Punishment for Murder

Part of Orders of the Day — New Clause 1 – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 14 May 1973.

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Photo of Mr Teddy Taylor Mr Teddy Taylor , Glasgow Cathcart 12:00, 14 May 1973

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

What we are debating is not clear. Are we abolishing something which exists? Are we trying to create a deterrent which does not exist? We have to ask ourselves about the position. When we were debating capital punishment a few weeks ago in the House, we were debating a situation which was clear. Up to 1965 we had capital punishment in this country, and it was applied. But from 1965 it was abolished.

What we have had in Northern Ireland is a situation in which the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1966 has been the law of the land, but in which the vast majority of people, rightly or wrongly, have assumed that no Government and no Home Secretary would ever hang anyone under that law because of the decision taken in respect of the United Kingdom in 1964.

Whether that is right or wrong, I suggest that the vast majority of hon. Members take that view and that the majority in Northern Ireland have taken the view that, bearing in mind the people who are at the Home Office and the views of members of the present Government and the previous Government, it has been rather meaningless to have capital punishment applying in Northern Ireland, because no Government of any party would have been prepared to carry out capital punishment in view of the decision of Parliament.

On the other hand, if we decide tonight to reject the new clause and the proposition to abolish capital punishment in Northern Ireland, if we say by a majority vote that we want capital punishment retained in Northern Ireland, for the first time since 1965 we should have a meaningful deterrent, if people regard it as a deterrent. Just as I should not accept for a moment that the threat of eviction in Northern Ireland is in any way a deterrent against withholding rent or rates to those engaged in rent and rate strikes because the law concerning rent and rates is not being implemented, so the existence of the law on murder as it stands is not a deterrent in the sense in which I would accept a deterrent. Neither the present Government nor the previous Government have had any intention of implementing this law. But the situation could be radically altered if tonight we voted to reject the new clause.

The hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) said that there was a great moral issue here. He made an excellent speech. The great moral issue was, first, that it was wrong that one man should carry the responsibility of saying whether someone should live or die. The hon. Member also suggested that this was not a decision, perhaps, that we in this House of Commons are entitled to take. It seemed that he was prepared to accept, just as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would accept, that individual troops who shoot terrorists should be given the responsibility of deciding whether to shoot. But if we say that the decision to take a life in this kind of situation is one which we cannot give to an individual, we should bear in mind the responsibility that we are putting on young troops in Northern Ireland who have to decide whether to shoot.

If the hon. Member for York seriously believes that it is utterly wrong for the State as an organisation to contemplate taking human life, he and his hon. Friends, and some of my hon. Friends who agree with him, should introduce a Private Member's Bill saying that no person in the Armed Forces in Northern Ireland should ever shoot a terrorist because it would be entirely wrong to do so.