Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)

I thank the Minister for her sensitive outlining of this report. The killing of Robert Hamill was an appalling sectarian killing of a young Catholic boy simply because he was a Catholic, just like the many young Protestant boys who were killed just because they were Protestants. I hope, as we all do, that the family now take some comfort from this report. The noble Baroness will know that, sadly, republicans have gone on about collusion for a long time: everything was collusion; the RUC was colluding every time anything happened. Will she now welcome—I think she may already have done—the fact that this report makes it clear that those four police officers could not have done anything to stop that killing and that there was no collusion between them and the killers? That is a really important point that comes out of this report. The noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, and others have referred to the events of the past week. They are very worrying because clearly the law has been broken. Once we start to allow law-breaking to win and rule, we are in a difficult position. I hope that the noble Baroness, if not tonight then when we come to the Statement on it later in the week, will condemn the First Minister for so blatantly breaking the law by blocking that road. Whatever her views and whatever anyone’s views in Northern Ireland were on that parade, the law should not have been broken. The First Minister should have kept to all the things that she said when she took over as First Minister. We cannot allow the rule of law to be so blatantly ignored by the First Minister, so-called, of all the people in Northern Ireland.