Northern Ireland (Compton Committee's Report)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 17 November 1971.

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Photo of Mr Roy Hattersley Mr Roy Hattersley , Birmingham Sparkbrook 12:00, 17 November 1971

Then the Minister of State must make his stand one way or the other. I hope that as a corollary of his statement that he does not intend to pursue those matters about which Compton was not sceptical, he will say that he intends to pursue those matters about which the Compton Committee was specifically critical. What the Minister of State certainly cannot do is to say in the House that there is no cause for concern in the House because Compton says that it was all right and then say, as I fear that he will, that, even when Compton says that something is not all right, he will not pursue the matter. The Minister of State must make up his mind one way or the other.

Having dealt with that specific issue, I want to pursue the central issue of what the Compton Report reveals. This relates to the relationship between the Army and the civil population in Northern Ireland. Those of us who were concerned with the Army's presence in Northern Ireland originally in 1969 believed that the Army was going there basically—perhaps the description is grandiloquent, but we believed it—to help preserve the civilised values in Northern Ireland.

It is not possible to preserve the civilised values unless the preservers of those values are themselves free from criticism. It is essential that the Army is demonstrably on the side of law and order. Where there are issues which still have to be determined, where there are questions which still have to be answered, I do not believe that the Army can achieve the right relationship with the civil population, unless it is made clear that those areas of its conduct which are the subject of criticism by the Compton Report are to be investigated by the Army in its own way and that the Army's own procedures of discipline, should they prove to be appropriate, are to be followed.

The second reason why I think that the Army must pursue these matters further than they have been pursued up to now is that, if the Army is to succeed in its suppression of terrorism, it must secure once more the confidence of the Catholic population of Northern Ireland. Some hon. Members opposite will say that the confidence is still there and that it is only people like me who erode that confidence by repeating the complaints which come from Northern Ireland. I believe that that attitude is essentially one of hiding one's head in the sand. There is no doubt that the Army's esteem amongst the minority population in Northern Ireland is not what it was two years ago. Indeed, it is not what it was one year ago.