House of Lords
Government Contracts: Bain & Company
(2 years ago)
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Lord Hain
To ask His Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the government of the United States of America about the suspension of United Kingdom government contracts with Bain & Company.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville- Rolfe) (Con)
Before I answer the Question, I should say that it was a privilege to hear the South African President addressing Parliament yesterday. I hope I speak for others when I say that I found the Lord Speaker’s vote of thanks very warm and well judged.
His Majesty’s Government have not suspended any contracts with Bain & Company; however, following careful consideration in the light of South Africa’s Zondo commission, Bain & Company and its affiliates have been excluded from bidding for procurements for the award of new Cabinet Office contracts for a period of three years. Other departments were advised that exclusion should also be considered for their procurements. I am not aware of any specific UK government engagement with the Government of the United States of America on this issue.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord True, and Jacob Rees-Mogg—I never thought I would say that—for suspending Bain & Company from obtaining UK government contracts for three years. No company should act illegally abroad—as the South African judicial commission found Bain to have done in deliberately disabling the country’s tax-collecting agency, on the direct instruction of the corrupt former President to protect his cronies and his family—and get government contracts at home. The Government’s action sets an important precedent for other global corporates—that they must act legally and ethically abroad or be barred from taxpayer-funded public contracts at home. Bain is Boston-headquartered and I urge the Prime Minister to press President Biden to follow Britain’s lead.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, our understanding is that Bain & Company currently does no work for the US federal Government or US federal government agencies and has done no such work since early 2013, but the UK Government are confident that our key ally, the United States, will undertake the necessary due diligence to investigate such matters.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, it seems to be the settled policy of the Government to cut the size of the Civil Service and then compensate by spending more money on consultancies. Why is this done? Is it because civil servants provide evidence, whereas consultancies tell the Government what they want to hear? Some £60 million has been paid to Bain in the last six years. I understand that £40 million of that was paid for “advice on Brexit opportunities”. Was that value for money?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
Bain is not being paid anything at the moment, and I think that in the last year the figure was £2 million. I share the noble Lord’s view that we have to look carefully when we employ consultants to do work that can sometimes be done well within the Civil Service. At the same time, extra expertise is sometimes needed, especially on subjects as difficult as Brexit.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on being persistent in raising this issue at every opportunity. Corruption at an international level needs international co-operation. While the Minister may say that there are no contracts with the federal Government of the United States, the company will certainly do contract work with states within the US. While she is not aware of any discussions with the US Government, can she reassure us that there will be such discussions so that we can tackle this cancer on the world, corruption?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I agree that the noble Lord, Lord Hain, has been a great campaigner on this issue and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for repeating that. It is very important that we fight corruption at every level, in every way we can. It erodes trust and undermines public confidence, and it does that internationally. I think we have a good record in recent years, under this Government, in raising corruption internationally. I come back to my point that individual countries have to take their own action on exclusion and debarment.
Lord Hain (Lab)
Since I have the opportunity to come back, I would like to say that I am very grateful to the Minister for her response. The US is a key ally of ours, as are other countries in the G7 and the G20; all of them do business with Bain. Surely Britain having provided a lead opens the door for the Government to lobby their colleagues and friends to follow the same policy. Companies which act illegally—in disabling a tax agency in this case—should surely pay the penalty.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
On the subject of US relations, I can say that the Prime Minister met US President Biden at the G20 in Indonesia, and they agreed on the national and international importance of the UK-US relationship given the challenging economic times and all the difficulties we face together. The US Government have a suspension and debarment regime to which they devote a lot of resources, and contractors found not to be responsible are suspended or debarred, and the US will no doubt study very seriously the Zondo commission and the steps we have taken in the UK to lead the way on this matter.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, is it not about time that directors were held accountable for such actions, and that some of them went to jail?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
There is corporate law which involves the suspension of directors, but I am not able to speak about it today; it is dealt with by another department. However, our new Procurement Bill improves the arrangements for debarment where exclusion is needed, perhaps because there has been insolvency, dishonesty, impropriety or a serious breach of ethical and professional standards. We will discuss that in this House on Report next week. I think we are moving forward in this area although we have to be fair and balanced, as the UK Government always try to be.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, as the Minister knows, there is no central enforcer of corporate law in the UK and the whole scene is very disjointed. While the Minister is in the mood to tackle corruption, can I invite her to tell the House whether any of the big four accounting firms, whose tax avoidance schemes have been declared unlawful by the courts, have at any time during the last 12 years been investigated, prosecuted or fined, or have the Government even bothered to recover a penny of the legal costs?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments, but it goes rather beyond today’s Question. However, I can say that the Cabinet Office conducted an in-depth review into KPMG following the finding against the firm of dishonesty in its role in the sale of the Silentnight group of companies. In fact, the review concluded that KPMG should not be excluded because it had carried out self-cleaning measures —that is where a company moves to demonstrate reliability and improve its compliance systems. It is very important that companies can do the right thing, particularly where mistakes have been made.
Civil Society and Human Rights Defenders
(2 years ago)
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Lord Collins of Highbury
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking (1) to strengthen civil society, and (2) to improve protection for human rights defenders, internationally.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, the FCDO is taking a leading role in countering the increasing trend of closing civic space around the world. We continue to raise restrictions to civic space with Governments and multilaterally, drawing on the range of diplomatic and development levers available, including sanctions where appropriate. We also continue to work closely with the UN and other key partners, as well as at a country level, to understand how we can improve protection for human rights defenders globally.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for that response. He knows that I have consistently raised this issue, because when nations fail in their most important task of providing safety, security and freedom to their people, it is often—or always—civil society that leaps first to their defence. In the integrated review, the Government committed to promote open societies and work with human rights defenders as a priority, but how is this priority being translated into action? Does the FCDO plan to develop a strategy to resist this global trend of the closure of civil society space? If it does plan such a strategy, will the Minister commit to consult with civil society both here and globally in its development?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the noble Lord’s second point, the answer is yes, because you cannot develop a strategy unless you work with practitioners. I am certainly keen to take that forward. As the noble Lord may well be aware, the United Kingdom Government launched a specific document on UK support for human rights defenders back in 2019, and we worked with civil society groups, including Amnesty International, at the time. We are working through our extensive network of diplomats, and indeed through posts, in supporting human rights defenders. At times, we have to be very cautious of our approach in terms of the public profile we give to human rights defenders in other countries through the support we are extending to them, but we stand very much focused on the training of our diplomats as well as working very constructively with civil society organisations around the world.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, on this Red Wednesday, when Mr Speaker has given instructions for the Palace of Westminster to be lit red this evening to commemorate all those who suffer or are persecuted for their belief—hundreds of millions of people around the world—will the Minister say what more we are doing to promote Article 18 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which insists that every person has the right to believe, not to believe or to change their belief? In particular, will he take up again the case of Zhang Zhan, the young woman lawyer who went to Wuhan to expose the origins of Covid-19, motivated by her faith, who now languishes in a CCP jail, with British diplomats refused permission to attend the court hearing and no information given about her whereabouts, or indeed about her health?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I will follow up and update the noble Lord on his second point. On his first point, of course, the United Kingdom stands very firm in our defence of freedom of religion or belief around the world. It is important that we remain steadfast in that. As a country, we celebrate the rich diversity of faith or belief. Indeed, our own journey, while it may have been challenging, is testament to this. As we look around the rich tapestry of faith institutions in the United Kingdom today, we have church steeples, cloisters, gurdwaras, synagogues, mosques and temples; that really demonstrates how we celebrate faith. Equally, many are denied their right to faith or belief around the world. That is why we held a conference earlier this year; the noble Lord was directly engaged with that. He also knows of my personal commitment to ensure that this remains a key priority for His Majesty’s Government.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, the work described in the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Collins, is undoubtedly needed. Front Line Defenders identified at least 358 people who were killed in 2021 because of their work defending rights. We have heard that in the Government’s integrated review there is a commitment to work with civil society and human rights defenders as a priority. We have an upcoming review of that; can my noble friend the Minister commit that that will remain a priority?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I assure my noble friend that it remains a priority. Indeed, very recently after the appointment of the new Government my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, the new Minister for Development, Andrew Mitchell, and I met civil society organisations directly to ensure that each of their priorities was fully understood, both in terms of the work we are doing in defending human rights around the world and equally in terms of understanding their development priorities.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, how can the Minister say that it is one of his priorities when government programmes on open societies and human rights have been slashed by 74% between 2019-20 and 2021-22? We know that the most important human rights defenders around the world are women. It is a year and a week since the Government said they had
“decided to restore the women and girls development budget to what it was before the … ODA … cut”.
Why can I not find any evidence of this reversal? Would this not be a horrific, dreadful broken promise if the Government have reneged on that commitment?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, the first thing I would say to the noble Lord is that it is not just about money. One of the primary assets we have is our advocacy and diplomacy. The noble Lord himself is an example of diplomacy and advocacy around the world. I am proud of the fact that the United Kingdom leads on this agenda, not just on freedom of religion, standing up for girls’ rights, standing up for development, standing up for human rights defenders through practical initiatives, yes, but support through money as well. We stand by our commitment to ensuring that humanitarian support and the priority given to women and girls remains part and parcel of our development and diplomacy effort.
Lord Woodley (Lab)
My Lords, at the heart of civil society are the trade unions, the workers’ last line of defence against bad bosses and authoritarian Governments across the world. Yet, unfortunately our own Government have dramatically undermined workers’ rights for the past 12 years and are planning to go further, even against the advice of employers. Can the Minister confirm that he is co-operating with the International TUC and the ILO to stop the abuse of workers such as we have seen in Qatar, with thousands of workers dramatically losing their lives. Is he not embarrassed that the Government claim to be championing human rights while restricting them at home?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, among other things I am the UK Human Rights Minister and, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Collins, would testify, I believe in co-operation and working very closely with the Trades Union Congress and indeed with the CBI. I assure the noble Lord that in our interactions I meet regularly with the ILO and hear the views of the TUC. Indeed, the TUC forms part of the UK delegation in the annual International Labour Conference. I stand by that. Trade unions play an important role in our consultation and, as he said, both in Qatar and elsewhere we take their views very much on board in standing up for the rights of migrant workers. We have a debate later this week on human rights, workers’ rights and migrant rights. It is because of UK support, technical support, diplomatic support and through experience of our CSOs that we are able to help countries, including those in the Gulf, improve migrant rights as we have seen in places such as Bahrain.
Baroness Coussins (CB)
My Lords, there is an in-principle agreement between the UK and Mexican Governments to hold a human rights dialogue alongside the free trade negotiations. Although the trade talks have already completed two rounds, the human rights dialogue has not even started yet, and there is no sign of a timetable despite the human rights crisis in Mexico. Can the Minister tell the House whether a date has been set for this dialogue to begin and, if not, what the problem is?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I am not sure of the date of commencement, but I will write to the noble Baroness. We work very closely on this agenda with Mexico. I know, for example, on issues of LGBT rights, on the Equal Rights Coalition we handed over in September the co-chairmanship among other countries to Mexico, so we have a comprehensive human rights dialogue with it. As I said, I will write to the noble Baroness about the date.
Lord Cashman (Lab)
My Lords, as we have seen from the tragic events in an LGBT club in Colorado and the staggering rise in trans hate crime in this country —there were 2,630 such crimes in 2021—hate speech, from wherever it comes, has devastating consequences. I would therefore like to ask the Minister this: what specific action are the Government taking to work with LGBT human rights defenders in countries where LGBT people are criminalised and where the death penalty exists for LGBT people, such as the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Qatar?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord is right to raise these issues, and I pay tribute to his work on this important agenda. I assure him that, through our network of more than 280 missions around the world, we deliver direct diplomatic engagement and raise LGBT rights directly, even in those parts of the world. Again, there are noble Lords with whom I confer privately sometimes because of the sensitivity of the issue. I do not hold back; we hold those discussions quite candidly to ensure the rights of all citizens, whatever their faith, belief or sexuality, as we enjoy them here in the UK—notwithstanding the domestic challenges that the noble Lord highlighted. We continue to remain focused. Human rights should be universal for everyone everywhere.
Tobacco Control Plan
(2 years ago)
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Lord Faulkner of Worcester
To ask His Majesty’s Government when they intend to publish their Tobacco Control Plan; and whether it is still their intention that England shall be smoke-free by 2030.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Markham) (Con)
Following the publication of the Khan review into smoke-free policies, we are taking stock of whether a fresh tobacco control plan is the best way to respond to its independent recommendations. The Government remain fully committed to the ambition of a smoke-free England by 2030, and we will provide an update on our plans to meet that target in due course.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, I think this is the first time the Minister has answered a Question about tobacco control; I welcome him to this debate. He will know that this House has led the way in putting forward and implementing measures that have led to a significant drop in smoking levels, certainly since 2002. There is cross-party consensus that we should go on in this way.
The Minister’s predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Kamall —I am pleased to see him in his place—is on the record in both March and April as saying not only that the Government are committed to a smoke-free 2030, as confirmed by the Minister this afternoon, but that the new tobacco plan will be published this year. Does the Minister accept that, to achieve the smoke-free target and reduce the appalling inequalities in life expectancy caused by smoking, it will be necessary to implement the recommendations in Javed Khan’s independent review, particularly those based on the “polluter pays” principle?
Lord Markham (Con)
First, I thank the noble Lord for all his work to reduce smoking; I am grateful for it every time I walk into a smoke-free environment in the evening. As he said, a cross-party approach has achieved many great things. As the noble Lord knows, there are some quite radical things in the Khan review, such as increasing the smoking age every year, which would in effect ban smoking altogether. There are many pros and cons to the prohibition argument, but it is something we take very seriously and we will publish our response. I assure noble Lords that we are going to tackle this issue.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend recall that in the former coalition Government, we made considerable progress in reducing smoking in this country, not least by focusing on the level of initiation of smoking among young people? We banned vending machines, for example. Will the Government consider raising from 18 the age at which young people can buy cigarettes?
Lord Markham (Con)
I agree with my noble friend. The key age group to attack, so to speak, is 16 to 18-year-olds, which is often when the smoking habit begins. We must look seriously at every step we can take to reduce smoking in that age group. I am also aware that 18 is the age of consent, of being able to do lots of things, and changing that for smoking would obviously be quite a radical step, but everything is on the table as we review the best way forward.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, the Health Foundation recently published figures showing that the budgets for tobacco control and smoking cessation have been cut in real terms by 41%. Is not part of the answer to funding treatment for addiction to tobacco, alcohol and gambling the extension of the “polluter pays” principle? What is the argument against a levy on the very large profits of the tobacco companies, in order to pay towards helping their customers who want to quit?
Lord Markham (Con)
There are a number of ways we can tackle this, price, obviously, being one of the main ways, along with taxation. The noble Lord will be aware that we increase the tax by 2% every year, and cigarettes prices here are now the highest in Europe. We are still providing funding of £73 million per year to help 100,000 people stop smoking. But it is not always money that counts. Anti-smoking campaigns, branding restrictions and taxation are all other elements which are proving successful.
Lord Palmer (CB)
My Lords, have His Majesty’s Government estimated the loss to the Treasury if England became smoke-free?
Lord Markham (Con)
I am not aware of those figures, but the general feeling is that the savings to the health system would far outweigh them. I would always err in favour of doing everything we can to reduce smoking, whatever the impact on the tax we raise, because the savings on the health side are far, far greater.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, despite the Government pledging to explore additional measures to clamp down on the sale of e-cigarettes to under-18s, no plan has yet materialised, while vaping among 11 to 18 year-olds has more than doubled. What assessment have the Government made of this alarming trend, and what action is being considered to keep children and young people away from this gateway to a smoking habit?
Lord Markham (Con)
This is a difficult area. On the one hand, I think we all agree that vaping is much better than smoking, so we are trying to get the message out to people to stop smoking and use vaping if need be. At the same time, we do not want vaping to be a gateway, as she says. Giving those mixed messages is never an easy thing to do, which is why we must consider as part of the Khan review the best way to get that message out. The recent Cochrane review shows that vaping is as safe as all other methods of stopping smoking, such as patches, so it should be our key way of stopping smoking.
Lord Geddes (Con)
My Lords, as much as I enjoy my non-political friendship with the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, I totally disagree with the premise behind his Question. Why should Big Brother tell me what I can and cannot do in respect of something I have been doing for 67 years?
Lord Markham (Con)
I am not sure whether that question is for me, but I will try my best. As ever on these things, there is a carrot and a stick. Cross-party, we have introduced carrot measures—the anti-smoking campaigns—and stick measures such as pricing and restrictions. That has worked very well to date. We have halved the smoking rate over the last 15 years, and we must continue to work on carrot-and-stick measures to reduce it further.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the tobacco industry is very adept at getting round regulations. In 1986, John Home Robertson’s Bill made illegal the use of tobacco pouches that people put in their mouths as substitutes. I understand that synthetic nicotine pouches are now being used to get round that law, so what are the Government doing to stop this?
Lord Markham (Con)
I will need to write to the noble Lord on that. I am aware that different methods exist, but I think we are all united on the need to do everything we can to prevent any circumvention.
Lord Naseby (Con)
Is not any plan meaningless when at least a third of the market is supplied by illegal imports? His Majesty’s Government appear not to have done anything to stop this, and it is the young people in our country who are smoking the cheap, illegally imported cigarettes.
Lord Markham (Con)
We are working very hard with HMRC on this. I think we can all agree that one thing that Brexit was good on was restricting the number of cigarettes that people can bring in legally from other parts of Europe.
Lord Markham (Con)
I will take everything I can. Clearly, we need to stop cigarettes coming in by all illegal means.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
The Government also lose a lot of income through illegal importation. If the Government are working very hard indeed to prevent it, can the noble Lord please spell out what they are doing? As I understand it, the number of staff involved at the ports is being cut.
Lord Markham (Con)
I do not have the figures on that, so I will need to give the noble Lord a detailed reply.
Counterterrorism: Martyn’s Law
(2 years ago)
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Lord Harris of Haringey
To ask His Majesty’s Government, further to the letter from senior police officers to the Prime Minister on 21 November calling for the introduction of “Martyn’s Law”, when they intend to introduce counterterrorism legislation to improve the safety and security of public venues.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
I refer to my interest in the register and beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)
My Lords, the Government are grateful to Figen Murray for her tireless campaigning for Martyn’s law. The protected duty will ensure that public places put safety and security first. We are working hard to bring forward this important piece of legislation as soon as possible.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, it is five years since the Manchester Arena bombing and Figen Murray has campaigned tirelessly following the death of her son. Had there been a Protect duty in place at that time, 22 people might not have died. The Home Office has moved with extraordinary sloth since the principle was accepted. It has consulted at length and responded to the consultation. We were promised this in the Queen’s Speech. When is this going to happen, or do we have to wait for another atrocity?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
Bringing forward this legislation was a 2019 manifesto commitment. As the noble Lord noted, there was supposed to be a consultation in early 2020, but that was delayed due to Covid. It was eventually undertaken between 26 February and 2 July 2021. It was a very comprehensive consultation process with more than 2,500 responses, and the duty has received strong support from businesses and others. As I say, the Government are committed to bringing forward this important legislation, as per the Queen’s Speech, as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that one of the best ways to tackle terrorism is to prevent people becoming terrorists in the first place? What is his department is doing to work with the many local civil society organisations that are working with young people in many communities across the country, to prevent them being recruited by terrorists?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I thank my noble friend for his question. The Contest strategy is the Government’s counterterrorism strategy and has the four Ps at its core, one of which is Prevent. Many sections of the community are engaged with that and the Government expect to publish an updated and enhanced version of Contest early next year.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
My Lords, notwithstanding the horrific slaughter of young people in the Manchester Arena, a clear majority of the 100 or so deaths from terrorism in Great Britain this century have been on public transport or on the streets of London. Knowing the risks, we still prize the ability to run for a train or hop on a bus without submitting to checks or scrutiny of any kind. Does the Minister agree that we need to reflect long and hard before requiring precautions at public venues that are not required on public transport? I think particularly of the hundreds of thousands of small venues, such as cafes or parish churches, where there may be no money to spare and no specific threat.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The noble Lord makes a very sound point. He is, in effect, asking me about the scope of the proposed legislation and that work is ongoing. It would not be appropriate for me to comment at this point.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, and to Martyn’s family for their work on these issues. What else can the Government do to encourage small venues to improve security, while we await this long-overdue legislation? What about a public information campaign or a security rating scheme for venues? Lives may be unnecessarily at risk because of government inaction.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The noble Lord makes an interesting point. ProtectUK was launched in March 2022 as a digital tool. Its work includes offering guidance, advice and engagement with counterterrorism experts via an online platform. As it develops, it will establish itself as a central digital location for counterterrorism support. There are a number of other aspects to that, which I could go on about at some length, but considerable work is being done in that space.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
My Lords, seven former Home Secretaries have written to the Prime Minister today, asking for this matter to be expedited, given that it is almost 18 months since the end of the consultation. I am being only slightly facetious when I ask the noble Lord if he will make sure that the Prime Minister gets the letter because, when Tony Blair’s dad wrote a letter to Downing Street and signed it “love, Pop”, he got a letter back saying “Dear Mr Pop”. Perhaps we could make sure that this letter reaches Rishi Sunak.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I will make sure the Prime Minister is aware of the letter.
Baroness Newlove (Con)
My Lords, as the former Victims’ Commissioner, I have met Figen and other campaigners. For the Government not to have any legislation in place after five years is inhumane to the families who are grieving and fighting to make other venues safe. After all, at the end of the day, the Manchester inquiry has a huge profile and it is up to the Government to put legislation in place for the sake of the lost family members and for those fighting to protect others—as Figen has and will continue to, in a dignified manner.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I agree with my noble friend that the campaign has been conducted in a very dignified manner. Of course, I express my sympathies with all the victims and their families. As I say—I cannot improve on this answer—the legislation will come forward as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, we are not going to let the Minister off the hook with that. My noble friend Lord Harris has been campaigning with Martyn’s family on this issue for years. It has been five years since the Manchester Arena bombing. It is not good enough for the Minister to say that this will be done as soon as possible, “We are trying to do it expeditiously”, et cetera. When will we see this legislation put into practice to honour the memory of those who died at Manchester and elsewhere?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord again, but I will have to stay on the hook. The fact is that it will be as soon as parliamentary time allows. I cannot improve on that answer.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, in 2009, I signed off a mass of work to do with security in crowded places. My right honourable friend was in a nearby office at the time and we increased the number of NaCTSOs, as well. Can the Minister confirm that that work—a great deal of work—on exactly this stuff is being looked at and used in the context of this legislation? If not, as with so many things, we will be going round and round in circles.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
As I say, the Government are still working on this and all aspects of it will be included in the legislation and in the other things I have referenced, such as the Contest and Protect strategies.
Lord Flight (Con)
My Lords, do the Government consider counterterrorist measures the most suitable measures to deal with the security of public venues?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
As outlined in the Queen’s Speech, yes.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister explain why the legislation programme seems much slower with this Government than it was with the previous ones?
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, while we wait for this proposed legislation to pass through this House and the other place, can we be assured that one of the main failures that was a contributory factor to the Manchester bombing was the lack of joined-up thinking and joined-up work by the emergency services? Can we at least have the assurance that that is in hand and that all venues, small or large, now have proper contingency planning while we await the legislation?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My noble friend makes a good point. I am, of course, happy to try to give that assurance from the Dispatch Box but, as we know, all police forces and emergency services remain operationally independent to some extent. The fact is that they have access to the various services I have outlined, through Contest.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, I am sorry to come back to the Minister, but the question just asked by his noble friend highlights that there is a lot of guidance there. The whole point of this proposed legislation was that it would place a duty to act proportionately on those responsible for public venues. I cannot understand why there is this continued delay. Is it simply that there is no parliamentary time, given that both Houses seem to have a very light load at the moment?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
From my personal point of view, I am not sure that it is a particularly light load. As the noble Lord says, the duty will enhance public security by introducing new requirements for certain public places to ensure preparedness. It is necessary: there is no disagreement about that. It will come forward as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Energy Bill Relief Scheme Pass-through Requirement (England and Wales and Scotland) Regulations 2022
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
That the Regulations laid before the House on 31 October be approved. Special attention drawn to the first and second instruments by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, 18th Report. Considered in Grand Committee on 22 November.
Biocidal Products (Health and Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 2022
(2 years ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 18 and 20 October be approved. Relevant document: 16th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 21 November.
Subsidy Control (Subsidies and Schemes of Interest or Particular Interest) Regulations 2022
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 20 October be approved. Considered in Grand Committee on 21 November.
Ballot Secrecy Bill [HL]
Wednesday 23rd November 2022
(2 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Ballot Secrecy Act 2023 View all Ballot Secrecy Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 15-I Marshalled list for Committee - (16 Nov 2022)
Solihull Murders
(2 years ago)
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Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, this terrible tragedy highlights the fact that although domestic abuse crimes recorded by the police have been increasing annually by between 5% and 6%, prosecutions have slumped for the fifth year in a row. What are the Government going to do about the endemic misogynistic culture among the police and prosecutors which means that they do not tackle these dangerous crimes against women, which can, as here, with unanswered and unresponded to calls, prove fatal?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)
I begin by saying that my thoughts are with the loved ones of Khaola Saleem and Raneem Oudeh. For a mother and daughter to lose their lives in this way is truly heartbreaking. We should bear in mind the perpetrator, who bears the ultimate responsibility for this sickening act.
The noble Baroness asked about misogyny in the police. The Government remain determined to tackle misogyny in the police. That is why the independent policing inspectorate was tasked with reviewing vetting and countercorruption arrangements in policing across England and Wales, looking in particular at what forces are doing to identify and deal with misogynistic behaviour. We welcome the report’s conclusion that the culture is improving. The findings about adverse attitudes towards women are unacceptable and I expect all forces to take action in response as a matter of urgency.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, tragically, these deaths were preventable. Does my noble friend the Minister believe that the police are appropriately trained in cultural sensitivities in relation to domestic violence?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that question. Training includes those issues. I will quote the Minister in the other place yesterday, because she summed it up perfectly. She said:
“It is about time that people who work in this field do not look towards colour as being an excuse for non-activity. This Government take the matter very seriously. It does not matter what colour, creed or sex a person is; if they need the police’s help, they need the police’s help. I expect those themes to be included in proper police training.”—[Official Report, Commons, 22/11/22; col. 158.]
So do I.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, in her remarks yesterday, the Minister also said:
“We need thorough risk assessments, and they need to be followed with proper training.”—[Official Report, Commons, 22/11/22; col. 156.]
I am sure all noble Lords would agree. Can this Minister tell the House why some police forces have failed to carry out assessments and training of their officers? Can he give me any good reason why this training should not now become compulsory?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that question. We agree: it is incredibly important that the training reflects the gravity of these sorts of situations. We are taking action to improve this. I am sure she will be aware that we are supporting and funding the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth in her role as full-time national policing lead on this sort of subject. We are committed to funding the continuing rollout of the College of Policing’s Domestic Abuse Matters programme for front-line responders, and to adding VAWG to the strategic policing requirement.
On the training that has been developed by Maggie Blyth, which I think was released last December, so far only two-thirds of police forces have adopted it. That is not good enough. The Minister in the other place said the same and I am happy to repeat it.
Baroness Crawley (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister say why it took until these last 12 months for the Government to recognise that violence against women and girls should be included in the definition of “serious violence”?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am not sure that is strictly true. I do not wish to comment on the precise timings, but I repeat the statement I just made. The Government are taking violence against women and girls incredibly seriously and will continue to do so.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, the five officers in question have been served with management action by the Independent Office for Police Conduct over the missed opportunities. Can the Minister explain exactly what this means? Furthermore, the Home Secretary has instructed police authorities to make sure that they do all they can to investigate every single burglary. Can the same principles not be applied to domestic violence as well?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My noble friend is completely right. In fact, nine officers from West Midlands Police were served with misconduct notices, and the IOPC found a case to answer for five of them at level. They received management action; I am afraid I am unable to define what “management action” actually means. I apologise for that. I will try to find out more on the subject and, if I can, I will write to my noble friend.
Baroness Newlove (Con)
My Lords, this case is horrendous. It makes me feel very sad that people are still dying unnecessarily under the laws we put in place in this Chamber. I inform my noble friend that, while I appreciate his answers to these questions, on the ground it simply is not happening. I am receiving lots of emails from women who have been asked by police officers to do their own investigations into domestic abuse, acid attacks and stalking; I guide them to go back to the police and ask the questions. The inspectorate says it will attend every burglary; I agree with my noble friend that it should do so for every crime. No victim should be asked to investigate the horrific crimes that they are going through.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I completely agree with my noble friend. It may help if I go through the list of recommendations made by the IOPC to West Midlands Police in this case. The learning recommendations concerned domestic abuse risk assessments being completed without intelligence checks and misunderstanding by officers around when such risk assessments would be reviewed by their public protection unit. Other recommendations were that the force should consider PPU oversight of all domestic abuse cases with repeat victims, and further training around the use of domestic violence protection orders—DVPOs—and domestic violence protection notices.
