Maze Prison (Hennessy Report)

§ The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. James Prior)

This afternoon we are considering the report of Sir James Hennessy, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, on the escape from the Maze prison on 25 September. When I made a statement to the House two weeks ago, at the time of its publication, I was able to refer only briefly to the main recommendations and to the analysis which lay behind them. I welcome the fact that, now that hon. Members have had a chance to read the report, the House has this opportunity to debate it in detail, and in so doing to look more widely at the situation in the Northern Ireland prisons.

The report on the escape is the product of over three months' concentrated work by Sir James and his colleagues in the prisons inspectorate. The inspectorate is used to making detailed professional examinations of the workings of prisons and to giving its findings to Ministers. It is made up of people who are not prepared to have the wool pulled over their eyes and they do not pull punches in reporting their conclusions. The report is painstakingly thorough both in its account of the escape and in its analysis of what lay behind it. It is also a comprehensive report, and must be read and taken as a whole. It is not possible for anyone to pick and choose. For my part, as the House knows, I have accepted it in its entirety and all its recommendations. The Government have full confidence in the professional judgment of the inspectorate.

In opening today's debate, I should like to follow the report by referring, first, to the situation in the Maze prison. Sir James points out that the Maze is a prison without parallel in the United Kingdom, unique in size, and in the continuity and tenacity of its protests and disturbances. The prison population is unique as well. I can do no better than to quote Sir James Hennessy's description: It consists almost entirely of prisoners convicted of offences connected with terrorist activities, united in their determination to be treated as political prisoners, resisting prison discipline, even if it means starving themselves to death, and retaining their paramilitary structure and allegiances even when inside. Bent on escape and ready to murder to achieve their ends … they are able to manipulate staff and enlist the support of paramilitary organisations in the process of intimidation.

The House should know, too, that the number of prisoners has increased quite without precedent—from 600 before the troubles to 2,500 now, 420 serving life sentences. Some 40 per cent. of the total would be described in England as category A, which is the most serious group of prisoners.

We are not, therefore, dealing here with an ordinary prison or with ordinary prisoners. As Sir James says, it is a singularly "difficult and dangerous task". It is, according to Sir James, made even more difficult by the determination of the Government not to give in to the terrorists' political demands; the determination to treat terrorists like all other prisoners—with all that that implies in terms of regime and privileges; and the determination to avoid, in the wider interests of peace, those measures which, although beneficial in security terms, might provoke further destruction, further protest or further conflict and loss of life.

1042 I believe the House will agree that the determination of this Government and of their predecessors on these fronts is right and proper. That is our clearly stated policy, as it has been the policy of successive Governments.

There are those who, while they accept this policy, have nevertheless suggested that the circumstances of the escape demand ministerial resignation. I take that view seriously and have given it the most careful consideration. I share hon. Members' concern about the honour of public life and the maintenance of the highest standards. I said at the time of my statement to the House on 24 October, without any pre-knowledge of what Hennessy would find: It would be a matter for resignation if the report of the Hennessy inquiry showed that what happened was the result of some act of policy that was my responsibility, or that I failed to implement something that I had been asked to implement, or should have implemented. In that case, I should resign."—[Official Report, 24 October 1983, Vol. 47, c. 23–24.]

In putting the emphasis that I did on the issue of "policy", I was not seeking to map out some new doctrine of ministerial responsibility. I was responding to the accusations made at that time that it was policy decisions, reached at the end of the hunger strike, that made the escape possible.

Since the report was published, the nature of the charges levelled at my hon. Friend and myself has changed. It is now argued in some quarters that Ministers are responsible for everything that happens in their Departments and should resign if anything goes wrong. My position has not changed, and I want to make it quite clear that if there were any evidence in the Hennessy report that Ministers were to blame for the escape, I would not hesitate to accept that blame and act accordingly, and so I know, would my hon. Friend. However, I do not accept —and I do not think it right for the House to accept—that there is any constitutional or other principle that requires ministerial resignations in the face of failure, either by others to carry out orders or procedures or by their supervisors to ensure that staff carried out those orders. Let the House be clear: the Hennessy report finds that the escape would not have succeeded if orders and procedures had been properly carried out that Sunday afternoon.

Of course, I have looked carefully at the precedents. There are those who quote the Crichel Down case. I do not believe that it is a precedent or that it establishes a firm convention. It is the only case of its sort in the past 50 years, and constitutional lawyers have concluded that the resignation was not required by convention and was exceptional.

Whatever some may wish, there is no clear rule and no established convention. Rightly, it is a matter of judgment in the light of individual circumstances. I do not intend to review the judgments made by Ministers faced with the question whether to resign following failures in their Departments. Nor do I seek to justify my decision on the ground that there are many difficulties in Northern Ireland. There are, but that adds to rather than subtracts from the argument. The question that I have asked myself is whether on Sunday afternoon, 25 September, I was to blame for those prisoners escaping. The Hennessy report is quite explicit in its conclusion that, although there may have been weaknesses in the physical security of the prison and in the prisons department, the escape could not have taken place if the procedures laid down for the running of the prison had been followed.

1043 I turn now to Sir James's findings and to what may have contributed to the escape. I shall deal with some of the allegations made at that time and since. I want to take head-on a number of the allegations that have been made.

It has been said that the changes that were made at the end of the hunger strike were a contributory factor. Sir James in his report says that neither the issuing of civilian clothing, nor interwing association, which had been permitted at that time, contributed significantly. In fact, interwing association was not operating at the time of the escape, and therefore could have had no effect on it at all. That is borne out by the report.

Nor was there a shortage of resources. It is abundantly clear that the prison governor was never denied the resources that he needed. Again, it is clear that the amount of money available for the prison, capital expenditure and so on, was sufficient, and that the amount of money and the number of prison officers had increased over the years, although the prison population itself was stable. So there cannot be any doubt that sufficient resources were available.

There is the much more difficult problem of prison work. In assessing this question, it is important to understand the sequence of events. Republican prisoners went on with their protest after the ending of the hunger strike, and many of them did not end their protest until November 1982 — a year after the end of the hunger strike. They ended their protest when Loyalist prisoners started a protest.

In November 1982, Loyalist prisoners started to break up their cells, smear the walls with excreta and cause all sorts of trouble. As a result, they had to be moved out of their cells. Effectively, that meant that there was segregation. Of course, Republican prisoners immediately ceased their protest and returned to normal prison arrangements. Once they finished their protest they had to be found work. It is part of prison rules that when people come off protest they should be found work. Until that work was available, and until the prison rules were in operation, the remission that was granted at the end of the hunger strike for those who returned to normal work and normal behaviour was not available.

It was three months from the time that they came off protest—work had to be provided and the prison rules fully obeyed—before any loss of remission could have been paid back to them. So we gave an instruction—it was a political decision—that prisoners who came off protest should be given work. I believe it is a fundamental part of prison policy that prisoners should be made to work. Therefore, the governor was instructed to find work for those prisoners. It was his task to allocate work and to decide who would do what job.

§ Mr. Harold McCusker (Upper Bann)

rose—

§ Mr. Prior

Let me clear this point.

Of course, there were discussions as to what work was available and what work was suitable. The report is critical of the governor, because it says that he should not have given McFarlane, one of the most dangerous prisoners, work as an orderly. The prison governor had decided to give him work as an orderly because he felt that McFarlane was too dangerous a prisoner to be carted round the prison for prison industry work, vocational training, and so on.

I have looked carefully to see whether instructions were given by my Department as to what work individuals 1044 should have. I have examined the minutes of the meeting which took place on 14 December 1982. The minutes end by saying: After some discussion of the merits of various schemes it was agreed that all the ex-protesters would be sent to work within the three months limit and Prison Industries and the Governor would work out the actual mechanics of this as soon as possible. If it was only safe to give these men work as orderlies, which Hennessy says was wrong, or, if they should have been made to work in prison industries, the necessary supervision of that work should have been carried out. I do not believe that there was ever an instruction from the headquarters of the prison service to any other effect.

