Pub Bombings (Hansard, 12 July 1990)

§ 1. Mrs. Mahon
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if the nine Surrey police officers who were in Birmingham at the time of the pub bombings have been indentified.

§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. John Patten)
As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State said in reply to the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) on 30 October 1989, it is not known whether any Surrey officers were in Birmingham at the time of the pub bombings, although I understand that a team of nine Surrey officers was in the west midlands area at the time. That is among the matters relating to the case of the Birmingham pub bombings which are currently under investigation by the Devon and Cornwall police on behalf of the chief constable of the West Midlands police and we await their report.

§ Mrs. Mahon
Will the Minister make the names of those policemen available to the solicitors acting for the people convicted of the Guildford pub bombings and to the solicitors acting for the Birmingham Six? Will he try to find out exactly what they were doing in the area at that time?

§ Mr. Patten
Making known the names of the police officers could do two things: first, I am advised that it could hinder the police in the conduct of their examination, which I am sure no hon. Member would want; secondly, it could lead to the integrity and probity of a number of individual police officers being questioned 439 unfairly. I entirely agree with the hon. Lady that it is right to try to put right any injustices if they have occurred. However, in seeking to do that, one should not inadvertently thereby cause other potential injustices to occur, although I know that that is not the hon. Lady's intention.

§ Dame Jill Knight
Can my right hon. Friend suggest why Opposition Members constantly seek to denigrate the police while frequently failing to acknowledge that the Birmingham bombing crime, which killed many people and injured far more, was a dastardly crime? Opposition Members claim to know who committed that crime, but shield them and fail to provide evidence such as the fact that one of the bombers had in his possession a receipt for six cheap alarm clocks to make the bombs.

§ Mr. Patten
My hon. Friend represents a west midlands constituency and I entirely agree with her that the West Midlands police and all serving police officers throughout the United Kingdom deserve the support of all hon. Members in the House. In response to the second part of my hon. Friend's question, I believe that it is important that all hon. Members should make available to the investigating authorities information that they say is available to them. The hon. Member for Sunderland, South has pursued a number of cases with great interest. During an Adjournment debate on 14 June he said that he had the names of people who could assist the police with their inquiries. To the best of my knowledge, he has not yet made those names available.

§ Ms. Short
Does the Minister know why his hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) seeks to suggest that anyone who seeks justice and to ensure that anybody who is wrongly convicted should be properly freed is somehow guilty of maligning the police? Does not he think that that shows that the hon. Lady has little confidence in British justice and is willing to see innocent people wrongly held in prison?

§ Mr. Patten
My hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) and I and all hon. Members should have the maximum confidence in British justice and in the British police. During our search for evidence of miscarriages, no matter how passionately we feel, we should make it clear that we support the basic fundamental right and duty of British justice and of the British police to do what they can to ensure that we live in a stable society. I sometimes feel that occasionally hon. Members forget to say what they should in terms of supporting the police.

§ Sir John Wheeler
I am sure that my right hon. Friend will agree that this issue requires the greatest care and scrutiny in the course of the inquiry. Does he further agree that associated with the inquiry is the role of the forensic science service? He will recall the recent Home Affairs Select Committee report on that subject. Will he confirm that some of the issues attached to the inquiry relate to many years ago and that today's service is different and has yet to be improved still further?

§ Mr. Patten
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We are well aware of his Select Committee's recommendations. As he said, the offences were committed a very long time ago. Since then, the forensic science service has been investigated in a report by Sir Ronald Mason, a fellow of 440 the Royal Society. That report was published in 1985. Enormous strides forward have been made in both the administration and the scientific procedures of the forensic science service. As it proceeds towards its possible new status as an executive agency, questions of whether it should automatically be made available to help the defence as well as the prosecution must be considered.

§ Mr. Mullin
Will the Minister confirm—I do not think that the gap between us is as great as he sometimes makes out—that, if one is interested in catching terrorists, it cannot be in anybody's interests to put away the wrong people? Will he confirm further that those who have pursued the Guildford, Woolwich, Maguire and Birmingham cases remorselessly over a long period of years are motivated solely by the belief that the wrong people have been convicted, and that we have been proved right so far in two out of three cases, despite a great deal of abuse heaped upon our heads by some of the Ministers hon. Friends, although not all of them? Will he confirm that there is absolutely no point in keeping innocent people in gaol? They are not hostages to be held there simply because the police are incapable of catching the correct people.

§ Mr. Patten
I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Sunderland, South—there is nothing between us at all in wishing to see alleged miscarriages of justice put right; of course, there is not. However, I thought that the hon. Gentleman was going to tell the House that which he told the House during an Adjournment debate on 14 June, only about a month ago—that he had material evidence in the shape of two more names. It is recorded in Hansard that he would make those names available. I plead with him now, in the interests of putting right the injustices that he alleges occurred, only to give those names immediately to the prosecuting authorities. I cannot understand why he does not.

§ Mr. Kilfedder
Is not it nauseating in the extreme that the IRA, which could provide the names and conclusive evidence of the guilt of terrorists responsible for an atrocity, fails to do so and allows people to linger in gaol, yet those IRA people use such cases to denigrate the United Kingdom, the police force and our legal system, which is the finest in the world? Should not we bear it in mind that the IRA gives no right of appeal to the people whom it murders? That is something which people will not forgive.

§ Mr. Patten
My hon. Friend is quite right. Hon. Members should listen to the moderate but passionate way in which he has put his case, speaking on behalf of the people in Northern Ireland who have suffered so terribly over the years. All hon. Members, whatever their political affiliations, owe it as a duty to the House and to the people, if they have information that can help the police in the pursuit of alleged miscarriages of justice, to tell the prosecuting authorities as soon as possible.

§ Mr. Mullin
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Minister has now three times accused me of not providing information—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. That is not a point of order; it is a matter of argument.

§ Mr. Mullin
It is a point of order.

§ Mr. Speaker
What is the point of order for me that I can deal with?

§ Mr. Mullin
The Minister three times accused me of not providing information that I undertook to provide. In fact, the Devon and Cornwall police inquiry has been in touch with me, and I am in the process of providing it with just that information.