My noble friend is quite right that no woman should be asked to undertake her own investigation; that is absolutely absurd. It is for the police to do it. The police have recognised it, the IOPC has published recommendations and West Midlands Police in particular is acting on it. I hope all other forces do too.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister says that every force should carry out this training, yet we know that a lot are not. Between the Home Office, the inspectorate and the police forces, where is the accountability in the system to make sure that this crucial training takes place?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
As the noble Lord is well aware—I have said it many times from the Dispatch Box—police forces in this country remain operationally independent. That is right, but of course the PCC is also the interface here between the public and the police. The statement on this case by the West Midlands PCC, Simon Foster, was very robust and made some solid points. With the noble Lord’s permission, I will quote a bit of it:
“My Police and Crime Plan makes it clear that West Midlands Police must impose bail conditions on perpetrators rather than releasing under investigation, make full use of civil protection orders and restraining orders and make arrests for breach of non-molestation orders.”
He goes on at some length and I will not repeat it all, but I think that is the appropriate response. I commend him on his actions and urge other PCCs to follow suit.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
My Lords, police failed repeatedly to come to the rescue of Raneem Oudeh and her mother, despite 10 complaints and six 999 calls, including on the night of their death. We have heard the police pledge to attend every single home burglary, but I just wonder what the priorities are here. Surely, saving the lives of women in these situations should be of equal importance as attending burglaries, if not more important. Why are women just not listened to by the police?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I think it is of rather more importance than investigating burglaries; we should all think that. I do not necessarily agree that it is not a priority for the police forces. The police forces are certainly saying the right things but, as I have already said from this Dispatch Box, I, the Minister in the other place, the Home Secretary and the Government think they have more to do.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, is not the problem here—the difference between burglary and domestic violence—the attitude of police officers towards women? What are the Government doing about that?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I went through some detail on that, as regards the strategy on tackling misogyny in the police. I agree that there are some clear failings on this, certainly in regard to this case. The way the police failed to investigate some very clear signals was clearly unacceptable, but the Government are determined to tackle the misogynistic culture that has been identified.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
My Lords, police attendance on a crime-by-crime basis is a difficult thing to sustain. The police should attend all reports of crime if the victim wants them to or if it is a very serious event, which is something I have always pursued, but should the Government not also work with the College of Policing to share the best evidence about what highlights those most at risk? For example, Professor Larry Sherman, recently at Cambridge, highlighted a high correlation between suspects who had threatened suicide and people who eventually became murderers of victims they had previously threatened. We had previously been told that threatening the victim prior to their murder was also an indicator. Both matter, but the police’s response needs to be based on good evidence. I am not convinced that the college has yet got that connection between the evidence base and passing that on to the police to share, so that their training improves.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that, and commend him for investigating all the crimes when he was still actively policing. I will take back his suggestions on the College of Policing because they make sense. Obviously one of the college’s primary duties is to ensure that best practice is shared and disseminated.
Counsellors of State Bill [HL]
Wednesday 23rd November 2022
(2 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Counsellors of State Act 2022 View all Counsellors of State Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 66-I Marshalled list for Committee - (21 Nov 2022)
Viscount Stansgate
“(c) on the death of a person named in paragraph (a) or (b), any person named by His Majesty the King by Order in Council.(1A) A statutory instrument containing an Order under subsection (1)(c) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I will not unduly take up the time of the Committee in introducing this amendment because my sense is that there are many Members who would not necessarily want to waste scarce parliamentary time unnecessarily.
My amendment is simple and straightforward: it proposes that, once the Bill has reached the statute book, if a Counsellor of State dies then the King may provide a replacement. It does not say the King has to do so; it simply says that he may if he wants to, and proposed new Section (1A) in the amendment provides the mechanism for doing so with the suitable involvement of Parliament. That is it.
The amendment is designed to be helpful. After all, the Bill is before us because the King has suggested that changing the Regency Act 1937 would be helpful to him in the discharge of his duties, and has asked us that two new names be added for life to the list of Counsellors of State. The Committee will know that both Princess Anne and the Earl of Wessex have already served in this role in years gone by.
As the Leader of the House said at Second Reading, it is the custom and practice for Counsellors of State to act in pairs, and he gave several examples in his speech. We saw that with our own eyes at the State Opening of Parliament when the Prince of Wales, as he then was, and Prince William, as he then was, acted as Counsellors of State and made it possible for this Session of Parliament to be opened. I believe that is the only time that Her late Majesty the Queen ever delegated these functions to Counsellors of State because of illness.
The Bill before us will solve the immediate problem and my amendment seeks only to avoid another, and to save some time. If one of the new Counsellors of State proposed in the Bill were to predecease the King, action would have to be taken again. We might even have to have a new Bill. Why? Because, as the Committee well knows, underlying the Bill is the fact that at least two of the existing Counsellors of State would not be publicly acceptable in the role that they would then have. That is why the King has recognised that there is a problem and why he has suggested the solution outlined in the Bill. My amendment is designed merely to help the King in future, and I commend it to the Committee.
Lord Pannick (CB)
My Lords, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee reported on the Bill in terms that are regrettably rare nowadays. It said:
“This Bill contains no delegated powers.”
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has not had the opportunity here to complain about delegated powers, and I am very pleased about that. I should be very sorry to see a delegated power introduced at this stage, particularly a delegated power conferred on His Majesty. In 1867, Walter Bagehot wrote that the monarch has three rights—the right to consult, the right to encourage and the right to warn. The monarch has no right and no power to produce delegated legislation. I can think of no precedent for the Crown having a delegated power—certainly not since 1689.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord True) (Con)
My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, presses his amendment with good intent. He has expressed his views at every stage of this process with the utmost civility and courtesy. I thank him for that.
I understand that, from his perspective, he seeks to add a certain flexibility or, as he would see it, some insurance to the system. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, implied in his important intervention, it would add further rigidity, novelty and potentially delay to the procedure. The steps in the amendment are not required and they are unwelcome. The amendment goes considerably further than the limited modification proposed in the Bill. As I submitted to your Lordships at Second Reading, the nature of this Bill flows from a message from His Majesty. I think it was the feeling of the House at Second Reading that the Bill is appropriate and proportionate to the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
The noble Viscount is proposing a wider change to the underlying architecture of the legislation. As indicated in the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, it would grant the sovereign a new authority—one which was not referenced in the King’s message—but does not indicate on what basis any such decision would be made. It would also introduce a novel parliamentary process into these matters. In this respect, it is a departure from the current framework and the proposition before us, and the Government do not believe that it is necessary or desirable.
I repeat that the Government believe that the approach suggested in the Bill is a reasonable and practical solution in the current context. The Bill as currently drafted will create a sufficient pool of counsellors who will hold this role for their lifetimes. As the noble Viscount will understand, with the effluxion of time, the order of succession will evolve and so will the situation once this Bill becomes an Act.
Although I acknowledge the spirit in which this amendment is tabled, the history of the Regency Acts demonstrates that it is a challenging task for Parliament or any legislator to predict the future. I suggest that we do not seek to do so here but seek rather to respond to the task at hand and proceed in the light of the message that the sovereign has sent us. It indicates his wishes and, I feel, the wishes of the House, that this practical, limited and moderate approach should be taken at the present time. I urge the noble Viscount to withdraw his amendment.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. I would say only that it has almost been worth it to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I of course beg leave to withdraw my amendment. I hope that this Bill will succeed in its intention. Time will tell how events will turn out in the future.
Lord Berkeley
“and as if they excluded—(c) His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex,(d) His Royal Highness the Duke of York, and(e) any other person who in the opinion of the Lord Chancellor has not in the immediately preceding 2 years undertaken Royal duties on a regular basis.”
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, in speaking briefly to Amendment 2 I can also say that I will not be moving Amendment 3 because, in his reply at Second Reading, the Minister gave an excellent and wide response. Amendment 2 is designed to formalise the Counsellors of State after the accession of King Charles, adding the Earl of Wessex and the Princess Royal to the list.
It is constitutionally very important that when the monarch is not there, this will allow the Government to continue, because we have a constitutional monarchy. That means that some of the counsellors—all of them, probably—come from the family. It is a large family and I know that King Charles has previously said that he thought it should be smaller. I do not think he has said that since he inherited the Throne, but there we are. The interesting thing to me is, what is the concept of a working royal? The counsellors obviously support the monarch in his constitutional role, so, as I think the Lord Privy Seal said at Second Reading, they clearly should be both in the UK and working, if for no other reason than that they know what is going on.
Parliamentary approval of counsellors is necessary, too, which is what we are talking about today, because there has been a history—if not recently—of monarchs going a little mad or otherwise breaking the law, as Parliament saw it. It is right that we prepare ourselves for the future. While it is also right that Parliament agree to the monarch’s proposal to add two Counsellors of State, I do not see why we cannot at the same time remove those who are no longer apparently thought suitable.
The Lord Privy Seal said at Second Reading that
“the legislation already contains provisions whereby Counsellors of State are excepted from duties if they are overseas”
and that
“in practice, working members of the Royal Family will be called on”.—[Official Report, 21/11/22; col. 1194.]
My Amendment 2 just tries to clarify that. Why not name the people concerned, rather than having to interpret what a working royal is?
I do not know whether this is from embarrassment or fear of a media frenzy. I hope it is not, but it is an important constitutional issue. It has nothing to do with who has what title or what clothes they wear for television appearances, or anything else like that. If the members of the family are not working royals, there is a fear, as the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, mentioned in his excellent speech on Monday, that the Duke of Sussex would jet in and claim that he was working because he thought that would be a good idea. A definition would be a good thing, and I see no reason why they should not be named in the Bill.
I am not going to press this amendment because I support the Bill, on the whole. However, a little clarification from the Minister, if he is able, would be very helpful. I beg to move.
Lord Pannick (CB)
My Lords, it seems unnecessary to exclude the Duke of Sussex and the Duke of York who, for reasons we all know and understand, are not going to be performing royal duties in the immediate future in any event. As to the drafting of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in proposed new paragraph (e), that there should be excluded
“any other person who in the opinion of the Lord Chancellor has not in the … preceding 2 years undertaken Royal duties on a regular basis”,
this leaves rather open for analysis what “regular” means. Does it mean once a month, once a week or once a year? What if they are ill for a period of time? The idea that the Lord Chancellor should determine this question without any criteria seems rather unsatisfactory. Mr Dominic Raab has more than enough to do at the moment.
Lord Balfe (Con)
I will make one small point. We will have five Counsellors of State, two of whom are not going to be used, namely the Dukes of Sussex and of York. That means that, since you have to have two Counsellors of State acting if the monarch is away, if either the Princess Royal or the Duke of Wessex were unavailable, we would have only Princess Beatrice left. We do not have anyone else on the reserves bench, so to speak.
I doubt whether we have heard anything, but noble Lords will recall that I suggested that the Princess of Wales should added to the list. I still think that would be a sensible idea because she will of course become a Counsellor of State when her husband succeeds to the Crown. Again, I will not support any votes, but the palace should look at this because you only need one person to be ill, and you have Princess Beatrice as a Counsellor of State. Although she is probably acceptable, she is virtually unknown.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
I apologise for not being able to be here on Monday for Second Reading; I was in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, chairing a conference on press freedom organised by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
However, I will make one point. At an earlier stage, I was slightly concerned that there seemed to be a sharp intake of breath in some quarters in relation to whether we ought to discuss this. That concerned me. We need to reaffirm the sovereignty of this Parliament. This is a constitutional monarchy: Parliament is responsible for considering all these kinds of Bills, and it is right that we do so. It is right that my noble friends Lord Stansgate and Lord Berkeley—I note that both are hereditary, which is interesting, but that is another story—should be able to move amendments, and that we have a debate on this.
This is especially so when the whole role, function and composition of this second Chamber is being reviewed. We ought to recognise that a number of constitutional questions are being considered at the moment, and Parliament should have oversight of any such Bills in a constitutional monarchy. It is right that we hear from my noble friends Lord Stansgate and Lord Berkeley, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and anyone else who wants to comment on this.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, it is of course right, and what the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said is entirely justified: Parliament has a role. But, in this particular case, we can rely upon the good judgment and discretion of the King, and we can recognise that he is a father and a brother as well as a king.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, I will make a more lawyerly point. I heard the wise intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on what is regular and the powers of the Lord Chancellor. I will not comment on either of those points. But I heard the noble Lord say, in moving the amendment, that his wish was to provide some clarity. I respectfully suggest that its wording actually does the precise opposite, because he has used the verb “excluded”—although, when he moved it, he used the word “removed”. In the context of this legislation, verbs are important. A Counsellor of State can be excepted if they are overseas, for example, which means that they cannot act but they do not lose their place in the pecking order. If they are disqualified, they lose their place in the pecking order, and the next person in line takes that place. It is not immediately clear to me whether “excluded” is “excepted” or “disqualified”. With the greatest respect, I suggest that it is this amendment that ought to be excluded.
Lord Sentamu (CB)
My Lords, I also apologise for not being here on Monday; I had to handle some serious matters in Berwick. Yes, the constitutional monarch has consulted, and this House considered this at Second Reading and agreed the terms as in the legislation. So there is no question of the supremacy of Parliament not being recognised. The suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is almost like rubbing it in—it is just one of those words we would not want to use. We should restrict the Bill to what was asked of us. This was considered, and therefore the wording is there.
Another thing is that we can never predict anyone’s future. I could be ill tomorrow, or I could be dead, and that would be the end of me. Anticipating what may or may not happen in legislation is always pretty difficult, so leave it well alone.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I have considerable sympathy with the thoughts behind this amendment, because the debate has shown that there is a certain amount of confusion about which members of the body of Counsellors of State will undertake royal duties, do undertake royal duties or might be asked to do so. In addition to the Duke of Sussex and the Duke of York, Princess Beatrice—although I might be wrong about this—is also not a working royal. That means that three members of this extraordinarily small body will never be asked to perform the function, which just seems strange.
An amendment of this sort would enable matters to be clarified. There are a number of deficiencies in its drafting, some of which were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. It also raises in my mind the question of what would happen if we were to exclude two or three Counsellors of State. Who would replace them? Would they be replaced and, if so, on what basis? There is ambiguity. In an ideal world, this ambiguity would be dealt with by consideration of these matters.
For example, it is up to the King to decide which members of his family he considers working members of it. He decides who acts as a working member of the Royal Family, so I think we could get round all that. However, as we debated on Monday, once you start down this route, it takes quite a lot of time and effort to deal satisfactorily with all the wrinkles. Given everything else that lies before us, I am not sure it is a priority. However, one idea is that the work could be done on this to the extent that, at some point in the future, there may need to be another Counsellors of State Bill to include an additional person. It would be a good thing if this could be cleared up at the same time.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, listening to noble Lords talking about the definition of working royals, I sometimes think we ought to look at the definition of working Peers, over which similar anomalies arise. Monday’s significant debate made it clear that very few of us have considered this issue before. It is not something that we deal with every day. We debated the Bill at length but it is wrong to chastise those who want further debate. I would have thought, however, that His Royal Highness, the palace authorities and Parliament would have given considerable thought to whether the Bill would deal with the problems that may occur if there were not adequate members to fulfil the responsibilities of Counsellors of State.
I appreciate that my noble friend is not pressing his amendment to a vote; I think the House is quite anxious to see this legislation go to the other place and get on to the statute book. We quite like the idea of Bills that start in your Lordships’ House and then go to the other place, rather than the other way round. Therefore, we should send the Bill to the House of Commons, as it is now, unamended, as the noble Lords who proposed these amendments have suggested.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for putting this matter before us. Perhaps it would not be inappropriate at the start to thank the Official Opposition and the noble Lord, Lord, Lord Newby, for their support on behalf of their parties, which I am sure will be noted and much appreciated.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, who always likes to bowl a different ball, as it were, that if he had been here at Second Reading he would have known that no one has ever sought to say that this matter should not be discussed. In fact, His Majesty’s Government have presented a Bill before Parliament for the single purpose of enabling Parliament to consider the matter. His Majesty the King himself has invited us to discuss the matter, so it is 180 degrees away from the position that the noble Lord sought to represent. I cannot go into the point about the future of your Lordships’ House, but it was not my party that recently put that matter before the newspapers.
We believe that this amendment is a disproportionate step. What the Government are doing, as referenced in the King’s message, is a practical and limited modification that allows royal functions to be delegated to a wider pool of Counsellors of State. It is a practical and proportionate response. The Bill follows established precedents. There is no precedent for a measure to exclude individuals from acting as Counsellors of State. Any further changes to the pool of Counsellors of State by, for example, removing certain individuals, would require more fundamental amendment to the Regency Act 1937. These arrangements have been in place for 85 years and have, in my submission, served us well.
The Bill follows the precedent, as I said at Second Reading, of 1953, when Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was added, and adds the Princess Royal and the Earl of Wessex to the pool of Counsellors of State. I must remind my noble friend Lord Balfe, who suggested that this was a very narrow pool, that he did not mention the fact that Her Majesty the Queen Consort and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales are Counsellors of State, so the pool is slightly wider than he suggested. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, to exclude individuals would be a substantial change that departs both from precedent and the approach set out in the King’s message to both Houses. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, the approach set out in His Majesty’s message is appropriate and effective. I follow the noble Baroness opposite in saying that your Lordships should respect it, having considered it and reflected on it as we have.
I intend no disservice to my right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister, for whom I have the very highest regard, but I have noted criticisms in your Lordships’ House of the fact that the office of Lord Chancellor is now held by a Member of the House of Commons. I have heard that often at this Dispatch Box. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, to allow the Lord Chancellor to exclude those individuals who have not undertaken royal duties in the preceding two years is, in our submission, an unnecessary addition, introducing complexity into the scheme where it is not required.
The amendment proposes a significant change to the underlying Act and shifts the decision-making to a member of the Government. It would now be for the Lord Chancellor to make a judgment on what counts—and what does not—as regularly undertaking royal duties. The word “regular” is subjective, and that is a lot to load on one individual. It might be asked “What is regular?” I remind the House that there are working members of the Royal Family, some very senior, who undertake public duties but have never been Counsellors of State and are not intended to be. As was wisely put to us by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and my noble friend Lord Wolfson, this approach would add complexity where previously there was none and impose an unnecessary duty on the Lord Chancellor.
The amendment must be regarded as practically unnecessary if the Bill is to pass. The Regency Act already includes provisions—the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, was kind enough to allude to our debate at Second Reading—whereby Counsellors of State are excepted from duties if they are overseas. I repeat what I set out at Second Reading: the Royal Household has confirmed that, in practice, working members of the Royal Family will be called on to act as Counsellors of State and diaries will be arranged to make this practicable. I think it is well known and understood who those persons are. The Bill as it is drafted and the flexible constitutional arrangements in place ensure that the effect of the amendment is already achieved. In my submission, and I believe this is the view of most noble Lords who spoke at Second Reading and today, that is sufficient and nothing more is required.
The underlying structure provided by the legislation has proved effective and it would be a mistake to seek to modify its effect in response to short-term contexts which are, of course, subject to evolution and change. To conclude, for the reasons I have set out and those set out by other noble Lords who have spoken helpfully in this debate, I hope I can convince the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that his amendment is redundant and disproportionate. In fact, it would add complexity and subjectivity to the system and is not suitable to the intent of this practical and precise Bill. I urge him to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
I am grateful to so many noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. Clearly, the amendment as it stands had many defects in it and I apologise for that. I spent a lot of time talking to people about what the right solution was, but I think the key thing is we have had a good debate. Many different noble Lords have expressed their views, and from my point of view I think the Bill is fine for the moment—of course I support it. I think it is an issue which we will have to look at in not the short term but in the longer term, as it may be useful to come back and review it again in a more structured way. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
My Lords, this may be a convenient point to remind noble Lords that the deadline for any Report amendments will be in 30 minutes’ time—that is at 5.02 pm. Amendments can be tabled at the Public Bill Office in the usual way.
Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill
Wednesday 23rd November 2022
(2 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 View all Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 4 July 2022 - (4 Jul 2022)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)
My Lords, as I rise to speak in this Second Reading, before I move to the Bill itself, I would like to put on record my thanks and gratitude to the Police Service of Northern Ireland and partners who, at this time and around the clock, are working to keep Northern Ireland safe and secure. I am sure the whole House will join me in condemning the recent attacks in Northern Ireland on the rule of law, and condemn terror in all its ugly guises.
The period of what are sometimes euphemistically referred to as the Troubles in Northern Ireland has left a terrible legacy and an indelible mark on society. More than 3,500 people were killed during the Troubles, with an estimated 40,000 more maimed or injured. Families were shattered, businesses destroyed along with livelihoods, and society was torn apart by atrocities that for many of those who suffered are as vivid, raw and painful today as they were at the time they occurred. Widespread disruption, either as a result of terrorist activity or the security presence needed to counter it, was a daily fact of life. In this Government’s view, the main responsibility for this appalling legacy rests firmly with the terrorist organisations, both republican and loyalist, which between them caused some 90% of those deaths—or, more specifically, the 60% that were down to republicans and the 30% down to loyalists.
Of those groups, the Provisional IRA was the terrorist organisation responsible for more deaths than any other: approximately 1,700 people, including some 300 Catholics. That is more than the police and the Army combined—something, I suggest, that those who today think it cool to chant “Up the Ra” might wish to reflect on.
This Government are equally clear that none of the terrorist campaigns that took place in the Troubles could in any way be warranted. Terrorism was always wholly wrong. No injustice in Northern Ireland, either perceived or real, justified the taking of a single life and the violence of paramilitary groups. There was always an alternative to terrorism in the past, just as there is today. The terrorist campaigns caused untold misery and suffering, and this Government will never agree with a version of history that seeks to legitimise them, just as we will always reject any suggestion of moral equivalence between the security forces and those who carried out acts of terrorism.
Ultimately, of course, terrorism in Northern Ireland did not succeed. In our view, there are three main reasons for that: first, the sheer resilience of the overwhelming majority of people in Northern Ireland who rejected violence and would never bend the knee to terrorism; secondly, the determination of successive UK Governments of all parties that the future of Northern Ireland would only ever be determined by democracy and consent, which is enshrined in the 1993 Downing Street declaration and is such a key pillar of the 1998 Belfast agreement; and, thirdly, the extraordinary dedication of the men and women of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and our Armed Forces.
More than 1,000 members of the security forces lost their lives during Operation Banner, the longest continuous deployment in British military history, while over 7,000 awards for bravery were made. Of course, I fully acknowledge that, at times, some might have wrongly acted outside the law and that mistakes were made, sometimes with deeply tragic consequences. We should always be prepared to admit that—I speak as one of the authors of David Cameron’s statement in June 2010 in response to the report of the Saville inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday—yet of the more than 250,000 who served, the overwhelming majority did so with exemplary professionalism, bravery and restraint, and without their efforts there would have been no peace process. So, this Government will always salute their service and their sacrifice, and we will always remember the debt of gratitude we owe them. As I said in this House in July, we will always resist a pernicious counternarrative of the Troubles that seeks to put the state at the heart of every atrocity, denigrate the record of the security forces and, as I said earlier, legitimise terrorism.
Terrorism did not succeed but the legacy of the Troubles, as I indicated at the outset, continues to cast a dark and long shadow over Northern Ireland. As we have seen all so vividly in recent years, legacy issues retain the capacity to poison and paralyse politics, divide society and, in certain circumstances, create the potential for public disorder. For all the progress we have seen over the past quarter of a century, education and public housing remain highly segregated in many areas, while so-called peace walls still loom large in a number of areas. Far too many still live with the physical suffering and mental scars of what happened, and the costs of division continue to place additional burdens on an already highly overstretched public purse.
Against this background, therefore, the Government have a responsibility to do what they can to attempt to tackle the legacy of the past. While I am the first to acknowledge that we will never agree a common narrative as to what happened, the question is whether we can find structures that will enable society as a whole in Northern Ireland to move forward.
Of course, there have been a number of attempts to do this since 1998. The last Labour Government established the commission chaired by Denis Bradley and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames—who is in his place, I am pleased to say—which reported in 2009. In 2013, the Northern Ireland Executive invited the former US special envoy to Northern Ireland, Ambassador Richard Haass, and Meghan O’Sullivan to examine the issues of flags, parading and the past. In 2014 the Government reached the Stormont House agreement which, although motivated primarily by the need to address problems at the time around the Executive’s finances, contained far-reaching proposals to tackle legacy issues based on earlier initiatives.
Yet despite the best and very genuine efforts of many, over a number of years, none of these initiatives has succeeded in delivering for those directly affected by the legacy of the Troubles. I speak as someone who from 2010 to 2019 served four Secretaries of State and was intimately involved in trying to find ways forward on these issues. I participated in all 11 weeks of the talks leading to the Stormont House agreement, and then spent the subsequent four-and-a-half years in extensive and painstaking efforts to implement it—without success.
I know that some, including members of your Lordships’ House, still regard the Stormont House agreement as the best way forward. Yet as somebody who was there, it is clear to me that any broad consensus once held no longer exists, and it is easy with the benefit of hindsight to overplay the extent to which it ever did. Even in December 2014 it was not supported by all the parties, and in the months and years that followed what high-level support that had existed began to diminish as the Government and political parties sought to convert the paragraphs of that agreement into legislation.
Indeed, I recall in early 2015 Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness asking the then Secretary of State to take all the Stormont House agreement through Westminster, due to the difficulties of doing any of it via the Northern Ireland Assembly, even though most of it was technically devolved. I remember clearly in November 2015 Martin McGuinness vetoing any reference to the Stormont House legacy proposals in the fresh start agreement, such were the difficulties Sinn Féin had with them at the time.
Stormont House was eight years ago next month, and, in the absence of an agreed way forward, those affected by the Troubles continue to be left with processes that have largely evolved piecemeal and which for the vast majority will never deliver justice, information, accountability or any form of acknowledgement. That is why the Government have introduced the Bill before your Lordships’ House today.
Taking into account previous attempts to tackle legacy, the Bill seeks to deliver an approach that focuses on what can practically be achieved when dealing with events that in some cases occurred half a century ago. It provides victims and survivors with information in a way that can provide some acknowledgement and some accountability. It has the potential to provide better outcomes both for those who suffered and those who served, and is able to help society look forward together to a more shared future, which I hope is the objective of all of us in your Lordships’ House.
The Bill seeks to do these things in the following ways. Part 1 of the Bill sets out for the purposes of this legislation the meaning of “the Troubles” and establishes its period as beginning on 1 January 1966 and finishing on 10 April 1998, the date on which the Belfast agreement was reached. Part 2 of the Bill provides for the establishment of a new independent commission for reconciliation and information recovery—the ICRIR. I think the first prize in Committee will be for anybody who can come up with a snappier name. This will carry out reviews, mainly at the request of families and surviving victims, into deaths and incidents resulting in serious injuries that occurred during the Troubles.
More than two thirds of Troubles-related cases are now over 40 years old, and it is commonly accepted that the likelihood of prosecutions, regardless of resources, is extremely remote. The Government have therefore taken the view that better outcomes for families are more likely to be achieved by a process of information recovery, acknowledgement and accountability, and that is what the ICRIR will seek to provide.
The commission will be chaired by a former or serving senior judge and will be equipped with the same investigative powers as the police to carry out criminal investigations, as well as, like coroners in inquests, the power to compel witness testimony and documentary evidence from individuals. It will be able to use these powers in relation to any case to fulfil outstanding procedural obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. Although the term “review” in the Bill is deliberately broad, the commission will be under a duty to look into all the circumstances of a death or incident, including criminal activity.
The commission will be fully operationally independent, while, for its part, the state will be under a legal requirement to disclose all relevant information to it. Written reports of the commission’s findings to the families and surviving victims who request a review will be publicly available. To encourage those who might have relevant information to share it, the commission will be able to grant immunity from prosecution, on a case-by-case basis, to an individual who acknowledges their role in a Troubles-related incident by providing an account that is true to the best of their knowledge and belief. These accounts will be tested against information that is already in the public domain and information that is not—for example, from previous investigations and intelligence. Where an individual chooses not to engage with the commission, they will remain liable to prosecution in the normal way should the evidential test be met.
