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 Rear-Admiral Morgan Morgan-Giles Rear-Admiral Morgan Morgan-Giles , Winchester 12:00, 14 May 1973

An important group of people is missing from the debate this evening. I mean the soldiers and members of the security forces in Northern Ireland. While we in this House, year after year, engage in semantics about capital punishment, day after day, and night after night, our soldiers in Northern Ireland are risking their lives for us. They are the people who are carrying the can, and they are the people who are really affected by the debate.

I support the Secretary of State in his general policy, and I am delighted that recently there have been some hopeful signs in the Northern Ireland situation, but I cannot agree with the new clause. Our soldiers are being shot and murdered almost daily. Can this be the moment to indicate to the murderers that they can continue the process with increased inmmunity?

If we pass the new clause today, what will our soldiers think about it? How can the Government possibly explain this to the individual soldiers? How, most of all, can they explain it to their families? Conversely, what will the parents in Belfast and Londonderry of those misguided young men who join the IRA or terrorist organisations think about it? I believe that if we pass the new clause those parents will be far less likely to try to deter their sons from adventurously creeping into the night armed with sniper's rifles to seek to kill our soldiers.

I believe that the new clause is utterly misguided and fantastically mistimed, and I cannot do other than vote against it.