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The Saville Inquiry

While I thank the noble Lord for repeating the Statement in this House, as someone who was on duty on 30 January 1972, I deeply regret the death of 13 people in Derry on that day. However, I cannot be as magnanimous or one-eyed as I feel that the Saville report has been—and, I am sorry to say, this Government have been in how they have received it. Before Bloody Sunday, 180 people died in Northern Ireland, victims of terrorism. The 13 deaths are regrettable, but no more regrettable than the other 167—the 94 per cent of those who died that year. In the year 1972, 490-odd people died. The deaths in Derry have been investigated at the cost of almost £200 million, when we all knew the answer and that a huge error had been made. Those 13 deaths represented 2.5 per cent of the deaths in 1972. As someone who, as a soldier, ran the gauntlet of planned IRA assassination and personal attack, I say to noble Lords that it is very easy to be humble on an occasion such as this—but one has to remember the many people who were not rioting and who had not broken away from a peaceful parade to confront soldiers who themselves had never been trained for that sort of confrontation in an urban guerrilla warfare situation. That is the background against which I hope noble Lords and the Government will view this report overall. I hope that we will not dismiss those many deaths into which there has not been an inquiry costing £200 million.