Part 3 of the Bill deals with ongoing and future proceedings within the current criminal, civil, inquest and police complaints systems. As the Bill is drafted, once it comes into force, no other body in the UK other than the commission will be able to take forward an investigation into a Troubles-related incident. Where a decision has already been taken to prosecute an existing case, this will continue. Any civil claims filed before the Bill was introduced will continue but no new cases will be allowed. Inquests that have reached an advanced stage by the time the commission becomes operational will continue; however, new inquests and those that have not reached an advanced stage will not continue but may be referred to the commission.
Part 4 of the Bill will build on proposals in the Stormont House agreement and provide for the establishment of an expert panel to devise a memorialisation strategy designed to promote reconciliation and greater understanding, as well as a major new oral history initiative.
I am the first to acknowledge that some of the proposals outlined in the Bill have met with far from universal acclamation in Northern Ireland itself. I fully appreciate that, for many, this legislation, despite some significant changes since the publication of the Command Paper in July 2021, remains deeply challenging. In being completely candid with your Lordships, I count myself among that number. I personally have found this legislation extremely challenging.
I have been involved in the affairs of Northern Ireland for some 35 years, and worked in the Northern Ireland Office while the Troubles were still raging in the 1990s. Only weeks before he was murdered by the Provisional IRA in July 1990, I had lunch with the very great man, Ian Gow, in the Strangers’ Dining Room in the other place, where, with typical generosity, he offered to sponsor me for the Conservative Party candidates’ list. Indeed, one of my first jobs in politics was to take the minutes of the Conservative Back-Bench Northern Ireland Committee, of which Ian was chairman. I have probably spent more hours with victims and survivors than just about anybody outside of Northern Ireland, and have heard countless harrowing and heart-wrenching stories of suffering. So I am hardly immune to the feelings of those affected by the Troubles who find this Bill difficult and challenging.
At the same time, I am as conscious as anyone, based on experience, that we will never solve the past or bring, to use that horrible word, closure in every case. Equally, I am clear that no Government can legislate to reconcile people, though we can strive to promote it. However, we can attempt to provide better and realistic outcomes. It is because of this, and in fulfilment of a commitment I made to the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, in this House on 14 July, that, since late July, I have carried out some 25 legacy-related engagements and meetings, all but a couple in Northern Ireland itself. I have done so on the basis of being open to sensible and constructive proposals to improve the Bill—commitments I have also made individually and collectively to Members of your Lordships’ House.
As a result of my discussions, and of those between my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and a number of groups within Northern Ireland, I intend to bring forward a series of proactive government amendments in Committee to address a number of concerns that have been raised. These will include amendments to underpin the Bill’s compliance with the ECHR, by making it clear that the commission will be able to carry out Article 2 and 3-compliant criminal investigations in cases where it judges them to be appropriate. We will strengthen the commission’s independence by making clear that the Secretary of State should consult named individuals before appointing the chief commissioner.
To make the information recovery process and the provisions around immunity more robust, we will create an offence for those who choose willingly to mislead the commission and give the commission the power to revoke immunity where individuals have been found subsequently to do so. We will disapply the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998 for individuals who choose not to tell the commission what they know and are subsequently convicted of an offence, so that they face a full rather than a reduced sentence, as well as increasing the fine for non-compliance with the commission.
I wish to work with noble Lords across this House to enable us to fulfil our important constitutional role as a revising Chamber and make further improvements to the Bill where possible as it proceeds. That is my commitment, and that of a Government who are prepared to listen. On that basis, I beg to move.
Amendment to the Motion
Baroness Smith of Basildon
At the end to insert “but that this House regrets that the provisions contained in the bill do not command the confidence or support of groups and organisations representing the interests of victims and survivors of the Troubles, of Northern Ireland elected representatives, or of the wider community, including communities across the United Kingdom affected by the bill.”
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, to be helpful, I intend to speak to the Bill and my amendment at the same time rather than have two debates, and I do not intend to move to a Division on my amendment. I apologise to the House; I will have to leave the Chamber; the previous business started slightly later than anticipated and I have another engagement, but I will be back as soon as I can.
I am grateful to the Minister. Like other noble Lords, I am trying to register the late announcement of some possible changes to the Bill by the Government, but in the last Queen’s Speech the Government committed to bringing forward legislation to address the legacy of the past. They said then that that would provide better outcomes for victims, survivors and their families, giving veterans the protection that they deserve and focusing on information recovery and reconciliation. As the Minister indicated in his speech today, we all know that these issues are complex, sensitive and deeply emotional.
Your Lordships’ House is as one in condemning terrorism from whatever quarter, and we concur with the noble Lord on that. As a party we are proud of the role that we played in securing the Good Friday agreement. But in the 30-plus years before that agreement, the euphemistically named Troubles—which I always find an uncomfortable term—saw more than 3,500 people lose their lives, with thousands more injured and maimed. No community was immune. The scars on physical and mental health remain evident throughout Northern Ireland and beyond, as this impacted on communities outside Northern Ireland. It is worth noting that this week is the anniversary of the Birmingham pub bombings, when 21 people were killed, 182 were injured, and six men wrongly convicted of those bombings served 16 years in prison before their convictions were quashed —so much suffering.
When I spoke in the Queen’s Speech debate in May, I made specific appeal to the Government about this legislation. It is not possible as Leader of the Opposition when speaking in the Queen’s Speech debate to refer to all proposed Bills, but I declared a particular interest in this one, as a former Northern Ireland Victims Minister, succeeding my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton, and appointed by my noble friend Lord Murphy, who was then the Secretary of State.
I said then of the legislation:
“I appeal to the Government: please understand that this needs support from the widest possible coalition.”—[Official Report, 10/5/22; col. 13.]
It is for that reason that I have tabled the amendment in my name today. The Bill as it currently stands does not have the support of the widest possible coalition. In fact, it is opposed by the widest possible coalition. That is quite an achievement; I think this is the only issue on which the Government have been able to unite every single political party in Northern Ireland, but it is deeply unfortunate that they have all been united against the Bill. The Government recognised the need for wider consensus in the New Decade, New Approach agreement, even going so far as to say that any UK Parliament legislation must have the consent of the Northern Ireland Assembly. I would be interested to know whether that commitment still stands.
So many of those affected by this Bill have come together to share with us their reasons for opposition, and how they would be impacted. I am sure they have listened to the noble Lord’s words very carefully. Noble lords may have seen an article in today’s Daily Telegraph, regarding a letter to the Prime Minister from Andy and Martha Seaman and Michael O’Hare. As a bereaved military family, and a victim of the Armed Forces, they have come together to express their concerns about the Bill, and in their letter say that it is not too late to do the right thing and scrap it.
I understand that that must be deeply disappointing to Ministers, but it was clear when this was debated in the other place that the consultation and the engagement with those affected was inadequate. I listened to what the noble Lord said about the additional meetings he has had since that time, and look forward to hearing more about those as the Bill progresses through Committee.
My noble friend Lord Murphy and I are grateful for the meetings we had with the Secretary of State and the Minister, who even though he had to join via Zoom, was nonetheless engaged. At that meeting, we asked that the Bill be withdrawn for further consultation and engagement. They were not willing to do that, but both said they were open to significant amendments, and that the Bill was now paused.
I am grateful for what the Minister said at the end of his speech, but I am disappointed that, since that meeting, we have had no response on what steps Ministers were willing to take. It would have been helpful to have had some response prior to this debate, to get a sense of what the Government intend. We want to work with the Government only on something that is workable. It would have been helpful had there been some engagement with those of us participating today—a briefing, a letter or something—and I regret that has not happened.
The Secretary of State has already said that he is open to significant changes. It would be helpful to know from the Minister whether the changes he has outlined, which we will take time to reflect on, are the limit of what the Government are looking at—he is indicating that that is not the case—or whether they would be prepared to listen to other suggestions as well. We have already been approached about the scheduling of the Bill, and it seems that the Government are going at some pace, with Committee indicated to be during the train strike week, which may not be the best arrangement.
Seeking to pass legislation that has no support from the political parties in Northern Ireland, or any party here apart from the governing party, is not the best way to deal with this issue. I am not going to suggest to the Minister that this is easy, nor that it should be put in the ‘too difficult’ box and only paid lip service to. I commend the Minister; we know of his personal commitment and he indicated, very honestly I thought, how difficult this Bill is for him, and we appreciate that there have been so many attempts to address this over many years. I pay huge tribute to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, and to the late, great Denis Bradley, who I thought were both courageous and powerful in the work they undertook. That report still stands the test of time, thanks to the effort, commitment and care that went into it.
In the Stormont House agreement, dealing with legacy issues was a key part of several rounds of talks between the then British government, the Irish Government and the political parties. The Minister seemed to dismiss that at the time, but the overarching principles of that agreement still stand as being some way to look to this issue:
“promoting reconciliation … upholding the rule of law … acknowledging and addressing the suffering of victims and survivors … facilitating the pursuit of justice and information recovery … is human rights compliant; and is balanced, proportionate, transparent, fair and equitable.”
It is hard to see why those principles should not underline anything when looking forward.
The Government said in response to their consultation that
“new ways to address the legacy of the past will only succeed if the institutions can command broad support and trust from the community.”
At that time, they said that they remain
“fully committed to the implementation of the Stormont House Agreement and it is essential that our work continues.”
Is the Minister saying that the Government are not now committed to the principles of the Stormont House agreement? I was unclear from his comments. It seemed he was saying that the Government do not now respect those principles and it is hard to see how this legislation fits in with them.
I will underline some specific areas of concern. Some of what the Minister said addresses some of these issues, but I am not 100% certain. First, on Clause 18 —the immunity test—in the Government’s response to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, the NIO said:
“Immunity must be granted where certain conditions are met, including that the person has provided a truthful account of their involvement in the death or incident resulting in serious injury.”
Those “certain conditions” are very limited, at present, to just two: one is an offence for which there could be a criminal investigation or prosecution, and the second that immunity is asked for. I listened carefully to the noble Lord’s comments and he seemed to be proposing something to address the issue of someone not telling the truth. He did not seem to be making a change to the conditions or to the fact that immunity had to be granted, but he might be able to respond on that in his wind-up.
I agree with the Minister about the less than snappy title of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery.
From my time as Victims Minister, I concur with the noble Lord’s comments: there were times when the emotions really cut through and I have very vivid memories of some discussions and conversations I had. So often, I heard that families and survivors want to know the truth. Truth can be painful and difficult, as noble Lords in the Chamber recognise, but, for many, that process of investigation was essential to fully understand what had happened.
It was not flagged up previously that the Bill has made a fundamental change from investigation to review. Can the Minister say if this implies a far less rigorous process of understanding? That is one of the great concerns that people have. Alongside those measures is a proposal to, in effect, cut off civil cases and inquests, which adds to families’ suspicion that it will be much harder to obtain the information that ensures that the truth is heard.
I am glad the Minister said something about the ECHR, because just saying that the Bill is compliant does not make it compliant. I think he implied that he will bring forward measures to ensure that it is compliant, and I am sure he will work with the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission to ensure that that is the case, because it said it is “gravely concerned” about the current draft.
As the Bill progresses, we will hear more of the detail, but we may need to look at the depth and breadth of where the opposition comes from and how it can be addressed. From my time in Northern Ireland, I was struck, when talking to those who lived through that period, by how the pain and memories do not just fade away, over time. Many still experience what I might describe as the aftershocks from what happened to them, their loved ones, friends, co-workers, neighbours and the community as a whole. As those of us who attended some briefings for victims in your Lordships’ House were told, so often that damage is passed on to and through future generations. That means that all sides have to acknowledge and be accountable for their actions.
When Brandon Lewis spoke at the Second Reading of the Bill in the other place, he was passionate about the protection of veterans from the RUC, the Armed Forces and the Security Service. So many served with honour, courage and great distinction. Hundreds lost their lives.
A particularly sharp memory I have is from meeting a group of RUC widows. While impressed by their dignity, I was shocked by how little support they felt they had and how difficult their lives and their families’ lives had been. The acts of terrorism, the killings, reached into every corner of Northern Ireland and beyond its shores: from those RUC widows to the families of those killed at Ballymurphy—it was not until the coroner’s report 50 years later that their killings were officially found to be “without justification”—from organised attacks of terrorism to random acts of violence, and from the accounts of great courage to those who lived in fear, and the trauma of the families of the disappeared, it is not hard to understand why a legacy of pain, hurt and mistrust remains.
I fully understand the frustration of Ministers who feel that they have created a way forward, only to find that they have not taken people with them and that few agree. Passing the Bill without significant amendment might create a structure that will establish the new commission, but unless it has the understanding and support of those who have a direct interest, it will not make any difference. The tragedy is then that the legacy of the past will linger on.
We want to play our part in addressing the issue—to reflect and hear more about the proposed amendments the Minister has suggested today and discuss them with him. But until those very real concerns raised are taken on board and addressed in legislation, and until there is real work with those impacted, any legislation will just be words on a page. I beg to move.
Baroness Suttie (LD)
My Lords, I echo the sentiments of the Minister about the recent escalation of tensions and the attempted murder of two police officers in County Tyrone last Thursday. There is never any place for violence or terror in resolving the issues of the past. The current increase in tension, however, does demonstrate the fragility of the peace achieved since the signing of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, nearly 25 years ago. It also serves to remind us that this is a process that requires constant care and attention: it is not something that can, or ever should, be taken for granted. The process of reconciliation and dealing with the legacy of the past is not something that can be achieved through legislation alone. It is vital to allow people to feel that the events of the past are recognised and acknowledged. We need to acknowledge that the time available for this to happen is becoming short.
As Ian Jeffers, the Commissioner for Victims and Survivors, put it so aptly in a letter to the Telegraph earlier this week:
“As a civilised, just society we owe it to victims, survivors and their families to support them and find a shared way that we can address the legacy of our past.”
That brings me to the Bill we are debating this afternoon. I welcome the Minister’s tone and approach in his Second Reading speech. It was a very personal speech—indeed, an emotional speech—and that is to be welcomed. The Minister knows that so many people feel uncomfortable about—indeed, strongly oppose—several of the key elements in the Bill. Some have suggested that its very title is wrong, as it achieves so little in terms of bringing about reconciliation.
In the conversations that I—and I am sure many other noble Lords—have had with victims and their families, it is the removal of the hope of seeing justice that the Bill represents that has been so devastating to so many of them. There are many points I could make about the Bill, but I shall limit myself to five key areas where I believe that substantial amendments should be made.
The first, of course, is compliance with Article 2 of the ECHR. As the Joint Committee on Human Rights states in its summary:
“Our concerns reflect a view that despite the good intent, the operation of the bill as drafted would come into conflict with the government’s legal obligations and as such, risk frustrating the intended objectives.
We have serious doubts that this Bill as drafted is compatible with Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights”.
I very much share the assessment of the JCHR that the conditional immunity scheme is likely to breach the UK’s obligations under Articles 2 and 3. We urge the Government to remove Clause 18 from the Bill, or at least significantly amend it. I am sure we shall return to these issues in much greater depth in Committee but, like the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, I would be grateful if the Minister could, in his concluding remarks, say a little more about how the Government intend to amend the Bill in Committee to ensure that it is Article 2-compliant.
A second substantial area of concern is that of the clear lack of consent for this Bill, as currently drafted, by key stakeholders. The parties in Northern Ireland, the victims groups, some of the victims, human rights organisations as well as wider society in Northern Ireland have all expressed very grave concerns about the Bill. The Constitution Committee, of which I am a member, has stated that the has stated the “strength of opposition” risks undermining the Bill’s stated aims of dealing with the past and promoting reconciliation.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, also said, there has also been a general lack of consultation with key stakeholders prior to the drafting of the Bill. Given the complexities of these issues, this is precisely the kind of legislation that would have benefited from some form of pre-legislative scrutiny, perhaps particularly at a time when, tragically, there remains no functioning Assembly or Executive in Northern Ireland.
I know that the Minister has had many recent meetings with victims and other groups. Again, I am grateful for his reporting on that. He is very aware of their concerns about the Bill, so would he agree that continuing with it unamended because of a Conservative Party manifesto commitment would be unhelpful at this time of heightened tensions in Northern Ireland?
A third area of concern, which has also been highlighted by the Constitution Committee, is the very substantial increase in regulating powers that the Bill grants to the Secretary of State, and the subsequent concerns that this will have regarding the genuine independence of the ICRIR.
A fourth area of concern is something that the Minister touched on, which is the use of language. Throughout the Bill, the terms “review” and “investigation” are used interchangeably. These two terms have a distinctly different impact on the legal process. It is welcome that he has indicated that he will consider bringing forward amendments in this regard but, again, I would like a little more information on that if possible in his concluding remarks.
Finally and most importantly, the fifth area of serious concern is that, although the Bill claims to be victim focused, it is clear that this is very far from the case. In particular, the closing down of civil cases and inquests, as proposed by the Bill, has caused huge concern and upset to the victims. The victims I have spoken to all say that what they want is the truth and justice, through information and acknowledgement. What they do not want is the removal of that hope.
I therefore ask the Minister, who, with all of his experience, understands the complexity of the situation so well—I believe that he is someone who listens and will stick to his word of speaking to us all and moving forward together on amendments—to take on board the strength of feeling that he will hear on behalf of the victims and their families in the debate. They have already waited so long already. Surely the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday/Belfast agreement is the time to give them back that hope.
Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, I respectfully support the last two speeches from the Leader of the Opposition and the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie. I rise with a certain degree of concern that I have no experience of Northern Ireland; many of my colleagues on the Cross Benches will speak on these issues. I do, though, have some experience of terrorism and terrorism offences in England.
Although I deeply sympathise with the Minister’s personal position—who can avoid being sympathetic with him?—and I share everything he said about the courage, dedication, commitment and the years of service we have received from the security forces, I am just a little worried that we do not fully appreciate what the Bill actually amounts to. We are being asked to legislate that men and women who are guilty of murder should be exempted from prosecution. If the Bill is enacted in its present form, they will literally be getting away, or will have got away, with murder. They will have got away with some of the most deliberate and cold-blooded killings that we have known in this country.
We cannot avoid that that is the consequence of this Bill. Before we enact it, we really need to know whether we are prepared to create an environment in which laws that betray the families of the victims, the victims themselves and society’s desire for peace and abhorrence of killings, among others, should be ignored.
The Title of the Bill is very misleading. I will not identify every word that is misleading, but the Title contains “Northern Ireland Troubles”, the Explanatory Notes say,
“prepared by the Northern Ireland Office”,
and Clause 1 is
“related to Northern Ireland affairs”.
It would be unacceptable anyway if it was so limited, but I have read it and I think this is a correct analysis: it applies to troubles associated with the Troubles in Northern Ireland that manifested themselves in this country.
That means, for instance, the IRA’s attempt to blow up the British Cabinet, in which many received catastrophic injuries and many died. If fresh evidence emerged demonstrating that two people who had not previously been suspected were involved in that dreadful offence, the Bill would apply to them. The Bill, and the exemption from prosecution if they went through the processes, would mean that they would not be prosecuted.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, raised the Birmingham case and the number of casualties there. If further evidence emerged demonstrating that A and B, or Z and Y, were involved in those killings, is it really right that through this Bill we should provide a means by which, although there is a very good case against them, they too should escape prosecution? These are the issues with which we are dealing.
However much we address the issue in general terms about the necessity of eventually achieving a peaceful outcome and reconciliation in Northern Ireland, these offences matter greatly to people here in England. I have one question for the Minister, apart from all the other questions that have been asked. How will this new commission, which is what I shall call it for today’s purposes, investigate offences committed in England or Wales?
Beyond the difficulties of the Bill, there is a certain illogicality that troubles me too. It applies to murder but not rape or a serious sexual offence. Rape is a foul crime—so is murder. Let us take an example. I do not know whether this ever happened, but it might have. A man decides to rape the daughter of a member of Sinn Féin as an act of revenge to counter some murderous Sinn Féin atrocity. The rape is associated with the Troubles. He could be prosecuted for the rape—the exemption provisions would not apply—but the Sinn Féin people responsible for the atrocity would be able to seek the exemption. To take the example a little further, if having raped this unfortunate girl the man then used a knife to kill her, we could have the absurd situation arising in which he could be prosecuted for the rape but seek exemption for the murder. If that is what the Bill means, there is an absurdity about it that has to be recognised. I am not offering a solution to it; I am simply pointing out the logical problem with some parts of the Bill.
I am also concerned that we are allowing ourselves to put overmuch emphasis on the length of time that this all goes back. Not very long ago it was proposed, and enacted by this Parliament, that any of those who served in Nazi concentration camps who could be proved to have been involved in those horrors could be prosecuted here. We saw men in their late 80s and early 90s being tried. There is no limitation position in our criminal justice system. Of course, there are safeguards for those who are charged with offences committed long ago. There is an abuse of process argument that the defendant is too old even to comprehend what is going on, or that there would be witnesses who have died. All that is a well-understood part of our criminal justice system.
To the extent that this legislation is concerned with those who served in Northern Ireland as part of the security forces who are alleged to have committed violent offences of their own, juries perfectly well understand that in the heat of battle, as for some of them it must have seemed, there is no time for detached reflection. Mistakes are made and things are done that are not intended. You can rely on a jury to try to appreciate this—they usually do, and they would be very sympathetic with a young man faced with some of the problems that faced some of our young men in Northern Ireland—and to return a true verdict according to the evidence.
We need to understand what the Bill actually proposes. That may be fine, and Parliament may decide that it will enact the Bill, but it must do so knowing what it will be enacting.
Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)
My Lords, I start by remembering the thousands of innocent victims of terrorism who died or were injured in the decades of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and elsewhere—ordinary people going about their everyday lives who were cut down by terrible violence—the families and loved ones left behind to grieve and the survivors left with life-changing injuries. We should not forget the heroic efforts and sacrifice, as have been mentioned, of the tens of thousands of people in the security forces without whom many more innocent people would have died at the hands of terrorists. Hundreds of police officers and soldiers laid down their lives in serving the cause of peace and security.
Just recently the Sinn Féin vice-president Michelle O’Neill, in remarks that have sickened victims and all right-thinking people, stated that there had been no alternative to all this wanton carnage and bloodshed. Terrorism was never justified. There was always an alternative to murder and the destruction of the livelihoods, hopes and dreams of generations of people in Northern Ireland, no matter who they were or what background they came from.
One would think that in speaking of victims today there would be at least a degree of reflection or self-examination on the part of those who spoke for terrorists during the Troubles and who now apologise for them even 25 years later, but no. Virtually every day we are subjected to the glorification of violence and the eulogising of terrorist murderers by leading Sinn Féin figures. This is happening in 2022, 25 years after the Belfast agreement, not in 1972. Fifty years on and still the innocent victims are being traumatised.
There are many valid criticisms that can be made of this deeply flawed Bill. Many of the innocent victims of terrorism whom I have spoken about feel deeply aggrieved, and understandably so, but their anguish is compounded by the sight of these apologists for terrorism pretending to defend victims’ rights in their attacks on the Bill. The victim-makers who slaughtered thousands of people over 30 years are busy whitewashing their own crimes, selectively singling out certain crimes for condemnation while celebrating their own violence. They have actively encouraged the now toxic atmosphere where many nationalists feel it is okay to chant “Up the Ra”, even in the face of IRA victims. These people do not speak for victims.
The criticism of the legislation which we have heard here today and from outside the House is widespread. This is not the first piece of legislation which has done victims a grave injustice. They have already had to endure seeing people who were convicted of some of the most brutal and heinous crimes given early release after serving only two years in jail. That was and remains a terrible injustice for many victims. It was, of course, opposed by some of us at the time but many in the other place and in your Lordships’ House who now vehemently oppose this piece of legislation vigorously backed that injustice. In my view, many of those people who were released after two years literally got away with murder.
A previous Government secretly handed out letters of comfort to IRA terrorists on the run. It is estimated that about 300 such letters were given out. One was famously used by John Downey to escape prosecution. There would be no harm if this Bill included a provision that these letters could not be used to evade future prosecution. We are assured that this is the case, but a specific provision to make it absolutely clear and certain would be helpful to victims. Some 365 royal pardons have been handed out over the years to people convicted of terrorist-related offences. It would be good to know exactly who received these letters of comfort and the royal pardons. In his reply, maybe the Minister can agree to furnish us with all the details. The 2006 definition of a victim is widely felt by innocent victims to be defective in including the perpetrators of violence. A move to bring forward a proper, up-to-date definition would be helpful to victims.
We have heard the concerns of the Irish Government about the Bill. For decades, they allowed their territory to be a safe haven for IRA terrorists who crossed the border. If there had only been the same desire over the years to put victims first and at the centre of our concerns, both here and in the Irish Republic, perhaps we would not find ourselves in this place, facing this piece of legislation. The cause of justice should never be sacrificed on the altar of expediency. No matter how difficult or challenging the situation, people should have the right to expect that, if there is evidence, all possible avenues of investigation will be explored.
I fully accept the argument about the current one-sided nature of the approach to legacy. People are tired of it. Soldiers and police are being harried and harassed into court. It is coupled with an industrial-scale propaganda effort to besmirch and denigrate the Army, the UDR, the RUC and the PSNI. We have had large, costly inquiries into Bloody Sunday and many others against the state. There has been no inquiry into the Enniskillen and Teebane atrocities, La Mon or Narrow Water or into the role of leading republican politicians in terrorist acts.
The approach taken by this Bill is wrong and an affront to justice. It would extinguish the flame of justice for countless families. It would draw a moral equivalence between terrorists intent on bloodshed and those who served our communities with dedication and professionalism. The way to address legitimate concerns about vexatious investigations against veterans who served in Northern Ireland is not simply to impose a wholesale restriction on historical investigations or prosecutions. It is to restore balance, ensure that investigative activity is proportionate and bring an end to the growing culture of politically motivated actions against those who served in uniform. Closing down routes to justice arbitrarily would not be tolerated for hate crimes or gang crimes in Great Britain. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said, it has not been tolerated in relation to war criminals. It should not be deemed acceptable in relation to victims of terrorism in Northern Ireland and across the rest of the United Kingdom.
As we consider this legislation going forward in your Lordships’ House, changes need to be made to tackle some of the worst excesses of the Bill. It has to be said that even if accepted, those changes will fall short of making its overriding aims justifiable or honourable.
I welcome what the Minister has said today about his willingness to be open to considering some changes, and about there being no incentive in the Bill as drafted for perpetrators to come forward or any material consequences for their failing to engage. In fact, the Bill incentivises not engaging. Under the current arrangements, people can be convicted and serve two years, but under the Bill, if a person stays quiet and does not co-operate, under Schedule 11 there will be no possibility or prospect of any kind of prison, whether they engage in the process, seek immunity, tell the truth or do nothing. I welcome what the Minister said about looking at that again, and I look forward to examining the detail.
We need to look at the issue of people who have evaded prosecution in this jurisdiction and fled elsewhere. For them to be eligible for immunity under the framework of the Bill is perverse. It would encourage offenders to return to Northern Ireland to live out their final days, in close proximity to those they terrorised, because there is no stipulation that anyone previously subject to a warrant, arrest or charge and who subsequently fled Northern Ireland would be prohibited from claiming immunity.
There are a significant number of active PPS files under threat from the sunset clause on criminal enforcement proposed by the Bill. This has undermined previous decisions by the Government to establish far-reaching investigations into Troubles-related activity, including Operation Kenova. Those files need to be processed and should be allowed to take their course.
There needs to be something to deal with the glorification of terrorism. As I mentioned earlier, right across the entire community in Northern Ireland people are tired of and sickened by the continuing glorification of violence by Sinn Féin. I know that the victims’ commissioner has raised this with the Government and pointed out the great hurt felt by many who served in the security forces, and by innocent victims. There needs to be something that deals with this open and public display of glorification, the commemoration of murder, in Northern Ireland in the 21st century. To expect people to continue to put up with this, given that we are now almost 25 years on from the Belfast agreement, is something the Government have to address. I welcome what the Minister said about a mechanism for revoking immunity where individuals are proven later to have lied or not co-operated properly with the commission.
There are many issues here, and I am sure that we will go into many more of them in detail in Committee—the definition of a Troubles-related offence, the investigation review and so on. However, the fundamental point is that innocent victims must continue to have hope and the prospect of justice. That is all they seek, and it would be wrong for this House, and Parliament, to take that away from them.
Lord Godson (Con)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn. I remember well that I was with him on the night when the IRA attempted to assassinate him. He was visiting his sick son, who is no longer with us, in hospital. I think of that night, and I know that the whole House will join me in appreciating the full force of his analysis and the sentiments he just expressed.
I also express appreciation for the opening remarks of my noble friend Lord Caine, and for the longevity of his commitment to and interest in these matters. How appreciated it is that in these times, the Minister still uses the word “terrorist”, because it is not present throughout all the discourse on this subject in this era, including in the media, including the BBC. That goes to the heart of my remarks today.
