Privilege

The hon. Members for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) and for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) have tabled a motion for debate on a matter of privilege, which Mr Speaker has agreed should take precedence today.

18:46:00

I beg to move, That (1) the transcript of unreported oral evidence taken from Mr Baxter by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in private session on 11 November 2009 be referred to the Committee of Privileges; (2) the Committee consider the petition from the Secretary to the Omagh Bombing inquiry in relation to that evidence and take any advice it considers necessary; (3) the Committee’s powers, including the power to report and publish evidence if it considers it appropriate to do so, shall apply in respect of that evidence; (4) the Committee report to the House on the actions it has taken and any other matters it considers relevant by 30 October 2025; and (5) if the Committee considers the evidence should remain unreported, the Committee’s report should include a recommendation on the desirability or otherwise of the release of the evidence to the Omagh Bombing Inquiry. I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing this debate today. I raise the matter as a former Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, a current member of that Committee and the current Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which by dint of shadowing the Cabinet Office overlooks the Inquiries Act 2005. I have worked closely with the current Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), on the motion. We simply hope to take the procedural step needed to enable the important work of the Omagh bombing inquiry to be effective, while in tandem respecting the rights of the House. On Wednesday last week, my hon. Friend for Gower—for she is a friend in respect of this work, as well as in many other respects—presented a petition from the secretary to the inquiry asking for access to unpublished Committee evidence. We must not forget what lies behind this motion, so let me quote from the 2008 report of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee into the Omagh bombing: “On Saturday 15 August 1998, a 500 lb car bomb exploded in Market Street, Omagh, County Tyrone, killing 29 people and two unborn children. The bombing caused more death than any other single atrocity committed during, or since, the Troubles in Northern Ireland. More than 250 people were treated in hospital and hundreds more were also injured. The Real IRA claimed responsibility for the attack three days later. No one has been convicted of causing the bombing.” Like colleagues across the House, I think it is important that we remember and honour those innocent people who were killed and injured that day. Questions still remain and the inquiry seeks to answer them—let us hope that it does so.

I was born in Omagh a long, long time ago—70 years ago, to be precise. I do not remember very much about it, but Omagh has always been dear to my heart. I remember well the event as it took place, the people that day and the tears we all shed for the people of Omagh, and we seek justice. Families have suffered for too long and I support their quest for justice. Does the hon. Member agree that justice should be at the forefront of the minds of all right hon. and hon. Members during this process?

I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman. If this place is not a champion of justice and its pursuit as a high court of Parliament, what is it?

I have had the privilege of sharing time on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee with the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), in the names of whom this motion has been laid. It is crucial that the Omagh inquiry gets the information it requires, and we have raised concerns about the Irish Government and their reluctance. It would be useful for the Privileges Committee to hear very clearly from me and, I hope, from the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) that it would be entirely incongruous if in an inquiry set up under the Inquiries Act 2005, which was passed by this Parliament, to seek answers for the Omagh bombing families and construed in their names, information that Norman Baxter gave to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee was available and could assist the inquiry, but was refused because of privilege. That would be an intolerable situation. I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree that having gone through this process and agreed this motion, the information will be made available.

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I endorse it entirely. My hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) and his Committee will look at the motion, if the House decides to pass it this evening, and I know he will have heard that. I echo what the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) has said. I hope that if the House agrees to this motion, the Privileges Committee will look favourably on the request and do so in a timely manner. The inquiry was established in February 2024 by the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Its task is to investigate whether the bombing in the town of Omagh in August 1998 could reasonably have been prevented by UK state authorities. As part of its terms of reference, the inquiry was specifically asked to look at “the allegation made by Norman Baxter”— a former senior investigating officer in the investigation into the Omagh bombing— “in the course of his evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee on 11 November 2009, that police investigators into previous attacks in Moira (20 February 1998), Portadown (9 May 1998), Banbridge (1 August 1998) and Lisburn (30 April 1998) did not have access to intelligence materials which may reasonably have enabled them to disrupt the activities of dissident republican terrorists prior to the Omagh Bombing.” I quote that because I think it is germane to our considerations. The inquiry has established that some of the evidence taken from Mr Baxter by the Committee has not been reported to the House, so it remains unpublished and inaccessible. That is effectively the kernel of this motion. The petition asks for access to that evidence. We find ourselves in the strange position whereby in setting up the inquiry, specific reference is made to that piece of evidence submitted, but because of a procedural problem here it was not published and is therefore not on the public record. That is why the inquiry has asked for the evidence. At this stage, I express my gratitude to both Mr Baxter and the inquiry team. They immediately realised that if the evidence had not been published, it belonged to this House. They sought advice from the House authorities and received it. They have been careful to ensure that they have acted properly throughout. There are two issues here. The first issue is that if a Committee wants to publish evidence, it must report it to the House and obtain an order to publish that evidence. If it wants material to be available to Members but no one else, it can simply report the evidence to the House. Evidence that is reported but not published is available to Members in subsequent Parliaments, but unreported evidence is accessible only to the Committee to which it belongs and in the Parliament in which it was taken. Once that Parliament is over—which, clearly, it is—no one has access to unreported evidence until the archives are open. There is no wriggle room here, hence the reason for this motion and the detailed explanation—I am sorry to detain the House. If a Committee wishes to see unreported evidence from its counterpart in the previous Parliament, the House must refer it to that Committee. If anyone outside the House wants that evidence, they must petition for it, as the secretary to the inquiry has done. That is what this motion seeks to advance. It is very hard for the House to decide whether to release evidence that it has not seen and cannot see before the decision is made. It is particularly difficult in this case, as that evidence may contain sensitive information. Accordingly, the motion invites the House to refer the evidence to the Committee of Privileges. That Committee can undoubtedly consider the matter and probably take advice. If it is advised that there is no reason not to publish the evidence, which was taken more than 15 years ago, it might simply decide to publish it—I hope that it can and does. Otherwise, it can consider the matter and report to the House with a recommendation on what would be appropriate. The House can then make an informed decision subsequent to the work of the Committee of my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire. The second issue is that article 9 of the Bill of Rights says: “That the Freedome of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parlyament.” That means that courts should not evaluate what is said in this place. That is not simply a matter of us being free to speak freely in Parliament; it extends to all those who participate in our proceedings, including our witnesses. It is clearly important that people should be free to give evidence to the House and its Committees without fear of legal consequences. This is also a matter of the constitutional separation of powers between Parliament and the courts. A “Place out of Parlyament” does not mean anywhere outside Parliament: it has been taken to mean something with powers like those of a court. The ban on impeaching and questioning means not that no use can be made of parliamentary material, but that the use must be careful. The Omagh statutory inquiry is like a court: it has power to take evidence on oath, and its Chair may direct people to attend as witnesses and/or to produce documents if requested to do so. The House authorities consider it a “Place out of Parlyament”. For that reason, the House authorities regularly contact statutory inquiries to draw their attention to the important provisions of article 9. I am delighted to note that the petition is clear that “the Inquiry has taken advice on the application of Article 9 of the Bill of Rights to its proceedings and will be mindful of the privileges of the House.” I am confident that Lord Turnbull, who has the onerous task of chairing the inquiry, and his team recognise the issues; their behaviour demonstrates that. I expect that if the Privileges Committee considers the petition should be granted, the key issues that the inquiry is invited to consider will be informed by the evidence without impeaching and questioning. I trust it will be possible for us to assist the inquiry in its work. I hope that I have made as clear as I possibly can the genesis and importance of this motion, the lacuna that it seeks to fill and the requirements that this House has quite rightly guarded jealously for a long, long time on how evidence submitted to it is treated. I hope I have made clear and impressed on the House the importance of its passing this motion, and I urge it to do so. As I said in answer to the right hon. Member for Belfast East, we set a timeline in the motion to the Privileges Committee, but I know that it will tend to it with expedition. I hope colleagues will agree to this motion, which will allow informed consideration of all the issues. It will hopefully bring justice or clarity to justice, as we have discussed with regard to the inquiry, which is looking into that terrible crime that blighted the lives of so many and ended the lives of so many prematurely, including two unborn children.

