Hallett Review

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Villiers]

On the last point, I only reiterate that I have no plans to publish the names of the individuals concerned, for the reasons I gave before. I have a lot of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of the position of the PSNI officers. The report is very clear that there were significant systemic failings in the way the NIO at the time ran the scheme. It was certainly well intentioned, and I think civil servants made strenuous efforts to act appropriately, but the reality is that at a senior level—Ministers at the time will of course take responsibility for this—as the Hallett report makes clear, the scheme was not gripped properly, the risks were not assessed properly, and there were opportunities to identify errors and correct them but those were not taken. All of that means it would be wrong to characterise the result of the Downey case as just being down to the actions of an individual PSNI officer. If the scheme had been run in an appropriate way, it is highly likely that those facts would never have arisen in the first place. That of course is a matter for which all those Ministers in office at the time will take responsibility.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

The Hallett report is, of course, comprehensive, but there is something wrong with it: everything was held in secret. Once again, the victims really do not know what people said; they do not know what Gerry Kelly said or what Gerry Adams said, and they are left in the dark. The Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs is carrying out its own inquiry and we took interesting evidence, given in public, about the push for and the pressure on the police to get these letters out—that came from somewhere. Lady Justice Hallett says that the scheme

“lacked proper lines of responsibility, accountability and safeguards”.

Surely the real responsibility for all this—whatever he did in terms of getting the peace process—must lie at the very heart of government, with the letters that were coming from the then Prime Minister to Gerry Adams saying, “We are going to sort this.”

[Mrs Villiers]

As I say, the ultimate responsibility for the scheme has to lie at a political level; civil servants, at all times, were working to a remit approved by Secretaries of State. That is very clear from the report, and it is important that responsibility is taken. On the public taking of evidence, the hon. Lady is a member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, which has had a number of hearings on these matters. They have been helpful in throwing further light on the matters set out in the Hallett report, and indeed it is clear from the report that Lady Justice Hallett has relied on a number of the NIAC evidence sessions.