In this context, I welcome that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, also used the T-word—terrorists. Again, it seems important that we retain some moral boundaries, because they are not always visible in discussion of these matters, as we approach the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement.
I support the principle of the Bill, not least because of the Conservative Party’s manifesto commitment in the last general election. I will particularly focus my remarks on Part 4, the section on “Memorialising the Troubles”. In May this year, when the Bill was introduced in the Commons under the then Secretary of State, he stated that it would launch
“A major new oral history initiative”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/5/22; col. 185.]
It was hailed as one of the most “ambitious and comprehensive” approaches to oral history that has ever been attempted in such situations. It sought to draw on “international models” and concentrate on collating “lived experiences and testimony” and setting them within the appropriate historical context. Putting that into effect, Part 4, on “Memorialising the Troubles”, is designed to provide a pathway for societal healing and perhaps even, we hope, reconciliation. But, as we all know, in the context of Northern Ireland, the Troubles are being refought the whole time through the rewriting of history.
Commendable as the proposals for an oral history are—like many others, I welcome that this history will be guided by international best practice—it is possible that it will also be politicised and enrolled in an ongoing effort to retell the history of the Troubles from an anti-state perspective. I note that the Bill and Explanatory Notes state that one of the purposes here is to ensure that groups that have not had a sufficient voice in telling their history of the Troubles have a greater say. It is a great irony that the British state has been one of the most disfranchised groups. Perhaps it has disfranchised itself in this respect, in terms of an official history, but I will go on to say more about that later.
Thus, history is one of those battlegrounds that are often described as the fulcrum of culture wars and the politics of identity. This has of course been prominent in Northern Ireland for many decades, including during the Troubles, but it has come increasingly to the fore, as other noble Lords and noble Baronesses have noted. This may have been referred to in another place, but the notable recent poll by LucidTalk stated that 65% of those from the republican nationalist community now believe that
“violent resistance to British rule during the Troubles”
was the only option, with a mere 25% disagreeing. This is of course utterly at variance with where that nationalist community was for much of the Troubles, hence the fact that Sinn Féin did not become the majority party within the nationalist community until 2003. A precedent is the sad and unfortunate recent episode of the Irish women’s football team making pro-IRA chants.
All of these developments in historical narratives will make the task of restoring the institutions in Northern Ireland harder, as an ever more rancid grievance culture comes to the fore. As I say, the mistelling of history is damaging to communal relations, making reconciliation and the building of social solidarity harder. The promotion of these relentless historical grievances continues to embitter the communal mood and makes the restoration of those institutions harder.
In particular, I draw attention to Part 4, particularly the bits that have been criticised for being governed by the Secretary of State, for it gives a central role to the United Kingdom research and innovation councils, specifically the Economic and Social Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Research cited previously by Dr Cillian McGrattan of Ulster University demonstrates how funding from these councils has
“fostered and supported an effective monopoly in Northern Ireland as regards the policy area of dealing with the past for many years.”
The funding councils have financially supported and promoted the work of a small group of “transitional” academics at Queen’s University Belfast. A significant part of this group includes academics who are also directors of the Committee on the Administration of Justice—CAJ—a lobby group that is focused overwhelmingly on state-perpetrated violence and abuse. These academics have also come together with key CAJ staff to form what is known as the Model Bill Team to campaign against the Bill.
I wish to give now—this why the T-word seemed to me so important earlier—a taste of the CAJ’s position from the introduction to its annual report reflecting on its own origins at a conference in 1981. It describes 1981, perhaps one of the key years of the Troubles as
“one of the worst years of the Troubles, with 117 people dying, 10 of them on hunger strike and seven through being hit by plastic bullets. Many of the others were victims of armed groups of various kinds”;
in other words, there was no use of the T-word for terrorism; rather, a euphemistic reference to victims of armed groups of various kinds.
I mention this, of course, because the definitive work on the Troubles—Lost Lives, by David McKittrick, Brian Feeney and others—notes that 18 Protestants and 33 Catholic civilians were killed. Some of the latter were killed by republicans as suspected informers. Twenty-two RUC officers and RUC Reserve officers were killed, along with 24 Army and Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers. Six republican paramilitaries were killed and 10 died on hunger strike; three loyalist paramilitaries were killed and a further two others died. More than half the dead—64 people—were killed by republican paramilitaries, 14 by loyalist paramilitaries. The Army and the UDR killed 14 people and the Royal Ulster Constabulary three. This is hardly the picture presented by CAJ’s annual report. It demonstrates a failure to contextualise the relevant facts. Contextualising within the historical context is, however, one of the key aims that the then Secretary of State set out in the House of Commons in May.
The CAJ report goes on to say:
“Most shocking of all are the proposals for a total amnesty in regard to the Troubles, which are contained within the government’s Command Paper on legacy (published in July 2021). These would not only provide for an end to prosecutions, but also ban all recourse to law of any kind in relation to Troubles ‘incidents’. We have yet to see any draft legislation, but the Government’s clear intention is to provide for total impunity for state agents, completely contrary to the rule of law.”
This annual report by the CAJ effaces the crimes of loyalist and republican terrorists and their role in policing the ethno-religious divides and oppressing and terrorising entire communities, particularly working-class communities. The focus of the Committee on the Administration of Justice—and its central concern—is on anything it sees as state violence. What is alarming in the context of the Bill is that UK funding through the UK’s research and innovation councils has focused on a group of academics who form a large part of the executive of this organisation and who are working so closely with that organisation through their joint work on the Model Bill Team.
The funding councils are thus being given a major role in the funding of “Memorialising the Troubles”, the title of Part 4 of the Bill. This is problematic, given their role over the last 15 years in funding just one group of researchers with over £3.5 million of research funding, and creating what Dr Cillian McGrattan has called
“a monopolistic capture of legacy ideology and policy within Northern Ireland.”
Not only are non-violent unionist and nationalist voices and their collective memory downplayed but the voices of those who were oppressed and manipulated by the terrorist gangs in their own neighbourhoods are unlikely to be sought, although they are, of course, among the most affected of the communities here.
Given these problems, it seems to me that Part 4 of the Bill risks being placed and built on insecure foundations, and the devil is very much in the detail here. I note some of the attempts in the legislation before us to ensure balance, but it does need to be pointed out—given the contested nature of so much of this history and the issues associated with the current research programmes funded by the funding councils—that in this context, they are simply not good enough.
There is nothing to stop the entire exercise being divorced from the historical record and being used to rewrite history, to shape views and attitudes as a means to a political end, one that might well turn out to be far removed from the reconciliation that the Good Friday/Belfast agreement envisages. One of the problems here may be that the Economic and Social Research Council and the Humanities and Arts Research Council require research to make impacts beyond academia, including disseminating their findings through third parties and engaging with stakeholders. There is a danger that academic research engages through one ideological and community relationship alone, but can still point to high levels of engagement, dissemination and impact. That is unlikely to provide robust academic work, let alone to progress reconciliation.
With this ideologically driven monopoly already established in the field of legacy in Northern Ireland, this problem is now made all the greater. The relevant legislation here should ensure that those funders who helped to create and sustain that monopoly are also now required to exercise a degree of judgment that has, it seems, so far been singly missing and that they can properly be held to account now for doing so. The existing monopoly and ideology around remembrance needs to be robustly challenged in this House at this stage of the Bill and beyond. Experience to date suggests that this exercise may well not deliver what the Minister intends.
As I say, I support the Bill in principle, but I urge the Minister to look closely at strengthening Part 4 to ensure that government funding and UK taxpayers’ money goes into projects that will support reconciliation and not drive sectarianism and support extreme or politicised interpretations of Northern Ireland’s history. I am reminded of the exchange between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the White House on the night before the President resigned. Kissinger said to him, “What will be the verdict of history on us?” Nixon replied, “It all depends on who writes the history.” That is at the very heart of our deliberations today.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, I was 11 in 1969, when the Troubles started. I lived in an area of Downpatrick in County Down which was largely unscathed by terrorist violence. However, that changed in 1994, just before the ceasefires, when six of my neighbours were brutally murdered by loyalist paramilitaries. None of those people was ever involved in any political act, apart from voting, and none ever espoused violence. Whenever I visited those families, one little boy said to his granda and his mum after the murder of his father and his uncle that night, “Am I now daddy?” I found those words terribly evocative, but to me they bring back what this is all about: the violence, the terrorism and the dirty war, which I totally reject, had an enormous impact on ordinary families throughout the island of Ireland and also here in Britain, and we must never forget. We must never go back to those days.
The Minister referred to the violence of the last six or seven days in Strabane and Derry. Those acts of violence are also wrong and those people should be getting off all our backs and leaving us to live in peace and harmony. For those reasons, we need the restoration of political institutions, but this legacy Bill is not fit for purpose and should be scrapped. There was an alternative, and I have heard the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, refer to that. Yes, there was an alternative. I was part of that alternative in terms of democratic Irish nationalism and as a member of the SDLP, and very proud to be so, because we espoused non-violence and respect for political difference and we rejected all forms of violence. We wanted to see the three sets of relationships addressed in the Good Friday agreement.
The Bill is not supported by victims, international organisations representing victims’ groups, political parties in Northern Ireland or wider society and it is contrary to the provisions in the Stormont House agreement, in which the Minister was deeply involved.
Closing off criminal investigations and reviews such as Kenova, civil cases, inquests and police complaints relating to the Troubles will deny justice to victims and families. I have only just learned today that the police review of the Loughinisland case, to which I referred earlier, cannot continue because there is insufficient money in the legacy branch of the PSNI to do that work. The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, referred to the need to fund the PPS, and that is critical to allow the Kenova cases to come forward, because they deal with investigation and review. The replacement proposed in the Bill, the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, is entirely inadequate and will be too closely controlled by Westminster. The provisions granting immunity from prosecution for Troubles-related incidents will see people who have committed the worst acts imaginable granted irrevocable immunity in return for partial and self-serving testimony that may already be entirely in the public domain.
The Bill stands to breach the UK’s obligations under Article 2, the right to life, and Article 3, freedom from torture, of the ECHR, and threatens the Good Friday agreement’s requirement for complete incorporation of the European Commission. Undoubtedly, addressing the legacy of Northern Ireland’s past demands great care and sensitivity, but it is not served by the Bill, which is unworkable, undemocratic and in breach of our international obligations. Victims and families right across the community, some of whom I know and some of whom we have all met—I am thinking of Mr Raymond McCord’s video, shown in 1 Parliament Street some weeks ago—deserve truth and justice, but the Bill will not provide for that. I believe there is a deliberate attempt to cut down truth and justice for other means and ideas.
I have talked to various people and we are faced with the worst of outcomes—an outcome that benefits and best serves state and paramilitary-vested interests, whatever the claims to the contrary. They have a shared interest and common agenda. This has been a fundamental fault line in legacy discussions over the years, as the Minister will be aware, having been involved in many of those discussions. State and paramilitary elites, both republican and loyalist, do not seriously wish to comprehensively address the past, or would do so on self-serving terms, and do not intend to offer forthright answers to searching questions. That is what motivates this obscene legislation and I believe it should be totally cancelled.
It is contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights. A recent joint report by Houses of this Parliament decried this legislation and recent developments at the Council of Europe support these concerns. The Council of Europe has the responsibility to support and safeguard implementation of the ECHR. In a decision of September 2022, the Council of Ministers expressed its ongoing risk concerns regarding the UK’s departure from the Stormont House agreement to the present Bill, and stated that any legislation must be in full compliance with investigative duties under the ECHR. I ask the Minister: how will that issue be addressed? The Council of Ministers also expressed serious concern about the lack of formal public consultation on the Bill, ECHR compatibility and the “minimal support” for, and public confidence in, the Bill in Northern Ireland. The Swiss Government state that the UK should ensure that the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill is in line with the Stormont House agreement and the necessary means are provided to carry out independent and impartial investigations.
Reference has already been made to the Committee on the Administration of Justice, which has been working in this area in Northern Ireland for many decades, and the Model Bill Team, which is based between the CAJ and Queen’s University Belfast. One of those working on it is a neighbour of mine and I know her very well; I think she is a person who will believe in truth and justice. Amnesty International and the international rights and solidarity committee, formerly known as British Irish Rights Watch, have indicated that the Bill is unacceptable.
In abandoning the Stormont House agreement, the Government are in breach of commitments in the UK-Ireland New Decade, New Approach agreement that restored power-sharing in 2020. As far as I know, the Irish Government were never consulted about the Command Paper and the Secretary of State’s Statement of 18 March 2020. What about the co-guarantors of the Good Friday agreement, the British and Irish Governments? Surely, in very sensitive matters such as legacy and victims, they should have been involved.
New Decade, New Approach committed to legislating for the Stormont House agreement within 100 days. It is now three years later. The Bill also conflicts with the Good Friday agreement over both the duties to ensure incorporation of the ECHR in Northern Ireland law, with direct access to the courts and remedies for breaches, and the framework for the devolution of justice. I cannot stress clearly enough that victims need access to truth and justice. The PPS in Northern Ireland needs to be adequately resourced. The legacy branch of the PSNI needs to be adequately resourced to carry out the outstanding inquiries required. We need issues to do with state collusion and the use of agents, which led to so many deaths of innocent people, to be fully investigated. I am aware of many reports from the Police Ombudsman’s office, not least that into Loughinisland, which show levels of state collusion. There is consensus within the human rights community that the legacy Bill is not fit and, in some instances, they say it is unamendable. It is definitely not compatible with international human rights standards.
I take no great delight in saying that I honestly feel that the Bill should be scrapped and scrapped now. We should revert to the Stormont House agreement and involve all parties in discussions to deal with these very vexatious issues to do with legacy and victims. In my mind, violence and terrorism were never, ever justified. The killing and maiming of people and the destruction of property, in the name of a cause, were never, ever justified. I say to the Government that what they are trying to do—to grant immunity from prosecution to certain groups, such as veterans who may or may not have committed illegalities and serious crimes—is wrong. In that vein, the Bill should be abandoned and scrapped.
Viscount Brookeborough (CB)
My Lords, it is an honour and a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, whose stand on terrorism and violence, and what she has done for many years, I admire very much. I do not necessarily come to the same conclusions as her on everything, but she is fully aware of that.
I appreciate, from Northern Ireland’s point of view, the amount of effort that is going into trying to do something about the legacy, especially from the Government Front Bench, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the Liberal Democrat Benches. We must all be grateful for the amount of effort they are putting into this. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, went into the depths of the trauma, and I would like to follow up a little bit on that.
I declare an interest: my wife and I were both in the home-based security forces in Northern Ireland, and my wife looked after the families of those who were suffering from terrorism. We also host a veterans’ mental welfare charity at our home.
Whatever you think about the Bill, it is giving a form of indemnity to people, and we should look at why we are here. Is this setting a precedent in Ireland? It is actually not, because in August 1923, the Republic had an indemnity Act for its own forces and then an amnesty for all prisoners in 1924. In 1961—this is a relatively little-known fact—there was an amnesty in Northern Ireland, passed by the Northern Ireland Government when my grandfather was Prime Minister, for those people who were involved in what was called the “50s trouble”. This is not a precedent way out on its own.
We have to note how and why we got here. We are here because the state and society have failed to convict terrorist criminals over the period of the Troubles. If that had been possible, we would not be here at all. First, we had internment, which failed—as we are all fully aware of—for a lot of reasons. That was a disaster. Secondly, we had the Diplock courts, where we could not run trials with juries because of intimidation, so the trials were decided by one judge, or three judges on appeal. Although Sinn Féin and the terrorists, and the so-called loyalist terrorists, objected to Diplock courts, by their very nature they were slightly less unfriendly to them, because a jury convicts beyond all reasonable doubt, but the judges had to write down why that person was guilty. For those people who say—it has been said here before—that the Diplock court convictions were roughly level with other types of courts and so on, that may be so. However, I am fully aware of some of the particular cases which arose from Fermanagh, and the police and the investigators could not bring them forward because they knew that they would fail in a Diplock court. That was a slight appeasement to the terrorists.
We have heard about letters of comfort. I believe that when the Government, who were talking to Sinn Féin/IRA, got the list of people, they then checked with Northern Ireland investigators whether they had evidence to bring to court. They quite clearly did not, otherwise they would have done so by then. However, their reply went something along the lines of, “Currently we do not”. In the Chinese whispers, “currently” got lost, yet we are all fully aware that forensic science moves on, and convictions and cases—even more civilian-type cases, if you like—suddenly get new evidence, which comes from new forensics and various other things. So, this was an omission that was simply not acceptable, but it happened.
On the decommissioning of weapons, the terrorists decommissioned the weapons they wanted—presumably the ones with the most forensic traces on them—and got rid of them. That was an elimination of evidence.
We then have—it was not brought out for them—in this country, as compared with most modern countries, inadmissible evidence, which comes from telephonic and intercepted sources. We have discussed this in other Bills. As a result, we have quite a good idea of information, which is not evidence, that adds up to the fact that people had actually committed these crimes. However, that evidence is inadmissible.
Then, of course, we also had the release of prisoners.
People may think that the terrorists were discriminate —no, they were not. The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, has already mentioned the number of people who were killed from both communities. When I was in the regular Army in Belfast, we had come-ons the whole time, where somebody left a device—whether it was a proper device or a hoax—and then a cordon was put in while the real bomb was some distance away. Most of them were IRA, I have to say, and because of the nature of Belfast, the chances of Roman Catholics from west Belfast going past them were incredibly high—and they did go past, and the terrorists never turned a hair. Then, of course, they had to disappear. We should not give much credibility to these terrorists, I am sorry to say.
Under the Bill, the commission must grant immunity on three conditions, which your Lordships are all aware of—I am not going to waste time going through them—but apparently this is unpopular and unacceptable to all parties. Somebody with a certain amount of intelligence said to me the other day, “Don’t you think that that’s not very true? This is a smokescreen by Sinn Féin.” Public relations-wise, Sinn Féin has to continue to hope that some members of the security forces will be brought to court for things that they should not have done. That is what its PR position is. However, Sinn Féin is very practical about this, and the numbers of terrorists we are talking about—I admit that there were loyalist ones as well—far outnumbers those people; we are talking about a multiple of 100, 200 or 300. However, the Bill is here and it will probably go through—QED, Sinn Féin gets what it ultimately wants: a clean sheet for all those people.
So, we must be aware of the effects of the Bill in giving immunity. Is the bar on this evidence going to be high enough? If somebody admits to driving a car and being part of an incident—there were sometimes 20 or 30 people, especially on border incidents—are they going to be obligated to give the other names? Where do we go from there? This is going to rattle down the thing. I cannot see how somebody making an admission of what they did could avoid giving the names of their fellow conspirators. What is going to happen here?
What we really have to look at are the ordinary people and the families, and what it was like. I will focus on the families of security forces, prison officers—people who contracted for the Government. We lived with constant tension and threat every minute. We had bomb detectors on our cars and alarm rockets on our houses. We were armed at all times, whether it was going out to dinner, going to church, or whatever. Some of our houses were seriously targeted, where SAS or covert people were even put into them. It may sound funny, because it is more like “Yes Minister”, but there were gas mask drills for the families. It went to that extent.
These were serious times. Down with us, a policeman was being covered by the very best of soldiers, but they were withdrawn when the threat had supposedly gone down, and he was shot the next night. We did pattern of life studies for all our soldiers and everybody we connected with so that they could be covered. The bin lorry, with two soldiers on it, was covered 24 hours a day by a plain clothes patrol. They were called “pixies” by some. Bus drivers were also covered—it was everybody who had a routine. From my point of view, when I was lambing ewes at three in the morning, there would always be a police car somewhere locally for the same reason. That is what people were living under, and it did not produce anything other than an awful lot of stress.
Soldiers, victims and the community suffer from intergenerational trauma. We have heard about that, but we should look at it. Perhaps overidentification with victims causes trauma—the term used is vicarious traumatisation—among people who are so close to the victim. It is not just families; it is also friends. If one of your friends came to the attention of terrorists, it would affect you too. So, this goes much wider than just the victims. According to Children in Need, PTSD in parents translates into very much higher rates of ADHD in children. We have instances in our charity where the trauma has gone down to grandchildren—this is serious. People also say that when parents are stressed, babies and children lack bonding in their formative years because their parents are not smiling. This is serious stuff. It is not just the victim but an ever-increasing cascade of traumatised people. It is vast.
There was a study published in the National Library of Medicine in Maryland on its intergenerational effects. It says:
“Intergenerational transmission of memory is a process by which biographical knowledge contributes to the construction of collective memory—
which we have been talking about—
“(representation of a shared past).”
Participants were children from Croatia and were asked to recall the 10 most important events that occurred in one of their parents’ lives. Approximately two-thirds of people from eastern Croatia, where there was more conflict, and one-half of people from western Croatia, where there was slightly less violence, reported war-related events from their parents’ lives. War-related memories impacted the second generation’s identity to a greater extent than non-war-related ones, so it is totally out of proportion with all this violence.
From our area, I knew three brothers who were soldiers. Jimmy was ambushed when he was going to work on a school bus in the morning. Luckily, he was only wounded. He was then shot months later in Derrylin on a school bus, in among all the children. Ronnie was shot delivering vegetables for a shop, about eight months or a year later. Cecil had married across the community and was killed on the doorstep when visiting his wife’s family in Donagh. Their sister Hilary who joined up—and the ladies were not the fighting part—was killed in a hit and run accident while serving her country on a VCP. Look at the trauma and look at where it all goes.
Then, of course, you have Enniskillen and the Omagh bombing and enough said about them—but there is never enough said about them. Therefore, the effect of the Bill is to give terrorists a get out of jail free card while yet again doing little or nothing for terrorists’ victims, their wider families and their friends. The mental trauma continues. Why are people, especially Sinn Féin, allowed to glorify terrorism? We have heard about it almost daily. This is psychologically induced, perpetuated trauma, which is an issue and an effect. It is also far too commonly believed that knowing more will help give closure to the victims. I am not suggesting that it may not help but, when I talk to the bereaved and injured, they say this will not give closure. What they want is some form of accountability for what has happened.
There is virtually no glorification of the successes of security forces by themselves or by the peaceful majority. That does not happen and would be totally unacceptable among our peaceful communities on both sides of the religious divide. I would just ask that when we talk about the hurt and lasting feeling of injustice, people understand that it is not a skin-deep protest. This is real and the grief is normally dealt with privately—and most people like to deal with it privately—but it becomes public when tormented by glorification of terrorism and the constant appeasement of those groups.
I hope we will see that this Bill might work with amendments that will come through and I thank the Government for being prepared to accept them.
Lord Rogan (UUP)
My Lords, I find it a special privilege to follow my noble friend Lord Brookeborough. Next April will mark the 25th anniversary of the Belfast agreement. I say “mark” rather than “celebrate” because, from my own perspective as someone who was there on Good Friday 1998 when that deal was done, a wish to celebrate was not in the forefront of my mind.
There was a feeling of great relief. There is no question about that. After almost 30 years of death and destruction, was this really the end of the violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland? No one knew for sure but, in the immortal words of my late noble friend Lord Trimble, it was about giving the people of Northern Ireland a chance. David Trimble was right about that and I do not regret for one moment what he did to help the citizens of Northern Ireland. Indeed, I am very proud of that.
However, reaching agreement that day did not come without an incredible amount of pain, particularly for those individuals and families who lost loved ones over the previous three decades, or who suffered life-changing injuries. I lost many friends, as did other noble Lords taking part in the debate. As an Ulster Unionist, I thought of the Reverend Robert Bradford, the Member for Belfast South in another place, gunned down by the IRA in 1981 at Finaghy Community Centre, along with the caretaker Kenneth Campbell. I also recalled the vicious murder of Edgar Graham, a rising star of the Ulster Unionist Party, shot dead by the IRA in 1983 in the precincts of Queen’s University, where he was a law lecturer. I could go on and on.
The main problem for me with the Belfast agreement, as it was for most law-abiding people across the political divide, was the early release of terrorist prisoners. It was a bitter pill to swallow but one which we hoped would lead to a much better, healthier future for everyone living in Northern Ireland. That is why I find this Bill so distasteful and why I shall be opposing its passage in the Division Lobby.
Back in 1998, I had been around long enough to know that the Belfast agreement could not ultimately be the end of the story. In the Ulster Unionist Party we knew there would be twists and turns as well as inevitable betrayals from the United Kingdom Government to this day. The issuing of on-the-run letters and secret royal pardons to terrorists certainly falls into that category. Introducing this Bill, which is opposed by all Northern Ireland’s political parties and His Majesty’s Official Opposition, does so too.
As your Lordships will be fully aware, more than 3,600 people lost their lives in the Troubles: 90% of the killings were at the bloody hands of terrorist groups—two-thirds by republicans and a third by loyalists. Some 10% of the Troubles-related deaths were attributable to the Army and the police, which, in stark contrast to the terrorists, operated within the law and had to justify their actions. His Majesty’s Government holds detailed records of who within the security forces was deployed in Northern Ireland, when and where, and what they did. The republican and loyalist terrorist groups have no such paperwork. This inevitably leads to a distorted process that focuses on the security forces alone, coupled with a parallel Sinn Féin/IRA campaign to rewrite history and whitewash the crimes of the brutal terrorist killers.
As the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, alluded to, we have witnessed graphic evidence of this in the past few weeks with Sinn Féin/IRA vice-president Michelle O’Neill claiming that there was no alternative to the IRA’s campaign of cold-blooded murder and Sinn Féin/IRA president Mary Lou McDonald arguing that there is no comparison between the Provos and gangland criminals. Both could not be more wrong, and their attempts to romanticise the actions of IRA killers have real-world consequences, particularly in the minds of young people with no first-hand experience of what Sinn Féin/IRA—or indeed loyalist terrorists—did. As the noble Lord, Lord Godson, mentioned, a video recently shared on social media of the Republic of Ireland women’s football team singing “Ooh ah up the Ra” after a victory was one disturbingly awful example of what can indeed happen.
Have I understood the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, correctly? She felt that the Irish Government should be consulted and she was totally correct. In the context of a discussion about legacy, there is often a lack of focus on one key actor throughout the Troubles: the Irish Republic. We hear a great deal of noise from across the border about what His Majesty’s Government must do, what they must reveal from their files and so on. However, many people in Northern Ireland would like to know more about the files held by the Dublin Government—and there is no shortage of questions that demand an answer.
For example, did the Garda Siochana agents in the IRA know in advance of numerous high-profile terrorist attacks, and when did they pass this information on to their handlers? What knowledge did the Irish security forces have about IRA training camps in the Republic, and what action was taken to eradicate them? What operations were launched to intercept the importation of terrorist weapons into Irish ports and, if not stopped there, to halt their journey and stop their use in the murder of innocent citizens in Northern Ireland and Great Britain? Why, for so many years, did the Irish Republic allow itself to become a safe haven for IRA terrorists escaping back across the border after carrying out numerous attacks on targets in Northern Ireland? How much intelligence was there about the network of IRA safe houses south of the border? Why was there such reluctance to extradite terrorist suspects to Northern Ireland?
I could go on and on. Put simply, we must never forget that, when it comes to resolving legacy issues, the silence from Dublin continues to be somewhat deafening. Perhaps the Minister could update us in his response about any discussions that His Majesty’s Government are having with the Irish Government about receiving answers to these questions.
On the substance of the Bill before us, it is important to place on record that the Ulster Unionist Party did not support the legacy arrangements contained in the Stormont House agreement of 2014, believing them to be imbalanced. Victims want truth and justice. Some want both; others focus on one. Justice means different things to different people. The terrorists have already had their amnesty. They sleep in their beds at night knowing that they have got away with it—got away with murder. They have their comfort letters. They know the outcry that Sinn Féin/IRA will generate if any “good Republicans” or “friends of the peace process” are questioned, let alone charged.
What we now see is an attempt to go after the police and the Army—sometimes 50 years after the event—aided and abetted by Northern Ireland’s well-financed and self-appointed guardians of human rights, who claim a desire to hold the state to account but have little interest in the abuses perpetrated by the terrorists. I pay tribute to the bravery and restraint of those who served in uniform in Northern Ireland, such the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough. They stood between the terrorists and the terrorised. They defeated the IRA’s terror campaign.
The Ulster Unionist Party believes that those who broke the law should be held accountable to the law, no matter who they are—terrorists, police officers, soldiers, civilians or politicians. We have always opposed the idea of an amnesty. Victims and their families have a right to retain the hope that, one day, they may get justice even though they realise that, with the passage of time, that prospect becomes ever more difficult.
