Queen’s Speech

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, Her Majesty stated in the gracious Speech:

“My Government will continue to work with the devolved Administration in Northern Ireland to … promote reconciliation and create a shared future”.

The devolved Administration are not succeeding in their attempts. It was disappointing that, having travelled so far towards resolution of matters relating to the past, to parades and to flags, politicians were unable to reach agreement at the Haas talks. It is to be hoped that the Government will give every encouragement and assistance to those involved in the further talks, which are starting now.

Our security situation and our peace remain fragile, and that is of importance to the United Kingdom as a whole. During the year 2013-14, there was one death, 54 shooting incidents, 69 bombing incidents, 28 paramilitary shooting casualties and 42 paramilitary-style assault casualties, and 10 firearms and 23 kilograms of explosives were seized. Thirty-two people were charged under the Terrorism Act.

Critical to the security of the peace process and our shared future are the institutions established under the Good Friday agreement. They form part of a complex structure which underpins the growing acceptance of the rule of law and constitutional process. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission is one such institution. It is facing major budget cuts, which will reduce its income to the level that it was at 13 years ago, when it was established. Responsibility for the Human Rights Commission remains here, not in Northern Ireland, and today the Joint Committee on Human Rights wrote to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland expressing concern at the situation. If the cuts go ahead, there is a very real fear that the NIHRC will not be able to comply with the Paris principles. Its category A status will be put in jeopardy and, because of that, the category A status of the British Equality and Human Rights Commission will also be jeopardised. What we have achieved in human rights terms gives us the moral authority to speak on the international stage on such matters. If category A status is lost, the UK’s standing internationally will be harmed.

Many people wish that the past would go away; it will not do so. At present, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee of the other place is inquiring about the Government’s “on the run” scheme, under which comfort letters were provided through Sinn Fein to various people who had reason to believe that they might be under investigation by the state. The revelation of the OTR scheme has caused outrage, not least because, as your Lordships know, a man was freed by the Old Bailey in March this year, having been charged with the Hyde Park bombing, because he had received one of these letters.

Another issue which is causing significant concern and which has the capacity to undermine attempts to build a shared future relates to matters falling within the grey area between justice, which is devolved, and national security, which is not devolved. National security, as your Lordships know, does not have a specific definition. The problem is that it can be used, sometimes without justification, as a reason for refusal to allow access to material required by those charged with investigating what has happened in the past.

There are serious problems with our inquest system. While justice is devolved and security is not, it is the UK which has a duty to provide timely Article 2-compliant inquests. That is not happening. Inquests for people who died at the hands of paramilitaries and of the state, and which were opened soon after the deaths, were adjourned because coroners could get neither the necessary information nor the resources. In a letter, which has been made public, dated May 2014 to the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland from the coroner service, it was stated:

“It should be viewed as an enormous … embarrassment to the State that these Inquests have not been held”.

Some of these cases are decades old. In 2001, the European Court of Human Rights awarded damages to one family who were still awaiting an inquest after the shooting of their son in 1992. The damages were small—£10,000. Thirteen years later, the High Court in Belfast has awarded the same family £7,500 for frustration. Again, they are small damages but the costs of such actions are enormous, and the embarrassment to the Government for failing to provide a proper inquest system is high. This money could have been used to improve the coronial system. Further damages claims are now inevitable.

In January this year, the findings of an inquest into a police shooting 20 years ago were quashed on a variety of grounds. In delivering his judgment, the judge found the PSNI responsible for a delay of up to 11 years in holding the hearing. At present, the coroner is trying to conduct inquests into cases which were investigated by John Stalker and Colin Sampson. He opened the inquests again in 2007 and asked for access to the reports. In 2010 he got some access to redacted reports, but access to the full files has remained very difficult. In 2010 he also asked for an investigator to assist the process—a perfectly normal request. This has not been granted.

Over four years, only 50% of the Stalker/Sampson material has been examined and made available to the coroner. The process of redaction is being carried out by former RUC/PSNI Special Branch officers. Some of these former officers have been identified as having served with or known 92 of the potential inquest witnesses. In the May 2014 letter, the coroner stated that the present attitude of the PSNI to classification of the material is driving up costs, not reducing them.

A few years ago, Her Majesty’s Coroner was allowed to go into a police station and look at the secret material. He could make notes on it but could not take them out of the police station. Now, he is allowed to send in junior counsel. Junior counsel can record notes on a laptop, which is provided, but junior counsel is not permitted, except in very limited circumstances, to take that laptop away. Junior counsel, who is security-cleared, then has to brief senior counsel, who is not and not working full-time on the job. The consequence is that junior counsel cannot tell senior counsel what junior counsel has found out, yet senior counsel has to advise the coroner.

There are two obvious consequences to that situation. One is that the gatekeepers to access to this material are people who have a possible conflict of interest. I say no more. The other is that the whole process is so slow that at this rate it is not even possible to contemplate when the inquests might begin. As the state is seen to fail repeatedly in the discharge of its obligations under the law, the process of growing trust in the rule of law is inevitably damaged.

There are things that the Government can do to address these issues—they are not complex. I acknowledge and defend the need to protect national security. The concept can, however, be used as a barrier to due process rather than a shield from threats against the state. I acknowledge that much resource has been made available to Northern Ireland, but the reality is that Northern Ireland is carrying a burden which England, Scotland and Wales do not. It is the burden of the legacy of the Troubles. It requires both resources and courage to face the extent to which wrong things were done.