§ Mr. McCusker

I take the right hon. Gentleman back to the point where he said that, at the end of the hunger strike, the concession was that people who came off the protest at that time would be able to earn 50 per cent. of lost remission. Is he now saying that, despite the fact that some protesters went on protesting for another 12 months, they were still granted the facility one year later to earn 50 per cent. of lost remission?

§ Mr. Prior

For the period to the end of the hunger strike, a reduction of 50 per cent. in remission was granted to prisoners who came off hunger strike and off protest at that time or later. In the year after the ending of the hunger strike and before the Republican prisoners came off hunger strike, they got no increased remission for that period.

§ Sir John Biggs-Davison (Epping Forest)

It would be convenient if my right hon. Friend could dispose at once of the allegation that has been made that Loyalist prisoners who indulged in this unpleasant protest were treated less favourably than Republican prisoners with regard to remission.

§ Mr. Prior

From that point of view, everyone in the prison was treated alike. One of the points brought out clearly on the ending of the hunger strike, when the provisions in regard to the loss of the remission were, shall I say, changed, was that this affected both Loyalist and Republican prisoners.

§ Rev. Ian Paisley (Antrim, North)

This is a very important point. Will the Secretary of State say yes or no to the question: is it a fact that, when the hunger strike finished, only those who were on hunger strike and came off it got the remission, or was it carried over to other prisoners who did not come off the protest until later?

§ Mr. Prior

It was available to all protesters who at the time of the hunger strike were on protest. When they came off in November 1982, provided they behaved normally for three months, they were granted a 50 per cent. payback of remission. That was the agreement that we made, and we stuck to that agreement the whole way through.

We have read in the Hennessy report and heard quite a bit since about the collapse of morale. We are well aware that the job of a prison officer is acutely difficult. It was well known all through last year that we were having difficulties over various issues with the Northern Ireland Prison Officers' Association. Hon. Gentlemen may not know that on last August bank holiday the prison officers abandoned the prison in support of a claim for travelling time allowance, leaving it to the police to man the prison. That illustrates the difficulties under which we have been operating. Undoubtedly, some prison officers were disaffected, but the vast majority were doing a dedicated job, as is brought out in the report.

1045 If morale had been as low as some people have since been trying to make out, we would not have seen such courage as was displayed by the prison officers during the escape, particularly at the gate, when one man gave his life and five were badly injured. We have to take into account that, although there had been some disaffection for some time among prison officers, generally speaking morale was reasonable.

Early last year visits to the prison were arranged for members of the Assembly. I have looked up some of the reports which emanated from those visits. At that time there was no question of reports being brought to me of a loss of morale. The security committee came to see me on one or two occasions. Neither then, nor at any other time before the break-out at the prison, did members of the committee talk to me about a loss of morale.

The next allegation is that the prison department of the Northern Ireland Office was deficient. There were deficiencies in security and in the operations division. That is brought out in the report, but the report goes on to acknowledge that there had been a considerable improvement since January 1982, which was when the former governor of the Maze took over. The report also refers to the fact that the governor said that he had never been without advice on urgent operational matters. So, again, for those reasons we can say that the prison was being reasonably, although not well, conducted, given the extremely difficult circumstances of conducting prisons in Northern Ireland.

I should like to remind the House of some of the report's main conclusions, and to deal more thoroughly than has so far been possible with the Government's response. I have already said that I readily accepted the report's analysis and all its 73 recommendations. I wished to act quickly to rectify any security deficiencies in the Maze. Although I certainly acknowledge that there have been shortcomings, deficiencies and operational mistakes, my main concern was to move forward to implement the Hennessy recommendations.

The House will know that there were three main aspects to Sir James's criticisms of the Maze — physical weaknesses, including the main gate; procedural weaknesses, including search arrangements; and, finally, deficiencies in management. We have taken action in all those areas.

As I said two weeks ago, 21 of the recommendations had already been put into effect when the report was published. The number is now 27. These included structural changes at the main gate, the tally lodge and the armoury and improved arrangements for searching prisoners, visitors, vehicles, and so on. A quick reaction force was established. Orderlies are now subject to closer supervision and their movements and location have been restricted. Arrangements to improve supervision and for more contact between senior management and the prison were introduced, and necessary immediate staff changes in the prison were made.

Since the report was published, action to implement its other recommendations has continued. This work is being supervised by a special team dedicated solely to the urgent implementation of the recommendations. The team will report regularly to me on progress. Preparatory steps have been taken to modify and increase the vehicle locks, and construction will start shortly; communications between 1046 the emergency control room and gate staff are being revised; a review of staff training is under way; revised governor's orders on the dangers of manipulation, orderly selection procedures and many other matters have been issued. An additional governor grade III has taken up post; new arrangements for chairing and improving the effectiveness of the local security committee are under way; the prisons department at the Northern Ireland Office has been strengthened; and a review of the management structure in that department is being carried out.

In addition, a number of reviews recommended by Sir James Hennessy have started, or will start shortly. These reviews include the structure of the visits complex, conditions for professional visits, the need for a separate dogs section, a review of the closed circuit television surveillance system and of the alarm and communications system in the emergency control room. Plans are being drawn up for a new search area and a new purpose-built main gate complex. There are other reviews: the role of the security forces, the types of hobbies and prisoners' work allowed in the prison, the concept of the segment system, the need for orderly posts in the H-blocks and the management structure of the prison.

I am well aware of the acute difficulties under which those in immediate command of the prison operate. I have already paid tribute to the dedication with which the then governor of the Maze carried out his 34 years' service in the prisons, and I do so again today. But, given the extent and nature of the security deficiencies within the Maze which the report highlighted — and considering Sir James's conclusion that the governor must carry ultimate responsibility for the state of the prison—I believe that it was right to accept his resignation.

The governor was close to retirement, and I have made arrangements so that he will not suffer as a result of his resignation from the point of view of his retirement. I believe that that is proper recognition of the way in which, in many ways, he held the poisoned chalice at the time of the escape, because this job in the Maze prison was a poisoned chalice. I cannot for one moment think that I was wrong to accept his resignation; but a man who has given honourable service in very difficult circumstances over a great period of time and is near to retirement should not be made to suffer unduly for what happened.

I am determined that the management shortcomings in the prison are rectified, and the present governor of the Maze has assured me that action has already been and will be taken to this end.

That is the Government's response to the main recommendations. I do not believe that any evidence has been produced so far that changes the conclusions reached in the report. If fresh evidence or information comes forward—and it would have to be fresh information or evidence—we shall, of course, look at it. So far, all the information that has come forward—from the articles in The Observer, from the governors' association report and from the Prison Officers' Association report—has been taken into account in what the report has produced and in what I have said about it today.

My responsibility now is to help the prison service in Northern Ireland to respond to the demands that will be placed on it. Running a prison requires more than just going by the book. It needs subtlety and imagination, motivation and high morale. It is also essential that leadership is sensitive to the changing situation and to 1047 attitudes among staff as well as prisoners. The report shows ways in which procedures can be improved and staff better managed. That guidance will be followed.

It must not be forgotten that, as well as describing the pressures on the system, the report emphasises the many qualities of the service and of the men and women who work in it — qualities of courage and of the highest professional standards. I attach great importance to the task that the prison service has to perform for the community in Northern Ireland—a task which it is the continuing aim of the terrorist always to seek to undermine. That must never be allowed to happen. Sir James says that the report of itself will not solve all the problems of the future. That serves to underline the need to instil confidence in and to demonstrate support for the prison service in its vital work.

I would not want the House to think that the work of the prison service can be taken in isolation from the community that it serves. The Maze is a product of the troubled history of Northern Ireland. It is a history of division and conflict as well as of resourcefulness and determination. It reflects a community which takes pride in its separate identities, but which shares, without always recognising it, a common heritage. This debate is about the Maze prison, but let us not forget that life in the Maze affects, and is influenced by, life outside the prison.

If the proper lessons are learned from the Maze escape —I am determined that they will be learned and acted on — we will go a long way to ensuring that such a catastrophe does not happen again. I hope that we can acknowledge the improvements that generally have been achieved in the security situation in Northern Ireland, although we have a long way to go, and that we can reaffirm the standards that we require of the prison service and our support for those who work in it in their difficult task.

