Colum Eastwood
MP for Foyle · Social Democratic & Labour Party · United Kingdom
“I am not sure that we know that the IRA did not keep records, but that is an aside. What we do know very well, given all that we have seen over the last number of years and the reports that have been done, is that the IRA and other terrorist organisations were riddled from top to bottom with informers reporting directly to the British sta…”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am very grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s kind words. I just want to make sure that I understood him; he said that inquests have not dealt with innocent civilians being killed.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are cases right now of dead children where the families still have not got access to their files and will not for many years. We have issues with some of the provisions. We have issues with the national security veto, which has been used many times before. It is a national embarrassment and should not be used again.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They had good experiences and bad experiences with some of the people they met. Patsy Gillespie’s daughter Jennifer was among them. A braver family you could not meet.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Next week, we will have to go to the Supreme Court, because this Government are appealing the judgment that mandates this Government to bring about a public inquiry. I appeal to the Government today to take the opportunity to listen to what Bridie Brown has had to go through.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Should those people not be entitled to the same level of justice, if it can be achieved, as any other citizen in the United Kingdom? I do not understand the argument against it.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“The Secretary of State will be aware that it has been a year since the Executive was finally re-established. In that time, they have still been unable to agree a programme for Government. This morning, we learned that today’s meeting to agree it has been moved again. Does he agree that, for the sake of the people of Northern Ireland, it is time they got on with it?”
House of Commons26 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Last week, along with other Members of this House, I met Ukrainian parliamentarians at the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in Vienna. The opposition MPs from Ukraine made it clear that they do not support Donald Trump’s call for an election in Ukraine while they are defending against Russian aggression. In his conversations with the US Administration this week, will the Foreign Secretary make it clear that there is only one dictator in this conflict, and his name is Vladimir Putin?”
House of Commons24 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I think we have finally figured out why the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has not yet been able to make it to Northern Ireland. I thank the Government and the Northern Ireland Executive for their recent commitment to the City of Derry airport. The public service obligation on the Heathrow route is very important for connectivity to the north-west of Ireland. When the Minister reviews the PSO for the next tranche of funding we hope to get, will he do some work with the airlines to bring fares down? They are out of reach for many people in the area.”
House of Commons5 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. This has been a long, long journey for the people who have been affected by this scandal—and that is exactly what it has been. Can he clarify an issue that has been raised about inheritance tax? Given that many payments will be paid to the very elderly, many second generation recipients are worried about inheritance tax. Will they be exempt from inheritance tax? Is that possible?”
House of Commons23 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It seems to me that these questions would be better directed at the Treasury, because that is where the decision was made. I thank the Secretary of State for the work he did over the weekend after the 17th to secure the much-needed Derry city deal. He has said that there will be an update in the Budget about the other two deals that have been paused. Can he confirm whether that will be an update or a decision?”
House of Commons9 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Belfast North (John Finucane), on their tireless campaigning to get to this point, and I thank the Secretary of State for finally doing the right thing on behalf of the British Government in announcing this inquiry. When does he envisage the inquiry beginning?”
House of Commons11 September 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On 17 January 1989, Conservative Minister Douglas Hogg claimed in Parliament that solicitors in Northern Ireland were “unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA.” —[ Official Report, Standing Committee B, 17 January 1989; c. 508.] Seamus Mallon MP responded that he had “no doubt that there are lawyers walking the streets or driving on the roads of the North of Ireland who have become targets for assassins’ bullets as a result of the statement that has been made tonight.” —[ Official Report, Standing Committee B, 17 January 1989; c. 519.] Three weeks later, lawyer Pat Finucane was shot 14 times and murdered in his own house in front of his wife and three children. I commend Geraldine Finucane and the Finucane family, including of course the hon.”
House of Commons11 September 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“You were a champion, as you said yourself, for Back Benchers and for the smaller parties. Even when some of us pushed very close to the line, when we felt that certain things had to be put on the record of this House—he knows what I am talking about—you were there to protect us from some of the legal authorities who would like to get at us. Thank you very much for that. Mr Speaker-Elect, I wish you all the best in corralling this new House. It is very diverse in terms of representation and in terms of opinion. I look forward to the end of tribal politics—I think that will be a sight to behold. Congratulations.”
