunmen, charge them, bring them to trial and, if they are guilty, ensure that they are put away. That is the problem and I wish to make a suggestion later about it.

On occasions hon. Members opposite have complained that the Army has not been sent in to restore what they call law and order in particular areas which are predominantly Catholic. That is not a fair criticism, because the situation existed before the Army went to Northern Ireland. There were "no-go arears" which the R.U.C. did not penetrate before the Army reached there. No doubt the forces could march with fixed bayonets through the streets, but to ask them to attempt to restore the situation is asking too much of them. That is why hon. Members opposite who represent constituencies in Northern Ireland must ask themselves why the situation had developed in these areas long before the Army was asked to take over in them.

We know the history of the R.U.C. the great majority of the R.U.C. wished to be policemen. They do not have any particular political allegiance—some have, we know, and they have been referred to here this afternoon—but the great majority, in my humble view, want to do their job as policemen do. It is a difficult situation in which to restore their morale, to restore their self-confidence and, of course, as long as we hark back—I recognise the difficulty to which the hon. Member for Belfast, West referred—to the situation which certainly arose in 1969 —and no one can deny it—it is easy for anybody to say, "Look, the force has not changed. They are the same people." I want to make a suggestion about that a little later, but I want to say two more things about the Army.

First of all, it is true, as the hon. Member for Antrim, North said, that complaints have come from all sections of the population, but I think that both my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West and the hon. Member for Antrim, North have the responsibility to say to their constituents, "What are these chaps to do? What is the nature of the task they are being given to do?" If there is an allegation that arms are to be found concealed in a house, it may be that they misjudge the situation, but, goodness knows, if they are to look for the arms in a house, how can they possibly search the house unless they take up the floorboards and move the furniture about and possibly leave the house in some disorder? What criticism would the Army be up against if they did not search the house? That is why I say that it is a terrible dilemma, especially for these boys, these young men in the Army. Most policemen who engage in this sort of task are mature men, with families of their own, who know all about household affairs and responsibilities, but these are young boys, 19 or 20 years of age, whom we are having to send into the houses. So I say to the hon. Member for Antrim, North and my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West—

Mr. Stanley Orme (Salford, West)

I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend, but he was referring to the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt), and surely the point also applies to the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) and his hon. Friends?

Mr. Callaghan

I dare say so. I was not going through all 12 of them. But those two hon. Members I mentioned referred specifically to complaints against the British Army, and I do beg of them that they explain to their constituents what are the difficulties of the British Army in a situation like this today.

That is the first point, and the second point, and the last I want to make about the Army before I move on to the question of Ministerial responsibility, is this: short-term stationing of units, though very desirable, cannot possibly lead to a profound knowledge of the back streets of Belfast, and a whole series of commanding officers going in at relatively short notice cannot possibly have all that information which other people who have been there a long time have. I am sure that they are briefed before they go, but if there is a way of getting a continuation of command then I think it would be extremely helpful in ensuring that misleading information is not acted upon, or that the way in which they behave towards civilians going about their lawful occasions is looked at perhaps a little differently.

That is all I want to say about that matter—

Mr. Jeffrey Archer (Louth)

Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree that one of the most tragic things which has happened in the last few weeks is the joining of the young in this violence? It is not the job of the Army to defend themselves against young children throwing things. The job of the Army is to be soldiers.

Mr. Callaghan

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I think it is very difficult even for policemen to handle this sort of situation, but it is even more difficult for soldiers armed with rifles and shields, and all the rest of it. It is very hard for a group of armed, disciplined men.

I have one more word about the police. I do not think the Police Authority, in which I reposed a lot of hope, has exerted itself sufficiently yet. I do not want to be egotistical about this, but the Government of Northern Irlenad agreed on the basis of the Hunt Committee's Report that the direct responsibility of the police to a political Minister should be removed. I believe that to have been a step in the right direction. They introduced the Police Authority on the same lines as those which we have in this country. It was to be jointly made up of people from both communities.

That Police Authority ought to be doing the job, but I have not seen much evidence of it yet. I do not wish to criticise them unduly, but I must say I wonder how far they are fully acquainted with the responsibility they could exert in these matters, and I do hope that the Home Secretary, in his discussions with the Northern Ireland Minister of Home Affairs, who is, of course, the Prime Minister, will take up this point, because I believe that it could remove some of the suspicions which the minority felt. The police were not to do as they had done for 50 years, acting directly responsible to the Minister of Home Affairs, a politician. They were to be responsible to the Police Authority, which is drawn from both communities. I do emphasise that point.