I hope that we will also accept the duties and responsibilities that are on all who can influence the affairs of Northern Ireland. We can and must work to create structures in the Province which no longer spawn a prison establishment like the Maze and which no longer set the prison service such a daunting, difficult and dangerous task. I believe that in the months ahead we may have the opportunity. I, my hon. Friend and my other ministerial colleagues remain determined and dedicated to doing everything possible to take the opportunity, but we will need the support and understanding of this House and of the people of Northern Ireland.

I believe that the underlying lessons of the Maze escape can be learned by all of us, but particularly by those in Northern Ireland. I can only tell the House that they will certainly be learned by Ministers and the Government and put into operation at once.

§ Mr. Peter Archer (Warley, West)

The Secretary of State need have no fear on that score. The House is accustomed to judge of things said and done in the context in which they were said and done. In my experience it usually makes its judgments with sympathy and understanding.

It is, of course, true that the events which we are discussing took place in the context of a situation which was unique. There can rarely, if ever, have been a prison service which had to cope with so sudden and explosive an increase in the prison population. In 1969 the average 1048 daily prison population in Northern Ireland was 617— proportionate to its population, among the lowest in Europe—while in 1983 it was about 2,500, 75 per cent. of whom had been convicted of terrorist offences.

That staggering increase arose from the political situation in Northern Ireland, and of course we all agree with the Secretary of State that the events at the Maze cannot be considered in isolation from other events in Northern Ireland.

Those additional prisoners did not see themselves as criminals. However perversely, however confusedly and however deliberately, they were bent on self-deception, they were conditioned to see themselves as engaged in a war. Anyone who sees that simply as a deliberate pretence or facade has failed to understand the minds of the paramilitaries. That was how they justified their horrifying crimes, not merely to others, but to their own minds and consciences. They did not perceive themselves as criminals and so, unlike the vast majority of criminals elsewhere, did not resign themselves to serving their time. Instead, they set themselves, like the men of Colditz, to continuing the war on a daily basis within their prison.

In paragraph 1.15 the report says: They were quite unlike the population of any prison in England or Wales in their dangerousness, their allegiance to a para-military organisation, their cohesiveness, their common determination to escape and their resistance to the efforts of the prison authorities to treat them as ordinary criminals.

The prisoners were unique in that way. That led to other respects in which the position was unique. They saw themselves as part of an army with its own command structure. Some hon. Members have visited the prison— indeed some of us visited it in the days when it was known as Long Kesh — and I can remember the Republican paramilitaries drawn up as though they were on parade under their commanders. The commanders decided which prisoners could speak to visitors, and I thought at the time that here was a ready-made staff college for terrorists.

Their leaders purported to negotiate with the authorities on behalf of them all. When prisoners demanded to see the governor—he was no doubt acting on instructions from above — he discussed their grievances with their commanders. Prison officers despaired of maintaining normal discipline. The discipline imposed by their commanders was more immediate and effective than any which was available to the prison staff.

Another consequence of the doctrine was that prisoners maintained effective links with people outside the prison —not just with their families and friends, as prisoners do elsewhere, but with at least two other categories of person. First, there were those who saw themselves as serving in the same army and, therefore, they could threaten prison officers and other prisoners that action would be taken against them outside the prison, or that something would happen to their families. The second link was with the community, whose attitude on this has been somewhat ambivalent. Neither community in Northern Ireland approves of violence and thuggery, but each community identifies its own paramilitaries as being, in a sense, on the same side in a war. Everyone who speaks of inter-community relations in Northern Ireland in terms of a war adds to that feeling.

Decisions and actions which could be represented as in any way unfair to prisoners could be made the subject of a campaign in the community, could be portrayed as further evidence of a conspiracy to deprive one side of its 1049 rights, and could be used to justify further atrocities and the escalation of the violence. That position could be manipulated by the prisoners themselves. They could deliberately bring about difficult situations so that the responses would be seen as unfair. That all adds up to a context in which a few determined and ruthless men could exploit every event and decision, and could orchestrate everything that happened to serve their own purpose.

There was a political dimension to every decision. In Great Britain interest in prison unrest may command the attention of the media, but it does not usually give rise to any major political backlash. In Northern Ireland, every incident and unguarded word is highly charged with political implications, which give rise to repercussions which are far outside the prison service. It creates a need to take account of matters with which the prison service is not usually concerned. Errors of judgment in what is said and done in those circumstances can cost lives—the lives of prison staff and of people outside the prison who may never have seen the prison.

Administration cannot be segregated into insulated compartments. Decisions about policing methods and criminal procedure had and have implications for the regime within the prison and vice versa. Some prisoners believed themselves to be wrongly convicted—that did not necessarily mean that they were innocent, but only that the authorities had not played according to the rules. That distinction, as every criminal lawyer knows, is always present in the minds of the criminal fraternity. Many prisoners then, and more now, were convicted on the uncorroborated evidence of accomplice informers, who have come to be called supergrasses. They perceive themselves and are perceived by the community as being convicted unfairly. Whether or not that is true, it is a factor in the position within the prison and it adds to resentment and the feeling that a political dimension exists by the fact that they are in prison.

Later, when we debate the report of Sir George Baker, we shall discuss factors which affect the attitude of the community to law and order and which affect the attitude to authority of those serving prison sentences. I mention that only as an illustration that every regulation, every policy decision, every change of practice, every ruling, and every word within the prison service has implications of a most sensitive political nature. In those circumstances, hon. Members will have sympathy and understanding for all those who live their lives day by day and hour by hour knowing that anything they do may explode in their faces — sometimes quite literally. Whatever decisions they make, and whichever way they resolve an issue, they will attract criticism, and be misrepresented and misunderstood. Whatever course they take, there will be a price to be paid.

For that reason I agree with the Secretary of State that the House will judge all those who took part in the matter against that background. But, for that very reason, those who must operate the system cannot, in fairness, be left to their own devices. Not only are they untrained to take highly sensitive political decisions, but it is necessary to take account of factors far outside the areas of activity which they understand. They do not know about them.

It is not enough for a Minister to lay down general policies and then walk away and leave the machine to run itself. It is not enough even that senior officials supervise 1050 closely. Trained, competent administrators are not a substitute for political leaders. Ministers must be in there with their staff all the time. They must know everything that is happening, whether it is big or small. They must be veritable 20th century Metternichs. They must have eyes in the backs of their heads. Ministers for Northern Ireland should be judged with sympathy for the difficulty of a thankless task. Their decisions are not to be condemned simply because they went wrong, but they must be judged by the standard of involvement, which takes account of the minefield in which their staff are working.

We have read the report. I have spoken with representatives of the prison governors, of the Prison Officers Association, as other right hon. and hon. Members will have done, and with the prison officers themselves. Some factors, which cry out for attention to those who dig deeper, are not given great prominence in the report. The prison staff believed, and still believe, that there was no attempt to involve them in decision-making. They believe that they were not taken into the confidence of those who made political decisions and that there was no attempt even to explain to them why certain things were done.

As they saw it, they made one representation after another, they gave warning after warning but they felt that one plea after another fell on deaf ears. There may have been reasons for all the rulings and regulations, but no one took the trouble to explain them. Yet when things went wrong and Sir James Hennessy reported, they felt that they were exhibited as the ones who had failed to realise the seriousness of the position.

The report gives credit to some of the officers whose courage and resourcefulness far exceeded the requirements of their duties. But there are occasions in reading the report when one is in danger of losing sight of the fact that the prison officers were a body of men 22 of whose members were murdered while doing their jobs. They had striven to make known to their superiors the contents of a can of worms, but they were left to carry it. The least that the House can do today is to inquire what became of those representations. Who took the trouble to ask what they were saying, and who reflected on what they said?

