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The Saville Inquiry

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Leader of the House for the clear way in which he laid out for us the painful conclusions of the tribunal of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville. I declare an interest since sometime in the last century I was a historical adviser to that tribunal. There was one point in the noble Lord’s Statement that I would like to pick up on. He reminded us that our security forces lost 1,000 lives in Northern Ireland. That is around 28 to 30 per cent of the total amount of life lost. The security forces were responsible for about 10 per cent of the fatalities suffered. On the other hand, the Provisional IRA and its allies took slightly less than 60 per cent of all the lives that were lost and accounted for only 12 to 13 per cent of the total fatalities suffered. In other words, our security forces were much more likely to fall in the line of duty than those who had the advantage of surprise. This is my question: does the noble Lord concede that the Widgery report—much inferior as it undoubtedly is to the report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville—sent a signal to the Army about reckless firing on the day; that our Army understood and internalised that message; and that that helps to explain the professionalism and restraint shown by the British Army in Northern Ireland since Bloody Sunday?