House of Commons9 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thank you, Mr Speaker-Elect. I am very glad to be back and very glad to see the results of the election. Many people in Northern Ireland are delighted with it. We look forward to holding the new Government to account for the promises that they have made to the people of the north of Ireland. I want to take this opportunity to welcome all the new Members—even the ones I profoundly disagree with. The one piece of advice I would give every new Member is to remember that the Speaker does not just chair the meetings; he is the boss. He is in charge of everything around this place and it would do well for you not to fall out with him. In fact, even a bit of sucking up is sometimes good. I want to take this opportunity, as I say that, Mr Speaker-Elect, to congratulate and thank you for all the fantastic work you did over the last Parliament.”
House of Commons9 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The recently published Kenova report makes it clear that the IRA was riddled with British agents from top to bottom. Those agents were involved in the abduction, torture and murder of British and Irish citizens. The British Government—successive British Governments—knew all about it and did nothing. The report also calls for an apology from the Government to those victims. Will the Prime Minister take this opportunity to make that apology?”
House of Commons17 April 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This Humble Address reads like a love letter to the DUP—I just caution the DUP not to get too comfortable, because I am not sure that it will be a forever love. A couple of weeks ago, the Secretary of State said in this House that we needed the majority “consent of both” the Unionist community and the nationalist community to achieve constitutional change in Ireland. I wrote to him after that asking him to correct the record, because, of course, we only need a simple majority to see constitutional change in Ireland. He wrote back to me correcting what he had said, but he has not corrected the record in this House. Will the Minister take this opportunity to do so, please?”
House of Commons26 February 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The point is actually in the Humble Address—and the Government seem to be going out of their way both in the Command Paper and the Humble Address to make the point—that, in the Good Friday agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998, there is no provision for joint authority. Of course, we all know—those of us who have been around long enough—that many things have changed since then, not least at St Andrews. But, that aside, would the Minister confirm to this House that there is also no provision in the Good Friday agreement or the 1998 Act for direct rule from London?”
House of Commons26 February 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am very grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. I will, if I may, highlight something that I think is more important than some of the conversations that we have had up to this moment. On Monday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released a statement saying that UN experts had uncovered that Israeli forces in Gaza and the west bank are being accused of egregious human rights abuses, including arbitrary detention, extrajudicial killings and sexual violence, including rape. The Israeli Government, of course, have dismissed this without any investigation. Does the hon. Member agree that this Government should be pushing hard for a proper investigation for people to be held to account for these kinds of gross human rights abuses?”
House of Commons21 February 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am grateful to the right hon. Member for giving way, and for the position he is now adopting around an immediate ceasefire—I think there is more cohesion in this House today than we are showing the public. There are still some people in this House who are demanding that a ceasefire has to be permanent. I do not like making a comparison to our own peace process, but the basic principles are the same. We cannot guarantee the permanence of a ceasefire: we work for a ceasefire and then work to make it permanent, so some people’s bar is too high. If they listen to what the public are saying and watch the TV screens, people are dying today. We have to call for an immediate ceasefire right now, and I thank the right hon. Member for taking that position.”
House of Commons21 February 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There was a memorial service on Tuesday for somebody who I think never gets enough credit for his role in the peace process. Peter Brooke once said that Britain had “no selfish strategic interest” in Northern Ireland, and that was later repeated in the Downing Street declaration. Reading the Command Paper, it seems to me that the Government have moved from that position, which I think undermines the Good Friday agreement. They seem to have moved away from the principle of rigorous impartiality. Does the Secretary of State agree with Peter Brooke’s assertion and the Downing Street declaration, or is he moving to a different place?”
