Clause 1 - Offences to which the Act applies
Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill
4:30 pm
David Hanson (Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office; Delyn, Labour)
I cannot accept it because the amendment will alter the terms of the clause as it has been proposed. I have tried to assure hon. Members of the Committee—this is quotable for future reference in case law, as hon. Members know—that the provisions of clause 1(1)(a) are linked to the operation of the Terrorism Act 2000 and schedule 9 to that Act. I have not been able to draft the clause specifically to that effect due to technical difficulties—I am happy to go though the range of difficulties in writing, if that is what hon. Members want—but the effect is the same. I hope that any future legislator or interpreter of the legislation will be reassured by my words, as the Minister taking the Bill through Committee, that thed¤effect of clause 1 is exactly the same as schedule 9 to the Terrorism Act 2000.
The measure also relates to the sensitive issue raised in new clause 2 by the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson), the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) and others, and to the Government’s intention in proposing the clause as currently defined. Coming to terms with that issue and making judgments about it has been difficult for the ministerial team, but we have decided that the proposals relating to so-called on-the runs that were announced and discussed in 2003, then published by the British and the Irish Governments, cannot go through this House—and not for the simple reason that Opposition Members have suggested, that the proposals are sweeteners. We thought very deeply and made hard decisions on how to take the matter forward. Our decision is that it is incompatible with common decency to give someone who committed a serious terrorist offence prior to 10 April 1998 the facility to apply for a certificate, to go before the court in general terms, to have a conviction and then to be released on licence, while at the same time individuals who have served their country may—for the reasons mentioned by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr.d¤Wallace), amongst others—be subject to charges of murder or of other serious offences committed prior to 10 April 1998 and to being tried an ordinary court and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment if convicted.
The key point for us is not necessarily who has committed the offence, although that is important in general terms. It is that an individual has been charged with having committed,
“an offence ... in connection with terrorism and the affairs of Northern Ireland”,
prior to 10 April 1998. If a soldier and a terrorist are both charged with murder, although their cases are not broadly compatible, the offence with which they are charged is ultimately the same. In all fairness and justice, the Government had to include members of the security forces in the Bill, not as members of the security forces but as individuals charged with committing an offence relevant to clause 1, either through collusion or directly. If we had not done that, individuals involved in the security forces would face trial, conviction and imprisonment for an offence while a terrorist committing an horrendous act would face trial and conviction, but be released on licence. That is the reason we have undertaken that format. I will certainly give way.