HC Deb 05 July 1973 vol 859 cc864-79

Amendment made: No. 28, in page 33. line 21, at end insert—

"S.I. 1972 No. 1632 (N.I. 15) The Detention of Terrorists (Northern Ireland) Order 1972. The whole Order".
[Mr. van Straubenzee.]

10.57 p.m.

Mr. van Straubenzee

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

The Bill falls into three distinct parts—the first dealing with the administration of justice, the second with what I have termed an extra-judicial process, and the third with other measures which are necessary in the emergency which faces us.

The first, and in some ways the most important, thing to be said about all these parts of the Bill is that, subject to the provisions of the Bill and to certain exceptions, they are subject to review by the United Kingdom Parliament at intervals of not more than one year. This is a substantial advance.

As I have readily conceded throughout all stages of the Bill, many of the changes brought about by the Bill may fairly be described as fundamental changes in the administration of justice. They appeared in the Bill only after the recommendations of the distinguished persons who comprised the Diplock Commission.

It is true that the purpose of the changes in the administration of justice is to ensure that the guilty are convicted. I hope that the House will agree that this is necessary in any society if law and order are to be maintained. If the guilty are allowed to escape, law and order break down and the machinery of justice is brought into contempt. In current circumstances in Northern Ireland the changes need to be fairly drastic in nature, because intimidation already has a strong hold, but they are temporary changes, I trust, and—most important of all—I do not believe that the Bill will in any way increase the risk of the innocent being convicted.

I have made clear that I do not like the extra-judicial process of detention, but I believe it to be essential. Having accepted the need for it, I hope I can impress upon the House that the Government have attempted to build in as many safeguards as possible. The Bill extends the safeguards already provided in the Detention of Terrorists Order, which is the present legislative base for this action. The cases of detainees will now come up for automatic review by a commissioner, and anyone who appeals to the appeal tribunal will be entitled to be present at the hearing of his appeal.

Part III of the Bill provides the security forces with powers of arrest and search, and I have argued that these, too, are essential. It lists offences, and the need for this arises out of the special situation with which we are faced in Northern Ireland. No one will welcome the provisions. We would recognise them to be unacceptable in normal times, but it is beyond doubt that normal times do not exist in Northern Ireland. The Army and the RUC are dealing with some of the most difficult security problems which have ever occurred in these islands. Not only they but the great majority of the people of Northern Ireland who want no part of violence—and the great majority want no part of it—need to be supported by these measures which are necessary for dealing with crime and disorder.

The Government are satisfied that the Bill contains the minimum powers which are necessary, and they are anxious that none of them should stay in effect for longer than is necessary. The House will find that as soon as the situation permits of any reduction in the number of these powers the Government have not closed their minds to what in Committee I described as the switching-off procedure. But we must look for some return to normality in order to enable us to take those steps.

We are debating, and I hope we shall agree to, the Third Reading of this Bill in the same week in which the House gave a Third Reading to the constitution Bill. I should like to think, but it is unrealistic, that the constitution Bill would of itself secure that return to normality which we all desire to see in Northern Ireland. To enable the constitution proposals to have a chance to work it is essential to stamp out terrorism. and that is the purpose of this Bill. If the constitutional proposals are to have a fair chance to work—and one of the hopes in Northern Ireland is that demonstrably the vast majority of people there want them to have a chance—the terrorists cannot be allowed to continue their campaign of terror. That is why we in this House are being invited to act. I say "we" advisedly because law and order are matters which this House decided earlier in the week in the constitution Bill should be reserved to this Parliament.

But if we are to accept these responsibilities we must meet our obligations, even though they are unpalatable. Some of them are unpalatable, but they are all clear and they are set out in the Bill, to which I invite the House to give a Third Reading.

11.4 p.m.

Mr. Merlyn Rees

It is not so long since we started out on this Bill, and the date and timing of our finish surprise me. I had thought we would go a lot longer, but that is the way of Bills. We have had long discussions quite rightly, and, because I am in danger of repeating myself and because there are important matters afoot in Northern Ireland, I shall be brief.