House of Commons1 February 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“From listening to the Secretary of State and reading the Command Paper, we would perhaps think there is only the Democratic Unionist party in Northern Ireland and no people with any other constitutional preferences, but of course there are many people in the north of Ireland who want to see a new Ireland as soon as possible. Despite what might be in the Command Paper and what the Secretary of State and others have said, does he agree that the Good Friday agreement is sacrosanct and that it is absolutely clear that if people vote for constitutional change, that is what will happen—that it is not up to the British Government or anybody else; it is up to the people of Ireland, north and south?”
House of Commons1 February 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We all accept that the DUP had a particular issue about all this, but does the Secretary of State accept that it is not good practice in Northern Ireland to have a one Government, one party process? Will he commit in the future to having a much more inclusive process for dealing with these types of issues?”
House of Commons1 February 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way again. I think it has to be understood that there are more people in Northern Ireland than just the DUP and Unionism. I think nationalism feels that north-south has been undermined by the massive emphasis put on east-west. I ask him to think carefully about that. For me, the Command Paper undermines the Good Friday agreement, undermines north-south, and goes far too far in the direction of the DUP’s thinking.”
House of Commons1 February 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“May I put it on record that I think the right hon. Gentleman has done a lot of good work over the past couple of weeks and he has been very brave? It is not easy for a Member to face down people in their own constituency, and it is important that he did. May I also put it on record that the Social Democratic and Labour party do not support the Command Paper? We think it has moved far beyond the principles set out in the Good Friday agreement. It undermines north-south co-operation and has far too much focus on east-west co-operation. Moving on from that point, we need to ensure that any future negotiation is done with all parties and both Governments, so that everybody can feel comfortable in the result.”
House of Commons1 February 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister says he supports the Good Friday agreement in all its parts. Does he support the bit that says that the Government should be rigorously impartial?”
House of Commons1 February 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is important to point out that the people of Ireland, north and south, will decide the constitutional future of Ireland—nobody else. This is a very good day for the people of Northern Ireland, and I am very glad to see it. We are about to see something very significant: we will have the first ever nationalist First Minister and the first ever nationalist leader of the opposition, and I wish them well. In order to properly maintain this progress and make the most of it, will the Secretary of State convene a process with all the political parties and the Irish Government to look at how we can reform the institutions of the Good Friday agreement, to make sure that no one party can ever pull them down again?”
House of Commons31 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In the week of the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, people in Derry are watching unarmed Palestinians being gunned down by Israeli soldiers. Over 25,000 people have now been slaughtered in Gaza. The Prime Minister has said—he has said it again today—that he wants to see a sustained ceasefire. My question is a very simple one: the next time there is a vote at the UN for a ceasefire, will his representative vote for it?”
House of Commons24 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The edifice of government should not be the first thing that goes when we have a difficult decision to make. I think that that would take us a long way. I am glad that we have arrived at this point. I think that it tells us something about the direction of travel. The history of our place should remind us all that at some point we must take on our own dissidents wherever they may reside—in our own party, in our own community, or on social media. They need to be taken on because the representatives of a broad swathe of opinion—whether nationalist, Unionist or “not interested”—want ordinary people to be looked after. They want their health service to be properly resourced, they want their schools to function properly, and they want their public sector workers to be paid properly.”
House of Commons24 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“However, the first thing that must happen is that those who are elected to represent the people of Northern Ireland, and the person who is elected to be the First Minister, should be in place and allowed to do the job that they were elected to do. Then we will be able to have a proper discussion about how we should reform our institutions. A blind man on a galloping horse could tell you that we must reform those institutions, because they simply are not working. Let me make one plea today to all the other political parties, and I will make this commitment myself. If we do get Stormont up and running, the next time a particular political party has a major disagreement, can we have a discussion about it, and can we all commit ourselves not to pulling the institutions down?”
House of Commons24 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I strongly believe, however, that the best time to have that conversation is when we have a Government and an Executive in Stormont, because I fear that otherwise we would end up in a five-year negotiation about what reform would look like, and all the while we would still not have a Government in Stormont and locally elected people dealing with people’s concerns. Some of us who are in the Chamber today have been through many long negotiations. I know that it is possible to go into a negotiation wanting to fix one little thing, and five years later not to have fixed it and to have done three or four other things that nobody asked for in the first place. We need to be cautious about that, and we need to be committed to reform.”
