Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Loan and Lord Cormack

Committee stage
Tuesday 31st January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

The noble Lord says that we cannot reject a Bill, but of course we can. It should be done very rarely. The Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 make provision for it. There have been Bills rejected during my time in Parliament—only three in the 53 years that I have been here. The War Crimes Bill was rejected by the House of Lords. Mrs Thatcher pursued it, and it went on to the statute book, but I think I am right in saying that it has never been used in this country. Similar Bills have hardly been used elsewhere; they have little application. However, we have the opportunity to say, “Sorry, up with this we will not put”. To say that is entirely consistent with our constitutional position. It is not something that I would ever likely advocate, but it is something I would contemplate—and I think we have to contemplate it in this case. I do not like saying that, because I like to think I am a good constitutionalist. My belief is that this House has a duty to ask the other place to think again; it has an opportunity, if something is irremediable, to say, “Sorry, we won’t have this”.

Of course, if the Bill is then presented in an exactly similar form a year later in the next Session of Parliament, it will go through. However, I remind your Lordships that we are more than half way through this Parliament, and it probably would not apply in this case. That makes our responsibility all the greater before we do such a thing. Clearly, the obvious answer is to pause the Bill after Committee and to not have a Report stage—that is the tidiest and most constitutional way forward. I say to my noble friend—while, again, reiterating my admiration for his determination, sincerity, knowledge and commitment; all those words apply to him—that the Bill really should not pass.

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

I will add to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, about the options open to the House at present. One of those would be to support an amendment such as the one I tabled at the beginning of Committee, and to decide that the Bill should not proceed until such time as a legislative consent Motion has been obtained from the Northern Ireland Assembly.

With the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Ritchie and Lady Suttie, I have indicated that Clause 18 on immunity should not stand part of the Bill. I agree that we have seen limited measures for immunity in Northern Ireland. We saw, for example, the legislative provisions which allowed the information to be supplied for the recovery of the remains of the disappeared, in which situation the information provided could not be used for a prosecution. We also saw the decommissioning of arms, the information gathered as a consequence of which could not be used for a prosecution. But we have not seen the like of this Bill before, and I do not know of any other democracy which has agreed to the like of this Bill before.

We are faced with a situation in which the obligations of the United Kingdom to provide processes for criminal investigation and prosecution, for civil action and for inquests are being removed, and in which immunity is being provided for perpetrators for their previous criminal offences. That is not compliant with our domestic and international legal obligations, which require the provision of processes to enable the investigation and prosecution of offences. For example, we have very clear obligations as high-contracting parties to the European Convention on Human Rights. Under Section 1, we are committed to securing that everyone in the jurisdiction has all the rights and freedoms provided for in the convention. Those rights were incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998, although their application, as domestic rights, has been limited somewhat by the jurisprudence of the courts.

In addition, under the Good Friday agreement of 1998, the participants of the multiparty agreement dedicated themselves

“to the achievement of reconciliation, tolerance, and mutual trust, and to the protection and vindication of the human rights of all.”

They stated:

“The tragedies of the past have left a deep and profoundly regrettable legacy of suffering. We must never forget those who have died or been injured, and their families. But we can best honour them through a fresh start, in which we firmly dedicate ourselves to the achievement of reconciliation, tolerance, and mutual trust, and to the protection and vindication of the human rights of all.”


They agreed that

“neither the Assembly nor public bodies can infringe”

the European Convention on Human Rights, and that there should be

“a coherent and cooperative criminal justice system, which conforms with human rights norms.”

However, the Bill does not provide that.

In England and Wales, people seem to be under the illusion that paramilitaries no longer have areas of Northern Ireland under their control—that is not the case. Paramilitaries, both loyalist and republican, are still at work, and they still exercise, on occasion, brutal control in their areas. Since 1998, when the Good Friday agreement was signed, 155 people have been killed, and there have been 1,660 bombing incidents and 2,700 shooting incidents. Over 1,500 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act, and 235 people have been charged with terrorist offences in the last 10 years alone. Terrorism is alive and well, although not to the scale of previous atrocities.

The mere existence of those paramilitaries means that people who may have information to give which might lead to the arrest and conviction of people for Troubles-related events will, very often, fear to do so, lest they themselves be attacked. The consequence is that it seems that many of Northern Ireland’s terrorists have, by their very existence, created for themselves de facto immunity from prosecution. Now the Government are preparing to enable immunity for those few who may come to fear that prosecution might become a reality.

It is said that the Bill owes its genesis to the statement in the Conservative Party manifesto:

“We will continue to seek better ways of dealing with legacy issues that provide better outcomes for victims and survivors and do more to give veterans the protections they deserve.”


