Support For Members Who Have Chosen Not To Take Their Seats

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:17 pm on 10 March 2005.

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Photo of Rt Hon David Trimble Rt Hon David Trimble Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party 3:17, 10 March 2005

It is not necessary for the hon. Gentleman to hang his hat on paragraph 13. If one looks at speeches made by the Prime Minister in 1998 one can see that his language is clearly broad enough to include criminality. Individuals who have recently made much of those comments should bear in mind the fact that he said at the time that the criteria and their application would necessarily become more stringent over time. In a transition, it is perfectly natural to expect criteria to be applied more stringently, and six or seven years into that period there is no basis whatever for failing to do so. In 2001, I considered that the motion was a mistake that would undermine the process: it would send republicans the signal that they could get away with it. Likewise, the activities of previous Secretaries of State, with their rather unpleasant references to internal housekeeping when there was brutality of a not dissimilar nature to the McCartney murder, undermined the process.

The Government's failure to insist rigorously on the basic principles of the agreement is not helping at all, and is likely to reinforce among republicans the view that if they hunker down and wait, after a short and not even decent interval the Government, the Irish Government and others will return to negotiations with them. It will just be a matter of rehashing the usual steps. I suspect that even today, officials are trying to cobble together yet another deal on policing to entice republicans back to the process. To do so, against the background of the republican statements this week, is simply nauseating.

Having made clear my view of the motion, I shall go a little further. Reference has been made to the individuals who were returned to represent certain constituencies and their activities. I am not sure of the exact composition of the IRA army council today—changes are made to it from time to time for the convenience of the organisation—but three Members who were returned to serve in the House are or have in the recent past been members of that body. There is no serious doubt about that. The more significant question is what they have been doing, both now and in the recent past.

I have referred to the report by the Independent Monitoring Commission. Mr. Lidington read out the text, which clearly says that senior members of Sinn Fein who were also senior members of the IRA—there are very few senior Sinn Fein members who are not senior members of the IRA—approved the robberies that were taking place. There is no doubt that some of the individuals involved in the execution of the robbery were very close indeed to the leadership of the republican movement. We do not know, but it is probable that the leadership knew exactly what was happening and thought that they could and would get away with it.

Mr. McNamara referred to the Standards and Privileges Committee, and actions that have been taken from time to time to suspend Members, reprimand them and so on. Occasionally, the House has gone further and expelled Members. That has been the case in comparatively recent times. A Member was expelled for telling a lie in Committee. He attributed dishonest motives to other Members when he himself was acting dishonestly. Another Member was expelled when he was convicted of the crime of forgery. He would have been disqualified because of the length of his prison sentence, but the House was not content to wait for that provision to take effect and expelled him. If the persons returned to serve in the House have not taken their seats and if they have been accessories to this crime, as the IMC report hinted, surely we should go further and follow those precedents. It would be proper to expel those persons from the House.

That is the reasoning behind my amendment, and I am glad that it has received the support of other hon. Members. It is entirely reasonable in the present circumstances to see what further information can be obtained about the activities of Members, for that information to be presented to the House and for the House to take the appropriate action.

Earlier, I said that at the time of the agreement republicans were locked into an arrangement that they did not like. I said that we could move them under pressure, and we did so to a significant extent. As a result, the situation in Northern Ireland is now quite different, so I make no apology for the decisions that we made in 1998, 1999 and 2000. It has become clear, however, that persons who were prepared to engage in politics are prepared to do so only up to a certain point. They are not willing to complete the transition and do what the Prime Minister has called for since October 2002. Their recent behaviour and statements give no indication that they are likely to change at all in future. We must therefore reassess the matter more fundamentally, and those who are now buying into the process must be careful not to become too eager.