PROSCRIBED ORGANISATIONS (Hansard, 28 November 1974)

§ Mr. Speaker
I have selected the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt).

§ Mr. Roy Jenkins
I beg to move, as a manuscript amendment, in page 2, line 16. to leave out subsection (6).
The House will recall that many hours ago we had a debate about Clause 1(6). At that stage strong feelings were expressed on both sides and I gave an undertaking at the end of the debate, which I think was satisfactory to both sides of the Committee, that I would ask my right hon. and learned Friends the Attorney-General and the Lord Advocate to consider the matter with my own advisers and ascertain whether this provision was essential.
After considerable consultation, my right hon. and learned Friends came to the conclusion that there was value in this provision, that it could be an important element in proving membership, but none the less, taking into account the feelings which had been expressed on both sides and also in view of the other powers the Bill confers on the Secretary of State, they advise me, and it is advice which I thought it right to accept in the circumstances, that it was not essential and necessary to retain this subsection. I therefore move that it be deleted.

§ Sir M. Havers
The House deserves a better explanation than that. The House will remember that in Committee I said in terms to the Attorney-General that I supported everything he had said when he was speaking in favour of sub-section (6). I admit that I pointed out to him the slight difficulty which might arise amongst the Ministers who had voted against such a provision. I think I counted seven out of the nine. I certainly exclude the Home Secretary from that.
When I saw the Bill yesterday I thought that at last the present Government had seen the light, but it seems that they have got rather badly jostled by their fellow travellers on the road to Damascus. Only about four hours after the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General were both saying that this provision was an import- 940 ant part of the Bill, and very important for Scotland, it now appears to be no longer so.
We should like to know who has been consulted to bring about this change of mind. Has the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police been consulted? Has the head of the Special Branch been consulted? What else has made the Government change their minds? What has happened, apart from a discussion and apart from a reaction on the part of a certain number of hon. Members sitting behind the Home Secretary, that has made the right hon. Gentleman change his mind in that time? That is why I say that the House deserves a better explanation.

§ Mr. McNamara
I welcome my right hon. Friend's decision. It is a wise decision that he has taken to answer the representations which have been made to him very forcibly on both sides and also to fall in line with the advice that was given to us when we were in opposition by the Lord Chancellor, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Law Officers' Department, the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, and the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
There is a virtue in consistency in government and consistency in opposition. On this occasion we should congratulate my right hon. Friend upon it. I only hope that when on Thursday evening we look again at the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act my right hon. Friend will draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to Section 19(6) of that Act, which is identical in words to the words which it is now proposed to throw out of this measure, and that we shall do likewise then.

§ Mr. Michael Brotherton (Louth)
I am somewhat disappointed and puzzled by the statement by the Home Secretary. I am disappointed because it is only one week since he made a very fine statement in the House about the bomb incident in Birmingham and said that there would be no capitulation. He is now capitulating to his own Left wing.
I am puzzled, because the Home Secretary, the Attorney-General, the Secretary 941 of State for Northern Ireland and the Minister of State. Northern Ireland Office all turned their backs on these benches—it was rather like watching a member of one's own Front Bench address the House—and told their Left wing that this measure was essential for Scotland, and at the same time the Lord Advocate was playing Sancho Panza to those four Ministers whom I have mentioned. I want to know what has happened in the last four hours. [HON. MEMBERS: "You have been asleep."] I have been here virtually the whole time. What has happened to the law of Scotland in the last four hours to justify that a schedule that was essential four hours ago should now be deleted?

§ Mr. Greville Janner
As one of those who asked for the withdrawal of the clause. I thank my right hon. Friend for listening to the will of the House, for considering the matter during the last four hours, for recognising that the clause is unnecessary and for withdrawing it in a proper manner. I deplore the churlish attitude of those who have attacked my right hon. Friend for his action after having asked him to do exactly what he has done.

§ Mr. Roy Jenkins
By leave of the House, Mr. Speaker, may I say that it is well within my recollection that if there were Left wingers they seemed to be scattered fairly evenly across the Floor of the House when I was dealing with this matter.
The sort of speech made by the hon. and learned Member for Wimbledon (Sir M. Havers) encourages Ministers to treat Parliament with contempt, and that is not right, and it is not my intention. We have not hesitated to vote and force matters through. I think that the hon. and learned Gentleman's speech was the one out-of-tune speech that we have heard throughout the night. We have managed to get this difficult Bill through with remarkably little change, and I am grateful for the constructive spirit that the House has shown.
were Left wingers they seemed to be

§ Sir K. Joseph
The Home Secretary has behaved extremely courteously to the House throughout the long sitting, but his last references to my hon. and learned Friend were less than fair because the 942 interventions from the Conservative side during the debate to which the present decision harks back were interrogative ones trying to discover what the Government meant. We did not press from this side of the House for the Home Secretary to make the decision he has now made, and that ought to go on the record.

