1.7 pm
Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill
Laurence Robertson (Shadow Minister, Northern Ireland; Tewkesbury, Conservative)
I welcome you back to the Committee, Mr. Taylor. Our amendments Nos. 131, 132, 133 and 134 are along the same lines as amendment No. 29.
The people of Northern Ireland are insulted by the Bill and although the Minister says that he may correct the provision, people who have committed the most terrible crimes will not have to appear in front of a court. There will not be a court, but even if there were and people appeared in front of it, they would not have to serve a single day in prison for the crimes that they had committed. That is a terrible insult to the survivors and people whose relatives and loved ones have been murdered. As the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) says, the Bill is inconsistent with the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998, under which there was a minimum requirement. It was not long considering the seriousness of some of the crimes, but it was a requirement of sorts.
The Secretary of State’s explanation on Second Reading was that the Government want to get people through the system, as if that will correct everything. It may make it legally tidy. As I said on Second Reading, if the Prime Minister is considering retiring before the next election, it puts everything neatly together for him—in a box, all done with. However, it is not all done with for the survivors and those who must live with the consequences. It is not done with for the people who suffered the pain. We should be thinking about them.
I am sorry to say that none of us in Committee has been able to extract from the Minister or the Secretary of State the reason for the Bill. We have asked about the consequences if it were not introduced. We were told that the IRA is disarming, or even that it has disarmed and stood down its units, but to the question, “What will be the consequences if we don’t introduce the legislation?”, there has been no answer. We have asked who the legislation is for. Surely the victims and the relatives of the victims are those who matter, yet they do not want the legislation, so what is it for?
The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) asked why it was necessary for these people to come back. Will a great success have been achieved if people come back to Northern Ireland from abroad or beyond the jurisdiction, obtain a certificate and get a licence? Will we really have achieved that much? Why go through all the pain? What will be achieved?
The Secretary of State also said on Second Reading that there is a sort of acceptance that there would be no punishment. He said that people are not being punished now because they are on the run. If we follow that argument through to its logical conclusion, we could say here in Great Britain that if a murder is committed and the police know who committed the murder but have not caught that person, after a while we can say, “Okay, we have not caught that person and brought him to justice, so let us write the crime off completely.” That is the logic conclusion of the Bill.
We tabled amendments similar to that tabled by the hon. Member for East Antrim. We are short of time in Committee, but the fact that I have made a brief speech should not be taken to mean that I and the other Conservative members of the Committee—when they turn up—are not worried about this aspect of the Bill. We are most concerned. We are offended by it. During my eight years in the House, there have been times when legislation passed in connection in Northern Ireland has almost made me ashamed of my profession, and today is one such day.