As the Secretary of State reminded us, those engaged in the hunger strikes, or, more accurately, those who took upon themselves the right to speak for them, made five demands. The Government were understandably anxious to end the protest, and they discussed the terms on which it could be terminated. One demand was the concession of the right of inter-wing association. A consequence of that is dealt with in paragraph 1.09 of the report. The Loyalist prisoners were intimidated and demanded segregation. I had thought that that was conceded, but I think that the Secretary of State said that it had happened in practice for reasons which did not amount to a concession. However, I was under the impression that it was continuing. If I am wrong about that, I shall be put right. As I understood an answer given by the right hon. Gentleman when he made his first statement some days ago, he was not entirely clear about the position at the time. But I make no criticism of that.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Nicholas Scott)

There are now seven integrated wings in the Maze prison. The Loyalists who, in protest, 1051 broke up their cells and dirtied them have been segregated, which has meant de facto an increase in the number of Republicans in segregated wings.

§ Mr. Archer

I should make it clear to the Minister that I do not mention this by way of criticism. I understand the sequence of events, but I thought that some wings, for whatever reason, still have an almost completely Republican population.

§ Mr. Scott

The imbalance of numbers in the Maze—there is a preponderance of Republican prisoners—and the need to ensure that there is an even balance between Republicans and Loyalists in the integrated wings, means that there will always be a number of wings which contain only Republican prisoners.

§ Mr. Archer

I did not wish to begin a discussion on this matter, but the moving of some Loyalist prisoners to Magilligan prison might have made the problem even more difficult. Again, that is not a criticism.

What matters is that at that time the Republican paramilitaries had decided who was to be in block H7. That means that there was less likelihood of anyone who did not sympathise with them hearing what was being said and learning of their plans. It also meant that the work to be done had to be allocated almost exclusively to those of the Republican persuasion.

§ Rev. Ian Paisley

The Hennessy report makes it clear that the escape was known only to a very few Republican prisoners until it took place. The argument that if there were Loyalist prisoners in that wing they would have turned informer and told the prison officers what was going on does not hold, because Hennessy—not some Loyalist body outside the prison—says that the escape was known only to the few Republicans who planned it.

§ Mr. Archer

I follow the hon. Gentleman's argument. It is not central to what I wished to say, but it seems to have been present in the minds of those who planned the escape, that a preliminary step was to get rid of prisoners who might operate as spies. I do not know whether they were right or wrong about that, but it seems to have been very much in their minds.

I am more concerned with the effect of that upon the work schedules. We are told in the document "Regimes in Northern Ireland Prisons", which was circulated among prison officers, that orderlies were normally selected from about one third of the prisoners. It states: Those taking part are normally 'trusties' or low risk prisoners; a few may be serving long sentences but most are serving under four years. The document goes on to define "low risk" as meaning that from the nature of a prisoner's offence and his behaviour in prison there is a low risk of his trying to escape or of becoming violent. It is a measure of his danger to the prison and to society outside.

Those who fell within that definition but who were unacceptable to the paramilitaries could not be used as orderlies. In effect, the paramilitaries decided who would be orderlies. Another factor, which was mentioned by the Secretary of State, was that it was a term of the conclusion of the protest that those who were prepared to work would regain half of their lost remission. Paragraph 3.11 of the report states that the governor was instructed to provide employment for all prisoners who ended their protest. That is understandable, because otherwise it would have been said that the Government had made it impossible to conform with the term which was part of the agreement.

1052 All those factors in combination led to the appointment as orderlies of some prisoners who could not possibly be described as low risks. One orderly at the time of the break-out was Brendan McFarlane, who was serving 25 years for murder and who was recognised as a commander of the Republican paramilitaries in the prison. Paragraph 3.09 of the report deals with that point by saying: The prisoners made it their business, therefore, to condition staff to accept as orderlies some of the most dangerous and subversive prisoners in H7.

In the next paragraph there is a recommendation that in future allocations should be made only after approval by the labour allocation board. That is puzzling, because it might be construed as meaning that orderlies were selected by prison officers in the block. In fact, selections were made by the labour allocation board. As I understand it, the board would usually accept, without much discussion, the recommendations of the governor; but those allocations were discussed at a meeting of the board on 17 November 1982. I have a copy of the minutes, which lists the prisoners with whom the board was dealing, along with their current occupations. Some were on a painting party, and others were horticultural orderlies. Against some names are the letters "NYA", which I understand mean "not yet allocated". In the next column we are told what they are doing. The name McFarlane appears there, and he is allocated to block orderly. That was the decision of the labour allocation board at the time, which I understand was presided over by a grade 3 governor.

I understand the reason for that allocation, and it has already been mentioned by the Secretary of State. If Brendan McFarlane had to be given work, the choice was between that and giving him work in a workshop, where he could have associated more freely with other prisoners outside the perimeter of the block, and where he might have had access to tools and weapons. I am a little puzzled by the criticism of that decision in the report, which does not say what the alternative should have been.

A copy of those minutes was sent to the Northern Ireland Office. Had any official there cast his eye over the minutes, he would have seen the name McFarlane. It is not likely that anyone would have overlooked it, because he played a leading part in the negotiations with the authorities. He had been taken outside the prison to meet a succession of VIPs. On several occasions he accompanied VIPs when they visited the prison. His name would have leapt out at anyone who took the trouble to read the minutes. Did anyone at the Northern Ireland Office read those minutes? It was known that they dealt with the highly sensitive subject of finding work for prisoners who were intent on recovering their lost remission. It was the subject on which the governors had received political directives, and it was known that the governors were anxious about it.

Did anyone in the security and operations division read them? If staff were so overworked that they did not have time to read the minutes, did Ministers know that they were so overworked? Did Ministers take any interest in the matter? Were they not interested in whether the Republican paramilitaries had established their own appointments procedure in the H blocks? Had any Minister read those minutes? It will not do to leave the matter, as paragraph 3.10 leaves it, as a mistake made without the involvement of anyone at a senior level. If senior officers were not involved, why were they not involved?

1053 I offer another example. Paragraph 3.19 of the report says that the staff in H7 had failed to be alerted to signs that "something was up". Is that a fair judgment? I have seen the minutes of a series of meetings between representatives of the Prison Officers Association and the prison governor. Paragraph 8 of the minutes of a meeting on 29 November 1982 states: Reduction in Numbers in H Blocks The Committee expressed their concern at the high number of prisoners in certain Blocks, especially H7 and H8, and the resultant difficulties and pressures that this situation placed on Staff.

The minutes continue: Manning Levels: The Committee inquired if they could be supplied with the current Staffing figures, so that they could compare these with those figures mentioned in the Manpower Report. The Chief Officer pointed out the difficulties regarding this and stated he would examine the matter.

The minutes of another meeting on 26 January state: Riot Gear for Stand by Teams in Blocks. The Committee inquired regarding the possibility of providing this in 'H' Block 2 and 'H' Block 5. The Governor stated that this had been considered but it had been felt that the presence of riot gear might prove provocative. We should fully understand that that decision was obviously taken for political reasons. Was that decision shared with those who had expressed those anxieties?

The minutes were sent to the Northern Ireland Office, and it was clear that staff were concerned about security in the H blocks, especially H7. Authorities were weighing the normal reactions against the need to avoid provocation. Did anyone at the Northern Ireland Office read those minutes? If so, did people reflect on them? Did any Minister read those minutes? If so, did Ministers take an interest in what was happening? If those people read the minutes, how could they have been unaware of the anxieties of the staff? At the risk of wearying the House—

§ Mr. Merlyn Rees (Morley and Leeds, South)

What does my right hon. and learned Friend mean when he says that the decision was taken for "political" reasons and a few seconds later asks who read the article in the Castle? If it was a political decision, they would have known already.

§ Mr. Archer

I am suggesting that the decision was taken for political reasons in the sense that certain actions that would have been taken in most prisons ought not to be taken because they would be provocative in the context of this prison. I was using the word "political" not to describe who took the decision but to show why it was taken. I should imagine that the political sensitivity entailed in that decision was known, or should have been known, in the Castle. A meeting was held between the governor and representatives of the Prison Officers Association. Did anyone take the trouble to discover what was said at that meeting? That was my point.