As the Minister said, this is the week of the White Paper approach developing into the constitution Bill. The Government, know the support they have had in general for that approach. On the Second Reading of this Bill I said that, despite that, we would examine this Bill critically. That we have done. We have had very limited success with the Government. I have had information today from the Minister that I believe should be published about instructions to the RUC and the Army for dealing with young people. But, as important as that is, we have not achieved very much by our amendments and discussions in Committee.

Our criticisms do not ignore the realities of Northern Ireland. It is impossible for anyone who knows anything about Northern Ireland to ignore the facts of life there. Any Government have the right to deal with bombing and killing. No Government could sit back while that was happening. But they have the duty to keep within the rule of law. That is why the Opposition have felt that the Government would have done better to start on the basis of a Bill of Rights. An article in the Criminal Law Review states this point this week on page 408, where it says: The creation and exercise of emergency powers should comply with international law. It goes on to speak of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights. Derogation from these would have been the correct step.

Allowing the Government the right to act is not the same as agreeing to the methods they have suggested. We have made clear our criticisms. But we have just turned one of those corners that happen in Irish politics, which I imagine will prove to be a major corner, the elections of last week to the Assembly, whether successful or not, and we are to witness power sharing and all-Ireland institutions, whatever they might be.

Last Thursday, polling day, I took the opportunity to go into the Maze, Long Kesh, where there are about 1,200 people. Maybe in terms of what we are talking about the number of political detainees, or people sentenced for crimes which they claim were committed in furtherance of their political aims, is nearer 1,100. There are many people in what is in effect a concentration camp in a part of the United Kingdom, for reasons that we all fully understand. They are still there, and the shooting and the killing are to continue. What we must find is the political means whereby they will end.

I spoke last week to the "leaders" in the various compounds. I had half an hour with Mr. Gusty Spence, and I spoke to Mr. McGuire, Mr. McKee and Mr. McCann, who was in one of the new compounds. For the rest of the day, as I visited polling booths, I remembered my visit. I know that the Government think about that kind of thing, and the Opposition, as the alternative Government, think about it. Long Kesh still remains and the shooting and the killing remain. While they go on, the political initiative to which we have all set our hands stands much more chance of not succeeding.

The matter we have been discussing will come before us again. It is easy to be wise after the event, but last week I could not help recalling that I said during the passage of the Immigration Bill that it contained grave deficiencies, and that we would come back to it again and again.

We in the United Kingdom still have to deal with the problem of security, which is wrapped up with political developments in Northern Ireland. My advice to my hon. Friends is that, dissatisfied as we are with the Bill, we should not vote against the Government. There is a grave emergency in Northern Ireland, and we must remember that there are real problems, which do not just arise out of the Bill.

The House will be discussing these matters again.

11.10 p.m.

Mr. McMaster

I do not wish to detain the House long at the end of a long Report stage but this is an important and fundamental Bill. It does something which gives no pleasure to myself and to my hon. Friends representing the Unionist side in this House. However, as the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) said, we must look for a solution to the problems of Northern Ireland.

I do not know that I can go all the way with the hon. Gentleman. Unfortunately, he talks about a political solution ending the violence. That is seeking the impossible. The people who are behind the violence in Northern Ireland will accept only one solution and that is the solution which they themselves have pursued for 50 years—namely, the unification of the island of Ireland irrespective of the wishes of the majority in Northern Ireland.

As long as there is a small fanatical minority in Northern Ireland—and it is a small minority which does not by any means represent the entire Republican sector in Northern Ireland because the majority of the Republicans are prepared to pursue their policies without violence—violence will be pursued no matter what constitutional solution is suggested to them. We have lived with that for 50 years and we shall probably have to continue living with it.

We shall have to deal with that minority in the way which is required by the majority in Northern Ireland. The majority has a right to ask the authorities to ensure that law and order and the Queen's peace prevails in Northern Ireland. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Minister of State said that the prime aim of the Government is to establish law and order. That is the reason behind the introduction of the Bill.

