Speech during the Northern Ireland Bill Debate
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire) (Con): I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson), who serves on the Select Committee and has a real and deep affection for Northern Ireland, which is obvious whenever one travels there with him.
I am also glad to be the first Opposition Member to speak after the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley), who made a highly significant speech, as people will realise when they read it in Hansard tomorrow. He and his deputy, the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson), have both contributed significantly during this month. My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), who spoke eloquently from the Front Bench, referred to the two speeches made by the hon. Member for Belfast, East, one in the United States on 6 April and the other at the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body on Monday. The substance of the speeches of both the leader and the deputy leader of the DUP was that, for all the difficulties that they face in doing so, they are prepared to sit down with and serve with those of very different political persuasions so long as those people play by the democratic rules and make it abundantly clear that that is what they are doing.
I, like the right hon. Member for North Antrim and my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury, support the Bill. I wish the Government well over the next few months. I hope that the negotiations will succeed. I am worried about deadlines—I realise that they must be there, but I would rather have the end of the year than 24 November. People in the rest of the United Kingdom do not fully face up to the difficulties that there will be and the daily burden of those who practise democratic politics in Northern Ireland if there is to be a restored Assembly. Those daily burdens have been referred to obliquely in this debate in many ways.
First, as I said in Question Time today—and the Secretary of State agreed—it is inconceivable that anybody who is engaged directly or indirectly in criminality should be involved in the government of any part of the United Kingdom, whether this House, a district or parish council or a devolved Parliament or Assembly. It is absolutely crucial that those who say that they have renounced the bullet for the ballot box prove that in every possible way.
Like the Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury and the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), who spoke splendidly earlier, I greatly welcome today's IMC report and what it says. However, we must not make the mistake, because we are encouraged by the good bits, of neglecting the others. There is a clear indication in that report that leading figures on the undemocratic republican side, while they might have renounced terrorism and engaged in a massive act of decommissioning—the latter I accept, and the former I hope that I can accept—are still benefiting from the ill-gotten gains of some pretty horrendous crimes and are still involved in those crimes. It would be wrong for me, as Chairman of the Select Committee, to pre-empt a report that has not yet been drafted, let alone published, but there are several members of the Committee in the Chamber who have listened with me to evidence that we have received from a variety of people and organisations. Some has been heard in public and some in camera because of its sensitivity. We have been told clearly that there are those who have been involved with IRA-Sinn Fein who are deeply implicated in acts of criminality, who have been so implicated in the recent past and almost certainly are at present.
There must be an absolute renunciation. When I intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) to say that the best thing that Sinn Fein could do would be to disband the IRA, I meant what I said. That would send those who want Northern Ireland to have a proper democratic future a real signal that Sinn Fein was indeed seeking to turn its back on the past.
We cannot make hatred history—which is what we must do in Northern Ireland—we cannot engender trust, and we cannot properly embrace the doctrine of forgiveness in which the right hon. Member for North Antrim made clear that he truly believes unless there is a proper understanding that those who wish to sit down with the Social Democratic and Labour party, the Democratic Unionist party and the Ulster Unionist party are putting themselves in a context of what I would call democratic equality.
Even when that happens, there will still be real difficulties in making the Assembly work. The right hon. Member for Torfaen touched on them, amusingly, when he said that he would find it difficult to enter into a coalition with Tories or Liberal Democrats. I would find it difficult to enter into a political coalition with friends—of whom I have many—on the other side of the House, not because I do not trust them and not because I would for a moment impugn their democratic credentials, but because we have very different political beliefs. Yet we in the rest of the United Kingdom are asking the democratic parties in Northern Ireland to sit down with Sinn Fein, whose political beliefs—as I said earlier—are inimical to those of most of us in the Chamber, wherever we come from. Sinn Fein's economic and education policies are closer to those of Cuba than to those of the United Kingdom.
Mr. Donaldson: They are Marxist.
Sir Patrick Cormack: They are indeed.
Because of the demography of Northern Ireland and the sad history of recent decades, we recognise that we must try to find an accommodation and work with those people. The least that we can expect is for them to behave in the same way as Marxist parties in some democracies—although not many—in other parts of the world.
We are asking a great deal. I make a plea to the Government on two fronts. I understand why the Secretary of State cannot be present, and I hope that the Minister, who is diligent, will relay my points to him. First, while I accept the firmness of the Government's intention and wish for a deadline, I think that it would be sensible to make it the end of the year. Secondly and more important, I think that it would be sensible, if we are to plead with the parties in Northern Ireland to work together, to refrain from any unnecessary Orders in Council in the House, at least until the November deadline specified by the Government.
Several speakers, including the right hon. Member for Torfaen, referred to the reform of local government. At the moment, this House is imposing on the people of Northern Ireland a democratic local government structure that none of the democratic parties wants. It is clear to me from my many conversations with people in Northern Ireland that there is an acceptance that there are too many local authorities. But there is an equal acceptance among most to whom I speak that seven authorities is too few—an acceptance of the logic of the argument of the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) that such a structure runs the risk of polarising Northern Ireland for generations into, "Three green, three orange and Belfast." Such a structure cannot be good if we truly want a Northern Ireland that works together.
Frankly, it was very undemocratic of the Secretary of State to dismiss such worries when he was intervened on by saying that business people and various groups want such a structure. Northern Ireland's elected politicians, who are playing a part in the democratic structures of this House, do not want it, so I beg the Minister to put that proposal on ice and to say, as a real encouragement to those who would participate in a proper and fully functioning Assembly, "We will not impose on you a new local government structure if you can get your act together by the deadline."
I also hope that the same will prove true of education. I accept that unanimity among the parties on this issue does not exist; indeed, it is clear from the evidence that my Committee took, and from talking to people, that there is division. There is probably a majority in Northern Ireland who do not want the change that the Government are seeking to impose, although there seems to be a general recognition that the form of the 11-plus could be altered. However, we should let the Assembly get its teeth into this issue and deal with it. As I said in a jocular aside to the right hon. Member for North Antrim, I am not sure that this House should even be passing water until 24 November; there again, there are deep divisions in Northern Ireland and real concerns. [Interruption.] Perhaps that is what the right. hon. Gentleman, who is no longer in his place, has gone to do. [Interruption.] That was indeed a very indelicate remark.
I urge the Minister to recognise that we are dealing with a number of issues that will affect the daily lives of the people of Northern Ireland for generations to come, and that we are anxious to have an Assembly that represents, is elected by and is answerable to them. Should not that Assembly have the same freedom to decide on such issues as the Parliament established in Scotland and the Assembly established in Wales? If we all mean business, there will have to be give and take on all sides. The absent ones in this House—the Sinn Fein Members who do not take their seats—have got to prove their democratic credentials. I would like them to be here, but if they will not come here, they should at least make the absolute and total renunciation that I have talked about. I say to the Unionist parties—and to the Social, Democratic and Labour party; I well remember the bravery of Gerry Fitt—that those who have suffered at the hands of gangsters and terrorists will have to sit down with those who have been gangsters or terrorists, or who supported them. A lot of give and take is involved.
We in this House must be prepared to say, "We are going to draw back from interference and domination while you have this period to sort yourselves out." That is not too much to ask of the Government—it is not too heavy a price for them to pay—in order to preserve a truly bipartisan policy. I am very pleased that we in the Select Committee do not divide on party lines. I hope that we will not, and that this House will not do so today or tomorrow. I very much hope that the Secretary of State's wishes will be fulfilled, but I ask that he show the degree of caution and tolerance that is necessary
