HL Deb 18 March 1991 vol 527 cc511-6

10.40 p.m.

Lord Belstead rose to move that the draft order laid before the House on 25th February be approved [12th Report from the Joint Committee].

The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of this order is to continue for a further period the temporary provisions of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Acts of 1978 and 1987, together with certain provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989 as they apply to Northern Ireland.

Your Lordships will be aware that the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Bill received its First Reading in your Lordships' House on 7th March. That Bill would supersede the legislation which the Government are asking the House to renew again tonight. The continuance order, therefore, is in the nature of a temporary measure so that a gap should not occur between existing legislation and consideration of the new Bill.

It may be for the convenience of your Lordships if I say a brief word about the existing legislation which the order would renew. The 1978 Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act provides the legal authority for the so-called Diplock courts. It creates the category of prescribed organisations for Northern Ireland. It provides the police and armed forces with additional powers to stop and question, enter, search and seize. The 1978 Act also contains powers for the requisition of private property and the closure of public highways for security reasons.

The 1987 emergency provisions Act contains statutory safeguards for persons arrested under the terrorism provisions to have a friend or relative informed of their arrest and whereabouts, and to have access to legal advice. It also contains a statutory scheme for the regulation of security guard companies in Northern Ireland.

Part VI of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which is also covered by the continuance order, empowers the police and armed forces in Northern Ireland to impose restrictions on the occupants of houses and vehicles during searches for terrorist equipment; it contains arrangements relating to remission and the sentencing of persons convicted of scheduled offences.

As I have mentioned, without the order the temporary provisions of the emergency legislation would expire later this week. That is not a situation the Government could be prepared to contemplate. Therefore the legislation is vital if the courts, the police and armed forces in Northern Ireland are to be in a position to tackle the problems of terrorism effectively.

Within the past two or three weeks we have witnessed again in Northern Ireland events which typify the continuing tragedy of terrorism in the Province. Two members of the Ulster Defence Regiment have died as a result of a mortar attack on an army patrol near Armagh; four men were gunned down mercilessly by the Loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force in Cappagh, and a Roman Catholic taxi driver was shot dead in North Belfast. In addition to those brutal attacks there have been other attacks on the police, armed forces and on civilians in the shape of punishment shootings. That continuing level of violence underlines the importance of the debate tonight.

I should like to emphasise that incidents such as these, many of which involve the taking of life, do nothing to advance any political cause. Their only effect is to bring misery and suffering to family and friends as well as to the wider community. No cause can justify the taking of lives. I repeat the Government's firm commitment to bring terrorism to an end from whichever quarter it comes.

In that context the Government believe that the emergency powers remain necessary, a view which was shared by my noble friend Lord Colville in his review last year. On behalf of the Government I should like to thank my noble friend for a most thorough and skilful report. It is a document to which the House will return with increasing interest when the Bill comes before us. In Chapter 2 of the report my noble friend carried out a careful analysis of the various powers that are available under the emergency and ordinary criminal law and he concluded that in general the additional powers available to the police remain necessary. He reached a similar conclusion with regard to the armed forces. He concluded also that the unusual procedures in the so-called Diplock courts continue to be justified.

Finally, in seeking the approval of your Lordships to this order, I ask the House to remember the people of Northern Ireland on both sides of the community who continue to show such resilience and fortitude in the face of the most extreme provocation. They deserve special praise. In particular I pay warm tribute to those who are engaged in the work of law enforcement, often at the most serious personal risk. I am thinking of the men and women of the police service, the full and part-time RUC and the Reserve, the armed forces, including the Ulster Defence Regiment, the judiciary and the staff of the courts and the prison services. The people of Northern Ireland remain very much in their debt. These people have the full support of the Government and of all decent and law-abiding citizens in Northern Ireland. By bringing the order forward this evening we are ensuring that they will continue to have at their disposal the means necessary to tackle the problems of terrorism. I beg to move.

Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 25th February be approved [12th Report from the Joint Committee]. —(Lord Belstead.)

10.45 p.m.