Government have a significant responsibility to ensure that the coronial system is fit for purpose and resourced to succeed. Failure to do so will end up only in our being back in the European court. There is an enormous funding deficit in this area. Government have recently submitted to the Committee of Ministers plans for a legacy inquest unit and a cross-agency group on delay, but there is little detail on what is being proposed and it is far from clear whether it will address the enormous problems and endemic delay currently in the system. I therefore ask the Government to deal with these very real problems and, by so doing, to give real assistance to those currently trying to sustain and consolidate the peace process and to build a shared future.

Comprehensive Spending Review

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O’Loan]

My Lords, we have heard much about the seriousness of the position in which the United Kingdom finds itself and the hard decisions that have to be made. Equally, there is no doubt that savings can be made, although often with some pain. It is important that the pain be managed.

First, I associate myself with the compelling and robust remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, on the proposed removal of the disability allowance for those in care. She is right.

There are three further issues to which I want to refer. The first is the situation in Northern Ireland. At this juncture I refer to the effect of the Troubles on the people of Northern Ireland. In 2009, living standards were around 80 per cent of the UK average, while 22 per cent of those of working age have no qualifications, compared with 12 per cent in the rest of the UK. The Troubles had the greatest effect in disadvantaged areas. According to the latest figures, the largest inequality gaps between disadvantaged areas and the Northern Ireland average were evident in alcohol and drug-related deaths, which were 121 per cent higher, in admissions for self-harm, which were 94 per cent higher, in teenage births, which were 80 per cent higher, and in suicide, which was 73 per cent higher. This comes as no surprise, for the suffering of these areas was and continues to be extreme. It is in that context and in the context of the employment situation, as in so many other contexts, such as the ongoing and increasing dissident republican violence, that Northern Ireland will face the proposed cuts.

The current situation is that some 28.5 per cent of our population is economically inactive for a variety of reasons, as opposed to the UK average of 23.2 per cent. Some 32.3 per cent of all employees are in public sector employment—a figure that is significantly higher than the 21.1 per cent in public sector employment in the rest of the United Kingdom. That situation, as noble Lords know, has arisen in part from the Troubles and the understandable reluctance of private sector investors to invest in territory in which there was a risk of Troubles-related violence, such as bombings, shootings, kidnapping and extortion. The consequence is that we have a significantly larger reliance on public sector employment than the rest of the United Kingdom. PwC, in research commissioned for the Northern Ireland Assembly, predicts a reduction in public sector employment of 41,200. The local private sector has continued to be slow to grow. Growth, such as we have had, has been largely in low-value jobs, such as in call centres. PwC estimates that Northern Ireland, with its existing high unemployment levels, could be facing potential job losses in the private sector of 5 per cent. There has been discussion of the possibility of a reduction in corporation tax, which would significantly improve the situation.

However, the consequence of the current situation associated with the 40 per cent reduction in capital spend over the next four years is that Northern Ireland will be particularly vulnerable by comparison with the rest of the United Kingdom. Given the vulnerability of so many people and given that the decisions as to how the cuts will be applied will rest with the devolved Government, it will none the less be profoundly important that the Government adhere to their commitment to fairness in relation to the reduction in spending on welfare. The impact of some of the proposed cuts on those who suffer from higher levels of physical and mental illness and disability and who are so much more likely to commit suicide will be very hard. It seems that across the United Kingdom there is an element that from those who have so little, much is to be taken.

Over the years of the Troubles, during direct rule, there was a consistent underspend on infrastructure in Northern Ireland. Our water and sewerage system was neglected for years and now requires massive investment to maintain levels of health and safety consistent with the first world. Our roads and transport system are significantly underdeveloped. Parts of our schools and hospital estate are in very poor condition. The cuts in capital spending will impact massively on the ability to sustain the infrastructure that is critical to society. I ask the Government to review the effects and extent of the proposed massive cuts in capital spending, with a view to alleviating some of the hardship imposed, consequential on the combined effects of the revenue and capital cuts on a part of the United Kingdom that has suffered so much.

There is one final issue to which I wish to refer and I crave noble Lords’ indulgence. It involves relatively little cost, but it is profoundly important. Today, digging is beginning on a beach in Waterfoot in County Antrim as the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains seeks the body of 21 year-old Peter Wilson, who disappeared from his home in Belfast in 1973. The commission was established by Acts of Parliament here and in Ireland and is highly respected by the community and the families of the disappeared. It has achieved some remarkable results in profoundly difficult circumstances. On Friday night, in pouring rain and high winds, Peter Wilson’s family and friends and a group of local people gathered to pray for the return of his body for Christian burial.

Of the 16 missing people, seven have been recovered and buried. One more body was found two weeks ago and is thought to be that of 24 year-old Gerard Evans, who disappeared while hitchhiking in 1979. Eight bodies are still missing. Two bodies have been found this year, but there are concerns that funding will cease this year as a consequence of the cuts. This is historic business relating to the time when Northern Ireland was governed in its entirety from Westminster. I ask the Government to ensure that, despite all the current fiscal difficulties, if further information is received about the location of the remains of any more of the disappeared, funding will be made available to enable the necessary searches. In UK terms, it will not involve huge spending, but the expenditure will further enhance confidence in the commitment of the United Kingdom to the often forgotten victims of the Troubles.