No, I am going to conclude.
The Northern Ireland that I was born into 50 years ago this year was a place with an atmosphere of violence and conflict that was powerful and overwhelming. Such was that society that when I moved to England to a little village in Hertfordshire called Wheathampstead I told my mother as an eight-year-old boy that I did not feel safe. When she asked me why, I said that the police did not have guns and the Army were not on the streets. That was the normalised Northern Ireland of those days. Thank God those days are behind us.
On the formation of the Northern Ireland Office, Willie Whitelaw was appointed Secretary of State. He went on his first evening in post to speak to a Conservative gathering in Harrow. It is recorded in his memoirs that he said to them:
“I am undertaking the most terrifying, difficult and awesome task. The solution…will only be found in the hearts and minds of men and women.”
Northern Ireland remains a society where facts are contested and divisions are entrenched. We cannot draw a line and we cannot move on. You cannot heal the hurt of human hearts, or the grief of bereaved parents and siblings, but we have a duty to try to find a way not to bequeath this entrenched division to future generations.
In a spirit of partnership, co-operation and compromise, let us head to the Bill Committee and use our collective judgment, knowledge and wisdom to improve the proposition that is before the House today. In that spirit, I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.