Chris Bryant

I too have read the reports that the hon. and learned Gentleman refers to, which of course are very disturbing. There is an ongoing inquiry, and it is not my job to do the work of that inquiry, but it is absolutely the job of the Irish Government to provide all the information the inquiry needs to do its work effectively. The Irish Government have set out the framework for their own legislation, and we want to see that progress swiftly in parallel with ours. In previous debates, there was some question about whether we had to complete our legislation before the Irish Government were going to do their legislation. To give further assurance, we will require the Secretary of State to lay a written ministerial statement before the full commencement of the troubles Bill, outlining the progress made by the UK and Irish Governments. I have spoken directly to Minister McEntee, and she has now said repeatedly in public that the Irish Government will march in lockstep with us when it comes to legislation, with the aim of having both of our sets of legislation come into force on the same day. The Bill’s Committee stage will be next week, and colleagues will want to consider all these matters in depth, but I want to end by urging everyone not to underestimate the importance of us enabling families to get the answers they require. We have already heard in this Chamber from our own Members the pain, grief and anguish—and sometimes the sense of revenge and anger—that comes with the fissures that opened up many, many years ago. I cannot tell Members how many times I have heard those same calls, often from people who lost members of the armed forces serving under Operation Banner, and often from people who served in the RUC. When the Good Friday agreement came about, I suppose there was a moment when everybody thought, “We’ve done our work now. Peace has come.” The last couple of weeks have shown that peace can sometimes be a very thin veneer, and sometimes the people who bore the biggest brunt of that peace—who had to sort of suck it up—were the families who had lost loved ones. Those families have never managed to get answers. I do not think we can ever really build a strong future for Northern Ireland unless we fully understand the past, and understanding the past means making sure that we get answers for people.