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Bloody Sunday Inquiry (Report)

My right hon. Friend raised that issue with the Director of Public Prosecutions. If there are indications that those people must be prosecuted, that is not a matter for Government, but for an independent body. My point is that if there are any further developments on dealing with the past, the Northern Ireland Executive should not be asked to pay for it. My second point is this. The Secretary of State mentioned the Eames-Bradley report. Mr Eames and Mr Bradley know Northern Ireland perhaps better than anyone else in terms of what has happened in the past, and I think it unfortunate that the press dealt with only one recommendation in their report. There were other valuable recommendations on issues such as the legacy commission, the reconciliation forum and the role of the Churches, and the Government ought to consider them. When I was Secretary of State, I went to South Africa to see whether the process of truth and reconciliation there could be applied to Northern Ireland. I concluded that it could not—that there could not be a one-size-fits-all solution, and that Northern Ireland must decide for itself how to deal with the past. However, I also concluded that if the problem was the absence of consensus, nothing would happen. We could not wait for a consensus, but we must seek one. The position of the current Secretary of State is very different from mine, and that of my successors, when we had to deal with such matters as housing and education. He is in a position to work with the Executive to deal with the issues that reflect the past. I have no doubt that a consensus can be reached, I have no doubt that we will have to deal with it, and I have no doubt that the Executive must address other huge, pressing issues, such as the problem of schools and of dealing with the impact of the comprehensive spending review on the Northern Ireland budget. Those are vastly important issues which must exercise the minds of my right hon. Friends and others in Northern Ireland, but that does not mean that it is not possible to deal with the past as well. I believe that we cannot face the future unless we deal with the past. The two must be dealt with in parallel. The issue is how they are dealt with, and how consensus is achieved so that people, whether they are Catholic, Protestant, Unionist or nationalist, republican or loyalist, can ensure that we have a peaceful and a prosperous Northern Ireland.