Orders of the Day — Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning (Amendment) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 9:17 pm on 17 December 2001.

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Photo of Nigel Dodds Nigel Dodds Opposition Whip (Commons) 9:17, 17 December 2001

I listened carefully to the speech of Mr. Pound, and I admire his sincerity and conviction. He referred to having left the Chamber momentarily to act as Father Christmas. That must mean that there are two Members tonight who have acted as Father Christmas; the hon. Gentleman outside the Chamber and the Secretary of State, in terms of what he has offered to IRA-Sinn Fein, inside it. Let us make no mistake about it: that is exactly how the Bill is seen in Northern Ireland and how it will be taken by the republican constituency. They are delighted at the fact that once again the deadline for decommissioning will be extended, if the House so votes tonight. Once again, it is going to be fudged and put back, as many hon. Members have predicted. My hon. Friend Rev. Ian Paisley said to the Secretary of State at Question Time that it would not cause a ripple of surprise in Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, that is not to diminish the outrage that is felt among ordinary grass-roots Unionists in Northern Ireland at the way in which concession after concession has been given to the republican movement; and on the issue of the decommissioning of illegal terrorist arms, they have been pandered to and appeased.

Reference has been made to the 1997 Act and to the fact that this Bill is an extension of that Act. When the Act was introduced, it was not introduced in a vacuum, as some have said. It was introduced in the wake of the Mitchell report. The Mitchell commission was set up to look at how progress could be made through talks, and at the barrier that was said to exist for republicans because of their refusal to decommission. The Mitchell commission made a proposal for a twin-track approach, with political discussions and, at the same time, the decommissioning of illegal terrorist arms for those who took part in the talks. That is why the 1997 Act was introduced by the then Conservative Government. It was on foot with the Mitchell review.

What actually happened? Despite the clear outline given by Senator Mitchell, and the Government's acceptance of the need for political talks to run in parallel with decommissioning of illegal terrorist weapons by those engaged in the talks, what happened was that, once the talks started and IRA-Sinn Fein was admitted, just six weeks after the atrocious murder of two RUC officers on the streets of Lurgan, that issue was put to one side. It was forgotten, and no decommissioning took place.

Then we had the agreement. Nowhere in the agreement does it say explicitly that there was a deadline for decommissioning of illegal terrorist arms, but we were told by those who signed up to the agreement and by the proponents of the agreement that the deadline was 22 May 2000. Of course, we saw that deadline moved to June 2001. The then junior Minister at the Northern Ireland Office, Mr. Ingram, made it clear that the target date was June 2001. That has passed and now the deadline of February 2002 is also to be extended to a date that means that the Government hope that decommissioning will simply disappear as a political issue. That is the purpose of the Bill and it is why so many people in Northern Ireland are so angry about it in the context of all the other concessions that have been allowed to the republican movement. On the one issue on which something was demanded of it, the deadline will be put back to 2007. As has rightly been pointed out, the original IRA and other terrorist organisations will take whatever time is available to perform whatever responsibilities they have.

The Secretary of State came to the House not long ago and quoted the editorial in the Belfast News Letter against hon. Members, and he urged us to take account of what it said. That newspaper is not generally supportive of those of us who have taken a sceptical view of the agreement—far from it—so I hope that the Secretary of State will take account of that paper's editorial on 12 December, which said:

"The Secretary of State is again making the mistake of allowing paramilitary organisations to duck their responsibilities."

That is what the Bill will achieve.

We have had discussion of the wonderful progress that has been made, but many people in Northern Ireland would scratch their heads in amazement at some of the descriptions we have heard from hon. Members, especially Labour Members, about the progress that is supposed to have been made. The Belfast Telegraph publishes opinion polls—which it does not generally use to bolster up my side of the argument—and it published one in the aftermath of the gesture carried out by the IRA, which showed that only 51 per cent. of all respondents, Unionist and nationalists, Catholics and Protestants, believed that an act of decommissioning was in fact carried out. It said that 52 per cent. of Protestants who were asked whether they believed General John de Chastelain when he said that a significant act of decommissioning had been carried out by the IRA said no. I am reminded of what Mr. Trimble said on 28 June 1999:

"recognisable, quantifiable decommissioning before any Executive is established remains the only way in which democrats can safely see that the war is indeed over."

I wish that the right hon. Gentleman still took that position, and that he had stuck to it before allowing IRA-Sinn Fein into government.

The gesture that we have seen from the IRA is just that. It is not linked to a timetable or a process. We were told that it had to be part of a timetable leading to the complete and verifiable destruction or decommissioning of illegal terrorist weapons.

There have been gestures before. People have urged us to consider the historic significance of the IRA's acts, but another event, already referred to today, involved the Loyalist Volunteer Force. There was an act of decommissioning. The LVF ceasefire has been declared over since then because that gesture turned out to be meaningless. Why was it meaningless? Because it was not part of a process linked to a timetable for the complete and utter destruction of all weapons. It was a gesture, a stunt.

Ministers have been unable to tell us today that they know even what the IRA's gesture amounted to. The IRA, as General de Chastelain confirmed to us, made it clear that it wants no one apart from the commission—not the Government, not even the Prime Minister—to know what the event was, how many weapons were involved, where it took place or anything else. On that basis, we are supposed to keep Martin McGuinness, the IRA chief of staff, and Gerry Adams and other such people in the Government of Northern Ireland.

Let us consider the so-called historic and significant event in the light of what happened following the LVF gesture. The LVF ceasefire has been declared bogus. Hon. Members on both sides of the House should recognise how strongly people on the Unionist side in Northern Ireland feel. I accept what Mr. Pound said about recognising where Members from Northern Ireland come from on these issues, but I wish people would take more time to speak to Unionists in Northern Ireland and realise the depth of anxiety and anger that exists at the process of concessions that is under way.

We have seen the Royal Ulster Constabulary shabbily treated and discarded. The Minister can shake her head, but the RUC has been shabbily treated and discarded. That is the view of the vast majority of the Unionists of Northern Ireland. Indeed, the Minister herself said that the RUC had been laid to rest.

Mr. Donaldson referred to the fact that people in our Government refuse to support the new Police Service for Northern Ireland. Not only do they not support it; they are on record as saying that they want its recruits to be treated in the same way that recruits to the RUC were treated. We know exactly how they were treated—they were murdered and intimidated, and their families were murdered and intimidated.

There is a cold house for Unionists, as the Secretary of State said in his speech in Liverpool. Instead of offering measures to remedy that, he comes before us with a measure that will put back the deadline for decommissioning. Tomorrow, along with his colleague the Leader of the House, he will come here with a motion to allow IRA-Sinn Fein into the precincts of this House, a special privilege not granted to other Members who refuse to take the oath. The Secretary of State needs to start acting on his words. The vast majority of Unionists, whether or not they supported the agreement, have lost faith both in the agreement and in the Government's capacity even to acknowledge the fears of the Unionist community.