Lord Prys-Davies

My Lords, on behalf of these Benches I join with the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, in expressing our appreciation of the courage of the people of Northern Ireland and of the members of the security forces. They deserve our support. We recognise the importance of this order, but as the Minister has explained, its immediate effect is to hold the existing legislation until the new Bill which we shall be discussing in three to four weeks' time is passed and comes into force. I shall therefore confine my comments this evening to two or three sentences. The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, referred to the contribution of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville. The noble Viscount concluded last summer his thorough review of the workings of the existing legislation. His report drew on a wealth of experience and knowledge. A great deal of thought and excellent work went into the preparation of his report.

It is a worrying reflection that the Government have been unable to adopt many of the important recommendations made by the noble Viscount which many of us had expected them to accept. Having made that valid point I shall not delay your Lordships further as we shall have the Second Reading of the Bill in a few weeks' time.

Lord Holme of Cheltenham

My Lords, whatever the case may be in other political quarters, we on these Benches are quite clear on the need for the continuance of this order. Terrorism will be defeated in the end not by military means but by other means that the Government and all of us wish to see pursued. But in the short term the violence has to be resisted. I should like to associate those on these Benches with the tributes paid by the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, and by the Minister, not just to the security forces who deserve our thanks and encouragement but to the people of Northern Ireland who have to bear the brunt of this alien force in their midst.

The need for the order does not eliminate some real concerns about the details of this legislation, to which, like the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, I shall return when we discuss the Bill. Perhaps I may say today that the question of the video taping of police interrogations, which was one of the recommendations of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, has been supported by the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights. After the freeing of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six, I can imagine that there will be no one who does not think that confidence in the police, in the judicial system and in the fair treatment of prisoners alike requires that every precaution be taken so that justice can be seen to be done. I give notice that it is a matter to which I intend to return when we discuss the Bill in April.

Lord Fitt

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, was quite right to catalogue a further increase in the number of people killed and maimed since last we discussed this issue earlier in the year. I recall saying then that, however long the Gulf crisis might last and however high the casualties might be, when it was all over we would still have the Northern Ireland problem. We have, and the public memory is all too short.

To the list of atrocities to which the noble Lord referred can be added one more. It seems to have departed from people's minds. It is only a month—18th February—since a young girl was carried out of Victoria railway station crying, "Save my legs, save my legs, I am getting married in June", and a young man, Mr. Corner, who was going to work that morning, died. So terrorism is not only confined to Northern Ireland. It has spread its terrible tentacles all over the United Kingdom and all over Ireland. One has only to think of the week following the bombing at Victoria and the absolute chaos which Londoners faced because of the delays to the trains and the hoax calls.

I certainly have had reservations about the emergency provisions and particularly the Prevention of Terrorism Act in relation to exclusion orders and so on. However, I rise for a few moments to put on record something which has annoyed me intensely over the past two or three days. For many years, many people in Ireland, here and further afield have concerned themselves with what they saw as the terrible injustice of the gaoling of the Birmingham bombers. Last Thursday that saga came to an end. The Birmingham Six were released. A great sigh of relief was felt by those concerned about the case. Then, on the following evening, or the evening after it, I sat and watched my television set and saw one of those released prisoners, Mr. Walker, going to Derry, his home town, and being grabbed and welcomed home by one of the most notorious former IRA/Sinn Fein members in Northern Ireland, Martin Maguinness. My blood ran cold when I saw that.

I remember vividly the night the bombs went off in Birmingham. I remember the terrible carnage that we saw on our television screens. I remember reading the awful accounts of the terrible injuries that were inflicted on all those people in Birmingham, inflicted by the IRA and its blood brother, Sinn Fein. Here we have one of those whom, it would appear, was wrongly convicted being welcomed back to Derry into the arms of the very terrorists who were responsible for his incarceration for 16 years. That was how I felt. How in the name of God must the people who are related to those victims in Birmingham have felt when they saw that? What thought would have immediately crossed their minds? It would not have been that these men were innocent; it would have been that they were guilty because they were being welcomed home by their blood brothers.

I then tried to reason with myself. I supposed that the person who was going home, Mr. Walker, was not in any position to organise who would be on the welcoming committee when he arrived in Derry. I thought that perhaps he was totally innocent, that he was merely going home and that he did not know that Mr. Maguinness, the Sinn Fein apologist, would be there.