Paragraph 5.02 of the report deals with the leakage of tools from workshops, a matter which had repercussions, as we know. That was one of the factors that lead to the allocation of highly dangerous men to alternative work as block orderlies. The report states: In short, the way in which tools were controlled at the Maze showed weaknesses. This reflects badly on those supervising the discipline and workshop staff, and on the oversight exercised by the Security Department. We recommend that all tools in the prison should be marked and more closely controlled.

1054 The minutes of a meeting on 24 September 1982 between the governor and representatives of the Prison Officers Association state: As handicraft tools had gone missing in Blocks staff felt that hobby facilities should be withdrawn from the Block concerned until the tools had been returned. That may have been the wrong prescription for the ill, but those minutes went to the Northen Ireland Office. Did anyone read them? If they were read, did anyone ask how the tools had gone missing? Were any of the procedures discussed?

Anyone who chose to read those minutes could not have believed that these matters had been kept a secret. And that meeting had been called to discuss industrial action by the Prison Officers Association. If time permitted I could mention more examples. In one set of minutes the committee states: Staff are requesting that more information be given by management in view of the current situation within the prison.

The Hennessy report emphasises the need for training. I have correspondence in which the Prison Officers Association asked for more in-service training. Last Sunday a reference was made in The Observer to a memorandum by an assistant governor to the governor warning that, now that the work required to regain the last lost remission had been completed, people were not working any more and discipline was virtually breaking down. We are told that it was asked that that memorandum should be forwarded to the Northern Ireland Office. Did it ever reach the Northern Ireland Office? Then is it surprising that staff, from the governor down, felt that their voices were being lost on the empty air? I am not suggesting that the staff were always right. Diagnosis is one thing, choosing the correct remedy is very different. But staff were left wondering whether anyone had listened. Where action had to be taken which did not accord with what they were asking, they felt that no one had explained why. Yet the staff feel that they are singled out in the report because they had not made known the problems within the prison.

It was vital, if staff who had to operate in those conditions were not to be isolated, that they should regularly see a Minister and witness that he had come to see for himself. It is vital that the Minister should talk to them, explaining difficulties, and that he should make it clear to them that their representations had been considered. We should have expected that Ministers would want to know and to see for themselves where the red lights were flashing in that highly charged political situation.

How frequently did Ministers visit the Maze? I am told —I should be the first to rejoice if I am told that this information is wrong—that between 15 October 1981, when Lord Gowrie visited the prison, and July 1983, nearly two years later, when the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland visited the prison, not one ministerial visit had taken place — at least not one which was known to the prison officers. That was at the time of the protests, the delicate negotiations, the changes in the rules and problems about segregation. Is that information true? When had a Minister last met officals of the Prison Officers Association prior to the break-out?

I was told that when my right hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) was the responsible Minister, he was a regular visitor to the prison. He was always looking over the officers' shoulders. Admittedly, 1055 that was when there was much building going on. Even making allowances for that, the officers say that he interested himself in their day-to-day problems and, if they had something to say, he was there for them to talk to. He did not always agree with them, but they could talk to him.

The purpose of the debate is not to ask for resignations. An easy way for a politician to attract press coverage is to react to every problem with demands for ministerial resignations. If the Opposition were looking for candidates for resignations, we would not be short of material among the Government. We have seen the shambling ineptitude of the Foreign Secretary over the handling of the GCHQ crisis—a crisis of his making—the bewildering changes by the Secretary of State for Social Services on housing benefit, and the appalling insensitivity of those within the Ministry of Defence who advised His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh to visit Drummadd barracks. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of Northern Ireland must have realised how provocative that would be to the local population. I am referring not to protests from outside Northern Ireland, but to the offence that that action would give to the local Catholic community.

§ Rev. Ian Paisley

Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the chairman of Armagh council was murdered by the IRA? He was a major in the UDR. To what better place should those responsible go to encourage those who gave their lives in the battle for peace than the place that was badly hit? When, on the other side of the water, members of the royal family visit victims of terrorism, will there be a distinction because Northern Ireland is not part of Great Britain but is part of the United Kingdom?

§ Mr. Archer

That is one possible view. I recognise it to be the sincere view of the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) and of some other right hon. and hon. Members. On any showing, the visit was very provocative to a substantial part of the local community.

If what we are told is true, the Northern Ireland Office was not even consulted. Its officers would have known the arguments and the implications for both communities. At least officers in the Department would have read the newspapers about what happened when the Prime Minister did the same thing six weeks earlier.

§ Mr. Michael Mates (Hampshire, East)

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is considering only one half of the equation. What about the gravest offence that would have been caused to the soldiers of the Grenadier Guards if their colonel had been prevented from visiting them?

§ Mr. Archer

The Grenadier Guards could have had contact with their colonel without it occurring in that provocative context.

§ Mr. John Hume (Foyle)

The lack of understanding on this issue is an example of why we have a problem in Ireland. If officers at a police station in Brixton had been charged with the murder of some of the black population and the Prime Minister chose to visit that police station rather than any other to wish them a happy Christmas, and that was followed by a visit from a member of the royal family, what would the feelings be on this side of the water?

§ Mr. Archer

The exchanges in the last few minutes underline three times in red ink the point with which I began—that everything said and everything done in this context is highly emotionally charged, politically.

I fear that I have strayed from order. We may have an opportunity to discuss these matters later. My argument is that if we are looking for material for resignations we do not have far to look in the present Government. If someone at the Ministry of Defence made that decision without consulting the Northern Ireland Office, we have another candidate for resignation.

We must consider whether Northern Ireland would benefit if a particular Minister resigned. I should not think it right to call for the resignation of the Secretary of State. First, I do not think that he could reasonably have been expected, personally, to read the minutes. I believe that he was badly served. Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman may be embarrassed at this; but I cannot envisage him being replaced from among members of the present Administration by anyone more compassionate or more politically sensitive. I am not calling for the right hon. Gentleman's resignation.

The hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) — the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—had held responsibility for only three months prior to the breakout. We can see today what a difficult and complicated situation existed. There was a multiplicity of complications. I do not seek to convict him. Lord Gowrie is in a different position. In the absence of any explanations today, it is difficult to see how he could justify remaining a member of the Government. That may no longer be germane to the future of Northern Ireland, and I am mindful that he is not here to answer the charge. Perhaps the report will be debated in another place, where he will speak for himself. But it is difficult to see what answer there can be.

I have been interrupted many times and many right hon. and hon. Members wish to take part in the debate so I shall comment only briefly on the present and the future.

We are told that the position in Northern Ireland prisons is still serious. We have read of the attempt last week to explode a bomb in Magilligan. Fortunately, only the detonator exploded. I am told that orderly duties in the H blocks are still carried out by Republican paramilitaries. Perhaps the Minister can say whether that is true. I am told that the prison officers are unhappy about that.

I am told that the prison officers are worried about staff ratios. In prisons in Great Britain a category A prisoner hardly moves without being accompanied by at least one prison officer.

The Northern Ireland prison officers are troubled by a circular from the Home Office signed by Mr. Chilcot, the head of personnel and finance, in which he states: I do therefore urge you to approach all proposals for extra tasks to be performed in your establishment with the firm intention of avoiding any step which entails a demand for extra staff. The approach should be that anything calling for more staff ought to be ruled out unless absolutely unavoidable". The prison service in Northern Ireland is worried in case that is intended to extend to Northern Ireland. We should be grateful for an assurance from the Minister about that.

§ Mr. Stephen Ross (Isle of Wight)

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman say something about the long hours of overtime worked in the prison service in Northern Ireland and in the rest of the United Kingdom?

§ Mr. Archer

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I was not going to embark upon the topic because my eyes are on the time. I have no doubt that it will be mentioned in the debate.

The political situation in Northern Ireland has given rise to the problems. As the Secretary of State said, it is still unresolved. For the immediate future at least we must remember that some wicked men see themselves as crusaders. They will continue to murder and to terrorise. Some will respond, probably in today's debate, by demanding measures which will ensure that inter-community relations become even more estranged. It will be easier to see what is happening as war. Ministers will in future have to take difficult decisions about that.

The prisoners, the staff, officers and governors will continue to operate in dangerous and difficult conditions where things are done for political reasons and decisions taken will have political repercussions.

