Mr Humphrey Atkins: I shall not follow the details of the not unexpected theme of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). He takes every opportunity to talk about this subject, which will come up again as the months and years go by. The right hon. Gentleman stressed the difficulty of the position. All hon. Members understand it. If I understood my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary...
Mr Humphrey Atkins: If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me for a moment, I shall suggest some ways in which the acceptability can be tested. It might need to be tested in a few months' time. It is no use to suppose that we or Hong Kong could produce democratic institutions that would enable anyone to say that the elected representatives of Hong Kong approved the agreement. We cannot do it in four months. We...
Mr Humphrey Atkins: I do not disagree with what the hon. Gentleman says. We should try to give prison officers - more training. However, does he accept that during the past 10 or 12 years in Northern Ireland there has been an enormous expansion in the number of prisoners, and that it has been impossible to provide the extended training that he recommends and that I support?
Mr Humphrey Atkins: The visible outcome in the Province of the two hunger strikes which took place when I happened to be Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was that the people there told me—I do not know what they told the right hon. Gentleman — that they were delighted that it had been established beyond doubt that there was no such thing as a political crime and that people who murdered other people...
Mr Humphrey Atkins: I followed with interest the long speech by the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer). It was longer than the speech by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I agreed with most of the earlier part of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's speech, but towards the end he made some remarks which seemed to have nothing to do with the subject under discussion and which...
Mr Humphrey Atkins: My right hon. Friend has made an important statement which we shall wish to study carefully. He said that he recognises the problem of the low-spending authorities, such as Surrey, of which I represent a part. Can he assure me that his words mean that next year he will seek to deal with the difficulties which he knows that Surrey and other authorities are experiencing?
Mr Humphrey Atkins: Will my right hon. Friend do everything that he can to persuade the Official Unionist party to reconsider the decision that it is reported to have made to withdraw from the assembly? Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is precisely what the terrorists want? Does he further agree that if terrorists can get what they want by violence, it will only make them increase the level of violence?
Mr Humphrey Atkins: I was referring to the case of a man against whom a warrant exists for his arrest for committing murder. I suppose that that offence can be said to be political, but I do not think that it is. I object to his being able to go to the courts in his own country and say that his motive was political and therefore the crime was different.
Mr Humphrey Atkins: For 25 minutes or half an hour we have been listening to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) attempting to explain why in 1983 he is advising his right hon. and hon. Friends to behave in exactly the opposite way to that in which they behaved in 1982, 1981, 1980, 1979 and for all the years since 1974 when he and his right hon. and hon. Friends held the...
Mr Humphrey Atkins: Yes. I shall explain why shortly. As Lord Jellicoe says, such decisions are Executive ones, not those of the courts. If they were, people would come before the courts. The hon. Lady can argue that such powers should not exist. I believe that they should. I am suggesting that if they exist my right hon. and learned Friend should consider exclusion as he might find it helpful—it would...
Mr Humphrey Atkins: If one believes, as I do, that murder is murder whatever the cause, all that I can say is that it should not operate in that way.
Mr Humphrey Atkins: No, I will not, because I am about to conclude my remarks, and there is little time for other hon. Members to join in the debate because we started late. I entirely support my right hon. and learned Friend in bringing forward the Bill. It contains several alterations, all of which are more liberating, as suggested by Lord Jellicoe, whose review has been most helpful and to whom we owe a...
Mr Humphrey Atkins: I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was arguing about the length of time. He said that it was the understanding in our law that it was all right to arrest someone provided that he is brought before the court as soon as possible. As he well knows, the law does not specify any time. It may be 24, 36 or 48 hours. If someone is detained for longer than that it is wrong. Therefore, I do not...
Mr Humphrey Atkins: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I beg leave to present a humble petition from 1,500 citizens of the borough of Spelthorne in the county of Surrey and neighbouring districts.
Mr Humphrey Atkins: I am sure that the House was interested to hear the hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Abse) say that the reintroduction of capital punishment, far from deterring murderers, would encourage them. I do not agree with that, and I shall return to the matter in a few moments. First, I want to deal with an aspect of terrorism which was mentioned by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary...
Mr Humphrey Atkins: We should not be deterred from going ahead with what we think is right. Another point that was mentioned by two or three hon. Members—I think by the right hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) and the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) — was that if a terrorist is condemned to die there will be terrible trouble in the form of kidnappings, reprisal killings and...
Mr Humphrey Atkins: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that explanation, which shows that I misunderstood the purport of his and other hon. Members' remarks. I thought that he was saying that we should not act because it would create too much trouble. If those two groups will not be much deterred, who would? There are two obvious groups of people who spring to mind who would be deterred by the thought that if they...
Mr Humphrey Atkins: First, Mr. Callaghan, I welcome you to your new role as Father of the House. A great many Members have held it before you, Mr. Callaghan but, while it is not unprecedented, it is rare that anyone comes to it with such a distinguished record of public service in so many of the highest offices of State. As one who arrived both in the world and in the House 10 years after you, Mr. Callaghan, I...
Mr Humphrey Atkins: If we are in that position, only the Speaker will help us. We have been fortunate in the House of Commons for far more years than any of us here can remember in having a succession of Speakers who have upheld that right and made this Chamber the envy of the world. That right must never be allowed to disappear. Secondly, the Speaker has to be at one and the same time both our servant and our...
Mr Humphrey Atkins: Will my right hon. Friend use every means at his disposal to bring home to the MEPs who are contemplating this action the fact that any attempt at mischievous meddling in the affairs of Northern Ireland will do nothing whatever to solve the deep-seated problems of that province—