I hope that the provisions will be as temporary as my hon. Friend stated. I regard tile statement of the hon. Member for Leeds, South as a little too optimistic. I am afraid that the solutions which some hon. Members are seeking are not realistic, if we consider the long history of Ireland and the troubles which we have had I support this measure as being a realistic and necessary attempt to deal with our security problem in Northern Ireland. It might be longer in operation than the period suggested by the hon. Member for Leeds, South.

11.13 p.m.

Mrs. McAliskey

I oppose the Bill on Third Reading. I have no doubt that in 1465 when a statute was passed by the House of Commons forcing the people of Ireland to speak a language that they could not speak and did not understand, to wear clothing which was alien to them, and to adopt as their surnames names which they did not possess or understand, the majority of hon. Members did not like having to do so. I am sure that the majority of hon. Members felt that it was, to say the least of it, undemocratic. But 500 years later the present majority of hon. Members find it necessary to adopt a similar measure.

I am sure that the 1465 statute led to the present-day situation. There has been an almost endless list of legislation concerning Northern Ireland pass through the House. I shall name but a few measures. In 1495 an Act was passed against those stirring the Irish to make war. Between 1635 and 1639 there was an endless list of Settlement of Ireland Acts for repression and coercion. The Government of the day and the House of Commons then decided that the way to ensure a loyal and law-abiding population in Ireland was to encourage Protestant settlers—the Protestant stranger—to go to Northern Ireland so as to create artificially a majority of law-abiding and subservient citizens.

From there we went to 1797 with the Incitement to Disaffection Act and to the Unlawful Combinations Act of 1803. There followed others—the suspension of habeas corpus, the Apprehension of Offenders Act, the Suppression of Rebellion in Ireland Act, the Militia Act, the Ireland Act, endless emergency powers Acts and civil emergencies Acts. Now we stand in 1973, and we have the same arguments produced by Government and Opposition, that no one likes it, that everybody agrees that it is not democratic.

Everyone here will defend the right of an individual to trial by jury, the right to have the onus of proof on the prosecution and not on the defendant, the right of an individual not to have his property and land searched without warrant, the right not to be detained without trial.

What we are told, and I accept, is that we do not have normal times in Northern Ireland. What I object to is the wrong conclusion that is being drawn by the Government. The Government say, and I accept, that trial by jury in Northern Ireland does not produce the desired effect—that is to say, trial by jury no longer secures the guilt of the guilty or the freedom of the innocent.

Therefore, something has gone wrong. I also accept that persons in this country would be willing to give evidence against suspected or accused persons but that in Northern Ireland that is not the case. I accept also that in some measure this is due to fear for their own personal safety. But I also accept what the Government do not—that also in some measure it is due—here we come to the crux of the problem—to a total alienation of the individual from the law of which he is part and the law he is expected to uphold.

When the Government, rightly, say that trial by jury no longer works in Northern Ireland, that the rules of evidence can no longer apply there, that the courts and the police cannot function as they do in a normal democracy, the conclusion is not that the Government must alter the democratic process; the conclusion is that the Government are unfit to govern in the circumstances.

Whether the Government like it or not, if it requires such a measure of force, such a measure of repression, such a derogation from the rights of liberty and the rights of individual freedom in order to secure, at the expense of imprisoning the innocent, the imprisonment of the guilty, the Government must accept that they are unfit to govern.

But it is not my function tonight to attempt to adduce any moral argument against this Bill. I do not attempt it because I believe it impossible to persuade either the Government or the Opposition to join me and whatever few individuals will stand with me in the "No" Lobby.

The point I want to put forward to the Government and the House—I do so without apology—is that, for all its repression, for all its coercion, for all its wangling of the law, this Bill will be as futile and as ineffective in producing the ends desired by the Government as any other of its ilk passed in this country.

The reason for this is, as hon. Members have continually said, political. The reason for it is not that the Irish nation has a peculiar habit every generation of breeding what the Government and the House deign to call "terrorists". We have no greater a preponderance of a terrorist mentality among our people than this or any other country has. What we do have is a greater preponderance of problems in our country that the Government ultimately responsible for ruling us have for years and for decades refused to come to grips with. We have the same problem now as we had in 1495, when it was necessary to take our language, our tradition and our very names from us. The Government imagine that from time to time over the years they have had different Irish problems. They have not. They have had one and the same Irish problem.

