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Bloody Sunday Inquiry

My Lords, I am prone to speak directly at times, so I hope the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carswell, will forgive me if I say how much I disagree with him and suggest that he might like to think about whether he would have made his speech before the Saville inquiry. If there is any logic in what he has said, it would have been better, or at least as good, to draw the line then, rather than now, would it not? I was pleased to hear the words of my noble friend Lord Mawhinney and, indeed, those of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, in defence of the Army. Too many who have never had the experience of making a difficult decision, taken on imperfect information and when they may have been frightened, are quick to condemn those who react wrongly under those pressures. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has said pretty well all that had to be said about what happened in Londonderry in the wake of the publication of the inquiry. That has been repeated today from both Front Benches. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, for the way in which she facilitated private all-party briefings on Northern Ireland when she was Leader of the House. Those were very helpful indeed and I hope that that practice will continue. My introduction to the politics of Northern Ireland predated some of the nastier experiences I have had. I was the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Robin Chichester-Clark, the last Ulster Unionist to hold office in a Westminster Government. In that role I frequently went back and forth to Londonderry in the early 1970s. It was an extraordinary experience to see how different things could be in different parts of the same kingdom. It should not have taken 12 years to produce the report, nor cost £190 million in outdoor relief for wealthy lawyers. As the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, observed, we are all indebted to them for this report; indeed, we are highly indebted. It was right to discover what happened that day, so far as we could. I do not differ from what has been said about the tragic errors and failures that led to such a loss of life. However, there is something else about the report which seems to have largely escaped notice; it is testimony to the existence of an entirely different attitude towards public affairs, politics and public order in Northern Ireland from that which we experience and enjoy in the rest of this kingdom. That was the thought which first came to me back in the early 1970s when I was going back and forth to Londonderry. I emphasise this by quoting from paragraph 3.119 on page 46 of the principal conclusions of the Saville report, which refers to, "““allegations that Martin McGuinness, at that time the Adjutant of the Derry Brigade or Command of the Provisional IRA””—" I observe in parenthesis that that is a terrorist organisation— "““had engaged in paramilitary activity during the day. In the end we were left in some doubt as to his movements on the day””." The paragraph goes on to say that, "““he was probably armed with a Thompson sub-machine gun, and though it is possible that he fired this weapon, there is insufficient evidence to make any finding on this””." We can imagine what would have become of the career of my right honourable friend Mr Michael Gove had a judicial inquiry found that during an illegal demonstration in favour of free schools he was probably armed with a sub-machine gun, and that it was possible he might have fired it. It is unlikely that he would today be the Secretary of State for Education. But we have no need to imagine the fate of Mr McGuinness: he is the Minister for education in part of this kingdom, in Northern Ireland. It seems that there are different ways of ordering our affairs in those two parts of the kingdom. When I asked a little while ago if there would be an inquiry into the murders at the Grand Hotel, Brighton 26 years ago, my noble friend Lord Shutt told me: "““The Government have no plans to hold a public inquiry in relation to the terrorist attack on The Grand Hotel, Brighton, in October 1984. As the noble Lord will be aware, there was a police investigation following the attack and one man was subsequently convicted of offences relating to the bombing””.—[Official Report, 28/6/10; col. WA216.]" One man; but we all know that that one man did not decide to do this on his own. He did not go out to buy the explosives and the timers on his own. He did not finance the operation on his own. He did not think of it on his own. Many of us have suspicions about who was in charge of what we know—because they owned up to it—was an IRA/Sinn Fein operation. Why was it so important to inquire at such cost and such time into what happened, and who was responsible for what happened, at Londonderry, but so important not to uncover the truth about who was responsible for what happened at Brighton? I end as I began. There are different standards for Northern Ireland and the rest of this kingdom. While those different standards exist, we will never find long-lasting and true peace in Northern Ireland. The inquiry began by adopting the title of the Bloody Sunday inquiry. I fear that that adoption of the very language of those who set out to break the law and confront the forces of the law underlines my view of the difference in our standards. It would not take long or cost much to establish who was behind the murders at Brighton—or indeed those at Claudy or Omagh, I suspect. IRA/Sinn Fein have claimed responsibility in some of those cases, and I understand that the identities of those who commanded the terrorist organisation at relevant times are well known to the authorities. Surely they could be invited to defend themselves against the suspicion that it was they who procured those bombings, not least that at Brighton. Or is it that the deaths at Brighton count for less than those at Londonderry? Or is it as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, might imagine—that the Queen’s soldiers are sitting ducks for inquiries and the members of the Army Council of Sinn Fein/IRA are, like the godfathers of the Mafia, not just too well connected and too powerful to be brought to justice but too important for the truth about them to be not merely known but to be published?