Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 13 Rhagfyr 1973.
The hon. Member need not have wasted his breath. I have every reason to remember all these events, because I lived through them. How could I forget them? The Romans came to this country to bring a little civilisation here, and what they did to the people after they arrived is a subject for interminable argument.
I should like the Minister to answer at least one question. He is not in the habit of answering any questions that I put to him, but when this 1861 law has been reactivated, it will mean that if somebody from the North or from the South shoots a soldier in the North of Ireland and escapes into the South he will be arrested in the South and brought to court in the South and witnesses will be summoned. What I want the Minister to tell us is whether he anticipates the day when British soldiers will be arriving in Dublin courts to give evidence. If he does anticipate that, has he any thoughts at all on the likely repercussions that such a move will have in that part of Ireland?
Can the Minister tell me by what date it is expected that the Council of Ireland's powers will come into effect? We have been told that the Executive will have effect from 1st January. There is to be a formal conference at some time later in the month. Is it a fact that, as a result of that formal conference, the powers of the Council of Ireland will have effect from that moment, or are there to be commissions, committees and studies, so that at this time next year we will come back to this House and ask again when the Council of Ireland will have a little power?
The Council of Ireland is a non-contentious issue. It is a good idea if it gets enough power, but what about the really contentious issues which have been mentioned so often in this House? Is internment any less contentious today than it was?
The SDLP now says, with the Government and Mr. Faulkner, that if the violence stops internment will end. Everyone knew that from the beginning, but the logic of that statement is that it is right, while violence lasts, for internees to be interned. That is what the SDLP is now saying. That view is not going down well with the people in Northern Ireland, with the people who have brothers, sisters and relatives interned and in prison.
One of the other points of the SDLP election manifesto was an amnesty for political offences. I am prepared to wager that the word was never even mentioned at Sunningdale. So, internment is still with us in as vicious and escalating a form as ever it was. The British Government say, "Let there be a bit of good will. If we have good will all round, given a bit of time this thing can work." They are sticking their heads in the sand. They are not facing the facts.
We are approaching the universal season of good will. There are eight people in this country, two of them young girls, who are on hunger strike and are being forcibly fed. They live not a quarter of a mile away from the Minister-designate for Health and Social Services. How is he to sell his package to his immediate neighbours when these people will not even be returned to Northern Ireland? That is all they ask. They are not asking to be released but only to be sent home to a more friendly atmosphere. The courts of this country sentenced them to life imprisonment. Surely that is punishment enough, or do the Government want blood as well? All they want is to be returned to a better atmosphere. How is a relative of young Kelly to travel to the Isle of Wight once or twice a month? It is a long way from Belfast. How are the visitors to get there and back and who is to pay? The simple and humane answer is to send these people back to Northern Ireland where they want to be.
What deal did the SDLP get on the police? What commitment to reform was it promised? The answer is, nothing. There was a reaffirmation of the facts that the RUC will continue to be the police force of Northern Ireland. At Question Time today the Government were asked a significant and timely question—how many complaints have there been against the RUC? The Secretary of State said there had been something in excess of 2,600. Of that number three people have so far been found guilty. That is an extraordinary figure. Either the police are saints and the population are malicious, or else the complaints procedure is absolutely inadequate. The police force is no more acceptable now, even though the SDLP says it is, than it was six months ago when it said that the police force of this country and the RUC were not acceptable to the SDLP's constituents. Nothing has happened in the intervening six months to alter that, and nor is there any abatement of harassment by the Army.
These are the issues that count, not whether there should be 30, 60 or 100 members on the Council of Ireland. Most people do not give twopence about how many members there will be. They want to know when their people will be released from internment and when the police and the Army will get off their backs. They want to know when they will get equal chances in their communities.
I recall that four or five years ago a campaign was launched in Northern Ireland calling for one man one vote. That request was granted. Yet—lo and behold!—the British and Irish Governments meeting together in their democratic wisdom have devised a system which has obliterated the notion of one man one vote. There will be 30 members from the North and 30 from the South. There are 2 million voters in the South and 1 million in the North. One vote in the North is, therefore, equal to two votes in the South and out goes the con- cept of one man one vote. That arrangement offends by any standard of democracy. If there is to be democracy let it be consistent or let things be handled in some other way.
The SDLP has been placed in an odious position. It has been given the task by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland of selling the package to its people, but he has given it nothing with with to sell it. He could have if he had wanted to. He could have said, "You can tell your people the internees will be released, there will be substantial reform in the police, and the Army will lay off you." He told it none of these things. He told it, "Sell the package or the deal is off."
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) has attempted during the debate to play one side off against the other. He has attempted to say that if it offends the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) it automatically must please us, or vice versa. He must think that we are either idiots or children.