I do not believe that the answer is necessarily dramatic. When, in June 1980, the European Commission on Human Rights ruled on the Maze prisoners' application, it said that the conditions of which they complained were brought about by their own actions. However, it added: No doubt the authorities consider that to make concessions to the applicants will result in strengthening their resolve to continue their protest to a successful conclusion. However, the Commission must express its concern at the inflexible approach of the State authorities which has been concerned more to punish offenders against prison discipline than to explore ways of resolving a serious deadlock. That was a gentle admonition in a judgment which generally cleared the authorities of malice. But it was the voice of wisdom.

Difficult questions will continue to arise. I believe that the prison staff will continue to do their jobs. They will make mistakes, as we all do, but I believe that they will continue to do their best. The major question is whether they will continue to feel that they are responding to signals from behind the line or whether those who take political decisions will be with them, treating them as part of a team. That is the message which should emerge from this House today.

§ Sir Humphrey Atkins (Spelthorne)

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 I suspect in years to come he will regret having made.

I accept the report by Sir James Hennessy. I do not believe that any of us is entitled to challenge what he said. He knows more about prisons and the prison service than anyone in the Chamber today.

My purpose, therefore, is not to challenge the report but to reinforce certain parts of it. Like the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West, I especially draw attention to chapter 1 of the report which deals with conditions in the prisons and the prison service in Northern Ireland. In making its judgments today the House must bear in mind that the situation in Northern Ireland is totally different from anything that we know on this side of the Irish sea.

1058 As Sir James points out, about 2,500 convicted persons are held in custody in prisons in Northern Ireland, of whom 75 per cent. —about 1,900 people—have been convicted of offences committed in the course of terrorist activities.

It is right to note in passing that the non-terrorist prison population in Northern Ireland—about 600 people—is a substantially lower proportion of the population than in Great Britain, showing that, apart from the terrorist activity which has been going on for far too long, the people of Northern Ireland are law-abiding. There are 35 times as many people in Great Britain as in Northern Ireland, but the non-terrorist prison population in Northern Ireland is about half the corresponding proportion in Great Britain.

In Northern Ireland, however, between 1,900 and 2,000 people are in custody for offences related to terrorism. Most of those people quite wrongly regard themselves, not as persons convicted through the legal processes, but as prisoners of war. Prisoners of war have a duty to try to escape and that, I fear, is how many people held in custody in Northern Ireland regard their situation. We all know that that is wrong, the whole House has been saying for years that it is wrong, but those prisoners have protested in support of their case, starting in 1976 with the blanket protest and escalating to the dirty protest and finally to the hunger strike. For eight years, a large number of those people have declined to accept that they are other than prisoners held by an Administration that it is their declared aim to destroy. That applies not just to the United Kingdom Administration but to that of the Republic. They are being prevented from carrying out that aim and they regard it as their business to do everything in their power to escape. I am no expert on prisons in Great Britain, but I do not believe that that situation is known to the prison service here.

In the face of that, what have the Government done? First, over the years they have sought to provide the most modern and physically secure prison system that they can. Any hon. Member who has visited the Maze or any of the other modern prisons in Northern Ireland will agree that that has been achieved. They are the most modern and secure prisons that I have ever seen.

Secondly, the Government have sought, as is their duty, to confine convicted prisoners in the most humane conditions possible. The House needs no reminding of the enormous pressure upon successive Governments from organisations in this and many other countries to provide the best possible conditions. That pressure continues to this day. Here again, anyone who has visited the Maze will agree that conditions there are as good and humane as any to be found in the United Kingdom. Some say that they are as good as, or better than, any provided anywhere in the world. I cannot confirm that personally as I have not visited prisons all over the world, but I can readily believe it.

Thirdly, the Government have sought vastly to increase the size of the prison service. In paragraph 1.13 of his report Sir James notes that the prison service in Northern Ireland has expanded from 300 to 3,000 in less than 15 years. That is to say, it has expanded tenfold. That in itself is a formidable task wherever it is attempted. Inevitably, it means that many prison officers currently serving are without long experience. According to the same 1059 paragraph, of some 920 officers serving at the Maze in September 1983 only 4 per cent. — fewer than 40 officers—had 10 years service or more while almost 50 per cent."— about 450 officers— had served for less than four years. That is an inevitable result of such a rapid expansion in the service — a rapid expansion which was absolutely necessary and unavoidable but which nevertheless created its own difficulties.

There is another factor. As everyone knows, it is difficult enough to recruit the right people to the prison service in Great Britain. Among other things, being a prison officer is not a socially popular job: In my constituency there is a remand centre staffed by a large number of members of the Great Britain prison service. Immediately outside the gates of the centre there is rather a nice pub. I know it quite well and the local inhabitants use it a great deal. The prison officers, however, do not use it, however thirsty they may be when they come off duty, because they feel—with some justification, I am sorry to say—that because they are prison officers they are not welcome in the pub. They therefore go home to pubs in their own areas some distance away where they are not known as prison officers. That is just one of the many difficulties in recruiting prison officers on the mainland.

In Northern Ireland the situation is infinitely more difficult. The report states that during the disturbances of recent years 22 prison officers have been murdered. We must not forget the one who was murdered during the escape which gave rise to the report. I know from experience, although this does not appear in any detail in the report, how many prison officers have been intimidated at home, outside the prisons and, indeed, inside the prisons. I also know—this, too, is not in the report—how many wives and children of prison officers have been threatened and intimidated. The job of a prison officer is infinitely more difficult in Northern Ireland than it is in Great Britain.

I shall be frank with the House. I do not know why anyone should join the prison service in Northern Ireland. I recognise very well the enormous difficulty of ensuring that enough of the right type of person with the right qualifications and the right attitude to the job are recruited. If I may say so, in general, the prison service in Northern Ireland has such people, something which reflects very well the public-spiritedness of the people of Northern Ireland. The fact remains, however, that the prison service has to do its best with what it has and what it can recruit at all levels. It is clear from the report that there were weaknesses and weak links in the prison service. Nevertheless, I ask whether any hon. Member can put his hand on his heart and say that he knows of any organisation operating under even remotely similar difficulties which has no weak links. I certainly cannot.

There remains in my mind the question of the Government, represented by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his actions. I have already described three areas where the Government had to act. They had to provide more and secure accommodation; they had to operate the most humane regime possible, entailing constant study of the regime and attention to what was needed; and they had to increase the size of the prison service.

The Government did all these things and, in addition, my right hon. Friend has successfully continued the work 1060 of persuading his Cabinet colleagues that, in spite of the need to curtail public expenditure, the needs of the prison service in Northern Ireland must have priority. During his term of office, the prison budget in Northern Ireland has risen in real terms and the size of the prison staff has increased, in spite of all the difficulties with which we are familiar. In my book, my right hon. Friend deserves credit rather than blame for what he has done. It is my belief, my hope, that he will stay in office and continue his work for some time to come. If anything that is said tonight causes my right hon. Friend to change his mind and resign, there can be no doubt in my mind whence will come the loudest cheers. They will come from the IRA.

§ Mr. J. Enoch Powell (Down, South)

The Secretary of State, from the beginning of his speech, recognised the central issue in this debate, that of ministerial responsibility, without which the House scarcely has a real function or any real service that it can perform for the people whom it represents. We are concerned with the nature of the responsibility, the ministerial responsibility, for an event which, even in isolation from its actual context, was a major disaster.

I want to begin by eliminating from this consideration the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott), because references to him in this context have shown a gross misconception. There has been argument about how long the hon. Member has been in the branch of the Northern Ireland Office concerned with the prison service, as though that were in the least degree relevant. The fact is that the entire responsibility, whether or not it is delegated to a junior Minister, rests with the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State has confirmed this to me in the past 24 hours, in another context, when I drew his attention to the reports to the fact that the Minister in charge of the environment had himself taken the decision to re-name the district of Londonderry. The right hon. Gentleman quite correctly said: In discharging his duties, my hon. Friend acts on my behalf." — [Official Report, 8 February 1984; Vol. 53, c. 623.]