Throughout our history, however, the Government of the day—the ruling class of this country—have refused to listen. They have refused to listen to the voice of reason. They have refused to listen to the voice of poverty and to the voice of hunger.

Throughout our decades, if we are left with a country that believes that when the ballot box does not work the bullet should be tried, let this House remember that terrorism was an art we learned from the British. It was the British who terrorised us into subjection, who terrorised us from one end of Ireland to the other, who terrorised us into a position where the non-political of Ireland say that the British understand terrorism.

Throughout their colonial history, the British Government have listened at the end of the day only to the voice of terrorism. How many respected African and other colonial leaders now wine and dine in this country when not so very many years or decades ago they, too, were denounced as the terrorists? They were the people who filled the internment and detention camps. Can the people of Ireland be blamed if they look around and say "If they are there today, we may well be in the same position tomorrow"?

I am saying not that it is correct but that it is the fault of the tradition of the British Government that not only the Republican population but now the Loyalist population can be seen coming more and more to the conclusion that reason holds no place in talks with the British Government. They listen only to force. Throughout our history, when the Government have ultimately listened to nothing but force, when the Government have been brought to the negotiating table only by force, the people of Ireland have learned one simple lesson: that nothing beats determination.

The constitution Bill has been passed. We have had the Assembly elections. This Emergency Provisions Bill, the Minister said when opening the Third Reading, cannot of itself and by itself bring a solution. I should like to assure him that the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Bill, of itself and by itself, can and will destroy the constitution Bill.

Therefore, let the hon. Gentleman remember that down through the centuries of our history, whether it has been imprisonment, whether it has been death, no matter what the penalty, there has been within the people of Ireland a determination, whatever has sparked it off—as in 1968, for example, the right to vote and the right to decent housing. Whatever the circumstances, the fire has been lit aflame that the people of Ireland ultimately recognise that the problem in Ireland is British rule in Ireland and British domination of our affairs.

I am not saying that the British Government should go tomorrow, because they have left one hell of a mess to be cleaned up before they go. What I am saying, however, is that tomorrow the British Government would be well advised to say "We are getting out of Ireland."

Mr. Orme

I am following closely the remarks of the hon. Lady. Would she not agree that when the Labour Government sent in British troops in 1969 it was to protect the minority in Northern Ireland, and, secondly, that policies being advocated at the moment by Northern Ireland people—for example, UDI—could perhaps be as repressive as or more repressive to the minority than what she is now advocating?

Mrs. McAliskey

To take up those two point, I would certainly accept that when the Labour Government sent British troops into Northern Ireland, given the confused understanding in the Labour Party of its own political rôle, it thought that it was defending Catholics. What it was in fact doing was temporarily up holding the Unionist system and defending British imperialism.

UDI might well be—probably would be—as repressive as anything that we have here. It is difficult to imagine what could be more repressive than what we have here. To the people in Northern Ireland who intend to continue the struggle for their political freedom it makes little odds who represses them or by what statutes they are repressed. What they remember is that despite centuries of repression we are still here. For 800 years successive British Governments have tried to stamp out the mentality that I represent, and I am standing here today. Stamp me out, stamp out the many people who think as I do, and the next generation will come up to swallow the next Government.

This Bill does nothing but build more prisons and prison camps in Ireland. It does nothing but fill more prisons and more prison camps in Ireland. I warn the Government that the more prisons they fill and the more prisoners they create, the more willing hands they give us to tear down the prisons and the system.

11.26 p.m.

Mr. Biggs-Davison

The hon. Lady the Member for Mid-Ulster (Mrs. McAliskey) appeals to revolution against the democracy that spoke at the Assembly elections. There the people of Northern Ireland utterly repudiated everything that she said in the House this evening.