I shall vote against this misguided legislation receiving a Second Reading.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, it is an honour and something of a burden to follow three distinguished Members from Northern Ireland: the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, and the noble Lord, Lord Rogan. Of course, I cannot begin to claim the detailed knowledge that they have, but I was with Airey Neave the night before he was assassinated. I knew very well Robert Bradford, who had an office next to mine in the Norman Shaw building and was murdered at his surgery. When she was acting as a secretary for me, my wife shared an office with Ian Gow’s secretary; I shall never forget when I received the news of his death.
I got to know Northern Ireland well when I had the honour of chairing the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in the other place. We had a true all-party committee, with four parties from Northern Ireland represented, only one other Tory and seven Labour Members. We worked together. All our reports were unanimous. I enjoyed the confidence of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, when he was Secretary of State, and that of his successor, Shaun Woodward. From time to time, the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, would ring up and discuss Northern Ireland affairs. I not only got to know the Province but grew to love it and its wonderful countryside, its quite remarkable people—in both communities and, at its best, with one community.
In 2006, we published a well-received and unanimous report on organised crime in Northern Ireland. I learned so much from the evidence, all of which had to be taken in camera; it was, I think, unique for a Select Committee to have all its sessions in camera because those people who came to speak would not otherwise have been able to open up in the way they did. We heard some terrible and grisly stories from them. When we published the report, which we did in Armagh with a special session, we had to get the permission of the chief constable, Sir Hugh Orde, because all previous reports had been published in Belfast, mostly in Stormont. However, he was very encouraging and helpful.
I then had the great privilege of getting to know one of the most remarkable men in Northern Ireland in recent years, who is deservedly a member of the Order of Merit and a Member of your Lordships’ House. I am of course referring to the right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, a former Primate of All Ireland, who, along with Denis Bradley, produced that remarkable report; I had the great privilege of being able to discuss it with both of them. He did a great service to Northern Ireland.
The other vivid memory that I have of terrorism and crime was addressing a meeting in Crossmaglen village hall. I was told that I was the first Conservative politician to do such a thing since 1906, but it was because a brave couple—the Quinns—came to see me; I then introduced them to my committee. The murder of that young boy, Paul Quinn, was one of the most dastardly murders in the Troubles.
So I approach this Bill as one who has some knowledge of, and a great deal of concern for, one of the most beautiful parts of the United Kingdom; indeed, I want it to remain so. However, we must face up to the fact that legacy can be both a poison and paralysis, and can become a cancer in the body politic. I pay great tribute to my noble friend Lord Caine, who made what I thought was a very moving and powerful introductory speech. It was one of the most honest speeches I have heard from a Minister on the Front Bench in either House because he actually said to your Lordships, “I don’t much care for this Bill. I’m troubled by it. I shall be bringing in some amendments.” We should all reserve our final verdict. I say that to the noble Lord, Lord Rogan; I know why he said what he said, but let us give the man a chance. Let us see what the amendments are like. There are other amendments, some of which I have signed, which are to be tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hain. Let us try and see what we can do with this Bill.
We must remember that there will come a time, and it is fast approaching, when almost everybody involved in the Troubles, in whatever capacity, will advance into real old age and within a decade or so, a very large number of them will be dead. We have to ask ourselves the question—it is a painful one, but it would be dishonest if we did not ask it in this debate—is the proper answer a statute of limitations? We have to be very careful to distinguish between those who died in the course of duty and the innocent civilians who were murdered by terrorists, and the terrorists themselves, who sometimes lost their own lives, mostly by accident—they did not go in for self-immolation. We have to face up to these questions as we debate this Bill in Committee.
I was one of those who, in another place, spoke out and voted against the War Crimes Bill, which was rejected in your Lordships’ House, one of the main arguments being that as time passed by, memories faded. Let us be honest: they sometimes become distorted as well. Therefore, I did not think it right, in the 1990s, to be passing a Bill dealing with crimes committed in the 1940s. Of course, very few people have come to trial. There have been a few in Europe, but nobody has been sentenced in this country.
These are painful questions that we have to face up to. But I want to end on a note of hope that is my most remarkable memory of my time as chairman of that committee. Ian Paisley and I entered the House of Commons on the same day. I got to know him perfectly well. I liked him, though I did not agree with him on many things. At the service to commemorate the 450th anniversary of the death of Sir Thomas More, I was the steward who escorted Ian Paisley out of the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft when he got up to protest.
When he became First Minister, he asked me to see him. The Secretary of State made his study available at Hillsborough. When I went in, he said, “I want you to know something. Martin McGuiness has a spiritual dimension.” You could have knocked me over with the proverbial feather; but he meant it. When Ian Paisley stood down as First Minister, I had the honour to be at the dinner at Hillsborough, hosted by the Secretary of State and attended by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Taoiseach. The panegyric to Ian Paisley—for it was nothing less—was delivered by Martin McGuiness, to his “friend and mentor”. As we all know, they were known as the Chuckle Brothers in the popular press. If those two men could come together in that way, then we need people of stature to come together now. We need Stormont reactivating. We need an Executive that will look after the affairs of Northern Ireland for its people, rather than refusing to do so because of a disagreement on a wholly different political issue.
I very much hope that in Committee, we can come to an agreement across your Lordships’ House, send back to the Commons a Bill that is much better than the one it sent to us, and move forward; and that, at the same time, those who have been elected to Stormont can realise the proper obligations of the elected, come together for the people of Northern Ireland and work together for them, both Executive and Members of the Assembly. This is the challenge. We must see that it is achieved if we possibly can. All those of us who care about the future of the United Kingdom in general, and the future of Northern Ireland in particular, have a duty in this.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure and a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, whose care and concern for Northern Ireland has always been exemplary. I thank and commend the Minister for the last part of his speech, which I hope signifies a complete rewrite of this Bill, not just tinkering amendments. To his great credit, he was pretty transparent that it would not have been his Bill; obviously, it was drawn up by others higher up the government ladder. It needs rewriting completely if it is to pass this House.
I ask the Minister when he replies to answer this question on the record. Did I understand him correctly in saying that the only way immunity can be revoked under this Bill is if the perpetrator lied, not if evidence is uncovered showing that the perpetrator was guilty of, let us say, murder? I would be grateful if he could clarify that.
The word “Reconciliation” appears in the title of this Bill, and there is a cruel irony in that, because it is not about reconciliation and, if enacted, would not aid reconciliation. In essence, it is saying to victims and survivors of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, “What happened to you and your loved ones no longer matters”, and to the perpetrators of some of the most horrific crimes imaginable, “What you did no longer matters”.
What is set out in this Bill is utterly shameful, and I cannot support it. I will give your Lordships a worked example. On 10 August 1996, John Molloy had nearly reached his home in north Belfast when he was confronted by a group of young men and women. He was repeatedly stabbed in a frenzied attack and was left to bleed to death on the pavement. He was just 18 years old. Can the Minister explain to the House and, more importantly, to John’s still grieving parents, Linda and Pat, what precisely the difference is between the sectarian murder of John in Belfast and a racist murder in Leeds?
My right honourable friend the shadow Secretary of State raised this case in the other place but got no direct response. I hope that the Minister, who cares deeply about Northern Ireland, will respond tonight. Saying that Northern Ireland is a place apart just will not wash. It seems that with the protocol, Northern Ireland must be as British as Finchley, but when it comes to the life of a young man in Belfast, the Government’s legacy proposals in this Bill put Northern Ireland closer to Pinochet’s Chile.
This Bill, if passed in its current form, would offer the thug who murdered John the chance to seek a kind of legal absolution—indeed, it would encourage it. All that is required under this Bill as it stands is for the perpetrator to tell the story of that night to the best of their “knowledge and belief”. “I murdered him because he was a Catholic”—and that will be it. The perpetrator will be free to walk up to Linda and Pat Molloy and laugh in their faces. Perpetrators can boast about it to their friends and the world at large if they so wish, because Clause 18(14) of this Bill says that once granted, immunity cannot be revoked except, possibly, if a lie is discovered, no matter what they do subsequently. Are the Government seriously asking this House to sign up to that? Will we really sink so low, just because the Commons did so when the Government rammed it through, in the name of so-called reconciliation?
When the noble Lord responds to the debate, perhaps he could also explain to the House what comfort he thinks this process will bring to the Molloy family, or to the families of those murdered because they were Protestant while singing hymns in the Darkley Pentecostal Church in 1983; or to Jean Caldwell, whose husband Cecil was blown up by the IRA along with seven workmates at Teebane in January 1992. The Bill puts the interests of the perpetrators over the needs of victims and survivors at every turn. Perpetrators are given choices denied to victims and survivors. If any come forward, they will control the narrative: it will be their version of events, “to the best of” their “knowledge and belief”, as the Bill specifies.
The Bill is sold as protecting veterans and other servants of the state from investigation and potential prosecution where their actions have resulted in deaths which are contested. I should like to make some observations on that. The first concerns the number of references from the Government Back Benches in the other place to “vexatious prosecutions”. I am not a lawyer but I am not aware of that as a legal concept. Perhaps they mean “malicious prosecutions”. In any event, I have yet to hear anyone from the Government Front Bench take issue with it. In which case, when the Minister responds, will he tell the House which part of the Northern Ireland criminal justice system the Government hold responsible for these “vexatious prosecutions”? Is it the PSNI, the Public Prosecution Service, the judiciary or a combination of all three? Perhaps he could tell the House how many vexatious prosecutions there have been in Northern Ireland since 2010.
My second observation is on the line of attack—again, particularly from some elements on the Government Back Benches in the other place and expressed at Second Reading—that anyone opposed to this legislation is therefore hostile to those who have served and those who continue to serve in the Armed Forces. That is specious nonsense—indeed, worse: a vile calumny. Those of us who had the privilege to serve as Ministers in Northern Ireland, as my noble friends Lord Murphy and Lady Smith did, had the privilege of doing so under the close protection of the RUC, then the PSNI and the Metropolitan Police. We were always aware that those officers would be prepared to put their lives in danger to protect ours. We worked with successive chief constables and we fully recognise and salute the role of the police, who, often in the direst of circumstances, served to uphold the rule of law and protect the people of Northern Ireland.
Equally, former Secretaries of State for Defence and distinguished noble and gallant Lords who served at the highest level in the Armed Forces know first-hand of the professionalism and bravery of those we put on the front line in Northern Ireland. That is not to say, however, that they could do no wrong. The unqualified Bloody Sunday apology made by then Prime Minister David Cameron, for the behaviour of soldiers that terrible day, underlined that. The Minister explained his role in drafting it. If the authors of the Bill have their way, Lord Widgery’s cover-up inquiry—for that is what it was—would have been the final word on Bloody Sunday. Those killed in Ballymurphy, including a priest and a mother of eight children, would have remained a gunman and a gunwoman. The truth that emerged through that inquest would have remained hidden and the reputations of innocents been trashed forever.
Those who argue the veterans’ case also stress two other points. First, they do not want equivalence with those who brought murder and mayhem to the streets of Northern Ireland, to our cities here and beyond. The Bill does not differentiate because, as much as the Government might want to, they know it cannot.
Secondly, they say that if someone in uniform has broken the law, they must be held to account. Who can argue against that? It is what those who serve with honour want and deserve, but the Bill does not deliver that. It is specifically designed to close down all routes to justice and accountability, including civil proceedings and inquests. As the Bill stands, there will be no proper criminal justice investigations, merely reviews into the balance of probabilities standard. We must presume that a Bill coming before us has been drafted with great care. We must presume that the words used express precisely what the Government intend to be enacted —and we all know the difference between investigation and review.
To say that this could lead to the prosecution of anyone who refuses to take advantage of the immunity process—in effect, an amnesty—is disingenuous at best. A Director of Public Prosecutions could not put a case before the court on the basis of a balance of probabilities review. The effect of this legislation will be to make some of the most heinous crimes simply disappear. It is an insult to victims and survivors and an affront to the rule of law, which, as parliamentarians, we are all committed to uphold. Among other things, it will create the bizarre and absurd situation whereby someone applying for a job with an unspent conviction for shoplifting would be required to tell his or her potential employer but a self-confessed mass murderer would not. As the Bill stands, once the low-bar immunity is granted, it cannot be revoked, even if it subsequently transpires that the perpetrator has misled the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, or indeed has re-engaged with a proscribed organisation.
There are so many fundamental flaws in this legislation that it may be that, as the Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, Alyson Kilpatrick, told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, it is not capable of being amended. As she told the committee in a devastating critique of the Bill:
“It is clearly in breach of the Human Rights Act”
and it is
“not going to be possible to remedy this Bill, certainly not without very significant redrafting such that it would change the whole nature of the Bill.”
I am flatly opposed to the Bill and, given the opportunity, will vote to kill it. Meanwhile, any amendments proposed must fundamentally address the perpetrator, victim and survivor imbalance in this legislation currently before us.
I have heard it said that throughout the peace process, compromises on the rule of law were made and that this is simply another one. The Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill of 2005-06, which I introduced as Secretary of State, has been cited as one example. There is no doubt that it was difficult and controversial legislation, but it came nowhere near to granting the amnesty that this current legacy Bill explicitly does. Anyone who went through the offences Bill process would have had to appear in a special court. They would have emerged with a criminal record. They would have been required to submit fingerprints and DNA samples to the police and, crucially, any benefits they gained could have been revoked if they committed further crimes.
The last Labour Government worked towards the goal of inclusive power-sharing in Northern Ireland, including the devolution of policing and justice powers. We achieved the first part in 2007, when I was Secretary of State, and completed the process in 2010 under my successor. This legislation attacks that settlement to reassert the primacy of the Secretary of State—something else wrong with it. The chief constable will be instructed by the Secretary of State which cases can and cannot be investigated. The courts will be told which cases they can and cannot try. The Northern Ireland Justice Minister, the Northern Ireland judicial system and the Northern Ireland Policing Board, all central to the devolution settlement, will be overridden by the Secretary of State. Whether this is an intended or unintended consequence, it is a massively retrograde step by any measure. Indeed, the powers of the Secretary of State to control the whole legacy process run right through the Bill and that is deeply concerning.
My thinking on legacy matters has evolved over the last number of years. Those of us who have grappled with them know that these are difficult matters. The Minister has tried to grapple with them honestly as best he could over many years. In 2018, I and other noble Lords with a close interest in Northern Ireland, including the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who signed the letter, wrote to the then Secretary of State about pre-Good Friday agreement prosecutions. I believed then, as I do now, that there was little to be gained by devoting precious police resources to cases where there was little prospect of a successful prosecution.
The Historical Enquiries Team completed work on 1,615 cases involving more than 2,000 deaths, yet only three resulted in prosecutions and convictions for murder. I still believe that the PSNI should be focused on keeping the population of Northern Ireland safe in the here and now and into the future, rather than precious police resources being diverted to legacy cases. I have put these points to the Minister in terms of the amendments that I, with cross-party support, intend to table tomorrow.
A key point is that there is now an alternative to the less than satisfactory arrangements we have been criticising. Operation Kenova, headed by former Chief Constable Boutcher, is a working model of the way to deal with legacy that provides the information that many victims and survivors desperately want, and at the same time leaves open the route to justice where the evidence reaches the necessary threshold. For the last two years, more than 30 files referred by Kenova have been sitting with the under-resourced Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, and he was quite right to do so.
It is quite wrong, however, for Secretaries of State to criticise Kenova for failing to deliver any prosecutions when they knew full well that none had been put before the courts by the PPS, because it is under-resourced. Kenova, under the leadership of former Bedfordshire Chief Constable Jon Boutcher, has widespread support from the families who work with it. It is a model that can be upscaled and at a lower cost than current strategies, and it would release the PSNI from the burden of legacy cases. As I said, I will be tabling amendments to try to introduce this into the Bill. I hope the Minister will accept them, because I think they will create a consensus around the Bill that is palpably lacking.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for the opportunity to intervene. It was merely on his point about Operation Kenova which, as he said, has gained widespread support. It included four investigations and one review. The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, mentioned Operation Denton, which I believe is reviewing 93 incidents and 127 murders. Whatever happens with this Bill, it seems important that that review continues and is not interrupted by what the Bill delivers. The prospect of that being stopped would be a terrible thing for all the families who believe that progress is being made because of Chief Constable Jon Boutcher’s good work.
Lord Hain (Lab)
I am grateful for the intervention, particularly as the noble Lord has long experience of policing, and he makes telling points. In short, Kenova is the way in which we can get consensus in this House to proceed with the Bill, heavily amended. I have suggested some amendments that have cross-party support. The Minister has seen them privately and, if the issues are only technical, I am willing to discuss them with him to try to reach agreement.
In conclusion, we frequently refer in this House to the need to develop consensus in Northern Ireland on a range of issues, not least on dealing with the legacy of violence. With this Bill, the Government have contrived to create a consensus: it is opposed by every political party in Northern Ireland and by all victims groups. When the 2006 offences Bill faced that kind of opposition, I withdrew it. The Government should follow that example with this ill-conceived Bill. They must think again before they do irreparable damage to victims and survivors who have suffered so much already.
Lord Eames (CB)
My Lords, it will not surprise the House, bearing in mind that Peers from Northern Ireland have lived through and experienced the events that have been referred to by virtually every speaker, that this is an extremely emotional occasion for me. The years of my adult life have almost totally been lived out in the years of the Troubles, and the jobs I tried to do all centred on people. They centred on the bereaved, the injured, the devastated, on those who committed terrible deeds and on those who were encouraged eventually to find a better route.
I have listened carefully to each speech tonight and have tried to put together the jigsaw of people referred to in my mind. Then I looked around the Chamber and saw many of my fellow Peers who do not live in Northern Ireland but who have taken the trouble to identify with our lives and experiences. I thank them for that. Then I looked across and saw the noble Lords, Lord Hain and Lord Murphy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. In each case, memories flooded back of working with those with responsibilities for the government of Northern Ireland, as they had, and I am grateful.
At this moment, however, I think most of the houses in which I have stood, the bedsides besides which I have knelt and the families, particularly the young people, whose futures were devastated by the Troubles. So I make no apology for being personal in what I will say. It will not take long, for virtually everything that I feel needs to be said about this Bill has been said, and by people of such expertise as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge—lawyers, people with human emotions, politicians from Northern Ireland and people who have endured some of the emotional stress of these past years.
When I heard the title the Government had chosen for this Bill, I was encouraged, as “reconciliation” has now found some structure in legislation. Then I read the proposed Bill and began to ask whether all the years of work and in seeking agreement were useless. Were all the tears shed and pains shared useless and unproductive? I could find nothing in the Bill that would increase the human expectation or realisation of true reconciliation; rather, it will add to the hurt and uncertainty, and to the dismal prospect of that hurt being endured for generation after generation.
My next reaction was to scrap the Bill totally, as it will not serve any useful purpose. I have sympathy with Members of the House who said, “Start from scratch. Start again”. But my memory goes back to Denis Bradley and me, and the Consultative Group on the Past, which made the first attempt to deal with legacy. We made many mistakes. We learned as we went along and society made its judgment, because we were at the wrong time. Society was not ready to look at its legacy. But, as I listen and read what has happened since, how many aspects of that report continue to surface? Put different labels on it, use different words, but the thoughts are there. There must have been something that was worth saying.
That led me to my second conclusion: we do not need to scrap the Bill totally but, as it goes through this House, must give it the sort of scrutiny that leaves no stone unturned so that we get to what is needed for the Northern Ireland of the future. That will mean questions about the work of the proposed commission, about its control and the control of it. It will raise questions about whether Westminster will be too involved and exercise too much control that could be exercised in Northern Ireland. It will ask questions of jurisprudence, which has not been mentioned tonight. My memory goes back to many years ago, when I tried to teach jurisprudence to reluctant law students. If there is one memory I have of those days, it is the knowledge that there is a sense in which the definition of justice is what must emerge at the end of any process dealing with legacy, wherever it is. I honestly believe that the Bill in its present form is totally guilty of running a horse—and, dare I say it, a hearse—through the nature of justice.
I believe that we must look at the Bill and not totally scrap it but take it to pieces and see which Lego bricks should remain. Many things have been said tonight about ways in which we can improve our approach. To conclude these brief remarks, I believe that the new legislation we seek must be centred on the victims, and on the suffering of the people who suffered most in our Troubles—above all recognising their claim to justice and to a better future—and on a generation of young people who deserve far more than my generation has been able to offer them. If we cannot do that, we need to move away from looking at the disaster on the decks of the “Titanic” and have a look at what caused the iceberg.
Finally, I say this to the Minister. I think we are getting a sense tonight of what he personally has gone through and is going through regarding this Bill. He deserves genuine tribute for his honesty in his introduction to this session. I say this to him: he knows Northern Ireland; he knows what we are like; and he knows where we have come from. I beg of him, in the face of his colleagues and those who wish this Bill to continue, to pause, and have the courage to say some of the things that he has heard said tonight, and realise that there is a future but it is a different sort of Bill.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, there are many parts of this Bill that I find not just problematic but actually quite dangerous. There are also some parts of it that I agree with, and I am very pleased indeed that the Minister made it clear that he was prepared to look at a number of amendments. There is probably no other Minister with his knowledge and background that could actually succeed in making something out of this Bill, if that is what your Lordships’ House decides.
It is important to look at how we got here. The Stormont House agreement of 2014 has been mentioned before, but let us not forget that not every party in Northern Ireland supported that agreement and it is not an international agreement, despite what some nationalists have been trying to claim. The Stormont House agreement’s 200-page document—which included the new non-crime crime of historic police misconduct, to be directed at retired George Cross RUC officers—is a draft that is now nearly a decade old. I am pleased that it has been dropped and superseded by this Bill, even with all its problems.
The second thing in this history was the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto commitment, as has been mentioned, which read:
“we will introduce new legislation to tackle the vexatious legal claims that undermine our Armed Forces and further incorporate the Armed Forces Covenant into law.”
We saw that legislation enacted in the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021, but crucially it omitted Operation Banner veterans who served in Northern Ireland. The result has been the continuing prosecutions of soldiers for alleged crimes committed in the 1970s, some 50 years ago. More are possible, following the papers submitted by Operation Kenova to the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland. So we see that lawfare, in its many forms, has continued unabated.
It is worth reminding your Lordships that, as some have already made mention of, some 300,000 Army and police served in Northern Ireland during those years, 1,000 of whom were murdered. Their ECHR Article 2 right to life, which we hear so much about, was colossally violated.
I proposed an amendment in April 2021 that the overseas Bill’s effect should depend on a report being made on
“progress made towards equal treatment of veterans of operations in Northern Ireland since 1969”.
In reply, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, said only that Northern Ireland was “a different issue”, while adding
“we will not allow our brave service personnel who served in Northern Ireland to be forgotten.”—[Official Report, 13/4/21; col. 1187]
The noble Baroness said very little else on that, but let us be clear that the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act was not an amnesty. It introduced several new evidential hurdles before a prosecution could be mounted when there had been a previous investigation and if no compelling new evidence was available. It insisted that the public interest in finality was paramount.
That Act was a far better vehicle than this Bill, which has had unworkable—or more precisely, never likely to be worked—immunity arrangements tacked on. They corrupt the law and need to be improved. We all need to be honest: the law has already been corrupted by the many amnesties and mini-amnesties deemed politically necessary in the 25 years since the Belfast agreement.
The question of compelling and credible new evidence is one where this Bill fails badly, and strong amendment is needed to Clause 11, titled “Requests for reviews: general provision”. Unless narrowed to include a phrase such as “compelling new evidence”, it means that the new investigation body, the ICRIR, simply becomes a one-stop shop for nationalist and other lawyers, who have now given themselves the grand title of legacy practitioners. It will replace, and perhaps even streamline, the current options of fresh inquests, civil suits and compensation claims—1,000 of which are now in the Belfast courts, as I heard in an answer to a Question—plus PSNI and Police Ombudsman reinvestigations.
The third way that we have got here is, of course, the understandable desire of bereaved families for access to the details of their relative’s death, the documentation available and memorialisation. Crucially, they also want justice, which is, I am afraid, in terms of convictions of terrorists, no longer deemed likely. This was even stated by police investigators, such as Jon Boutcher of Operation Kenova.
People also talk about truth. We know that prosecutions, other than those of soldiers, will not happen after such a passage of time. Terrorists in particular cannot be brought to court because evidence sufficient to convict is not there. The IRA kept no paper records, and recently harvested DNA alone will not suffice. Millions of pages of state documents are promised and that is welcome, but they are only part of the truth and will need assessment by lawyers and historians. Here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Godson. We hope these will not just be the monopoly group of Queen’s University academics, currently funded by UK research councils to the tune of £4 million, who seem to concentrate entirely on anti-state issues rather than real victims of terrorism.
The Government should be much more up front about the fact that human rights law—the ECHR and the Human Rights Act—will necessitate the removal of large portions of text, especially from MI5 files that refer to individuals, both good and bad. Unconvicted killers cannot be named, nor must informants be, so amendments will need to be tabled, which I hope the Government can accept, to strengthen the Bill’s human rights dimensions in terms of the neglected safeguards in the ECHR—those on the right to a fair trial and the right to a reputation. Too many people think the phrase “Article 2 compliance” covers the whole convention, but there are 18 articles that we need to comply with, especially Articles 6, 8, 10 and 17. I know that the Minister said that he wanted to put Article 2 into law. We should look at the other articles as well.
To look at one county in Northern Ireland, Fermanagh, which the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, knows very well, 115 people were killed during the Troubles, over 90% of whose deaths were caused by the IRA. Sixty-five of the dead were members of the security forces and 40 were civilians. There were only five killings by loyalists and two murders by rogue soldiers; in other words, our security forces, at colossal cost to themselves, protected both sections of the community. I fear that not many legacy practitioners will draw attention to that noble achievement or the contrast in numbers.
Another group that upheld justice was our judges and magistrates, who took a terrible toll in death and injuries as a result. We rarely hear their names: Martin McBirney, Judge Rory Conaghan, Lord Justice Gibson and his wife Cecily, Tom Travers and his daughter Mary, Judge William Doyle, William Staunton, and Judge Eoin Higgins, who was targeted, with Robin and Maureen Hanna, and their six year-old son David, instead being murdered. Their Article 2 right to life was drastically breached.
I will say another few words about amnesty, because there has been some slight hypocrisy about that in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, mentioned a few of the amnesty agreements, but in the Belfast agreement and since a series of amnesties were put into legislation or operated administratively. Most happened under the premiership of Tony Blair and three Labour Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland: the noble Lords, Lord Mandelson and Lord Reid, and most notably the noble Lord, Lord Hain, who I am sorry is not in his place at the moment. As he mentioned, he tried to put through the Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill 2005. That never made it into law because it was scuppered by Sinn Féin, which decided that it would not support it because it would give amnesty to soldiers as well as terrorists.
Just for the record, these part-amnesties were all agreed with the Irish Government, who are now making great play about this Bill: the Belfast agreement and the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998, with its early release of hundreds of terrorist prisoners after two years served in jail; immunity from prosecution, called an amnesty in law, for evidence discovered on the decommissioning of terrorist weapons; the request in 1999 by Bertie Ahern for the UK to discontinue current and future extradition proceedings, acceded to by Tony Blair and the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson; royal prerogative of mercy grants, issued silently in hundreds of cases and whose paperwork, I discovered, when I asked questions, had oddly gone missing; immunities regarding the Saville inquiry into Bloody Sunday, and the Hamill, Nelson, Wright, and Breen/Buchanan inquiries; immunities regarding evidence recovered from the bodies of the disappeared; and the so called on-the-runs, which have been mentioned already, a secret administrative scheme only for IRA members supposedly hiding in the Irish Republic, which operated contrary to the advice of the Attorney-General. At least 187 IRA men were granted OTR letters of comfort promising no prosecution, John Downey being the most famous one. I hope none of those are now in the mandatory coalition Government that the people in Northern Ireland were forced to endure.
Above all, we have to push back against the rewriting of history through the development of this moral equivalence between those who died defending our country, who saved lives in border areas out in the dark in the middle of the night, protecting people at the expense of their own lives, and those who set out deliberately to murder. The Government should change the definition of a victim. It is absolutely disgraceful that, in Northern Ireland, the definition of a victim, unlike in Great Britain, treats the bomber, if he injured himself, as a victim. How can we have such a moral compass to support amnesty for murder?
I will just mention Aileen Quinton, a very brave woman whose mother was murdered by terrorists, blown up at the war memorial on Remembrance Sunday 1987. She is now a volunteer with SEFF, one of the excellent victims’ groups. She wrote to tell me:
“Of course it is wrong that veterans who have been guilty of nothing but brave service are hounded but that is no excuse for putting them into the same bracket as the very few who have disgraced the uniform. No one should be subjected to unfair persecution and hounding but that is an argument for protecting the innocent and not letting off the guilty. Some innocent men get accused of rape and that is dreadful but that is no excuse for a blanket amnesty for rape.”