House of Commons24 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They are the people whom we have asked to go and do the tough things for very little reward, and there is no longer any excuse for that money not to be paid. If there is a technical reason for it, I will come back tomorrow and we can debate a Budget Bill if the Secretary of State wishes, so that we can get money into those people’s pockets, but I do not believe there is any technical reason why they cannot be paid. We have talked about solutions, and a great many have been proposed. The hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) talked about reform, and we are up for that conversation. In fact, I think that our amendment would have got the Assembly back up and running, if we used a different mechanism for electing a Speaker as at least a first step, although we also understand that we must have properly reformed institutions in Stormont.”
House of Commons24 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is not the fault of the people who have been asked to go into the tough places and do the tough work for very little pay. We proposed an amendment—and we understand that the scope of the Bill is very narrow— calling on the Secretary of State to pay those workers. Last week 175,000 people were on picket lines across Northern Ireland, in the cold and the snow. I think people will know that my preference is for the DUP to return to government as soon as possible, so that we have democratically elected politicians making these decisions and we can get the money into those people’s pockets, but I am furious that ordinary workers have been used as a political pawn because of our political failure. That is absolutely unacceptable. Those people need their pay rise today. They are the people holding this thing together.”
House of Commons24 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Any of us in this place who believes in devolution and put their shoulder to the wheel around this peace process, should ensure that, very soon, we have democratically elected politicians in Northern Ireland dealing with these issues. I find the state of our health service embarrassing. According to figures that I saw the other day on dementia diagnoses, some people in the western part of Northern Ireland are waiting nearly six years for a diagnosis. In what modern democracy should that be seen as acceptable? We are very lucky that people are not out on the streets in uproar over such figures. The public sector is tied together with a string, and our health service is at the point, if not beyond the point, of collapse.”
House of Commons24 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Members: “Hear, hear.”] I think we are in a more hopeful place today than we have been. Last week, I was expecting to debate a much wider piece of legislation that would have seen us going in a different direction. If today’s Bill symbolises that we are getting closer, at least, to a resolution, we must welcome that and give it space. Nobody is more frustrated at the slowness of the process than I am. Nobody has expressed frustration more than I have about how we got into this situation. It is nearly two years since we had a Government in Northern Ireland; before that, we had covid, which was a very strange time, and before that we had three and a half years, after Sinn Féin brought the Government down, of having no Government. People in Northern Ireland now feel that the default setting is to have no Government. That is not good enough.”
House of Commons24 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) and I have not agreed on much recently—in fact, he kind of drives me crazy—and we do not agree on much of what we have debated today or over the past couple of years, but I strongly believe that he comes at this from a position of strong belief. He comes at it in an attempt to represent his constituents. He comes at it from a good place. It is a different place from me and we want to end up in a different place—and I might argue that he is helping us along in that regard—but I say this very clearly: those people who have threatened him today could not lace his boots, and every single democrat in this House or elsewhere should stand in solidarity with any of us who are being attacked like that. [Hon.”
House of Commons24 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“He was an advocate for the voiceless until the very end. I want to extend our sympathy and love to Tony’s family and friends, and to all who loved him. On behalf of the people I represent on our island, I say, “Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam”. May he rest in peace.”
House of Commons23 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I was delighted to host him in Derry a few months ago for a few pints in a local hostelry, where we had great craic and told great stories, and to see him again in the Strangers Bar for a pint just before Christmas—sometimes we actually met without having pints. One thing stood out to me on the many occasions on which I saw him after he got sick. We all knew that he was not well, but he wore it so lightly. As others have said, he did not talk about himself or his own illness; he talked about us and asked us questions about how things were going. I think of some of the contributions that he was making in this place at the end of his career. He was talking about arms exports to Israel, he was talking about Rwanda, and he was talking about and advocating on behalf of private tenants who were not being treated properly.”