I do not quarrel with the hon. Lady's taking us back into medieval times. The Irish have enough sense of history, the English have too little, and one of my quarrels with direct rule and with the constitution Bill as it stands is that it places Northern Ireland under Poynings Law.

The hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) spoke of deficiencies in the Bill and of the right and desire of the House to examine it critically. Everything said in these debates by the hon. Gentleman has been motivated by principles which he has applied to this dreadful problem. The hon. Gentleman's report of his visit to Maze prison shows that his public-spiritedness is coupled with humanity. The hon. Gentleman is anxious, and so is the House, to ensure that the measures that are necessary to be taken are taken with due regard for the rights, so far as they can be preserved, of the individual caught up in these terrible times.

It is right that there should be no impatience if the debate goes on for a little while longer, because the House of Commons should scrutinise with vigilance, and even with suspicion, a measure which limits the liberty of the subject and trial by jury in a part of the United Kingdom. This measure is unpalatable to the House, but it is a measure which, as my hon. Friend the Minister of State said, is necessary, and anyone who says that it is not is indifferent to the suffering of our fellow subjects across the Irish Channel who are being, or may be, terrorised by racketeering gangs which use crime for political ends or commit crimes under the mask of politics.

At the beginning of the debate the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) seemed a little lacking in imagination. He appeared to be sceptical of the intimidation to which our fellow subjects across the Irish Channel can fall victim. Perhaps a lack of imagination can be an advantage if one is called upon to be a Crown witness or a juror in Northern Ireland.

I agree with the historical research of the hon. Lady the Member for Mid-Ulster when she said that one reason for the plantations was the difficulty in finding juries which would convict. This is said to be one of the reasons for the plantation of King's County and Queen's County and even of Ulster itself.

The hon. Lady spoke of imperialist repression in Northern Ireland, but it is a fact of the present day that some of the worst repression in the world is undertaken by post-colonial Governments.

We are concerned with the detention of human beings, fellow citizens, in Northern Ireland, and when we are speaking of the detention or internment of individuals it does not make much difference whether we are speaking of special or emergency powers to those who are caught up in them; it does not make much difference whether it is the Offences Against the State Act south of the border.

We should not be too insular and we should reckon with the fact that order and peace have to be kept differently in different parts of the British Isles. And let hon. Members not be too lofty: let us recognise that human beings are involved in all this, that mistakes can be, and probably will be made. But let us also say that there is a certain cosmetic jurisprudence in the Bill. Do hon. Members not like the phrase? I am saying that some of the things done under the old Stormont are now being done, but we are doing them slightly differently.

In some ways I prefer the rugged and even brutal arguments of the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) to the shuttlecock and battledore of hon. and learned Members on both sides of the House and in the Standing Committee, on which I was not privileged to serve. It is possible that the time will come when emergency provisions of this distasteful kind will be required on even this side of St. George's Channel; I hope not. But it is a fact that those who talk revolution on the other side of the channel see advantage not only in so-called Catholic ghettos on that side, but in coloured ghettos on this side. It is part of the doctrine of the revolutionaries on both sides.

The Bill is necessary; the Bill is unpalatable. It is necessary for the defence of Northern Ireland. Let us hope that measures of this kind will never be necessary for the defence of Great Britain.

11.33 p.m.

Mr. Fitt

There have been references during the day to the constitution Bill and we have been told that it would give politics a chance to operate again in Northern Ireland. We have also been told that this Bill is complementary to the constitution Bill.

I do not see it as such. This Bill is in violent contradiction to every idea of making politics work in Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) has just admitted that the Bill repeats the Special Powers Act, and it retains the most obnoxious of the provisions of that Act.

But even when we had the Special Powers Act most trials in Northern Ireland were under the jury system. Even persons charged under that Act had their case heard before a judge and jury, although there were instances when that was not so. What we now have is an addition to the repressive measures of that Act. The Bill legalises the indiscriminate searching of any home in Northern Ireland. It legalises the indiscriminate arresting of anyone in Northern Ireland.

Before the Bill, it was possible to put a case to the court if it was thought that charges had been made illegally. What we have done in this legislation is to legalise every act of every policeman, every soldier, everyone remotely connected with the security forces. There will be no redress for an aggrieved or innocent individual if he decides to take his case to court.