However, the same thing occurred the next day in Belfast. Two other members of the Birmingham Six were welcomed into the Old Park Road and North Belfast by Republican and Sinn Fein councillors. There is no difference between Sinn Fein and the IRA. Again, how must the relatives of those people who died in Birmingham have felt?

Since that time, everyone to whom I have spoken has asked me about what happened. They have tried to find some reason for this occurrence. I appeal now to those three people who were met by representatives of the IRA and Sinn Fein—that is, the people who were responsible for the carnage and for the Birmingham Six serving all those years in prison—that they either individually or collectively find the means to say, "We did not ask for that type of reception; we did not know that we would be received by, and welcomed into the arms of, IRA supporters. We want to dissociate ourselves from the kind of reception we received, which was planned without our knowledge". That would do something to ease the confusion and the tension which now exists in the minds of many people who fought for such a long period of time to secure the release of the Birmingham Six. Allied to that plea, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, that no effort must now be spared until we find out who was really responsible for that explosion.

A few months ago I was sitting in my home watching television like many other people in this country. I watched a programme called "Who bombed Birmingham?" A heavily disguised individual was interviewed during the transmission. He was disguised so that he could not be identified. He admitted that he was responsible for the bombing and that the Birmingham Six did not cause the explosion. Yet again I found myself wondering what sort of a country I was living in when the person who claimed that he committed this deed was sitting in the television studio, either in London or in Dublin—the exact venue has still not be confirmed. The producers, the editors and the cameramen involved in that programme are all guilty. They were all involved in a conspiracy not to name the individual who was sitting in the studio admitting that he was responsible for the mass murder which took place in Birmingham in 1974. I wonder how they would have felt if any of their relatives had been the victims of that terrible carnage.

As I said, every effort must now be geared towards finding the person who was responsible. I say that especially in relation to foreign affairs; that is, our relationship with the Irish Republic. I say that as an Irishman. Every pressure that can be found must now be used to persuade the Irish Government that if they do know the whereabouts of this individual then he must be extradited to this country to face trial and justice for his actions.

Incidentally, I should add that Mr. Walker was not only met by Mr. Maguinness; he was also taken into his home. Over many years the Birmingham Six have been saying, "We were not politically motivated; we were not involved in the politics of Ireland". However, after having spoken to Mr. Maguinness for five minutes, Mr. Walker left the house and said to the television crew, "No extradition, no extradition!" That was a highly political thing for Mr. Walker to say if he had no interest in politics. Were the words put into his mouth in the short space of time that he was in the arms and home of Mr. Maguinness? If the individual or individuals responsible for the carnage are found in Ireland, politicians in Ireland must not tell us that they cannot be extradited because of the furore there has been and because there is a possibility that they may not receive a fair trial. If those individuals are found they must be extradited to this country and called to account for the terrible deeds they committed in 1974.

I am speaking to give three of the released Birmingham Six the opportunity to say that they are not involved with Sinn Fein and that they did not expect to be welcomed and rushed into the arms of Sinn Fein, and so relieve the awful fear, tension and disgust that exists in the minds of thousands and thousands of people living in both islands.

Lord Dunleath

My Lords, I support wholeheartedly what the noble Lord, Lord Holme, said. When the furore arose over the interrogation methods used at Castlereagh in the mid-1970s, we said that all interrogations should be video-recorded. Sound tape recordings can be edited, but I understand that modern technology can ensure that video recordings are not edited. Sound effects cannot be introduced without being detected. I entirely support what the noble Lord, Lord Holme, said.

Lord Belstead

My Lords, I thank your Lordships for having one thing in common: your support for the continuation of the order. The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, asked why we have not accepted some of the recommendations made by my noble friend Lord Colville. The most careful consideration was given to all the recommendations and observations, and I stand ready to explain our position on individual issues when we discuss the Bill. The subject of video recordings was mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Holme and Lord Dunleath. No doubt we shall return to that subject.

We all heard with considerable sympathy the words spoken by the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, who reminded your Lordships' House of the dangers of terrorism not just in Northern Ireland but throughout the United Kingdom. It is in that general context that I again thank your Lordships for the general reception you have given the order, which continues in force the emergency legislation until we reach the Bill which is due to have its Second Reading in your Lordships' House in the near future. I commend the order to your Lordships.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House adjourned at four minutes past eleven o'clock.