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Bloody Sunday Inquiry (Report)

I wish to associate myself not only with the statement that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made to the House earlier this year, but with those by both Front Benchers at the outset of this debate. The Saville report is a unique and valuable report, not only in the life of Northern Ireland, but in that of the whole United Kingdom. Like my right hon. Friend, I am deeply patriotic and I never want to believe anything bad about my country, but from the conclusions reached by Lord Saville and his colleagues, it is clear that something went badly wrong on that Sunday in January 1972. It is my belief that the Prime Minister was entirely right to deliver an apology on behalf of the Government and the nation to the families of those who lost loved ones on that dreadful Sunday. Where I perhaps part company with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and some hon. Members who have spoken in this debate is on the clarity that has been ascribed to some of the conclusions that the inquiry reached, at least in the minds of some people. I do not for one moment dispute the tribunal's findings, and they are clear; nor for one moment would I defend the indefensible. With one exception, the tribunal was clear. The firing by the British Army that day was entirely unjustified, and indeed contravened the rules of engagement applying at the time. However, it is right for the House to bear in mind the fact that Lord Saville's deliberations with his colleagues and his conclusions took place a considerable time after the events with which he and the tribunal were concerned. He started three decades after those events, and he ended his task nearly 40 years after them. It was a tall order to ask any judge, even one of the standing of Lord Saville, who was so ably assisted by Mr Hoyt and Mr Toohey, to reach wholly unimpeachable conclusions on the events that underpin the tragedy that we are discussing this afternoon. It is more than a tall order to ask a judge to do so some 30 or 40 years after the events in question, often unassisted by evidence owing to the death of those who were present. When a judge in such an inquiry is assisted by evidence, that evidence will be less valuable than it would have been without the passage of time.