She mentions the Graham family, who have already been mentioned: three brothers and one sister, picked off one by one. After each murder, the others continued to serve in the Ulster Defence Regiment, standing by the law until they were slaughtered by the IRA. The sister was killed in a hit and run at a checkpoint when she was on duty as a UDR Greenfinch. If the forces of law and order could not save them from terrorists, the least they should expect is that they would seek proper lawful justice for their deaths.
I have one final thought for all your Lordships from Aileen:
“I did not become a terrorist when my mother was murdered. Now my government is more or less telling me that I should have. Far from leaving no stone unturned to bring her murderers to justice, my government is cementing those stones down unturned.”
If we are really going to move on, we need to accept that there is opposition across the board to this Bill in Northern Ireland but that it comes from very different angles. The idea that everyone is against it for the same reason is just not true. The difficulty that we have in your Lordships’ House is in recognising and separating what is genuine opposition and what is opposition for opposition’s sake to continue the sort of lawfare that many people in Northern Ireland seem to want, just to attack the state forces. I am very keen to see that amendments strengthen the Bill to ensure that we do not allow the innocent victim to be ignored at the expense of those people who just want to attack our state forces.
Lord McInnes of Kilwinning (Con)
My Lords, I do not stand before your Lordships as someone from Northern Ireland and I have never been a victim of terrorism, but I care very much about Northern Ireland’s place and people. I am very concerned about the way in which Northern Ireland is too often treated as somehow outside the mainstream of UK politics, as if only people from Northern Ireland may speak about the situation in the Province.
Secondly, there may be a little cynicism in my remarks about the Bill, but they in no way reflect my opinion of my noble friend the Minister and his commitment and expertise. Already today we have heard his commitment to listen to noble Lords and the people of Northern Ireland, and to try his very best to improve the Bill.
James Hughes wrote a chapter entitled “Reconstruction Without Reconciliation: Is Northern Ireland a ‘Model’?” in the 2015 academic book After Civil War. While we may have a model reconstruction and end of violence, I am afraid that on reconciliation we are on less sure territory. After almost 25 years of trying to grapple with this issue, we are now faced with a Bill that, at first sight, seems far from creating the consensus that Northern Ireland requires around such sensitive issues.
However, despite its flaws the Bill can be worked on. It would have been far more satisfactory if it had evolved as part of the long process, as we have already heard this evening, going back to prisoner release in 1998; the work by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, on the Consultative Group on the Past in 2009; the Stormont agreement; and even the New Decade, New Approach agreement of 2019. One starts to wonder whether, when such good work was being done by Ministers who are now Members of this place and the other place and people on the ground in Northern Ireland, there was—I think my noble friend Lord Cormack obliquely referred to this—a feeling within Whitehall generally that this problem would go away through time and that legislation to address it was not necessary.
However, we have had to respect and recognise the significant change that has taken place since 2019, first of all in the response to the Command Paper in 2021. The slow burn of codified and state-sanctioned reconciliation that should have been the natural path from the Belfast/Good Friday agreement was a necessary symptom of that agreement. It is unfortunate—but the reality—that the fundamental political structures of Northern Ireland were more easily addressed in 1997 and 1998 than the reconciliation necessary to deal with ongoing legacy issues. That is not in any way to criticise the way in which an end to the Troubles was sought or the bravery shown by all those involved, but it did leave a need for further structure, thought and work.
The kind of instrumental reconciliation that was carried out in Northern Ireland, bringing both sides of the political elite together, was the necessary step before the socio-emotional reconciliation of finding peace that then needed to follow. It is not a reflection on those who have sought to do so that it has taken 20 years for us to get here.
It has been extremely disappointing, and has contributed greatly to the negative press the Bill has suffered, that all too often it has been seen as a Bill driven by a debate outwith Northern Ireland—a debate about veterans and the internals of the Conservative Party over the last two years, rather than what was best for the people of Northern Ireland and the veterans who served there. As the noble Lord, Lord Hain, said, this is not to say that the rights of veterans of our armed services should not be protected and respected, but it seems to me that it will be the judgment of many in Northern Ireland that the Bill has come about only because of a media debate in Great Britain that had nothing to do with Northern Ireland.
The Government had the opportunity to build far more upon the foundations of the previous attempts in 2009, 2015 and 2019, to which I have alluded. In each of their arguments, they created a degree of consensus around certain elements and went some way, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, just said, to there being different elements that can be pulled together.
However, given that this Bill is now the vehicle, it is incumbent upon us to ensure we have a Bill that gives more confidence to the victims of the Troubles and, for those who wish it, a means to get to the truth. There are now opportunities to do that, but significant changes to the Bill will be required. I am slightly more optimistic than the noble Lord, Lord Hain, that we will be able to achieve these.
I recognise that the answer to some of these suggested changes may well be that the independent commission, or whatever the name ends up being, requires more resource, but to deliver what it says on the tin, we will need to be willing to meet the challenges of victims, or else the Bill will be a meaningless act. In fact, as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, said, it could be counterproductive.
I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister responded to and further reflected on the following reasonable demands from victims’ groups, beyond those he mentioned in his opening remarks. First, in Clause 1 there should be a broader definition of harm to allow a greater range of victims to come forward to make use of the independent commission, and to reflect the experience of Northern Ireland society as widely as possible. This new definition would reflect the UK Parliament order and definition of victims as of 2006, including those who have suffered psychological as well as physical harm.
Secondly, victims must feel part of the process, and I support calls for them to be able to respond to draft reports from the commission before actions are taken. I welcome my noble friend’s commitment to looking at stronger penalties for those who choose not to co-operate or to lie to the commission, and I look forward to those coming forward in Committee.
Victims must not have equivalence with perpetrators in this process but should be the dominant voice as we move towards reconciliation. When it has completed its progress, the Bill must clearly differentiate between victim and perpetrator; I fear that it does not at the moment. I will leave it to noble, and indeed learned, Lords to opine on the Bill’s compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights. Again, I hear my noble friend the Minister’s commitment to look at the robustness of the process to ensure that concerns over rights to life and remedy are properly addressed.
We must also be realistic about the concerns and lack of co-operation with and community support for both the Historical Enquiries Team and subsequent PSNI initiatives. If this new independent commission is to be effective and to have public confidence, we need every single assurance over its membership and the independence of its members. If it is to have a lifespan of five years, what assurances will my noble friend give that it will be properly resourced to ensure that victims’ requests for investigation are not timed out?
I welcome the change in the Bill from the original Command Paper, making immunity at least conditional. I recognise that many in this Chamber and the other place are concerned about any immunity evading justice. I see the earned immunity as important in ensuring that there is a process through which all can be judged and have an opportunity to make a choice. Yes, the reality is that from the early release scheme onwards, and its further extension through this Bill, we have probably come to the end of the road for imprisonment for pre-1998 offences. This is very difficult for many of us to accept, but it is a clear evolution of previous positions and it is probably correct that it be incorporated in the Bill.
It is clear from all that has come before that there is still a desire in Northern Ireland for a formal process of reconciliation. The Bill may not have come about for the correct reasons or been a natural successor to the other attempts that have taken place, but it is the Bill we have. This process must not become the traditional zero-sum game of any one side feeling dominance over a process or being able to be portrayed as such.
If the Bill is about legacy and reconciliation, it is important that its clauses reflect a well-resourced plan to bring about reconciliation and deal with the painful legacy of the Troubles. To do so successfully, it must have at its heart a victim-focused and Northern Ireland-focused process intent on truth.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, it is a privilege—and a coincidence, which I will explain—that I should rise to speak after the noble Lord, Lord McInnes of Kilwinning. I am very pleased that his opening remarks made the case for those of us who are not Northern Irish, or indeed Irish, although I have extended family in Northern Ireland, to contribute to these debates.
I shall explain why that is particularly the case for both him and me. For those who do not know the geography of Ayrshire, Kilwinning is a really important railway hub. It is the point at which the train from Glasgow to Ayrshire splits and goes north and south all the way down to Stranraer, where it is a gateway to Northern Ireland. As it goes north, it comes to a town called Stevenston. I was born and grew up in Stevenston and was educated in Kilwinning.
Interesting as all that is, the important point here is that the demography of that part of Ayrshire is the mirror image of Northern Ireland. It is not the only part of Scotland that is the mirror image of Northern Ireland in that sense, but it is a part of Scotland that, through all of my young life and, I am sure, much of the noble Lord’s life, there was persistent cross-fertilisation between that part of Scotland and Northern Ireland—not all of it positive and enhancing, I have to say; quite a lot of it criminal; and at times, I have no doubt, some of it terrorist.
So, far from saying that we are entitled to participate in this debate, I think we both have a duty and a responsibility to participate in it, and we should declare an interest. If the legacy issue for Northern Ireland can be dealt with and reconciliation achieved, that will be reflected in our communities, which will be massively enhanced by that having been achieved. There are victims of the Troubles in the communities that we grew up in who are not counted in any of the arithmetic we have been discussing today. I do not intend to speak for victims; there are people in this debate much better qualified to do that than I am.
I respect and admire the Minister for a number of reasons. His honesty and the way that he introduced the Bill are only a part of it. I admire him for his persistent contribution to finding a way to deal with these and other issues for Northern Ireland. He merits our support, and nothing that I say—and I will be significantly critical on one theme of the Bill—is in any sense a criticism of him.
I was a Minister in the Northern Ireland Office for a period and had responsibility for victims and criminal justice matters, so I do not underestimate the difficulty or complexity of what the Government are faced with, but I do not think the Bill is the answer. I wholly adopt an element of my noble friend Lord Hain’s speech and that of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames: this needs to be substantially reworked. Others have made the same point. The willingness of the Government to rework it may or may not produce a workable piece of legislation; the jury is out in respect of that.
I pay tribute to those planning to table and support amendments that seek to palliate some of the problematic provisions of this legislation; indeed, I may do so myself. I am minded to table amendments that will deal with one part of it, though not nearly the most challenging part. Those amendments that have been proposed by the Law Society of Scotland, whose consistent advice about legislation in this House has been of the highest quality over the time that I have been here. They will deal with the Bill’s provisions to the extent that they limit the Lord Advocate’s constitutional position as the head of the system of criminal prosecution and investigation of deaths in Scotland, as set out in the Scotland Act 1998. The system of criminal prosecution and civil liabilities are matters devolved to the Scottish Parliament. In my view, the Bill’s provisions engage the legislative consent convention, the Sewel convention, and therefore require the consent of the Scottish Parliament.
To the extent that I have the capacity to do so, it is my intention to participate where I can and where I think I can make a contribution to the debates on other amendments, both in Committee and on Report. However, in these remarks I shall focus on those faults of the Bill that are intrinsic to it and which cannot be removed without making it a wholly different, and not guaranteed to be better, piece of legislation. I therefore support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon, because it encapsulates many of those.
I regret that I have to say this but it would be difficult even for the most Panglossian optimist to contest the view that the UK’s reputation for adherence to international law has been degraded by the actions of successive Governments since the Brexit referendum. The Secretary of State has declared his belief that the Bill is compatible with our obligations under the ECHR, but others have raised significant doubts as to whether that is the case. For example, the European Commissioner for Human Rights and two UN special rapporteurs in relevant areas have raised concerns that the legislation threatens a de facto breach of our obligations. Nearer home, the JCHR and the Select Committee on the Constitution—the latter in a commendably short and accessible five-page report—persuasively explain why the Bill, as drafted,
“is unlikely to comply with the Convention”.
The aggregate of this convincing cacophony of concern is that the measures set out either are incompatible with the UK’s obligations under the ECHR or create a risk of incompatibility. Either way, the effect of the Bill will ultimately be more litigation before our courts or, if the present Government deploy their overwhelming majority in the other place to secure the Bill of Rights, before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, because applicants who will then not be able to enforce their rights domestically will be more likely to take their cases to the ECHR. That will be directly contrary to the UK Government’s ambition to bring an end to litigation; in my view, it will significantly increase the possibility of it.
Of particular concern is the fact that the new ICRIR will be given wide discretion in deciding whether actions should be referred for prosecution and in setting time limits for future criminal and civil actions. In addition, by creating a limited immunity scheme, potentially barring certain civil claims and affecting existing and potential future inquests, the Bill potentially undermines the rights of victims in significant ways.
I think we all received the same email yesterday from the Northern Ireland Victims Commissioner. In it, he urged me—as I read it—
“to keep the victims, survivors, and their families at the front of your mind.”
Earlier in the letter, he explained:
“Since the Bill started its passage through Parliament on 17 May I have met with many victims and survivors including the Commission’s own Forum, to fully understand how or indeed if, the Bill could work for them. The cold reality is that no-one I have met believes that the Bill is going to help heal or reconcile.”
That environment is not likely to bring us to one of the fundamental objectives that the Government have set themselves here—of bringing an end to this litigation —and which other noble Lords have spoken in great detail about the necessity of achieving.
Article 2 of the ECHR requires that:
“Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law.”
In that light, it is incumbent on the Government to explain how the proposals for the ICRIR, which is created to recover information about a death or serious injury but does not provide any legal remedy, are compatible with their ECHR obligations under Article 2.
This is a point that I do not think anyone else has made, but it is an important and serious one that we should make in the current conditions: while the risk of the UK breaching its obligations under international law is serious in and of itself, it is perhaps exceeded in seriousness by the fact that it compromises our ability beyond these shores to challenge other nations when far more serious and fundamental breaches occur.
Those hostile to human rights in authoritarian states are watching. So too are human rights defenders in other states who substantially depend on us. How will we be able to insist that, for instance, Russian commanders are held accountable for atrocities in Ukraine? We are presently and properly investing millions of pounds in collecting the evidence of those very possibilities. The retort is dismally predictable. How can we insist upon accountability under the rule of law when we have exempted potential offenders of our own from just that mechanism?
If accountability is to mean anything, this basic principle must be maintained: that crimes, when proven, are punished and that victims receive justice. While I sympathise with the desire to draw a line under the Troubles and focus on reconciliation, it is an uncomfortable and regrettable truth that justice cannot conform to a politically expedient timetable. More than 1,000 killings remain unsolved. Although I accept that the chances of prosecution diminish with every passing year, the granting of immunity in exchange for information will be seen by many—nay, all—victims as an attempt to achieve present harmony at the price of their past and enduring distress.
Greater unity in Northern Ireland is desirable, although I suspect that unifying the leaders of the DUP and Sinn Féin in disapproval of this measure is not quite the spur to unity that the Government had in mind. How can imposing a set of measures that have attracted disapproval from all communities and shades of political opinion possibly heal the fractures that remain in Northern Ireland?
I applaud those who are seeking to amend this legislation and to improve it, but I have fundamental concerns about the direction of travel represented by the Bill. In her foreword to the 2018 consultation document, Addressing the Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past, the then Secretary of State, Karen Bradley, wrote:
“We … continue to believe that any approach to the past must be fully consistent with the rule of law. Conservatives in government have consistently said that we will not introduce amnesties or immunities from prosecution.”
What has changed in the four years since to cause this Conservative Government to jettison what was apparently an immutable principle in favour of this new approach? The answer is clear: either it is not a fixed principle practised by Conservatives in government, or this legislation does not do what it appears to do. I look forward to the Minister clarifying which of these two interpretations is correct.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, this debate will adjourn and resume not before 8.15 pm, to allow us to move on to Report and Third Reading of the Counsellors of State Bill.
Counsellors of State Bill [HL]
Wednesday 23rd November 2022
(2 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Counsellors of State Act 2022 View all Counsellors of State Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 66-I Marshalled list for Committee - (21 Nov 2022)
Counsellors of State Bill [HL]
Wednesday 23rd November 2022
(2 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Counsellors of State Act 2022 View all Counsellors of State Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 66-I Marshalled list for Committee - (21 Nov 2022)
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord True) (Con)
I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. I again place on record, as I did at an earlier stage, my gratitude to His Majesty’s Official Opposition and the Liberal Democrats for their support in expediting this measure. We have heard important arguments put forward in the House. I believe that we have acquitted our responsibility in responding to the message from His Majesty. I thank all those who have been involved in putting this measure together at such short notice.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Lord Privy Seal for his comments. This Bill has been a learning curve for many in your Lordships’ House. In conducting our debate, we have reached a sensible conclusion which concurs with the wishes of His Majesty the King. This Bill is a proportionate, moderate measure, which has the support of this House. Other issues may arise in due course that the House will wish to look at. This is not something that happens every day. I thank the noble Lord for his courtesy in engaging with the Opposition at all times about the detail of the Bill. We greatly appreciate it. We also thank those officials who have worked on bringing this Bill to the House.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I echo the comments of my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition. I thank the Minister for the way in which he has dealt with all the issues and for the way in which he has taken the Bill through the House. It is not every day that a Bill goes through in three days. I also thank him for his personal courtesy to me, not least with regard to the amendment that I moved earlier. It is quite clear that he and others would have preferred it if I had not tabled it at all.
We have waited 70 years for a Bill of this kind. I am tempted to say that, having waited 70 years for a bus, I hope, on this occasion, another one does not come along at once. I hope that this Bill will succeed in its purpose and provide the resilience for the constitutional arrangements to which the noble Lord and others have referred. In the fullness of time, we may have to come back to it, but I hope this is not for a very long time. Meanwhile, I wish the Bill well. As has been said before, it is not often that Bills go from this House to another place. It will do the other place no harm to find that this Bill reaches them from this direction, rather than the other way around.
Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill
Wednesday 23rd November 2022
(2 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 View all Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 4 July 2022 - (4 Jul 2022)
Baroness O’Loan (CB)
My Lords, I acknowledge and applaud the integrity with which the Minister introduced the Bill, and the way he articulated the problems that exist. Given the range of amendments apparently to be introduced by the Government, though, it is difficult to understand why we are actually debating this difficult and challenging Bill.
In starting my words, I pay tribute to all those with whom I have worked over the years. For 25 years, in one way or another, I have been in this business of investigating and overlooking the Troubles. I pay tribute to the people who came to me, particularly when I was Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, because that took a lot of courage. I remember one mother who came to me and was terrified; she knew the name of the person who had murdered her young son but was too afraid to tell me his name. As she sat at my table, I ran through the names of IRA men whom I had identified as working in the area until she nodded. That seemed to open some sort of gate, which enabled her to talk to me.
I think of the victims, including the police victims: people such as Constable Colleen McMurray, Detective Sergeant Joseph Campbell and Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick, the last soldier to die in Northern Ireland. I think of all the victims of all the shootings and bombings. The first I dealt with in some detail was Omagh, where 29 people and two unborn children died, which was really traumatic and went to the heart of what the Bill is about. One of the problems we have is that although most people who were in the security services and the forces in Northern Ireland served with great distinction and integrity, not all did. We have a significant problem in relation to many agents of the state. I think of people such as Stakeknife on the one side and those in the UVF on the other, who were engaged in terrible crimes.
Noble Lords have referred to the extent to which the Bill has been rejected by people, organisations, statutory organisations, former police officers and soldiers, including veterans who served honourably and have stated that criminals who served alongside them should be prosecuted. It has also been rejected by numerous independent and distinguished human rights lawyers and other experts, the UN committees, the European Commissioner for Human Rights and so on.
However, at the heart of this, as we have heard tonight, the legacy of the Troubles lives on in the hearts of all of us who have been affected by them. I include all those affected by the deaths which occurred here in Westminster; I think of Airey Neave and of all the bombs that there were here in England. They live in my heart for my lost baby, who died before he was born in a bomb explosion; they live in the dreadful and murderous sectarian attack on my son when I was police ombudsman, which left him with terrible injuries. There was an investigation but we always knew that it would go nowhere, because people were so afraid of the loyalist paramilitaries that nobody would come forward to give evidence.
That is the legacy and reality of life in Northern Ireland, and it lives on still. On Saturday night, I will go to a place called Oristown in County Meath, where they are trying to recover the bodies of the remaining disappeared. There were three of them: Columba McVeigh, who was 17, Joe Lynskey and Captain Robert Nairac. It lives on in all our hearts and all our souls.
I did a search to find out how these new provisions will promote reconciliation. The word “reconciliation” is used in the Bill on 168 occasions, some 167 of which are in the titles of the Bill and the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery. There is one other reference to “reconciliation”: Clause 44(4) provides for a study of memorialisations and requires that there must be consideration of
“how … memorialisation activities currently, or will in the future, promote reconciliation in Northern Ireland”.
That is the sole provision aimed at reconciliation. Can the Minister explain whether the Government intend to amend the Bill to provide mechanisms by which they might promote reconciliation?
The Bill does four very important things, which are being articulated here. It terminates existing criminal investigations into Troubles deaths, including the Kenova investigations, with which I am involved. It provides for review in limited circumstances, which may lead to prosecution but is very unlikely to. It terminates civil actions from 17 May this year, and there will be no Troubles inquests after May 2023. I hope that the Government will not come back and tell us that they will allow it to be May 2024, which would be an insult to people in Northern Ireland. All inquests currently under way but that have not reached the stage of substantive hearing must be terminated by the coroner. The Bill also provides for conditional immunity for those involved in the Troubles, as we heard.
Earlier proposals included roles for the Northern Ireland Department of Justice and the Northern Ireland Policing Board, but the Bill makes no provision for any involvement of any of the devolved part of Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State is even responsible for making decisions about memorialisation projects. Does the Minister not agree that, like so much in the Bill, this should be a matter for the devolved Government rather than the Secretary of State?
The Bill makes the commission the only body that can examine legacy cases throughout the UK. As noble Lords have said, the structures will lack operational independence. I was pleased to hear the Minister say that there will be changes in how the Chief Commissioner will be appointed. However, the Bill provides for extensive involvement by the Secretary of State in operational matters, including giving guidance to a whole range of bodies, including the commission, about the exercise of its function; proposing cases of death or harmful conduct for review; determining resources—we all know that the way to render a new institution impotent is to limit its funding and powers, and there is scope for both here; determining applications for immunity; monitoring the work of the commission; and guarding access to information.
The Secretary of State can rule that information is
“protected international information … which … if disclosed generally might, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, damage international relations.”
The Constitution Committee observes that Clause 4(1) prohibits the commission doing anything that might “prejudice … national security”. There is no provision for the review of any national security claims made by the Secretary of State.
Clause 2 provides for the work of the commission. The language of Bills is normally very carefully chosen. As has been said, the need for proper investigations of Troubles-related deaths was previously acknowledged, and the language has changed in the Bill. The functions of the commission include the review of deaths and harmful conduct and the production of reports on the review of each death. Reviews are not investigations; they are conducted to help a senior investigating officer who is investigating a crime, or is proposing to investigate an unsolved crime, to detect that crime by identifying lines of inquiry. There is national best practice for how to do a review so that it is thorough, is conducted with integrity and objectivity, looks at all investigative opportunities and makes recommendations for further investigation. Reviews are there to assist investigation, not to substitute for it. They should result in further investigation, not just final reports. I do not believe that it is an accident that the word “review” has suddenly appeared in the Bill.
One of the requirements under Article 2 for investigating the crimes of the Troubles, especially those crimes in which a state agent or actor has been involved— although many served with honour, there were hundreds of these crimes—is that the investigation be independent. Taken together, the structures created by the Bill restrict and inhibit the operational independence of the commission. The right to independent investigation is guaranteed, not only through the convention on human rights but through the Good Friday agreement and, most recently, Article 2 of the protocol, which provides for no diminution of our human rights. Your Lordships have been debating with great interest the effect of Article 2 in the protocol debate.
International bodies and eminent experts do not accept that the structures created in this Bill will satisfy the UK’s international and legal obligations. The powers available to the commission do not even appear to include unfettered use of police powers—the powers of the Secretary of State seem to extend even to the use of those powers. This Bill does not provide the existing right of access to information held by state bodies. There is an obligation on state bodies only to provide information and documents that are “reasonably required”. As Police Ombudsman, I had a right to all information held by the PSNI. In other cases, I had to seek information from state agencies such as the MoD, MI5 and GCHQ. Sometimes they were helpful; on other occasions they were not. More recently, as a member of the international steering group for Operation Kenova—I have been there for nearly seven years—investigating the activities of the republican state agent known as “Stakeknife”, I have seen the difficulties experienced by this investigation, which was commissioned by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. It is not a new problem. The language of this Bill will make the work of information retrieval from the state much more difficult.
Under the Bill, in addition to his other powers, the Secretary of State gives guidance as to the identification of sensitive information. Sensitive information includes anything held by GCHQ, MI5, the MoD, the Army, the PSNI and any British police force. The Secretary of State can issue regulations on the holding and handling of that information. Those regulations may create criminal offences. The Constitution Committee has said that this provision is constitutionally unacceptable because criminal offences should be created in the Bill itself, not by negative resolution, where there is no provision for amendment. In addition, the holding and handling of such information can be regulated by the Secretary of State, and they can even provide for biometric information to be destroyed.
The decision as to reasonableness—the Bill refers to information that is “reasonably required”—will be made by the state agencies, not by the commission. In many cases, I am sure that the MoD, MI5 and GCHQ will decline to provide access to much of the information they have. They will say this is necessary because the material is secret, or its disclosure may put lives or methodologies at risk. I have seen material classified as secret which should not have been. I saw that most recently when I was investigating the Metropolitan Police. The European Court of Human Rights has found that determinations of national security threats must not be arbitrary and must contain sufficient safeguards to give the individual adequate protection against arbitrary interference. I have seen methodologies protected that are no longer relevant. It is most unlikely that the commissioner will get access to what they need for review, or even for investigation.
We must add to these difficulties and restrictions the fact that the commission must grant immunity to a person who has requested it, and who has given an account of their own conduct that formed part of the Troubles that was true to the best of their knowledge and belief. Immunity is not possible for Troubles-related sexual offences. Both the Delegated Powers Committee and the Constitution Committee have said that the power given to the Secretary of State to define sexual offences should be removed from the Bill. But what sort of regime prohibits immunity for sexual offences but grants immunity to murderers?
The Secretary of State can issue guidance on making a request for immunity or determining whether an immunity applicant’s conduct falls within the legislation and is criminal conduct, et cetera. The Delegated Powers Committee says that the statutory guidance should be subject to parliamentary procedure. The Constitution Committee suggests that your Lordships may wish to consider whether the guidance should be incorporated in the Bill. There is no requirement to inform victims or family members of a request for immunity or the outcome of that request. Victims, family members or interested persons cannot provide information to inform the commission’s immunity decisions. In many cases, the families of murder victims have gathered vast amounts of information about the murder of their loved one which they could provide to the commission, as they have in the past provided it to me, and which might demonstrate that the applicant has not told the whole truth about his or her own criminality.
The Government, in response to the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, said that they would expect the commission to inform families and that
“information about the granting of immunity should also be included in the published family reports”.
The whole immunity process will be vested in secrecy. There will be no transparency and no accessible accountability for the decisions made.
We also know that accounts given to members of families by those who were involved in the murders of their loved ones are very often inaccurate and sometimes wrong. The harm caused to families by inaccurate information cannot be overstated. There is no penalty for an offender not telling what they really know, although this may change. Where there cannot be a prosecution of an individual because they have immunity, that will impact on the ability to prosecute others for that offence, just as there have been difficulties in prosecuting pursuant to the operation of the current arrangements for assisting offenders under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act.
Even if the commissioner were to get access to information, to attempt to deal with the complications involving a request for immunity and to proceed to a review using police powers with a view to making a submission, there are very restrictive provisions as to the disclosure which may be made by the commission. In particular, paragraph 3 of Schedule 5 permits disclosure to a range of persons—the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Lord Advocate, a member of the police force, coroners, judges—but the Secretary of State must be notified. What is the purpose of notifying the Secretary of State? What is the Secretary of State going to do with the information? Why should case-sensitive information be disclosed in this way, rather than, for example, being dealt with under the normal rules for disclosure in prosecutions?
Paragraph 4 of Schedule 5 requires that proposed disclosure be notified to the Secretary of State, and he can then give consent for disclosure or withhold it if it would prejudice national security. Again, there is no clarity as to how this might impact on disclosure to the defence or, indeed, the prosecution in any criminal trial. What will be the impact of this provision? Can the Minister reassure the House that this will not have the potential to result in prohibition of the disclosure of material relevant to a prosecution? More importantly, what will the perception be of the victims?
These are not normal provisions. They build in delay. The Secretary of State has up to 60 days to make his first decision and 60 days to make his second decision, and that is for one piece of information. I can tell noble Lords that there are multiple pieces of sensitive information involved in any case. The power of the commissioner to submit a case for prosecution will be severely compromised by these provisions.