There is a responsibility, of a different kind, obviously, on the part of every junior Minister towards his Ministry, but the responsibility for everything that he does or says or fails to do or say rests irrevocably with the Minister —the Secretary of State—and he alone is responsible to the House.

It is, therefore, a total misconception to imagine that any of the responsibility can be devolved to a junior Minister. A junior Minister may choose, if his chief resigns, to resign in solidarity with him; he may choose himself to resign for a variety of reasons. But there is no constitutional significance in acceptance by him of a responsibility which is not his. The locus of the responsibility is beyond challenge. It lies with the Secretary of State and, through him, with the Government as a whole.

As the Secretary of State reminded us this afternoon, even before the publication of the report he drew a distinction, which I believe to be invalid, between responsibility for policy and responsibility for administration. I believe that this is a wholly fallacious view of the nature of ministerial responsibility. I shall argue presently that there is a policy element in the event that we are 1061 considering and that it cannot be understood fully except in its policy framework. But even if all considerations of policy could be eliminated, the responsibility for the administration of a Department remains irrevocably with the Minister in charge. It is impossible for him to say to the House or to the country, "The policy was excellent and that was mine, but the execution was defective or disastrous and that has nothing to do with me." If that were to be the accepted position, there would be no political source to which the public could complain about administration or from which it could seek redress for failings of administration.

What happened was an immense administrative disaster. It was not a disaster in a peripheral area of the responsibilities of the Northern Ireland Department. It was a disaster that occurred in an area which was quite clearly central to the Department's responsibilities. If the responsibity for administration so central to a Department can be abjured by a Minister, a great deal of our proceedings in the House is a beating of the air because we are talking to people who, in the last resort, disclaim the responsibility for the administration.

I would put the question in this way to the right hon. Gentleman. If he had known on 24 September what we all know now about the state of affairs in the Maze prison, would he or would he not have taken urgent and drastic steps to correct it? Of course he would. But can he say —ought the House to permit him to say—that he was unaware of what he and we now know and that, therefore, he cannot be held responsible for what Sir James calls the malaise arising from the state of affairs of considerable duration which existed in that prison and which alone can explain what happened on 25 September last year?

A forthnight ago the Secretary of State said that he had been unaware of the defects in morale at the prison until a few months ago. It is the business of a Minister who is at the head of a branch of administration to have an instinct about, an insight into and a sense of what is happening in that branch of the administration. It is his business to know the state of morale throughout that service and he is not doing his duty as Minister if he can say truthfully that he is unaware of it and that "nobody told him". It is for him to know that he is not being told what he should be told and to find out enough to be aware whether there are deficiencies for which he should be held responsible. There is a remarkable phrase which occurs in the last sentence of the report: with inspired leadership and proper support, the prison should soon become again what it was always intended to be; the most secure prison in Northern Ireland. "Inspired leadership"—I think that that is pitching the requirements on a departmental Minister a little high. It is a somewhat grandiose expression. At any rate, let us omit "inspired" and retain "leadership". Let us keep "leadership and … support".

Leadership and support was not being given during the months and years to the prison staff, which was undertaking one of the most important, sensitive and vital jobs in the whole of Northern Ireland. There may have been other responsibilities of the Secretary of State which were of equal importance, but it would be impossible to say that there was any other responsibility which was of greater importance than the prison upon which the 1062 Province depended as one of the bulwarks between itself and the enemies of order, peace and a chance of life and safety for men and women.

This was an administrative failure of the sort that goes from the bottom straight to the top. It was not an accident, an error which could be corrected; it was not something which might happen obscurely in an office or branch somewhere throughout the country. It was something which concerned the relationship between this crucial institution of a prison and the Northern Ireland Office, and which therefore concerned the personal responsibility of the Secretary of State. Even if there had been no policy involved — if the policy had merely been to keep the Maze prison secure — there was a failure of administration which could only be at ministerial level. But it would be a mistake to imagine that what happened on 25 September can be really understood, or the conditions, the state of morale and the attitude of the prison service which made it possible, outside the political and policy framework.

There are two frames, one within the other. There is the immediate frame and context of the successive protests and hunger strikes. There was the initial hunger strike at the end of 1980 and the major hunger strike which occupied the greater part of 1981. Both those protests, hunger strikes, were bought off. They were brought to a conclusion by an agreement. But they were not an operation on their own; they were not an operation in isolation. They had a direct relationship with two political events. The meeting between the Prime Minister in December 1980 and the Irish Premier followed immediately upon the cessation of the first hunger strike. There were only two or three days between the two events. Secondly, there was the meeting between the Prime Minister and the succeeding Premier of the Irish Republic, which was able to take place because in October 1981 the second and major hunger strike had been brought to an end.

The hunger strikes were orchestrated and controlled, and the Northern Ireland Office was in continuous communication with the organisers of the hunger strikes to ensure that the Prime Minister was brought to terms, as she was in December 1980 and November 1981, with the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic.

§ Mr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South)

Is it not proper to recall that 10 people died during the strike and that the Government of the United Kingdom did not give way?

§ Mr. Powell

That is quite true. I happen to believe, perhaps wrongly, that, because of the personal determination of the Prime Minister, the circumstances in which the second and longer hunger strike was brought to an end were much less damaging and discreditable than they might have been. I accept that entirely. However, both the hunger strikes were terminated upon terms, and those were terms which had been negotiated. I do not know how much the Ministers concerned knew about the negotiations between the Northern Ireland Office—the very people with whom the prison staff in the Maze were in communication and from whom they received their instructions—and the leaders of the national H block committee in Dublin. That was the inner framework of the state of morale in the Maze prison as it existed on 25 September 1983.

1063 It was a prison organisation which had been told, "These are the terms which the Government have agreed and these are the terms and the spirit of the terms with which, whatever you think will be the consequences for the security of the prison, you must comply." There was no doubt who was to be the master; the Northern Ireland Office was to be the master. It said, "We take responsibility for the politics of this and you, the prison service, will carry out the politics as it is our business to indicate them." But that is only the inner scene. The picture is framed by the policy from 1979 to 1983, which was pursued by the Government and which was followed from the moment that they came into office, when they reversed the policies upon which the Conservative party had been elected to govern.

§ Mr. Jerry Hayes (Harlow)

Is not the right hon. Gentleman being somewhat unrealistic in imputing omnipresence and omnificence to a Minister of the Crown? Will he take into account what was said in the report at paragraph 9.03, which states: the Governor told us that he had never found himself without advice on any urgent operational matter?

§ Mr. Powell

I dare say that he received official advice—indeed, I am sure that he did. He probably received some official advice for which he did not ask. Sir James may be an expert on prisons and may know more than we know about them, but some of us know a little more about being a Minister than Sir James. I am prepared to say that it is possible for a Minister at the head of a great service to know what the state of morale in that service is, and to know what it is like at the important pressure points. It is not omnipotence or omnificence; it is what is requisite in a parliamentary democracy of a Secretary of State or a Minister at the head of a Department.

If any member of the prison service, like any ordinary member of the public in Northern Ireland, during these past four and a half years had watched the proceedings of Her Majesty's Government, had watched what they had done instead of the things which before they were elected they undertook to do, he would have reasonably concluded—I do not necessarily say that he would have been right so to conclude—that Her Majesty's Government were set upon making terms with the Irish Republic whereby some of the objectives—perish the methods—of the men imprisoned in the Maze for crimes would be achieved.

§ Mr. Prior

I shall not take issue with the first part of what the right hon. Gentleman said, because I have already made my views known to the House. However, I must take up the point that we were always giving way to the Irish Republic, with all that that entailed. Why does the right hon. Gentleman think that the Government suffered all the indignity and the problems that arose from a hunger strike which involved the deaths of 10 people? Why does he think that my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State was put through the hell that he suffered that summer if it was all some grand design to give way to the Republic of Ireland? The right hon. Gentleman must desist from building up conspiratorial theories that have no grounds of truth whatsoever.

§ Mr. Powell

It is not I who am in the dock for being unaware of what was going on.

