Statement by Peter Hain MP on the Northern Ireland Select Committee Report into the On the Runs Letters

Statement by Peter Hain MP, Secretary of State May 2005-June 2007

 ‘Successive Attorney Generals, Labour and Conservative, have confirmed that the Scheme was lawful so contradicting the Committee’s different suggestion.  Although I flatly disagree with some of the Committee’s conclusions, it is welcome that they did not question either my integrity or that of other Labour Ministers or our civil servants intimately involved in successfully delivering peace and stablity to Northern Ireland.  We behaved throughout with one purpose in mind: to end the terror and horror and bring bitter old enemies to govern together, and in that we succeeded.  The truth is we would not have delivered this without implementing the Administrative Scheme to issue official letters to those Sinn Fein Members on whom the police believed at the time there was no basis to bring a prosecution.’