I have a few final points. The commission is charged to produce a historical record of the remaining deaths—those which it did not investigate. How will this record be created when there is no investigation? We already have that wonderful book, Lost Lives, which so many of us have used, which tells the story of every death of the Troubles. Will this process add anything to that work? Given that the commission’s work can be concluded or shut down
“if the Secretary of State is satisfied that the need … has ceased”,
the question must be, can the Minister confirm that the commission will be funded until its work is completed and that the work of the commission itself will not be terminated after five years? Cases will run on after the five years.
Our history is very complex. Somehow, a situation evolved in which the police, the Army and MI5, having successfully infiltrated terrorist organisations, lost their way. There grew a time when many of the agents of the state currently under investigation were allowed to carry on their involvement in terrorism to preserve them as agents. People died because of this, and it should not have happened. Even when they admitted their crimes to their handlers, they were just sent back on the street. As this emerged, as people began to realise that their loved ones had been murdered by people such as informants—agents of the state who had not been dealt with—there grew an ongoing sense of betrayal in both communities.
There were of course also cases in which members of the police and Army were involved in crime. I emphasise that I know that most officers served honourably. I dealt with so many of them in my time; I lectured them. I remember giving evidence to a Diplock court against an IRA man who had been gathering information against judges and police officers, with a view to a spectacular shooting. That was a difficult thing to do, but it had to be done.
All I want to do in my work on this Bill is to try and help noble Lords to ensure that it will provide justice and enable hope for the people who, like so many of our noble colleagues, have suffered so much through the Troubles.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the moving and forensic speech of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan.
I hesitated before putting my name down to speak because I cannot claim the knowledge of Northern Ireland that other noble Lords can. Having had the privilege of being a member of the independent Opsahl commission that considered the future of Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and having visited numerous times subsequently, I took very seriously the passionate opposition to this Bill voiced in a number of quarters. I apologise for any repetition, but I hope it will serve to reinforce the case against the Bill.
I intend to make just two general points, relating to human rights compliance and to the failure to listen to the virtually unanimous opposition to the Bill in Northern Ireland, reflected in my noble friend’s amendment. These two fundamental concerns support the conclusion of the Joint Committee on Human Rights that the Government should “reconsider its whole approach”. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, which I thank for a very useful meeting the other week, argues that the Bill requires
“immediate and thorough reassessment, which should take place through meaningful engagement. The result should be victim-centred and human rights compliant”.
Its view is that
“this is not delivered by the present Bill”,
and nor can it be simply by means of a few amendments. This is a pretty damning conclusion from the official body established to advise on human rights matters in Northern Ireland.
On human rights, the JCHR voices its agreement with stakeholders that the Bill is unlikely to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights. It expresses serious doubts as to its compatibility with Articles 2 and 3, but also with Articles 6 and 13—the right to a fair trial and to an effective remedy—despite the former Secretary of State’s statement that the Bill is compatible with convention rights. One of those stakeholders, Amnesty, describes the Bill as a “flagrant breach” of human rights obligations. The NIHRC expresses grave concern and focuses in particular on what it considers to be the Bill’s incompatibility with Articles 2 and 3, and by extension suggests that the Bill contravenes the Belfast/Good Friday and Stormont agreements. It suggests that there is “little evidence that expert views on human rights compliance were meaningfully considered.” The Minister’s welcome, conciliatory speech offers some hope that they have, to some extent, been so now, but as colleagues have said, we need to see the detail, and it is not just about Article 2 compliance.
A briefing from Freedom from Torture and Survivors Speak OUT warns that the Bill “provides impunity for torture” and in doing so breaches the UK’s obligations under multiple international treaties, including the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It quotes the Committee against Torture, which has made clear that in order to ensure that perpetrators of torture do not enjoy impunity, state parties must
“ensure the investigation and, where appropriate, the prosecution of those accused of having committed the crime of torture, and ensure that amnesty laws exclude torture from their reach.”
The briefing explains: “We know as torture survivors that seeking justice helps recovery by affirming the unfairness of what we endured, restoring some control”, yet the Bill “silences victims and survivors”. Liberty makes similar criticisms and dismisses the attempt in the ECHR memorandum to the Bill to argue that it is consistent with the UK’s obligations under the convention against torture.
The Constitution Committee echoes concerns raised about the Bill’s implications for the UK’s international obligations and the rule of law, and it quotes criticisms voiced by two UN special rapporteurs and the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights. The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has urged a fundamental rethink of the Bill, as my noble friend Lady Ritchie pointed out.
The Constitution Committee also notes, as the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, said,
“the strength of opposition to the Bill—particularly by victims—which risks undermining its aim of addressing the past and promoting reconciliation.”
That is such an important point. In his letter to Peers, the Minister stated that “the Secretary of State engaged widely and listened to many different views”, but this is not how those affected see it. To the extent that the then Secretary of State did engage—and that is disputed in relation to the drawing up of the Bill itself—he may have listened, but he certainly did not take on board what he must have heard.
According to the NIHRC,
“the Bill does not reflect the views of 17,000 consultees who engaged with the NIO on the previous legacy bill and is staunchly opposed within NI, including among victims, survivors and their families.”
It suggested that public confidence is lacking due to the Government forging ahead with the Bill without “meaningful consultation”. As far as I can tell, apart from possibly a small group of veterans and the Malone House Group, no organisation or political party in Northern Ireland supports the Bill. I acknowledge that veterans—whose views are reported by the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner—tended to be more equivocal and show what the commissioner terms “begrudging acceptance”. Nevertheless, he also makes clear that veterans
“do not want an amnesty”.
Indeed, an invitation to a meeting with bereaved families of British Army soldiers said that they feel “deeply aggrieved” that the protection of veterans is said to be the justification for the Bill.
The Constitution Committee warns:
“It is constitutionally inappropriate for such a significant measure to pass without consent”,
which is clearly lacking at present, regardless of whether or not the Assembly sits.
Could the Minister explain why the Government are railroading the Bill through despite such widespread and fundamental opposition? This opposition calls for more than the few improvements that the current Secretary of State himself acknowledged are needed when answering Oral Questions a couple of weeks ago, and which the Minister has suggested would lead to amendments being tabled before Committee. Welcome as that acknowledgement is, I am not sure that it reflects an understanding of how fundamental the opposition to the Bill is.
Surely the Government cannot believe that reconciliation can be achieved by imposing it in this form on an unwilling population. Reconciliation requires treading carefully. As the then Secretary of State noted when introducing the Bill’s Second Reading in the Commons, it concerns the
“most difficult and sensitive of issues.” —[Official Report, Commons, 24/5/22; col. 176.]
The Bill may have succeeded in uniting Northern Ireland’s political parties and civil society groups, but unity in opposition to the denial of justice and internationally recognised human rights does not offer a path to genuine reconciliation.
Could the Minister explain why the Government, in drawing up the Bill, have ignored the advice of bodies established to provide advice on human rights issues? In this context, could he respond to the request made by Simon Hoare MP, chair of the Northern Ireland Select Committee, at the Commons Second Reading that, in order to assure the House that the Bill is Article 2-compliant without “setting a precedent”, the Government give
“active consideration to putting Treasury counsel’s advice on this matter in the Library”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/5/22; col. 195.]
The then Minister of State did not respond in his summing up and it seems that we are expected to accept a simple assertion that the Bill is compliant, despite all the advice we have received to the contrary from the JCHR, NIHRC and others. Indeed, he ignored the whole issue of human rights, despite concerns raised by the former Secretary of State, Julian Smith, who I know earned considerable respect in Northern Ireland.
The Minister’s letter to Peers claims that the Bill fulfils a manifesto commitment to address the legacy of Northern Ireland’s past through providing better outcomes for victims, survivors and their families, giving veterans the protection they deserve, and helping Northern Ireland’s society to look to the future, which I think was reflected in his speech today. These are admirable aims, but I do not know of anyone outside of the Government who believes that this Bill achieves them.
The JCHR, the NIHRC and the Northern Ireland Victims and Survivors Commissioner have asked the Government to think again. Informed by the view of victims and survivors, the commissioner expresses deep unhappiness and warns that the legislation is
“fundamentally flawed, and is not victim and survivor centred.”
In a letter to me, he explains that
“no-one I have met believes that the Bill is going to help heal or reconcile,”
and in a recent letter to the Daily Telegraph he states:
“A draconian Bill, designed by one party in splendid isolation, is not the way forward, and it is not what our victims and survivors need.”
The JCHR spells out what alternative legislation would need to look like. It would ensure first that
“investigations are independent, effective, timely, involve next of kin, and are subject to public scrutiny; (ii) perpetrators of serious human rights violations are held to account; and (iii) that all possible avenues for the pursuit of justice and the provision of an effective remedy are available to victims and their families.”
Many in Northern Ireland believe that it should reflect the Stormont agreement which, while not perfect, I believe commanded sufficient support to offer a way forward, despite what the Minister said in his speech.
While I welcome the fact that the new Secretary of State and the Minister are engaging in a way that should have happened before the Bill was drafted, I can think only that they will have heard a clear message that it is not fit for purpose. It will not achieve the Government’s aims, but it will create considerable resentment and unhappiness among those it purports to help. It should be withdrawn—or at the very least, as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, said, should be paused—so that the Government can go back to the drawing board and return with a Bill that is human rights compliant and can command support among victims and survivors of the conflict. They deserve no less.
Lord Bew (CB)
My Lords, I want to say some words in favour of this Bill. One might assume that we had a situation at present that was viable. I very much sympathise with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and others who have looked at the word “reconciliation” and said that it is tossed around in the Bill in a way that is not entirely convincing, to put it politely. I absolutely understand that, but the truth is that we have an entirely rancid situation in Northern Ireland. The continuation of lawfare is just a contributory to what is perfectly obvious to anybody who pays the most casual attention to public opinion in Northern Ireland: there is an increasing mutual contempt between the two communities. There is a reason why the Government are trying to introduce this Bill. I fully accept the point from the noble Lord, Lord McInnes, that in part it is to do with a manifesto commitment and the issue of veterans, but it is also to do with the fact that the status quo is simply not tolerable, and in our discussions I think we should acknowledge that.
I was very impressed by the introduction to the Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Caine, not just because of the careful and calibrated way in which he spoke and acknowledged the difficulty, even the anguished way he spoke, but also the precise way that he spoke. But he did not really have much effect on the broader tone of the debate. As the debate went on, we learnt that the Bill was obscene and again and again it was said that it was depriving people of hope.
The noble Lord, Lord Hain, talked about Pinochet’s Chile. Perhaps it is because I was at Cambridge with people who suffered under Pinochet, I thought that was a slight stretch. I accept that the noble Lord was a remarkably effective Secretary of State. He has made it clear tonight that he is on a journey and that he has now modified some of the positions he previously held on this matter in the light of his hopes for what might come from the Boutcher inquiry. I must say, as someone who knows Jon Boutcher, that that is a big wager; it is a Pascal’s wager of a big sort that that inquiry will somehow challenge the terms of this debate, for all the brilliance of his police work. Everybody who knows about his career in London knows that he was—indeed, still is—a very fine policeman.
This language is striking and so different from the tone that the noble Lord, Lord Caine, adopted in an attempt to be precise and face up to difficulties. Again and again tonight, reference has been made to the fact that there were sexual crimes. In fact, the Government have tried to move on this; it is there, but you would not know it from anything that been said in the past two or three hours.
The crucial thing, above all, is that I find myself thinking again and again about the friend of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, at the time of the initial report, which he has talked about so eloquently tonight. Everybody knows that his friend, Denis Bradley, is no particular friend to British Governments. When this Bill was published and it was clear that the Government were going to act in this way, did Denis Bradley talk about “obscene”? Did he talk about depriving people of hope? No. He went into a television studio and, to the annoyance of people who expected him to use that sort of language, he said, “There is no realistic hope. Politicians are merely playing a game if they try to defend the idea that there is hope somehow. They are making a public display. They are actually misleading people.”
It is important to remember the tone with which he spoke at that time. He said, “We cannot deliver more justice now, but we may be able to deliver more truth”; again, that is part of the thinking behind the Bill. That is what Denis Bradley said in the immediate aftermath of this Bill’s publication—quite different from the tone of so much of what has been said tonight, but at least it respected what the Government are trying to do. I am absolutely certain that, if he were here tonight, he would say, “There are loads of things in this Bill that I really don’t like,” but that is a different point. The noble Lord, Lord Caine, has already acknowledged that there are problems in the Bill and creative work will have to be done to sort it out. However, given the tone of what we have heard, it is worth remembering Denis Bradley’s initial response.
Again, the reason why I am sympathetic to the sceptical talk about reconciliation is that I was a historical adviser to the Bloody Sunday tribunal. As historical advisers, we all thought, “This is it. The Government’s great failing is that they won’t fess up to the things they or the state did wrong. We will put a line under it.” When the report came in, David Cameron made a fine speech, partly drafted by the noble Lord, Lord Caine, fessing up to what the British state had got wrong. The hope was, “Well, that’s it. That’s a dividing line. People will accept that we’re not afraid to criticise ourselves or our state’s performance.” The hope was that things would move on and the mood in Northern Ireland would change, but the mood did not change at all. It is as simple as that. I accept that it was a fine industry for the lawyers who worked in it, but the mood of the people did not change at all and the impact that David Cameron was aiming for in his speech ultimately amounted to zero. I am prepared to accept that it would have been worse had he not given that speech. But that is why I accept the talk that it is going to be difficult to achieve reconciliation and why I respond so sympathetically to what the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, said.
However, it is important to understand that the status quo is radically unacceptable, defective, and helping to create an increasingly rancid and divisive public mood in Northern Ireland. At this point, the Bill has unified both communities, but it is a false unity. They each simply want the terrorists of the other community to be brought to law. The unity disclaimed against the Bill is not a real unity.
What has surprised me most this evening is how the Supreme Court ruling in the McQuillan case in December 2021 has not been discussed in any serious way. It has a very significant impact. The headline in the Times law report on 10 January stated that the Supreme Court had said that Northern Ireland police are not required to reinvestigate incidents from the Troubles. That is not being said by the Minister or the British Government, and nor is it a clause in this Bill. It is a very firm statement of Supreme Court policy.
I am sure that there is debate about this, and that many do not like or accept it, but it is a Supreme Court—
Baroness O'Loan (CB)
Does the noble Lord accept that the Times headline writer might not have been quite accurate, and that the judgment in the McQuillan case might have been slightly more complicated than that?
Lord Bew (CB)
It is no more inaccurate than any other headline that I have seen. I accept that it is a complex ruling. However, the Northern Ireland police force issued a statement after the judgment:
“The Police Service welcome the clear legal ruling that there are no legal obligations arising from Article 2 ECHR to investigate these cases. We will now carefully consider the judgments and their impact on the legacy caseload.”
The Government have been attacked for depriving people of hope but, at the minimum, fairness requires us to say that the Supreme Court is depriving people of hope. Only this week we have had an attempt to assassinate two policemen, and serious business with loyalist paramilitaries. Anyone who thinks that the Northern Ireland police force does not look at that ruling and think it significant—and significant enough to be mentioned in this debate—is living in cloud-cuckoo-land. Yet apparently, no one thinks that because it is better to say that this Bill is obscene, is depriving people of hope, et cetera.
I am insistent because we have a problem. The public debate in Northern Ireland now—the way that lawfare operates and the way that these cases are now exhumed on a regular basis, which the Government are responding to—does not relate to what happened in the Troubles. To give a very simple example, the RUC, as was, suffered 309 deaths. It killed 53 people, including 10 of its own in error, carrying heavy weapons in police cars and so on. RUC officers were killed at five or six times the rate of their killing. This is very crude but factual. The killings committed by the republican movement were something like five times the rate of their own deaths, but no one would know that if they looked at the cases running through the courts in Northern Ireland, and at how lawfare was operating. No one would consider that to be the balance of killing and of suffering. Nobody would know that.
That is the problem that we are trying to address with this Bill and why I am willing to give it a degree of support. It is not in doubt that there are problems with the Bill. The Minister has made it clear that the problems are significant. The House can do a lot of work to improve it. Yet everyone must remember that the Bill does not exist on its own but alongside a Supreme Court ruling that unquestionably moves the dice—moves the balance. There is no question that it does that. It may not move it 100%. There may be requirements for other developments, but it certainly moves the discussion in a way that we have not acknowledged in several hours of debate tonight.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, perhaps I should declare my position as a former Times headline writer, from which I am able to confirm that the headlines very often do not reflect the nuance of a story—or, indeed, quite often the facts.
I rise to make a modest and short intervention in this enormously powerful debate. One of my chief reasons for doing so is to reinforce a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, in her presentation of her amendment. The noble Baroness said this Bill is
“opposed by the widest possible political coalition.”
My remarks today come after a close consultation with the Green Party of Northern Ireland. The words are my own, but I received from the Green Party of Northern Ireland a very clear message, as reflected in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, that this Bill should not go forward.
That is also the message I have personally received here in meetings with victims’ families in Westminster. I also note that, while we are focusing on the Bill, we are debating an amendment to a Second Reading. In my three years in your Lordships’ House, I have taken part in many debates—something the Whips often comment upon—but I have never seen this form before, and I think that is a reflection of the general feeling of the House.
I will acknowledge, as have many others, that the Minister has approached this debate in a conciliatory spirit and has clearly expressed his personal position, and I think the House collectively has thanked him for that. But that does not get us away from the fact that the Government are putting before us an unacceptable Bill. That is the view that has been expressed around your Lordships’ House and, indeed, around Northern Ireland.
An amnesty is not the answer. There is no appetite for it in Northern Ireland, from victims, veterans, political parties or former police officers. An amnesty is the negation of criminal and civil liability. Linking the avoidance of prosecution to any truth recovery body or mechanism undermines the credibility of that body.
The problem is not the awkwardness of its title, much as the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery is indeed a terrible mouthful, but, again, speaking as a former journalist, often when you see awkwardness in expression and explanation, that is an indication of underlying problems with the whole approach.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, says that this is a Bill that allows murderers to get away with murder. I am going to speak personally here, as I am still recovering from and processing in my own mind a visit last week to Ukraine: to Kyiv, Bucha and Irpin. That is where I saw unmistakeable evidence of war crimes and atrocity. To be absolutely clear, I am not making a comparison between the conflicts but I am making a comparison between two societies with a burning desire for justice.
In Ukraine, the international community and the Ukrainians themselves, even in the midst of an attempt to wipe their state off the face of the earth—something we have seen with increased hideousness even today—are making strenuous efforts to document crimes and collect evidence, to ensure that there is a possibility, however distant, for future justice.
The UN assistance mission told me at the weekend that it had reports of 47,700 potential war crimes. That desire for justice—to ensure full legal acknowledgement of what has happened, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, put it—is a reflection of the impact on ordinary families and people’s lives. That cannot be forgotten, no matter how many years have passed.
I was particularly taken by the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, when she was talking about the impact of family loss on a six year-old boy. On the sleeper train back from Kyiv I shared a compartment with a Ukrainian family with a boy of about that age. You could see the impact that the war had had on that child’s life, and that will obviously continue right through his life. That is what we are looking at in the Northern Ireland situation today.
I also bring that in because it is important that we consider that we are operating in an international context, in which the rule of law and human rights are under concerted attack. As the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and many others have said, independent sources have judged the Bill to be in breach of Article 2, “Right to life”, and Article 3, “Prohibition of torture”, of the ECHR.
It is not my place or, I suggest, that of this House to propose alternatives. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, said, the way forward must have the support and full input of those affected. Moreover, the solution should be co-created with them. It has been said to me in these discussions that, if I am going to oppose this, I have to provide a solution instead. I do not think that is something that your Lordships’ House can do. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, said that the Bill needs to be completely rewritten. I agree with the sentiment, but I propose that this is not something that the Government are in a position to do, particularly now. It needs much broader and more democratic input.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, my noble friend Lady O’Loan provided an analysis of the Bill in granular detail. We have heard remarkable speeches from Members of all sides of your Lordships’ House and particularly from Northern Ireland. We have heard from noble Lords, and will hear from others, who have held high office in Northern Ireland. My noble and right reverend friend Lord Eames said that he was glad that some who are not from Northern Ireland spoke in the debate. We just heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and before her from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. Now, I hope the House will listen to a few words from me.
For the best part of two decades, I represented a constituency in the city of Liverpool, which some wags refer to as the other capital of Ireland. Liverpool has a history of sectarianism but, in recent times, it has a different story to tell of reconciliation. My friend the sculptor Stephen Broadbent made a remarkable statue called the “Reconciliation Triangle” and two more, one in Glasgow and one in Belfast. Why did we do that? It was to explain something of the tarnished divisions that had disfigured the stories of our and other people’s cities. It was an attempt to understand one another’s stories and to stand in each other’s shoes.
My interest in British-Irish affairs has its antecedents in my origins, as is the case with thousands of people who live on this side of the Irish Sea. My father was one of five brothers who served in the Armed Forces in the Second World War. One was in the Royal Air Force and was killed. My grandfather served in the First World War, but my mother was from a Gaeltacht, an Irish-speaking area, in the west of Ireland. Irish was her first language. Growing up in family that had to live across the religious divide and across different traditions, I had some experience of the way in which it would take several decades for the old prejudices of the early 1950s to dissipate.
The need for reconciliation was also something I saw throughout my years as a city councillor and as a Member of Parliament for the city of Liverpool, when sectarianism was still part of its politics. It took patience, time and commitment to make progress. Some called it the “Mersey miracle”.
In the 1980s, as Irish affairs spokesman in the House of Commons for the SDP-Liberal Alliance, I worked on the alliance report What Future for Northern Ireland? with the late Baroness Shirley Williams of Crosby and the late Lords, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge and Lord Hunt of Llanfair Waterdine—the conqueror of Everest. We travelled together to Northern Ireland in the course of preparing that report. In it, in 1985, we were unanimous in trenchantly advancing the arguments for devolution and power-sharing. That is the issue I most want to talk about in my brief intervention.
In a leading article in 1985, the Irish Times said that the report was
“one of the most important documents published on the Anglo-Irish question in recent years … it shows signs of hard work, rigorous thinking, and a commendable attempt at objective analysis. The report set out in detail how power sharing could work and was forthright in defence of civil rights and the rule of law including the conduct of justice.”
We published that report believing that power-sharing and devolution were the only way we would ensure that the hopes, fears and aspirations of both parts of the community could be met. Short-circuiting devolution and power-sharing by pushing on with yet another Westminster Bill is simply disempowering of devolution. It is emasculating of power-sharing. It is disrespectful of opinion in Northern Ireland and those represented, most especially the victims who should be at the heart of the Bill. I strongly believe that there should be no Committee stage of the Bill until the Assembly in Northern Ireland is restored, and until it has first considered this Bill, providing for the pause that my noble and right reverend friend Lord Eames mentioned in his earlier remarks. Bypassing Northern Ireland does not represent progress: it is retrograde and unwise, and fundamentally diminishes the principle of devolution.
In introducing the Bill today, the noble Lord, Lord Caine, in his candid, measured and very honest remarks said that you cannot force through reconciliation via legislation. But that is exactly what we are in danger of being asked to do. It is why the Commissioner for Victims and Survivors has asked us to reject these proposals. It is not just the use of the word “reconciliation”; even the words “Northern Ireland” are inadequate and insufficient. They do not recognise the nature and extent of what are also euphemistically called “the Troubles” in its title. God knows that, at its worst, the hatred and violence that we have been recalling today disfigured, maimed and caused extraordinary suffering and anguish throughout these islands.
Some 3,720 people were killed as a result of the conflict and 47,541 were injured. There were 36,923 shootings and 16,209 bombings. Who will ever forget Bloody Sunday in 1972 or the Enniskillen Poppy Day massacre in 1987? As the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, rightly reminded us, there are still those who glorify violence and those who perpetrate it. Yes, the Bill is entitled the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, but the ramifications and consequences of three decades of unspeakable violence have been felt by individuals, families and communities way beyond Northern Ireland.
Noble Lords will recall the deaths, injuries, and millions of pounds’ worth of damage in 1996 at Canary Wharf and in the Manchester shopping precinct, or the Provisional Irish Republican Army’s attempt in 1984 to murder the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and members of her Cabinet at the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Five were left dead and 31 injured, among them our noble friend Lord Tebbit and his wife Margaret, who was left paralysed from the chest down. I am privileged to share an office with the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, who has been here for most of this debate today; of course, an attempt was made on his life, too, in 1972. The noble Lord, Lord Caine, referred to the death of Ian Gow, with whom I served in another place, but in 1979, just 24 hours after I was elected to the House of Commons for that Liverpool division, Airey Neave, the shadow spokesman for Northern Ireland, was murdered here, within these precincts, when a bomb was fixed underneath his car by the INLA.
In my maiden speeches in both Houses, I reflected on the futility and unacceptability of such violence and was able to point to long, and ultimately successful, attempts in Liverpool to lay to rest sectarian ghosts and learn the art of respecting difference. It was why, on taking up my responsibilities as a spokesman, I spent a lot of time with Northern Ireland MPs, whom I enormously admire for their commitment to finding non-violent ways forward. I echo something that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said earlier when he referred to his visit to Crossmaglen. It was a place I visited with Seamus Mallon, the SDLP MP for Newry and Armagh, who played such an important part with John Hume and David Trimble in bringing about the Good Friday agreement.
The defining moment for me—and, I suspect, for John Major, when he was Prime Minister—came in February 1993, when we both attended the funeral of the boys murdered in Warrington after the Provisional IRA left bombs in the high street. Fifty-four were injured and a 13 year-old and a 12 year-old boy, Johnathan Ball and Tim Parry, were killed. Out of that tragedy, Tim’s father created a peace initiative to promote greater understanding among all communities affected by conflict and to deepen understanding between Great Britain and Ireland. Out of it also came new initiatives from Sir John Major, on which Tony Blair was able to build after 1997.
Not all of us will be able to find it in our hearts to seek reconciliation, or offer forgiveness like Gordon Wilson did in the aftermath of the murder of his daughter at Enniskillen—or, for that matter, like Her late Majesty did in 2011 when she set aside the 1979 murder of the Duke of Edinburgh’s uncle, Lord Mountbatten, to seek with President Mary McAleese a different context for our future relationships. No Act of Parliament could have legislated for that, and no Act of Parliament will ever be able to legislate for reconciliation or forgiveness.
That is why I believe that issues such as those contained in the Bill should first be debated in Northern Ireland and that its elected representatives should be given the first say in what should happen next. It is simply not good enough for Westminster to emasculate devolution, as it is inclined to do, by taking to itself decisions which were intended to be settled by Stormont. The continuation of that process will destroy devolution, not expedite its restoration. As the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, said, we need to tread with great care and re-engage the institutions of Northern Ireland.
I have just one more thing to add. If this Bill goes further, I think many of us will feel forced to table amendments and, in effect, oppose it. That is not in anybody’s interest at this time. I recall the way in which leaders from both parties in both Houses worked with one another to bring about the Good Friday agreement. This is a moment to stop and to exercise some wisdom, rather than try to rush pell-mell with legislation which, as we have heard today, is resisted by people right across the divide. It might be, as the noble Lord, Lord Bew, said, that this is not something about which the detail is agreed. People are opposed to it. We have to work with the grain. That requires us to endeavour to work with those in Northern Ireland by giving them the first say and to work for the restoration of the institutions there before pressing on with this legislation.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
My Lords, two or three times a year I attend, for reasons unconnected with this Bill, human rights meetings of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. The committee’s function is to supervise the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. Its members are neither lefty lawyers drunk on the elixir of judicial power nor campaigners for human rights—far from it. They are the ambassadors of the member states, representatives of the Governments who routinely have to respond to human rights claims brought against them, either in their domestic courts or in Strasbourg. As potential defendants themselves, each has a strong interest in ensuring that any measures required for compliance are practical—there but for the grace of God go they.
The committee’s workload, brought from 46 countries, is immense, but it has chosen to make this Bill, in the context of the McKerr judgment, one of its very small handful of top priorities. It has been debated anxiously and at length in successive quarterly meetings. This September, the committee urged the Government to amend the Bill, including by—I quote its decision—ensuring that
“the ICRIR is independent and seen to be independent; ensuring that the disclosure provisions unambiguously require full disclosure to be given to the ICRIR; ensuring that the Bill adequately provides for the participation of victims and families, transparency and public scrutiny”.
The committee also urged the Government to reconsider the scheme for immunity and expressed “serious concern” about the arbitrary way in which ongoing inquests are dealt with. It will debate the Bill again next month.
