Tony Blair will face questions at Westminster on Tuesday about his government’s IRA “on the runs” scheme that gave secret amnesties to some of the Provisionals’ most wanted suspects.
The former prime minister is to give evidence to the parliamentary committee investigating how it operated from 1999. Wanted IRA suspects were given letters stating that they were no longer going to be arrested for crimes committed during the Northern Ireland Troubles.
The scheme’s existence was exposed at the Old Bailey last year when convicted IRA man and chief suspect in the Hyde Park bomb massacre of 1982, John Downey, produced one of the on the runs letters in court. The historic case against Downey then collapsed.
Blair’s government introduced the scheme after lobbying from Sinn Féin, which argued that support for the Good Friday Agreement and moves towards running down the IRA as a military force would be enhanced within the republican community if the fugitives were no longer sought by the British authorities.
The Northern Ireland affairs committee has heard evidence from senior police officers and politicians, including the Secretary Theresa Villiers and a number of her predecessors.
The committee wrote twice and emailed the former premier several times asking him to identify a suitable date for an appearance. Blair replied by claiming his schedule around the world was too busy for him to attend.
In November, the committee chairman, Laurence Robertson, wrote to Blair accusing him of being disrespectful to the House of Commons. The speaker, John Bercow, intervened: he warned the former prime minister that parliament would take a very dim view of his refusal to come and speak to the committee.
