New Clause 1 — Patterns and lessons report on aspects of the past

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Work and Pensions – in the House of Commons at 5:19 pm on 18 November 2013.

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Photo of Mark Durkan Mark Durkan Shadow SDLP Spokesperson (International Development), Shadow SDLP Spokesperson (Work and Pensions), Shadow SDLP Spokesperson (Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs), Shadow SDLP Spokesperson (Home Affairs), Shadow SDLP Spokesperson (Justice), Shadow SDLP Spokesperson (Treasury) 5:19, 18 November 2013

New clauses 1 and 3 are tabled by me and my hon. Friends the Members for Belfast South (Dr McDonnell) and for South Down (Ms Ritchie).

I should explain to the House that new clause 1 expands on an amendment I tabled in Committee— in the Public Bill Committee upstairs, rather than in Committee of the whole House. The point of the new clause is to afford the House an opportunity to consider whether some of the work undertaken on the past in Northern Ireland could be consolidated and could have its value advertised and added to by creating the capacity for the Secretary of State to commission a report or reports by a person or persons on various groups or classes of cases, on events in a particular locality or period, or on the activities of a particularly paramilitary group within a particular period of time.

We are suggesting that a class report, based on other reports and findings that have already been produced—whether by the Historical Enquiries Team, established inquiries or independent panels, or even by reviews that might be established in the future—would be necessary because at the minute we have a fairly inadequate arrangement whereby if the HET reports on a case the report is given to the family concerned and treated as though it is the property of the family. It is published only if the family chooses to publish it and only in the manner the family chooses.

When there have been issues with some of the HET’s work, not least when it has investigated what have been called “Army deaths”, that situation has meant that although the HET has done some good work over a number of years, which has been valuable to the families, many families have not felt that they could discharge the burden of publishing the work. Of course, other families have been able to publish that work or to turn to the assistance of others to have it published. In recent times, a powerful compilation examining different HET reports has been produced by the Pat Finucane Centre, resulting in a book called “Lethal Allies.” It draws on the HET reports on a number of cases, on Ministry of Defence files and on other papers in the national archive to set out more of the circumstances behind a certain group of murders—the up to 120 murders conducted by the Glenanne gang. That powerful book has been able to draw on HET reports simply because those families gave the reports to the Pat Finucane Centre and entrusted it with that work. That points towards a wider gap in the provisions on the past, not least those that the Secretary of State would preside over in the public interest and in the name of the wider political process.