Victims across the UK have stated that the Bill is not victim-centred and that it does not provide better outcomes for victims; rather, it deconstructs the existing legal framework, creating a web of protections for perpetrators. There can be no doubt that the Bill is intended to give veterans protection, but most veterans who served in Northern Ireland did not commit criminal offences—and certainly not the most serious Troubles-related offences created by the Bill.

I have mentioned before that it is said that the state kept records while the terrorists did not. However, the state forces did not keep records of instructions not to investigate, not to transmit information or intelligence to investigators, not to arrest or to interview suspects, to lose evidence, or to contaminate physical evidence so that it would be inadmissible. Those things emerge only through painstaking investigation, usually because there are gaps in the chain of evidence, and sometimes people come forward to explain that they tried to do something but were stopped. Those processes enabled murderers to continue their nefarious business, sometimes as agents of the state, despite the best-intentioned processes, such as the passing of legislation by Parliament designed to regulate and to help in this area.

For the record, it is not the case that state actors, such as soldiers and agents, are more likely to be prosecuted than terrorists—and, of course, some state agents were terrorists. According to a House of Commons Library research briefing paper of May 2022, four soldiers have been convicted and sentenced following the Troubles, and one case is currently before the courts. Some 300,000 soldiers served under Operation Banner, which continued until 2007. Since 2011, 26 prosecutions have been brought by the Public Prosecution Service, 21 of which involved republicans and loyalists.

The provisions of the Bill suggest that the commission, and on very limited occasions, to some extent, the criminal law, is supposed to fill the vacuum left by the removal of criminal investigation processes, civil actions to recover damages for harms caused and inquests. Until now, we have had processes which are compliant with all our legal and moral obligations. If this Bill is passed, we will no longer have such processes.

The Government have stated that their aim is to get to those people who need it information which might help them and to achieve reconciliation. The Bill, unfortunately, has only one provision for reconciliation, and it relates to memorialisation. The response of the political parties, the victims’ groups, the NIHRC, the Equality Commission and all the international organisations, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, do not indicate any confidence that the immunity provisions will actually achieve what the Government are aiming for. The general response that I have encountered in Northern Ireland, and among those British victims to whom I have spoken, is: “Why would they tell what they know? They don’t need to. They just need to sit it out”.

There is a view that immunity clauses and the provisions about early release et cetera create a perpetrator-focused regime, under which perpetrators will be able, should they wish to do so, to provide information which really will not be capable of challenge, and through which, should they avail of it, they will be free from all fear of prosecution. Clause 18 will enable an offender to provide a statement to secure immunity for prosecution for murder and other serious crimes which comprises limited information; information which has already been supplied in other circumstances, and even information which is already in the public domain. The information must be true, but there is nothing which says that it must be complete. Will the Minister tell the House whether there is a requirement that P should tell the whole truth?

The provisions in Clause 18(11) state that the commission can grant immunity for not only all identified offences but

“all serious or connected Troubles-related offences which are within a description determined”

by the commission. Will the Minister tell us what this means? I have read it several times and am trying to work out what those offences might be.

Public Order Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Loan and Lord Cormack

Committee stage
Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

I am debating the amendments to which I am speaking.

Clause 9 is unworkable in its current form. That is why I support these amendments and will vote for them should a Division be called.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, we need a little calm in this situation. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Beith, made a very wise, temperate speech, and we would all benefit from reflecting upon what he said.

There is an extraordinary irony behind this. As this Bill goes through your Lordships’ House, we are also debating the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill. Only yesterday I noticed a very interesting account in the Times of what the retiring vice-chancellor of Oxford University had said about free speech. She said that her students—all students—must be able to listen and reflect upon things of which they deeply, instinctively disapproved. She made the point that if they did that, they could strengthen their own views or maybe, on occasions, change them.

This clause is disproportionate. We debated freedom of speech in your Lordships’ House when I raised it many months ago, when there was an attempt to muzzle Members of this House. People were complaining to the commissioner, and the commissioner, very rightly, discounted the claims. The committee led by the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, decided that we needed to tighten up the rules in our House to further protect freedom of speech. We must not claim for ourselves that which we would deny to others. It is important that freedom of speech is protected.

There are many laws that deal with those who abuse freedom of speech. One of my reasons for having doubts about the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill stemmed from the advice I was given by a wise parliamentarian who talked to me when I first came into the other place some 52 years ago. He said: “Before you form an opinion on any Bill, ask yourself if it is necessary.” I am not sure that this clause is, in any form, necessary. What certainly is necessary, however, is that, if the clause is included in the Bill—I hope it will not be, but if it is—it must be in a form amended along the lines advocated by the noble Lord, Lord Beith, in his very wise speech.