The committee’s decision represents a consensus that Articles 2 and 3 as interpreted by the court require the Bill to be substantially amended in precisely the respects that have been identified by a wide spectrum of opinion, and not only legal opinion, here at home: consultation, independence, disclosure, participation, transparency and immunity.
Those concerns are close to those of the Commission for Victims and Survivors and reflect the principles that have been deployed to such good effect by Operation Kenova. Jon Boutcher’s remarkable work, and its legacy to date of more than 30 cases awaiting the decision of prosecutors, is proof that effective independent investigation can take place in a fully human rights compliant manner.
I invite the attention of noble Lords to the independent review of human rights compliance conducted last year for Kenova by Alyson Kilpatrick, who was my special adviser in Northern Ireland when I served as Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and is now the chief commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. Ms Kilpatrick concludes of Kenova:
“without any hesitation, that in so far as Article 2 ECHR compliance is concerned, it is the exemplar of what such an investigation should, and can, be”.
So human rights compliance is attainable, even to the satisfaction of somebody the noble Lord, Lord Hain, rightly described as an exacting judge.
From these Benches, I can only guess at the political pressures the Minister is facing. He was an invaluable guide to me when I first started to visit Northern Ireland, he is engaged with us and he has given an impressive and heartfelt speech today. But this is not a happy time for the protection of human rights in this country. We somehow seem to be sleepwalking into a depressing world in which legal obligations are there not to be simply followed but rather to be taken into account, and in which Downing Street sources can be quoted as saying that the proposed Bill of Rights
“would allow UK courts to ignore European case law more often”—
as if departure from the international norms that we have done so much to create and to export across Europe is some sort of badge of honour.
In Northern Ireland, of course, the European convention is central to the political settlement and is understood by all communities in a way that is not always the case in England. If an excessively relaxed attitude to legal requirements cannot be eradicated from our political culture, let us at least ensure that it is excluded from the Bill.
We owe a great debt to the Joint Committee on Human Rights for its constructive work on these issues since the Bill left the Commons. The Constitution Committee has referred approvingly to its concerns. It was good to hear that the Government have sympathy with some of those concerns, though not, on the basis of what we have heard so far, those relating to the most fundamental issues in Part 3 of the Bill. In that connection, I hope the Minister will agree to reconsider the arbitrary distinction drawn between inquests in which a substantive hearing has or has not begun.
The elephant in the room is the issue of immunities for criminal investigation and prosecution for unlawful killings and torture. The McQuillan case is of course relevant to that issue, but not conclusive of it. I believe it is perfectly realistic to suppose that decisions to charge for Troubles-related crimes may be possible in England as well as in Northern Ireland and perhaps elsewhere.
I recall that even the overseas operations Act 2021, which caused your Lordships a good deal of unease and was substantially amended in this House, provided only for a presumption against prosecution, not for immunity. That Act affects the prosecution only of British forces. This Bill, as we have heard, will predominantly affect the holding to account of terrorists for their crimes. There seems to be something not quite right there. The Minister has indicated flexibility, and it sounds as though he may need it.
Let us turn over the stones that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, mentioned in his moving speech. The current situation is far from ideal, and the Bill too will not be ideal—but I hope we will end up with something we can live with.
Lord Browne of Belmont (DUP)
My Lords, today we have heard from many noble Lords of their personal experiences of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. We have listened to the long list of the atrocities carried out by terrorists, leading to death, injury and suffering of innocent persons. I could add to that list, but the point that victims deserve justice has been well made.
For much of the past 25 years, there has been an erosion of justice when it comes to dealing with the troubled past in Northern Ireland. For many innocent victims of terror in Northern Ireland, there has been a hope of justice, but for many justice has only ever been a repeated word, as this word has not brought results alongside it. Regrettably, this began with a process whereby terrorists were being released from prison. That was followed by comfort letters, which offered no comfort to the victims of terror. Since then, due to the slow pace of this process, many innocent victims of terror have continued to suffer and have asked of many of us the question: when will I see real justice for the murder of a loved one?
Today we are addressing the legacy of more than 30 years of violence, and of 25 years since the drafting of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. These matters deserve our fullest attention, and they deserve respect and time to consider carefully. I trust that that will be the case when the Bill reaches Committee and Report.
It would be wrong to view the Bill as the answer to the question of how we deal with the legacy of Northern Ireland’s troubled past. Regrettably, the Bill does not provide the answers to these outstanding matters. In my view, the Bill as it stands would in fact do much more harm than good to the fragile and delicate balance that exists in Northern Ireland. Ultimately, since 1998 there has been a failure to address these incredibly sensitive matters, and innocent victims have watched on as there has been an attempted rewriting of history in some very clear and obvious instances, as the noble Lord, Lord Godson, vividly illustrated in his excellent speech.
Many victims’ groups and individual victims continue to express real concerns about large parts of the Bill before us. They are understandably concerned about a process that could offer an amnesty to the victim-makers. A blanket amnesty would further add to their suffering, as it would continue to deny them the justice they seek. Across Northern Ireland, many people realistically accept that there is a limited possibility of a successful prosecution and meaningful jail term for those who carried out atrocities against their loved ones. Many innocent victims accept the harsh and regrettable reality that, 20 or 30 years on, the possibility is only very limited that they will receive justice. However, the Bill as drafted would remove that possibility altogether. There would be no possibility of jail time for bomb-making, murder or attempted murder, nor jail time for maliciously wounding a soldier. I could give examples. Because of the Bill, the limited possibility of justice would evaporate. The Bill is therefore unacceptable to victims.
In addition to the concerns over an amnesty, there is also concern about some other aspects of the Bill. Terrorists and victim-makers would be rewarded regardless of whether they stayed silent or told the truth. Surely, as a bare minimum, prosecution should be the alternative to not fully co-operating.
While every person in this nation should absolutely be equal and equally subject to the law, an opportunity has been missed to make a definitive distinction between the victim-maker and the innocent victims of their actions. For justice, there needs to be a clear definition of a victim. When no such definition exists in legislation, the danger is that we equate direct victims of terror with those who have been injured as a result of their own actions in carrying out acts of terror. Those who would be granted immunity for Troubles-related crimes or those injured by their own hands must not be defined as victims for the purpose of remembering the past. In the Bill as drafted, a blanket amnesty is set above investigations. Perhaps the most important, fundamental point of all in the Bill is that it gives more rights to the people who committed crimes during the Troubles than to the innocent victims of their crimes.
The Bill before the House today is described as a legacy and reconciliation Bill. In the eyes of many victims of terror-related offences in Northern Ireland, reconciliation remains a deeply challenging ask when the prospect of any sort of Troubles-related amnesty looms large. Many victims have said from the outset that they will struggle to support any legislation that falls short of delivering accountability and true justice. Large swathes of the Bill are inconsistent with the desire to pursue justice. If the Bill succeeds, many of those who have openly evaded the authorities for years will seemingly be able to reap the benefits of immunity.
While it is true to say that the passage of time presents obstacles and prosecutorial difficulties, the answer to this problem does not lie in arbitrarily halting routes to justice for innocent victims. Such a system would not be accepted elsewhere in this nation for criminal gang-related offences. A blockage to justice of this nature should not therefore be deemed acceptable in Northern Ireland.
Like others, I wish to see an outcome that deals with the legacy of our troubled past. We all wish for this. I acknowledge and recognise the Government’s desire to move this long and challenging process forward. However, it would be a mistake to rush through or proceed with a Bill that ultimately does more harm than good when it comes to delivering for victims of terror.
To deal with these matters adequately, fairly and proportionately, we need a transparent process in place that commands broad support across the wider community in Northern Ireland. We have not reached this point with the Bill before us. As we have said in respect of many other matters relating to Northern Ireland, agreement has been and should be built on consensus. Where there is no consensus, there cannot be a fair and balanced way forward. It is clear that consensus does not exist on supporting this Bill in its current form. I oppose the Bill as drafted, and I am sure that my noble friends will have much more to say as it proceeds to its next stage. I look forward to listening to the Minister as he winds up this debate.
Lord Sentamu (CB)
My Lords, I apologise for not putting my name down to speak. Having listened to the whole debate, I thought it would be good for your Lordships’ House if I gave a very short contribution, inspired by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The President of South Africa’s address to us yesterday gave me the confidence to contribute briefly to this debate.
First, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Caine, on his speech, which graciously tried to reconcile irreconcilable problems. I also congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge; the issues he raised and the questions he posed have to be answered. We cannot have a situation in Northern Ireland where those who committed crimes are simply pardoned and not prosecuted. The same situation is not true for England and Wales. Our law would become confused.
I commend the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for his efforts towards achieving the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. The speech of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, warmed my heart. If the Minister is wise, he will pause this Bill and ask noble Lords such as these to work out what should come before your Lordships’ House. If not, we may pass this Bill but it will not happen in Northern Ireland.
What did we learn from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu? There had been a few prosecutions of very high-ranking officials from the security forces, including the former Minister of Law and Order, Adriaan Vlok. He was given a suspended sentence following a plea bargain. Many other such cases were not prosecuted. The victims felt that the Government were strengthening impunity and that the beneficiaries of apartheid had escaped accountability for their actions. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up to try to deal with that feeling. Despite the challenges and limitations, the commission’s decision-making processes and hearings attracted global attention. It was the first commission to hold public hearings at which victims and perpetrators were heard. While amnesties were generally considered inconsistent with national law, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission provided a basis for showing that conditional amnesties were a useful compromise, particularly if they helped to secure confessions from perpetrators. If they led to a confession, there was a positive; if they did not, they did not.
This was a major departure from the sort of trial there was at Nuremberg. Although it was built on justice, the methodology was very different. It provided the world with another tool in the struggle against impunity and the search for truth and justice. The regret that Archbishop Desmond Tutu had was that it did not have “justice” in its name. It had “truth and reconciliation”; the truth was found and reconciliation was attempted but, in the end, justice was not delivered.
I took part in the Drumcree reconciliations in Northern Ireland. For me, that was a statement of public policy. Could we not enshrine in law what most people are saying we should not do and pause, like we did with the health Bill in this House, and come back with something slightly more wonderful, as the noble Lord said?
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, with that interesting comparison because everybody has said that the one thing the Bill does not do is promote reconciliation. We certainly need to have a debate about what would promote reconciliation.
I join others in showing appreciation to the Minister for his opening speech. I think we all genuinely appreciated his sincerity. When he said that the Bill is challenging for us and for him, it was pretty obvious that there was a very sincere situation. He has our sympathy, which is perhaps not what he wants, but I believe he will get engagement. What we will get at the end of it is obviously yet to be determined, but it is important to put that mark down.
Another thing that has been said is that the term “Troubles” is euphemistic. It is a terrible understatement for what was a bloody conflict. It convulsed Ireland and Northern Ireland for 30 years and has left, as we now appreciate, a tragic and very complicated legacy. It is also worth saying that while none of us who live on the mainland can possibly appreciate what it did to the communities in Northern Ireland—we have heard so much about that and all appreciate the contributions made—it has left deep scars across the whole of the United Kingdom. This is not just because of the atrocities committed in Great Britain. In so many meetings over many years just as a local MP, I heard the sense of inadequacy, guilt and despair at the conflict and the inability to bring it to an end. I think that affected people right across the UK; we were just so used to news bulletins about another bombing or shooting, and we wanted it to stop.
The Good Friday/Belfast agreement laid down hope for the whole of the UK, as well as the island of Ireland. The question now is: will we be able to celebrate the 25th anniversary of that agreement with a process of reconciliation and a functioning Executive and Assembly? That would attract well-wishers from across the world. Right now it does not look likely and if not that, what?
Reference has been made to the Stormont House agreement. I recognise that the Ulster Unionist Party said that it did not support the agreement but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, I hope it did not reject the basic principles: any legacy solution should promote reconciliation and uphold the rule of law; it should acknowledge and address the suffering of victims; it should facilitate the pursuit of justice and be human rights-compliant. That is surely not a point of contention.
The other thing we are all concerned about is the switch in the Government’s position. At the 2017 general election, the Government said:
“We … continue to believe that any approach to the past must be fully consistent with the rule of law … Conservatives in government have consistently said that we will not introduce amnesties or immunities from prosecution.”
That was said by Karen Bradley, the Secretary of State at that time, but we have had an election since and the world has changed. The Minister has been here throughout that and will of course have his own appreciation of that change and development.
I think all of us accept the views of some that the uncertainty over possible prosecutions of service and security personnel causes stress and anxiety—of course it does. But surely that does not justify setting aside human rights issues and the rule of law; it cannot do so. We have to recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, did, that the security forces did an incredible job, took huge casualties, were brave, saved lives and kept the peace, but some of them clearly did not conform. In fact, it is in the interests of the overwhelming majority who performed absolutely professionally that those who did not should not be given absolution.
It is important to say that this is not simply a domestic issue: it affects our reputation as a nation and an upholder of human rights, as the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said. We uphold human rights and the rule of law, but this has been seriously damaged by the conduct of this increasingly discredited Government who, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said, now think that law should just be taken into account, rather than respected and followed.
I was a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe—its political wing, if you like —and I am concerned when I hear debates within certain sections of the Conservative Party calling for Britain to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, alongside Belarus and Russia, the only non-members of that organisation. I am glad that Dominic Raab said that he does not think that useful, but that was not a robust defence of our membership, nevertheless. The idea that we should do that is unconscionable, and a dying Government with no mandate have no right even to consider it.
The problem, which has been mentioned, is that all of this should be happening in a debate among the elected representatives of Northern Ireland, who need to make an honest assessment of the role. We are here because they are not there, and that simply has to stop.
The Minister said that he has had many meetings recently, and I believe him; he probably listened and engaged sincerely and genuinely. But the fact is that the stakeholders are all saying that they have not been properly consulted and certainly have not been listened to, perhaps apart from in their engagement with the Minister. So we have to recognise that the Bill is supported by no one in Northern Ireland. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Bew, that it is not good enough to say that, because they all have different motives, the fact that they are united against it is not valid. For a Government to pursue a Bill that no one in Northern Ireland supports shows total contempt for devolution, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said. It is unacceptable.
Lord Bew (CB)
I absolutely take the point the noble Lord is making, but some polling suggests that significant groups on both sides of the community do want to draw a line under this dispute, to use that horrible phrase. I am not suggesting that it is a majority, but you cannot deduce from the political parties their hostility. Do not forget what I said about Denis Bradley. The parties are playing a game whereby they apparently offer justice to people, but realistically there is no chance of justice. So you cannot deduce anything from the parties’ positions. Some of the polling is more mediated, and there is the position of the veterans’ groups, which has been referred to.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
I do not for a minute dispute that people have different motives for their objections, and they may have motives that I do not like or respect. But it is indisputable that no political party in Northern Ireland supports the Bill, yet the Government say they are determined to legislate against the wishes of all of the elected representatives of Northern Ireland. I repeat: those elected representatives should be sitting in Northern Ireland—
Lord Hain (Lab)
More importantly, all of the victims’ groups are opposed to the Bill. It is quite difficult to get them to agree on anything, but they agree in their opposition to the Bill.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
I thank the noble Lord for that intervention, which is obviously important —it was my final point. The most important thing of all is that the victims should determine the shape of whatever legislation we come up with. They are the people who need to know and be consulted.
This is a distasteful point to make, but the Bill is being driven by a wing of the Conservative Party that wants to protect service personnel from prosecution, which does not help the victims in any way. I plead with the Minister and I look him straight in the eye, because I believe that he will relate to this. Whatever he comes up with—he says that he wants to amend the Bill substantially, and he will have to—it has to be something that the victims recognise and that addresses their real issues and their desire for hope and justice. He has to reconcile the rule of law, human rights and the needs of victims; that is a huge challenge. I believe that he genuinely wants to try to do it, and he deserves support and help to do so, but clearly, if he cannot, the Bill can go no further.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
My Lords, this has been a very powerful, informed and serious debate. In fact, nothing else could be graver than the issues that we have been discussing for the last number of hours. It is about life and death; it is about the whole way in which Northern Ireland has suffered for so many years. So many people have lost their lives; so many families have been bereaved; so many people have been injured and maimed in all sorts of mental and physical ways. Of course, nothing could be more important than what we have been debating this evening.
I have been involved in Northern Ireland for about 28 years now. A Welshman with an Irish background, I was called by Mo Mowlam to be her deputy back in the time of the Labour Opposition before 1997, and then I became Minister of State and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Some of the highs—indeed, the highs—of my political life have been there. The Good Friday agreement was obviously one of them. However, some of the lows were there, too, and this debate is talking about the lows. The lowest point was when I had to fly back from a holiday in France to go to Omagh and talk to all the parents of those children who had been blown up by that terrible bomb. That occurred not long after the Good Friday agreement had been signed.
I believe that everybody who has spoken in this debate spoke from the basis of great sincerity and a belief that they want to ensure that right is done in terms of where we are going on legacy and reconciliation. I have done a little tally of Members of the House who spoke on this: about 19 Members have spoken against the Bill, four have spoken absolutely in favour of it, and about four were somewhere in between. That is not a scientific or mathematical way to look at how we should deal with these matters in the House, but it is an indicator of what people—people who take a great interest in, or come from, Northern Ireland—are feeling about this hugely important subject.
I agree very much with the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Bruce, and others too, who said that we should not be doing this at all. It is not a matter for us: it is a matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Northern Ireland Executive to do. As we know, however, neither of those institutions is up and running, and that is why this House of Lords and the House of Commons have to deal with it. It is a great pity because, although I think it would probably be more difficult for political parties in Northern Ireland to deal with it, ultimately those parties in Northern Ireland own this problem and need to resolve it.
The Minister made a first-class speech, mainly because he spoke from his very great experience in Northern Ireland and knows what he is talking about. He was right to say that we could have amendments to this Bill, including amendments that the Government themselves will table to try to improve it. There are those who think that the Bill is entirely unamendable—that it is so bad that it should be dumped. I am veering that way myself, but, of course, we do not dare dump Bills in this House. We go through a Second Reading and we go through all the other stages. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and others made wonderful speeches saying in general what the principles behind the Bill are, how they are wrong and how we ought to be able to change that.
Your Lordships ran through a huge number of issues which will undoubtedly come up in Committee: immunity, the powers of the Secretary of State, human rights, the rule of law, the glorification of terrorist acts, oral history, reviews as opposed to investigation, inquests, civil litigation, and others. These are all hugely significant issues that will undoubtedly occupy us for some weeks ahead.
We talked about veterans and their importance in all this. I sometimes think we overlook the problems of veterans in Northern Ireland who, more than veterans in any other part of the United Kingdom, have been adversely affected over the past 40 years. Above all, the theme, if there is a theme of this debate, is victims. That is at the heart of this. All the organisations in Northern Ireland, so far as I can tell, including the Victims Commissioner himself, are opposed to the Bill. That should be so important in our deliberations. I think what actually underpins the objections of everybody who is against this Bill, from whatever part of the community in Northern Ireland they come, is how it deals with victims, survivors and families. All those people would feel so adversely affected and let down if the Bill, in its present form, were allowed to go through. It has lots of flaws, and we will address them in the stages to come, but the biggest one is the issue of victims. I know the Minister has met victims’ organisations, he has met victims, but at the same time, we have to understand that they are crucial to all this.
The other big issue, of course, is that people are against it. Everyone is against it. Every single political party in Northern Ireland does not want it. Had the Assembly and the Executive been in operation, it would not have seen the light of day: it would not have got anywhere because everybody would have been against it. The NGOs are against it. The Human Rights Commission is against it. Amnesty is against it. Ireland is against it, which is important because Ireland is a co-guarantor of the Good Friday agreement. The United States is against it. The European Union is against it. The Council of Europe is against it. That is a pretty substantial and impressive list of people who do not want it.
As a consequence of that, it is bad law; it is unfair law; it is unworkable law. If I were still Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, I would not touch it with a bargepole. I would say, “Let’s start again.” It is an important issue: we cannot dodge the issue—of course we cannot. If we keep on saying, “It’s all too difficult, we can’t do this,” we would be wrong. Try and try. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, referred to South Africa. Many years ago, I went to talk to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and listened to people, including the current President of South Africa, and heard some wonderful ideas, but South Africa is not Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is too small. South Africa is huge, but there were issues we could learn from.
We must not rush this through; that will not be good for anybody. I urge the Minister, even at this late hour—and it is pretty late—to go to his boss and say, “It’s not good enough; let’s start again.”
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)
My Lords, I said in my opening remarks some hours ago that I have found this legislation challenging and difficult, and the subsequent few hours have done nothing to reduce that one bit. I have listened to a very powerful debate. First, I thank a number of noble Lords for their kind words in response to my earlier remarks, which I genuinely and deeply appreciate. I also thank one or two noble Lords—the noble Lords, Lord Browne of Ladyton and Lord Bruce of Bennachie—who were kind enough to remind me of certain words I had written for previous Secretaries of State on this subject and into previous Conservative manifestos.
There have been a number of very powerful and moving speeches. As ever, I refer to the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick. She reminded us of the Loughinisland massacre. I remember it very well because I was with a friend from the Republic of Ireland, watching the same football match that evening, when the news came through. I was an adviser, as the noble Baroness knows, to the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the late Lord Mayhew of Twysden, so I deeply sympathise with the case to which she referred. My noble friend Lord Rogan, who is in his place, the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, my noble friend Lord Dodds of Duncairn and many others referred to incidents during the Troubles which deeply affected them, people right across Northern Ireland and people across the whole United Kingdom.
I concur with the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, that, of all the speeches, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, made an outstanding contribution, which I think moved the whole House. I thank him very much for that, and I am aware of the tremendous work he has done over many decades in Northern Ireland, and his great record of service to the community there.
In my opening comments I said that there have already been a number of attempts to resolve these issues over many years. Going back to 1998 and the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, legacy was the untouched issue, if you like, and at the time it was one of those matters that was—probably for good reason at the time—put into the “too difficult” drawer. There have been a number of attempts since and they have all foundered for one reason or another.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Bruce of Bennachie, talked about the need for the Assembly to be more closely involved in this. I remember, and referred in my speech to, the attempt by the Executive to deal with this issue back in 2013, with the Haass-O’Sullivan talks, which unfortunately did not lead to an agreement.
I referred also to the Stormont House agreement, when most of the institutions contained in that agreement, such as the Historical Investigations Unit and the ICIR, were very firmly in the devolved sphere. It was always our assumption at the time that it would be the Assembly that would take them forward. There would have had to be legislation in parallel here to deal with certain national security issues and issues around disclosure of the sort that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, referred to. It was at that point that the then First and Deputy First Ministers came to see the then Secretary of State to say, “This is all far too difficult for us—could you do it all at Westminster?” I completely appreciate the sentiment of working with the local politicians and the local political parties in Northern Ireland, but there are difficulties in just handing it back to them. I do take on board the points about the need for a collaborative effort.
I think that is one reason why people refer to the shift in approach in 2020 by the then Secretary of State. If I am being fair to him, I think he genuinely looked at the previous attempts made to resolve this and at the possibility of prosecutions. We have heard a great deal about that this evening, and I have enormous respect for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, with whom I agree far more than I ever disagree on a range of subjects. When he talked about people literally getting away with murder, unfortunately, in Northern Ireland they have for many decades because of the lack of evidence to convict. When I talked earlier about the vast majority of cases now being over 40 years old, the reality is that the likelihood of any meaningful prosecutorial process leading to a conviction is very slim indeed.
Lord Caine (Con)
The noble and learned Lord touches on some of the issues that have also troubled me in dealing with this over the past months. I can see an argument to do with the chances of a prosecution being so slim in a very large number of cases. I talked to the retired police officers about this, who were very clear that in most cases, if the evidence had existed at the time, there would have been convictions, but it is simply not there and the chances are incredibly slim. Therefore—
Baroness O'Loan (CB)
I want to interject the fact that in the 1970s, a process was adopted which prevented prosecutions—there were to be no prosecutions for murder of any military personnel—and there was a process through which the Royal Military Police produced statements which have now been declared to be totally unacceptable, so there were processes which made it impossible. I ask the Minister again: will he make the money available for the prosecution of the 33 files which Operation Kenova has submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions? If you have the money, you can prosecute.
Lord Caine (Con)
The noble Baroness has asked me this question a number of times before. The Public Prosecution Service is not funded by the Northern Ireland Office; it is funded by the Executive, and it is a devolved responsibility. It would have to find the money from within its own resources, if resourcing is the only issue here. I have heard from a number of respected figures within Northern Ireland, within the legal system, who would argue that it is not just about resources at all.
I was trying to set out what I think the Government’s position was, because the chances of prosecution in so many cases were so remote, even where people have held out for prosecutions. I have given the example before of Bloody Sunday and the Saville inquiry, which reported in June 2010. The PSNI then very methodically went through the report and investigated the cases again to see whether there were any grounds for the prosecution of soldiers. It took nine years for the current DPP to come to a decision around prosecutions, concluding that prosecution would be justified in one case. As we know, that case subsequently collapsed. I think it has now been re-referred, but it did collapse. One noble Lord mentioned the fact that people are getting older and dying, and this example points to the fact that these processes can take a very long time.
Therefore, the purpose of what the Government are putting forward here is to try to bring forward information and get people to the truths in a much more timely way. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, shakes her head and disagrees, but that is the genuine intention: to try to get more information out there while it is still available. As noble Lords know, the problem with a prosecution if it collapses is that no information is provided to families, and they are literally back at square one. We can have these discussions, but I just wanted to say that that was one of the justifications for this. In order to encourage people to come forward and co-operate, as noble Lords know, the Government originally put forward in the Command Paper a blanket statute of limitations of the kind referred to by my noble friend Lord Cormack, but they then refined the position on the basis that if people were going to be given immunity from prosecution, there should at least be some incentive to earn it. That was the way in which the Government approached this back in 2020.
I have taken on board the very strong feelings expressed this evening. If noble Lords will forgive me, I think I have been fired hundreds of very detailed questions from across the House, which I could not possibly answer, particularly at nearly 10.05 pm. But what I am prepared to do is to sit down with noble Lords, both individually and collectively, before Committee, which I hope will not be rushed. That is certainly not my intention. I think somebody used the phrase “pell-mell” the legislation through the House, but that is not my approach or my intention. I would want to take sufficient time to look at the Bill in detail and give it the scrutiny that it absolutely deserves.
In my speech I tried to respond to some of the concerns that have been expressed already and which were brought out in the debate. I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, that I was not in a position to flag, if you like, at an earlier stage what these amendments might be. I think the noble Baroness is familiar with government write-round processes, which do not always proceed at pace and are the subject of discussion. I do apologise. In all genuineness, I hope that these amendments, when they are drafted and I bring them forward, will go some way to allaying concerns on the issues that have been raised outside the House and inside the House this evening around ECHR compatibility, independence of the new commission, greater incentives for co-operating with the body, and penalties for misleading, lying and not telling the truth, including revocation of immunity where that has already been granted, and full sentences for those who do not co-operate with the body but are subsequently investigated and convicted.
I also assure the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that I do not expect those amendments to be the end of the story. There are other amending stages in your Lordships’ House beyond Committee, and, again, I hope we will not rush from Committee to Report and can have a reasoned and genuine discussion and debate between those two stages of the Bill.
While I will look at what further amendments the Government might be able to bring forward, I will genuinely look constructively at those which are put forward by other noble Lords across the House. As I have always said in my engagements within Northern Ireland itself with victims groups and others, I am the least precious person when it comes to amendments and where they come from. If they are sensible and constructive, I will always look at them and give them a fair wind.
As I say, I am very happy to sit down individually and collectively and engage with noble Lords before Committee. I will seek to go through the speeches made in your Lordships’ House this evening and, where detailed questions have been put to me, I will respond in writing, if noble Lords will allow me, rather than detain the House for a great deal longer this evening.
As I said at the outset, it is challenging and difficult, but there is no perfect way of dealing with this. I want to try and genuinely use this House in its proper constitutional way to revise and improve legislation.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister. His comments tonight have been very helpful to the House. He has clearly listened to the concerns that have been raised. The most important thing he said is that he does not want to rush the process but wants to take the time to listen, engage and get this right. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Caine
That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House, and that it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House that they consider the Bill in the following order: Clauses 1 and 2, Schedule 1, Clauses 3 to 6, Schedule 2, Clauses 7 to 9, Schedule 3, Clauses 10 to 14, Schedule 4, Clauses 15 to 26, Schedules 5 and 6, Clauses 27 and 28, Schedule 7, Clauses 29 to 39, Schedules 8 and 9, Clause 40, Schedule 10, Clauses 41 and 42, Schedule 11, Clauses 43 to 52, Schedule 12, Clauses 53 to 58, Title.