§ Mr. Speaker
I have selected the manuscript amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt).

§ Mr. Fitt
I beg to move, as a manuscript amendment, in Schedule 1, page 10, line 4, at end add: 'UFF (Ulster Freedom Fighters) Red Hand Commandos Ulster Protestant Action Group.' I am somewhat reassured to see you back in the Chair, Mr. Speaker. At the latter end of the Committee stage I began to feel that I might be subject to the first exclusion order of this legislation.
This is a serious amendment because it has been conceded, particularly in Northern Ireland throughout the last four or five years, that more than one element is involved in the violence.
The Provisional IRA has been engaged in a dreadful campaign of violence, but so has the UFF, which has admitted to carrying out some of the most brutal murders in Northern Ireland. The Red Hand Commandos, too, have admitted to carrying out murders. In the last five or six weeks a new organisation has emerged and has claimed responsibility by telephone for a number of very foul murders.
If it is the intention of the Bill to prevent terrorism in the United Kingdom there is a duty on the Government and hon. Members, no matter that some of them may find the legislation distasteful, to make sure that it is effective, and to try to prevent terrorists operating anywhere within the United Kingdom.
If the UFF organisation and the Red Hand Commandos are proscribed in Northern Ireland they should be included in the schedule. We have seen them repeatedly in television interviews with men wearing masks, and that is particularly the case in Northern Ireland. Only last week there was a large newspaper article in which a Protestant extremist organisation claimed responsibility over recent weeks for 28 murders. That inter- 943 view was just as provocative and unhelpful as the David O'Connell interview on television. If this legislation proscribes only the Provisional IRA, that will be seen in Northern Ireland—and the Secretary of State knows that public opinion in Northern Ireland can be suspicious—as being deliberately directed at one type of terrorist. I have made my position clear. I can say, on behalf of the minority in Northern Ireland, that we are opposed to any form of terrorism.
It is the duty of the Government to include in the Bill all the other organisations which have been engaged in this campaign and so make it clear to every citizen of the United Kingdom that this is a fair and even-handed measure.

§ Mr. Powell
In principle I would not disagree with what I think the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) has in mind. Indeed, I might welcome him as a mild convert, at any rate to the principle of reciprocity and approximation of the law between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Certainly my hon. Friends and I would hope to see on this matter an identity, not necessarily immediately but eventually, between the proscription laws in Great Britain and the proscription laws in the rest of the United Kingdom. It is absurd that different organisations should be proscribed in different parts of the United Kingdom.
It may well be that this will be best achieved by the right hon. Gentleman in due course using his powers to add to the list in Schedule 1 by order. In principle, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman would agree with the principle, I believe that the proscribed organisations should be the same throughout the realm.

§ Mr. Kilfedder
I agree with the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). Since the outbreak of violence in Northern Ireland I have constantly condemned the campaign of murder, maiming and destruction. On Saturday last a Protestant constituent of mine was murdered, and the following day a Roman Catholic constituent was murdered. This matter is very much to the fore of my mind.
944 I ask the Home Secretary to answer the point raised by the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt), who said that a newspaper—he did not give its name—had reported an interview with masked terrorists who claimed to have murdered 28 people. I am appalled at this. If this interview has taken place the police ought to make investigations, trace these individuals to see whether they have committed such murders, and bring them to trial if they feel that the allegations are well founded.
The hon. Members claimed that the Red Hand Commandos telephoned to claim responsibility for murders. Again I ask that the most rigorous search be made for these individuals. Is there any evidence that these people have committed murders? If so I would like some information about them.

§ Mr. Roy Jenkins
I am not in a position to give evidence on the point raised by the hon. Member for Down. North (Mr. Kilfedder). I will certainly have the matter investigated following what my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) has said. To my hon. Friend I say that I do not at this moment wish to proscribe more than the single organisation named in the schedule. I ask my hon. Friend not to press his amendment.
I take note of what the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) says. We are dealing essentially with activity in this country. I do not think that we should be stampeded into adding to the list. I believe that it will prove necessary to add to it, and I have power to do so by order. I shall not hesitate to use that power in what I might describe as an even-handed way. There will be no question of proceeding against one side rather than the other.
I hope that with that assurance my hon. Friend will leave the matter as it stands.

§ Mr. Fitt
I find it difficult to accept my right hon. Friend's assurance and I must leave the matter for the House to decide.