Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning Act 1997 (Amnesty Period) Order 2007

In his introduction, the Minister drew attention to the fact that this event has happened each year for more years than we would have liked. He referred, quite rightly, to the significant IRA decommissioning that has recently taken place and said that decommissioning is essential for confidence building. Unfortunately, decommissioning has not built sufficient confidence in society in Northern Ireland. In fact, the decommissioning that took place recently has passed by without making a ripple of an impact on public opinion. The reasons for this are quite simple: first, decommissioning has taken much longer than expected; and, secondly, it has been done in a way that has not been helpful. In saying that it has taken longer than expected, I recall that on 10 April 1998 the Prime Minister, in writing, stated quite clearly that the view of Her Majesty’s Government was that decommissioning should start immediately decommissioning schemes were put in place in June 1998. It would have been good had the Government stuck to that point and ensured that it happened. Unfortunately, the Government never brought effective pressure to bear on republicans and I am very much of the view that decommissioning would never have started but for the actions of myself and my colleagues. It started, but it has continued in a way that has not built confidence because the decommissioning commission, in my view quite wrongly, agreed with republicans that decommissioning should be carried out in secret—and, of course, things that are done in secret will never build confidence. Although the Government, through the Minister, have said that this is essential for confidence building, they have not realised or joined up in their minds the desirable objectives of decommissioning and the folly of agreeing to things being done in secret. I do not want the Minister to say in reply that there was some obligation of confidence in the legislation. It is an excuse that the Government have used in the past and, if the Minister feels inclined to use it, I would refer him to a contribution I made in another place four years ago in which I went through the legislation and the schemes in detail, showing quite clearly that the Government’s contention was wrong. I recall that on that occasion the Minister who replied to the debate was silent on the issue, which I took to mean that he had no reply to the points I made. Nevertheless, decommissioning by republicans has happened and cannot be repeated. We are then left with the situation that there has been no significant decommissioning by the main loyalist elements or by dissident republicans. Here again, it is deeply regrettable that there has not been progress on these issues. A year ago there was some hope that the UVF would engage in significant action and rumours were put about that it was planning to do something in July of last year. Unfortunately, the way in which the Government’s current political initiative has been handled has created a certain amount of uncertainty and that plan has gone backwards. The uncertainty has been created by foolish comments, mainly by commentators, but to a certain extent by Ministers, about a plan B if the present proposals do not succeed. The uncertainty about that has, we understand, led the UVF to put on hold whatever it had been planning to do last July. That is highly regrettable. We have made the point repeatedly to loyalist paramilitaries and their representatives that they ought to have taken a lead in decommissioning and that they still should act promptly on the matter. Holding back does not give any added influence either to themselves or to anyone purporting to represent the unionist or loyalist community. In this context and the context of the report to which the noble Lord, Lord Smith, referred—namely, the police ombudsman’s report—which goes into considerable and quite distasteful detail about the activities of the UVF, and particularly its leadership, I wonder whether the Secretary of State was wise to speak in the way that he did at the funeral of Mr David Ervine. I can understand his attendance there, but not him speaking in a way that lavished praise upon Mr Ervine, and, by extension, his associates. There is no doubt as to who they were, because I am told by better-informed persons than myself that the entire leadership of the UVF was there, prominently, sitting not too far away from the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State must have received this report by that time, and if he had no knowledge of the character he was praising on that occasion before he saw that report, he must have done when he received it. I am simply amazed at his behaviour in that respect. I doubt if the Minister is in a position, or even has a desire, to comment on that, but I felt that it would not be right to let the matter pass without querying the behaviour of the Secretary of State on that occasion. We hope that matters will progress and it would be nice if we were not here in a year’s time, doing the same thing. We do not know, of course, how things will develop, although I am encouraged by the way that things are going and there is a prospect of serious progress—but I shall not speculate further on that because there are persons present here who might, if they feel like it, give us further information and better particulars on those matters. I shall leave that to them. I am optimistic that there will be that progress, which I hope will be followed by loyalists waking up to the reality that their activities and continuing existence as paramilitaries are doing nothing for them, nothing for the persons that they purport to represent or ““protect””, and that they would be much better bringing their armed organisations to an end. As to the threat from dissident republicans, I am afraid that that problem will exist. We have the consolation that the security forces appear to have the measure of those groups quite effectively and I hope that that will bring us as close to normality as we can expect to be. I hope that we will not find ourselves here again next year.