By this legislation we have abolished the whole concept of British law in Northern Ireland as we have hitherto known it. It has taken a thousand years to build up the British judicial system, which in many respects is the envy of the world. This legislation has taken much less time to abolish that system. It would be a very real emergency that would in any way justify such a dramatic change in the judicial system that we have known.

During the debates on the constitution Bill I said that I hoped that there would be political movement in Northern Ireland that would bring to an end the violence we have had to live with for so long. This Bill is an incitement to violence. We once had on the statute book in Northern Ireland an Act called the Incitement to Hatred Act. This Bill is an incitement to violence. Far from stopping violence, it will create it at a time when we are desperately trying to stop it.

I have no hesitation in saying that if this Bill is acted upon, and I hope it will not be, it will sow the seeds of a bitterness and hatred hitherto unknown in the island of Ireland. We have come to the end of the debate on the Bill here. We have fought it tenaciously. I have expressed my opposition to almost every

clause, comma and sentence. Representing a Northern Irish constituency and Irish people, I know what can be brought about by the implementation of repressive legislation. This Bill will go down in the record of Irish history as being yet another coercion Act. The hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Mrs. McAliskey) said that coercionists do not succeed in Ireland, but bring only failure and tragedy in their wake.

In a few minutes this Bill will have left this House. I advise the Minister and others responsible for implementing its provisions to make certain that it does not ally itself to the disaster brought about in Northern Ireland when internment was introduced. I urge the hon. Gentleman to pay more attention to trying to make the constitution Bill a reality. By implementing some of its provisions it may be possible, although I have serious doubts, to bring peace to Northern Ireland. If this Bill is acted upon it can only bring further untold tragedy to Northern Ireland.

11.40 p.m.

Mr. Wellbeloved

As the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) said, in a few miutes the Division bells will ring, and I want to explain why I as an English Member will stand with the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Mrs. McAliskey) as a Teller for the Noes.

The Englishman has not been born who can solve the problems of Ireland. When we pass British laws to try to deal with an essentially Irish problem we are defying the whole course of history and refusing to recognise the realities. Just as on the Northern Ireland Constitution Bill I found myself in the Lobby with the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr), I shall be in the Lobby tonight with the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster because I believe that we should relinquish British power in Northern Ireland, bring home our troops and let the Irish people themselves find a solution to their own problems.

Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time:—

The House divided: Ayes 58, Noes 6.

Division No. 190.] AYES [11.40 p.m.
Archer, Jeffrey (Louth) Biggs-Davison, John Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)
Atkins, Humphrey Chapman, Sydney Emery, Peter
Awdry, Daniel Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe) Fenner, Mrs. Peggy
Benyon, W. Cormack, Patrick Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.) Shersby, Michael
Fortescue, Tim Miscampbell, Norman Soref, Harold
Fowler, Norman Moate, Roger Speed, Keith
Fox, Marcus Molyneaux, James Stanbrook, Ivor
Green, Alan Monks, Mrs. Connie Sutcliffe, John
Havers, Sir Michael Murton, Oscar Tebbit, Norman
Hawkins, Paul Nott, John van Straubenzee, W. R.
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia Orr, Capt. L. P. S. Vaughan, Dr. Gerard
Hunt, John Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby) Welder, David (Clitheroe)
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford) Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis Weatherill, Bernard
Kilfedder, James Raison, Timothy White, Roger (Gravesend)
Kinsey, J. R. Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William
Knight, Mrs. Jill Redmond, Robert
Knox, David Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.) TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
McMaster, Stanley Roberts, Wyn (Conway) Mr. Michael Jopling and
Maginnis, John E. Russell, Sir Ronald Mr. John Stradling Thomas
Mather, Carol Shelton, William (Clapham)
NOES
Davidson, Arthur Kaufman, Gerald TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
English, Michael Kerr, Russell Mrs Bernadette McAliskey and
Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.) Stallard, A. W. Mr. James Wellbeloved.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Bill read the Third time and passed.