House of Commons23 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I can tell you, Mr Speaker, that when he was the shadow Secretary of State, during a very difficult period in our politics, we put those qualities to the test many times, and in the numerous meetings that I attended with Tony and representatives of other political parties in Northern Ireland, there was not much tolerance and restraint on display, but he was there to calm us all down. I think it important for me also to say that Tony’s interest in Ireland did not start when he became shadow Secretary of State; it was a decades-long pursuit of truth, justice and peace for the people of our island. His friends in Ireland will never forget him, as he never forgot us.”
House of Commons23 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have heard much about the many roles that Tony played during his time in politics, in the House, in the Labour party, as a police and crime commissioner, and as the interim Mayor of Greater Manchester. He was also a champion of the underdog, someone we could all learn from and someone I absolutely looked up to. He was a great friend of mine from his time as the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I was a newbie in this place in 2019, and he helped me to navigate the corridors and the strange rules that govern this place. The chair of the parliamentary Labour party, the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer), talked about Tony’s tolerance and restraint.”
House of Commons23 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Last week the Israeli ambassador in London said the quiet bit out loud when she implied that the Israeli Government are trying to totally destroy the Gaza strip. Has the Foreign Secretary hauled her in to explain that this Government oppose that policy, or is it the case that this Government are comfortable with that position—just as they seem to have been comfortable, alongside the US Administration, with the total and utter slaughter of innocent Palestinians over the last three months?”
House of Commons8 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Israel’s stated aim in this conflict is the destruction of Hamas, and the UK and US Governments have given it a blank cheque to achieve that aim. I have not met one serious expert who believes the destruction of Hamas is possible, so how many deaths will it take before the UK Government closes their cheque book to Israel?”
House of Commons12 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have been to Gaza. It was a hell on earth before this latest bombardment and it has been absolutely flattened over the last few weeks. The hon. Member will know that one of the lessons from our peace process was that the only way to bring about a political settlement is to stop the killing first. When 1,400 Israelis and over 11,000 Palestinians lie dead, surely now is the time to stop the killing and call for an immediate ceasefire.”
House of Commons15 November 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A few short months ago, the world came to Belfast to celebrate the Good Friday agreement. At the heart of that agreement was the realisation that we could not use violence as a tool for revenge or to achieve our political aims. As 1,400 Israelis and almost 6,000 Palestinians lay dying or dead, when will the Prime Minister say enough is enough? When will he call for a ceasefire? When will he tell Israel to stop meting out collective punishment to the people of Gaza, and when will he and other world leaders insist on a political solution that involves a Palestinian state for the Palestinian people?”
House of Commons25 October 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I join the Prime Minister in strongly condemning the despicable, horrendous acts by Hamas last week. It was and is an ongoing war crime. Of course, though, one war crime does not excuse another, so will the Prime Minister please speak to Prime Minister Netanyahu and ask him to stop dropping bombs on innocent children in Gaza? Some of us know all too well that unspeakable violence should not be met with unspeakable violence. We know in Ireland that the only option is to relentlessly pursue peace through dialogue.”
House of Commons16 October 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Secretary of State says he cannot put himself in the shoes of the victims, but he could listen to them. Can he tell us how many or what percentage of the victims he has met have shown support for this piece of legislation?”
House of Commons6 September 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister made this very point at an event that I was at at the weekend, but it was Chatham House rules so I am not allowed to talk about it. He puts forward the argument that the parties just could not agree, but I was involved in many of those discussions and I can tell him that the British Government dragged their feet month after month around the issue of onward disclosure. That is what happened, and it is important to put that on the record. The vast majority of political parties and victims’ groups in Northern Ireland supported Stormont House but the British Government just did not want to do it. That is why it did not get delivered.”
House of Commons6 September 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“With the disappeared, again, IRA people were provided immunity within the context of the organisation that was looking to find those bodies, and we still have bodies out there that have not been found because those people did not come forward and tell the truth even when they were granted immunity. The lie that is being used to sell this Bill is just that: a lie. It is patently untrue and it will not do anything to give people the truth and justice they desire.”