A positive suggestion which I want to make, and which I believe would not be unwelcome to the Home Secretary, whom I certainly do not unduly criticise in these matters, is that we look again at the position of British police officers going to Northern Ireland. I raise this because I see in one of the newspapers this morning that the Police Federation is saying that this would be a very bad thing and would create difficulties. I want to say to the federation that I believe that, in certain circumstances, despite the undertakings which were given in the past, this could be a very great help. I am not referring to uniformed policement going to Northern Ireland. What I am referring to is the prospect of getting people who are well versed in the arts of criminal detection and who could make inroads into the gangsters—gangsters, no doubt, with political opinions, but gangster they are. They have political opinions; I know that; but they are gangsters in their methods.

The police could make inroads into this group. I hope that it is not as big as the hon. Member for Antrim, South suggested. Indeed, I think there is a danger of overplaying their brilliance. I must say that I have seen some pretty odd examples of that brilliance from time to time. They are not as brilliant as all that. However, I feel that if we could get a number of British police officers to go, it would be helpful. It should he done carefully, because we must not destroy the morale of the R.U.C., who have their own feelings about people coming over from this side of the Irish Channel and telling them how to run things. Nevertheless, the R.U.C. is by no means strong enough yet, and its establishment of 5,000 ought to be built up more quickly than it is being built up.

I am not saying anything which I have not said before. I said it two or three years ago. In these circumstances there is a case for the R.U.C. to understand the basis on which this is being done—seeking a skilled British team to go as a unit from this side of the water to try to detect what is happening at the present time to bring some people who are using guns and inciting others to use violence and explosives to justice.

That is all I wish to say about that. One final word on the question of Ministerial responsibility. The hon. and gallant Member for Down, South asked all the right questions. They must have concerned the Home Secretary, as they certainly concerned me when I had responsibility for these things. This is a constitutional cat's cradle. There is no doubt about that. It is not designed very clearly, but it can work. If I may say so, the Labour Government had a perfectly good working arrangement and I believe it would work again. There has to be a Minister in the lead. He has to be the conductor of the orchestra. He does not have to play all the instruments, but he has to be constantly there watching over the instruments, seeing each comes in at the right time, encouraging one, keeping others quieter, and generally making certain that the beat is observed. This can be done by co-operation between the British Government and the Northern Ireland Government, and I believe it is the best way of doing it.

If I may say so without disrespect, it is right that the Home Secretary should be in the lead, as the civilian authority, after full consultation, and he should clearly be seen to be in the lead. In this country we give the Ministry of Defence and the soldiers civilian guidance which is needed in handling what is, essentially, a civilian situation with military overtones. I am sure that that is what the Home Secretary is trying to do.

Likewise, I believe that it can be worked out in conjunction with the Northern Ireland Government and with the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. I have no doubt that it can be done, but it is important that the Home Secretary should be clearly seen to be in the lead on these matters.

With the forbearance of my colleagues in the last Government—they did have forbearance with me—this position was seen to be pretty clear. I hope that it is the case now, and I hope that it can be done by continued co-operation, but what I found in Northern Ireland time after time was that, if things were allowed to go for a week, the channels of communication silted up. One painfully opened them up and established communication, and within a week the whole thing had gone sour—unless one kept at it whole time. This is a job which demands consistent attack and effort if we are to keep all the instruments in the orchestra in play, to ensure that we are nearer to the kind of peace-keeping which has been spoken about on all sides this afternoon.

I hope that this will not be a sour note on which to end; it is meant to be realistic, not sour. I understand what all hon. Members mean when they talk of democracy and the need to preserve democratic ways. But it is the essence of a democracy that one should be able to change one's Government, and one of the difficulties about Northern Ireland is that, although theoretically one can change one's Government, because of the frozen nature of the situation, there has not been anything but one Government for the last fifty years.

It was in those circumstances that I thought that it was imperative, as a short-term measure, to try to erect a number of instruments which were removed from, although accountable to, the Government, which could be regarded as at any rate approaching the democratic ideal. But I do not believe that we can claim that there will be full democracy in Ulster until there is a capability of having an alternative Government—

Captain Orr

rose—

Mr. Callaghan

The hon. and gallant Member need not get all excited about it. This is a simple statement of fact, and it is one of the things which militates against the present situation being resolved. I have said all that I wanted to say and I have trespassed for a moment on the political front. With that, I thank the House, and resume my seat.