18:59:00

My comments will be necessarily brief, given the role that I play as Chair of the Committee of Privileges. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) for the comments he has made and the respect with which he is conveying this motion to the Committee. The Committee stands ready to deal with this matter, should the House decide shortly to refer it to us. I note that the motion asks us to report our conclusions back to the House by the end of October. We stand ready to carefully consider any issues arising from the release of the unreported evidence from the Northern Ireland Committee’s 2009 inquiry. We should also wish to consider issues arising from the inclusion in the terms of reference of a public inquiry of a document that is—as has been acknowledged—rightfully the property of the House. The principle established in the Bill of Rights 1689 that proceedings of Parliament ought not to be questioned or impeached in any place out of Parliament is potentially infringed by such a provision. I am mindful, however, that the solicitor to the Omagh bombing inquiry has very properly included in his petition to the House a respectful recognition of the constitutional principle involved, and is mindful of the privileges of the House. I put on record my gratitude to him for that consideration. Finally, whatever the constitutional principles involved—and the Committee will take advice—it must be the case that we all wish the Omagh bombing inquiry well in its endeavour to establish whether anything could have been done to prevent a despicable terrorist act that killed 29 people—including a woman pregnant with twins, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset said—and irrevocably affected the lives of many more. Our thoughts must ever be with the victims of that atrocious action, both living and dead. If it is within our power to be of aid to the inquiry, I am certain that my Committee and I would wish nothing other than to do so.

I call the shadow Minister.

19:02:00

I put on record my gratitude to the Minister for reaching out to me earlier to explain her position; to the Clerk of the Journals for briefing me this afternoon; and to my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) for talking me through this issue over the weekend. I will be unusually brief, because I wish to return to the debate in Westminster Hall—a lot of hon. Members who would otherwise be in the Chamber for this debate are currently engaged in another debate on Northern Ireland. The Conservative party strongly supports the motion as worded on the Order Paper. The Omagh bombing inquiry was set up by my former right hon. Friend Chris Heaton-Harris in 2023 to deal with one of the very worst atrocities of the troubles, in which the Real IRA attempted to derail the peace process and, in doing so, killed many innocent civilians. As my right hon. Friend understood when he set up the inquiry, it was critical to have a process that could compel witnesses and take evidence under oath to get to the bottom of exactly what happened. Consequently, it is of acute importance that that inquiry has access to all available information in reaching its conclusions. As the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) made clear in his remarks, anything else would make a mockery of the process. On that note, and on a point that the right hon. Member made, it is essential that the Republic co-operates fully with this inquiry. We have had encouraging signs that it will, but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. I was reassured to hear the remarks made by the Chair of the Privileges Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa). I look forward to hearing that Committee’s conclusions, but its members should be in no doubt that the Conservative party wishes to see this information handed over to the inquiry for its consideration.

19:04:00

I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) and my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for bringing this matter before the House. I am also grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing the motion to be debated, and to the hon. Member for North Dorset for his careful explanation of the procedure involved. I thank everyone who has worked together to enable this motion to come before this House, with nothing but a desire to support the Omagh inquiry. The Government are very supportive of the motion. Should it be agreed, the Government will await the work of the Committee of Privileges with interest. Question put and agreed to.