House of Commons6 September 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way again. The premise of his argument and some of the arguments we have heard from Members on those Benches, which are sometimes extremely condescending to victims who have been going through this for many decades, is that people will come forward with the truth if we grant immunity. Well, there is one glaring example that proves that is totally wrong. During the Bloody Sunday inquiry, the soldiers were granted immunity within the context of the inquiry. One after another, they lied through their teeth, and that has been proven by an international public inquiry.”
House of Commons6 September 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is impunity, giving people a licence to murder people on the streets of Derry, Belfast, Newry and across Northern Ireland, and also on the streets of London. I do not understand how any politician can stand and look at the faces of crying victims and tell them that this is the right thing to do. I am ashamed that this is happening today. Let me say one thing to end: I know these people. They have had to struggle for decade after decade. This will not be the end for them and we will be with them in support, right to the end.”
House of Commons6 September 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is an attempt by this Government and dark forces within the security apparatus of this Government to close down access to truth and justice. We all understand that justice will be hard to get for many families, but most of those families have not even had any truth. The process of investigation gets them truths. I can take Members to loads of families today who never once even met a police officer, even though a loved one was murdered. Does anybody here believe that the IRA are going to come forward and tell us who bombed a particular pub or who shot a particular person? It is utter nonsense. This is an attempt to close down access to the truth and it is an affront to democracy. Immunity?”
House of Commons6 September 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I really hope that the Irish Government listen to the calls by some of us to take this UK Government to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, because the Bill is an affront to human rights and article 2. Every single expert I have spoken to agrees with me on that, and every single victim agrees with me on that as well. The Secretary of State used the phrase “effective information recovery process” a lot of times. “Effective information recovery process”? I can take him to families today whose children—14 and 15 years old— were shot in the troubles and their cases have been closed by this Government until 2064 and 2065. Those people tell us they want an “effective information recovery process”, but the Government are denying victims “effective information recovery”, so that tells me that the Bill is based on a lie.”
House of Commons6 September 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have their names going around my head right now—I have put many of them on record in this Chamber during the passage of the Bill. I am deeply ashamed that we are doing this today. There is a pretence in the proposal for the Bill that somehow the British Government were not an actor at all in the conflict in Northern Ireland. That is patently untrue. They say that local political parties in Northern Ireland are just squabbling, cannot come up with any answers or deal with the problem. That is patently untrue. We came up with the answer, which was Stormont House. The reason it was not delivered is that the British Government dragged their feet and changed their policy after “New Decade, New Approach”. That is a fact.”
House of Commons6 September 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are a lot of things that get me angry in this job, but this has got me more angry than anything I have ever had to deal with. The people sitting on the Benches occupied by Members representing Northern Ireland’s constituencies have had to deal with, get to know and work with the victims of our terrible past for decades. Frankly, I am embarrassed today, as I do not know what I am going to say to them when I speak to them after the debate, because as a whole—as a body politic—we have failed them. We have a peace process, we have peace and lots of us have been able to move on, but we have left a very significant cohort of people behind, and we are rubber stamping that today. Some people will walk through the Lobby coldly, without having the names of the victims ringing in their heads.”
House of Commons6 September 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I think that Simon Byrne has made absolutely the right decision in resigning today, given everything that has happened in recent weeks. However, there is a much deeper and more significant problem than just one individual, and it is one about which we have been warning for years: the real crisis in the recruitment and retention of Catholic PSNI officers and staff. Does the Secretary of State agree that the best way of dealing with that crisis is to bring back 50:50 recruitment?”
House of Commons4 September 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Operation Kenova, run by Jon Boutcher, has been lauded around the world and is internationally respected as a good approach to dealing with these issues. It has family approval. Families are bought into the investigation and the outcomes they desire. It proves the point that, if we want to get to the truth, we have to investigate. Time after time, whether it is the Government or paramilitary organisations, they have proven to us that they will not give the truth just because we ask nicely.”
House of Commons18 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