I am confronting a right hon. Gentleman who had very little knowledge of what was going on in his own 1064 Department and in his own office; a right hon. Gentleman without communication with whom — that is my charitable assumption — the Northern Ireland Office behaved on occasions during the past four or five years, virtually as if it were a separate entity in the state. The right hon. Gentleman does not realise this. That is the disaster. That is the misfortune.

The right hon. Gentleman asked why the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Sir H. Atkins) had to live through the summer of 1981. I thought that the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) came very close to pointing that out. Of course it was not the conscious will of Her Majesty's Government, of this Parliament or of this people to bring about the consequences that were the natural outcome—the visible, likely outcome, as seen by the people in the Province—of such events as the two meetings between the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Prime Ministers of the Irish Republic. Hon. Members and I myself on this Bench would despair and die if we believed that that was so.

§ Sir 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 in the Province, for whatever reason they committed the murder, would all be treated in the same way. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman is not also delighted.

§ Mr. Powell

We now have an opportunity to read in the Hennessy report the results of that in the Maze prison, how it worked out in practice when the terms were applied in the Maze, and the effect that it had on morale and in producing in the Maze the malaise—that is the word—which made September possible.

In a Department such as this and in the face of an event such as this, we cannot in the last resort distinguish Government policy from administration. I believe, despite my differences of perception and temperament from the Secretary of State, that it is his intention and his ambition to contribute to the public good by his administration in Northern Ireland. I have never doubted that for a moment. However, I ask him to review again the question that only he can answer. As it is incumbent upon those who take part in this debate to answer their own questions, I want to say to him that, being, as he is, a proud and sensitive man, I think that he will take the decision which will best serve both his honour and the Province for which I know he has come to have an affection if he recognises the principle of ministerial responsibility in the face of this event.

It is easy to say that we should make a Roman holiday for the IRA. It is easy to say that here is a Secretary of State who in many respects, we believe and hope, is taking a new grasp upon his responsibilities. It is easy to say that this is not the moment. It is always the moment, Mr. Speaker, for accepting what this House has a right to demand — the responsibility of Ministers for that for which only they can take responsibility to the people.

§ Mr. Michael Mates (Hampshire, East)

It was not my purpose, Mr. Speaker, when I asked you if I might take 1065 part in this debate, to speak upon the subject upon which the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) has just addressed us. I shall keep my promise to be brief, but I cannot forbear to make one or two comments on his remarks.

The right hon. Gentleman began by asking a series of theoretical questions about ministerial responsibility, and some questions which were practical. In making charges against my right hon. Friend, he did not refer to what was said in the Hennessy report. More significantly, if he thought that those questions were so crucial to the inquiry, it does not appear from the report that he addressed those questions to its author and asked for answers. The first part of the report describes the wide range of people who made submissions and asked for certain aspects of the affair to be considered. The right hon. Gentleman's name is not there. He is content to sit and brood and then to criticise when the report is published. I shall not follow him in the malevolent flight of fancy that has led him to the conclusion that the prisoners escaped from the Maze because two Prime Ministers of two sovereign states chose to have talks about their future relations. That allegation is so patently ludicrous as not to be worth discussing. I am sorry to have to say that, because I listened with the greatest care to most of what the right hon. Gentleman said.

In an attempt to look forward and be constructive, I shall concentrate on two aspects of the report and the difficulties within the Maze which caused it to be written. I have no great expertise, but I have been to the Maze. I was there before the new prison was built, I was there during the building of the new prison—thanks to the right hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon), who always gave us all the greatest possible co-operation—and I have been there since.

Sir James Hennessy points to two events without which the escape could not have taken place. He then considers whether or not there was ministerial responsibility. First, he says that the escape could not have taken place had the guns not got into the prison. Without guns, there would have been no escape. I note very carefully what Sir James says about visits, and his reference in page 21 paragraph 4.10, to the Council of Europe's Memorandum on the Custody and Treatment of Dangerous Prisoners. That is something — this will offend the right hon. Member for Down, South—that the Government have had to consider.

I note, too, the dilemma that Sir James recognises about the humanitarian grounds for visits to convicted prisoners vis-a-vis the practical security requirements for preventing the possibility of materials being brought into the prison which would help to make an escape possible. I do not criticise what Sir James says, but my right hon. Friend should consider closely whether he should go further than Sir James's recommendation on this aspect.

Visitors to the Maze are unlike any of the range of visitors to prisons on the mainland. Priests are prepared to bring in contraband under the guise of visiting their flock. All types of people, such as lawyers, I regret to say—this is hard evidence, not hearsay—will bring in tools to help their clients escape. Such conditions simply do not exist in mainland Britain. 1066 Sir James concluded that the humanitarian arguments against closed visits for all prisoners at the Maze cannot be ignored. He said that while he wanted tightened procedures, he did not want to change the system. My right hon. Friend should think long and hard before he decides not to go further than that. The humanitarian considerations are important, but so are the practical ones. However, the overriding requirement is that there shall be no chance of guns being brought into that prison again in whatever guise. If that entails being less than humanitarian to the prisoners, it is a tough decision, but so be it. If the Government, when examining what Sir James has said, conclude that they must go further, they deserve the support of every right hon. and hon. Member in making that decision, however unpalatable it may be.

It gives me no pleasure to say that the prisoners could not have got out if the prison officers had done their job. The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) made what I can only call an apologia for the prison officers, the governors and all who are associated with the management of the prison. Not once did he mention the serious, but so simple, dereliction of duty that took place. Such an approach does not help us to come to the correct conclusion on the arguments. Nor does the right hon. Member for Down, South in saying that it was simply a matter of morale. It is possible for parts of any organisation to have low morale, but nevertheless, even reluctantly, to do their duty.

The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West asked whether the Northern Ireland Office knew about McFarlane. That may be a fair question, but surely he should have asked, first, whether the prison officer who let him into the yard outside the block to sweep unaccompanied and then let him into the gate block knew about McFarlane. If he had simply stuck to the rules—that no prisoner comes out of an H block unescorted by a prison officer and no prisoner goes into the gate block unescorted by a prison officer—the seeds of the escape would have withered.

§ Rev. Ian Paisley

My information is that an orderly in the prison has the right to go out into the yard alone and do jobs that he is appointed to do. It emerges from the report that the officer at the gate was not amazed. Indeed, he thought that McFarlane was doing a job that he was appointed to do.

§ Mr. Mates

I am trying to make the point not about what happened, but about what the rules demand should happen. McFarlane would not have got into that gate block unescorted if the rules had been followed. The hon. Member of Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) might know better than I, but the reason for the escape is that the rules were broken. The escape succeeded because there was a series of derelictions of duty. One asks ultimately whether Ministers are responsible. Ministers can be responsible only for the rules that their organisation creates. It is management's responsibility as to whether the rules are kept.

§ Mr. McCusker

If the hon. Gentleman does not accept the explanation given by the Opposition Front Bench spokesman or by my right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) for the disastrous drop in morale, but accepts that the prison staff were prepared to endure four years of hell under the Labour Administration—22 of the 1067 staff being murdered does not imply that their natural reaction is to be derelict in their duty — what does he suggest is the real explanation for this performance?

§ Mr. Mates

I am coming to that point. I shall quote from the report. I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman's feelings about his countrymen in the prison service who have been killed. I do not attempt to detract in any way from the fact that most of them do their duty and do it well. However, there is no gainsaying what Sir James says. He said: staff who are careless and unconcerned cause the breaches in security which lead to failure.

§ Mr. McCusker

I accept that.

§ Mr. Mates

Sir James continued: the Maze also harbours officers who show too little concern for their duty … it is clear that there are men in the Northern Ireland Prison Service now who lack the abilities required of a prison officer and the leadership qualities necessary … as well as men who are over-concerned with high earnings.

The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West criticised Ministers about the overtime argument and asked why, when more posts are requested, they are not granted. My hon. Friend the Minister who is to reply to the debate will tell me if I am wrong, but I remember, from conversations that I have had with Ministers, that when the prison service asks for more posts and Ministers say, "Right, here are 10 more men," the reply is, "We do not want 10 more men; we want the overtime." Extra men have been declined in favour of overtime payments.

§ Mr. CliveSoley