Death Penalty

Part of New clause 1 – in the House of Commons at 6:15 pm on 1 April 1987.

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Photo of Mr Edward Heath Mr Edward Heath , Bexley Sidcup 6:15, 1 April 1987

I hesitated to give way initially only because I thought it might be more worthwhile to give my right hon. and learned Friend a general give-way at the end on all the points that I make rather than on particular instances.

Are we not entitled to expect that he and his right hon. and hon. Friends, when putting forward a new clause to the House, would at least have removed ambiguities and not said what the House must do is wait and see what the other House does about it? The other House may want two different categories; we do not know. So we have no opportunity of settling that for ourselves.

The other aspect is the application of the Bill to England and Wales or the United Kingdom as a whole. This is a basic point. As a House we are surely not entitled to include in a Bill that applies to England and Wales a measure which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport says that he wants to apply to the United Kingdom. In other words, even those who want the restoration of capital punishment must recognise that this is no means by which to restore capital punishment in this country. On that basis alone the clause should be rejected.

I want to support most strongly what the Home Secretary has said in his analysis of the situation. We have had cited the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1947, which is 40 years ago, the Royal Commission in 1953, which is 35 years ago, and it is now time capital punishment, having been abolished for nearly a quarter of a century, for there to be a re-examination in the light of abolition over a quarter of a century. Then we would have some basic evidence on which those who want to can form their judgments and change their views. It is not possible to ignore the intervening period of nearly a quarter of a century in which capital punishment has been abolished.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport said, in regard to Northern Ireland, that we must not take any notice of the consequences. I believe that he is profoundly mistaken. My Government abolished capital punishment in Northern Ireland because we knew that it was not conducive to a better situation, it was worsening the situation, and that was why we asked Parliament to take that decision. I face up to my right hon. and learned Friend quite frankly. What the IRA was doing was demonstrating what we all knew — that if we implemented the powers of capital punishment it would make the situation worse by the executions that it would carry out. My right hon. and learned Friend is entitled to say that, but we all knew it beforehand.