There is a danger—some of us are guilty of this occasionally—of indulging in slogans. A slogan is not the same as a principle. A slogan is not something that should drive Members of your Lordships’ House when we are jealous of our reputation of being able to scrutinise with objective care the Bills that are placed before us. In a way, the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins of Tavistock, was making a similar point in her brief speech when she said that we really had to reflect on what was being said. My own suggestion to the Minister, which I hope he might act on, is that he should invite in those who have tabled amendments—I am not seeking an invitation, but I would readily accept one—such as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, who made a very interesting and thoughtful speech in introducing this debate, and see whether there is not some common ground. My own recommendation would be that we remove this clause, have a proper conference on this issue, and see what is necessary to protect the proper freedom of women while not inhibiting freedom of speech, especially of those who have deep religious convictions on this matter.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Loan and Lord Cormack

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I speak with a sense of something approaching elation from yesterday. We have a new Prime Minister, who appears to be a man of absolute honour—I take up the points made by the noble Lord who has just spoken. I have hope in him, and I hope he will justify that hope, which I believe is shared by many.

I do not want to make a long speech. I moved a regret amendment at Second Reading, and I was rather sorry in many ways that I was not able to put it to the vote, but clearly the House did not want that to happen at that time and it was right to listen to the House.

I would like to give one message above all others to the Prime Minister. What took Northern Ireland forward—the noble Lord, Lord Hain, with whom I worked in Northern Ireland when he was Secretary of State and I was chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, knows this better than I—was prime ministerial involvement; that was the key to success.

Both John Major and Tony Blair devoted enormous time and attention to what led to be the Good Friday agreement. I remember being present in the Royal Gallery when the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, came, together with Tony Blair, to speak to both Houses of Parliament. Tony Blair was particularly careful to say that this was not just his achievement, and that without the building blocks laid by John Major this could not have happened. There has to be a cross-party accord; there has to be prime ministerial involvement.

Our present Prime Minister has inherited a herculean task. If he is going to devote time to the economy, he clearly cannot be devoting an equal amount of time to Northern Ireland at the moment. What he can do, however, is to encourage those who are negotiating on this country’s behalf to negotiate. He can remove what I called in the Second Reading debate the sword of Damocles, which is this Bill. It is a bad Bill; it is a Bill that gives powers that no democratic Minister should ever seek in a plethora of Henry VIII clauses. Therefore, what I beg Mr Sunak to do is to just go carefully and then, as soon as it is possible, to go to Northern Ireland with the Secretary of State. I do not know who that will be, because the Prime Minister is reconstructing his Government even as we sit in this Chamber this afternoon. He has promised—and I was there when he promised it yesterday afternoon in Committee Room 14— a broadly based Administration, which we desperately need. We have had Administrations produced by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss which were by no means broadly based. They were merely gatherings of like-minded people and, in constructing their Governments, the two Prime Ministers did not really take sufficient account of variety and ability.

I hope that Mr Sunak is doing that as we speak. I hope that he will go to Northern Ireland soon; that he will talk to those who are negotiating on behalf of the Government with the European Union; that he will recognise that the very last thing that this country needs is a trade war, referred to earlier in this debate; and that he will pause. There is no great hurry and, even if the Government are in a hurry, your Lordships’ House is not in a hurry. This could take hours and hours and days and days, but at the end of the day this Bill is unimprovable, because it trashes our international reputation and the things that we are most proud of.

My noble friend Lord Howard’s reference to Putin, in his brilliant speech on Second Reading, was entirely apposite. We have to set an example; we have to show that we are indeed the guardians of one of the best democracies in the world. We have got to show that we are not prepared to sanction a Bill that rides roughshod over our national reputation. Like my noble friend Lord Hailsham, I would support either of these amendments if they were put to the vote tonight. But I understand why those who have proposed them in very persuasive terms perhaps do not want to do that. However, there must be a day of reckoning in your Lordships’ House because this Bill is bad for our country and bad for our future, and it must not go onto the statute books.

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, I speak as one who lives in Northern Ireland and experiences on a regular basis the impact of the bureaucracy associated with the operation of the protocol. I spoke at Second Reading of my concerns about the Bill and I want to support both amendments placed before your Lordships today, because we do not have the information that would underpin proper consideration of the necessity for the Bill. No doubt a solution has to be found to the various problems arising in the operation of the protocol but, as witnesses to the Northern Ireland protocol sub-committee of the European Affairs Committee told us—we heard evidence last Friday in the Northern Ireland Assembly—this Bill is like placing a gun on the table at the negotiations.

I hope that, even at this late stage, the Prime Minister and the usual channels will consider the matter further and withdraw the Bill—in light of your Lordships’ interventions today, of the reports of the sub-committee on the protocol, those of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and, most of all, in light of the report of the Constitution Committee, which says:

“Legislation which puts the UK in breach of international law undermines the rule of law and trust in the UK in fulfilling future treaty commitments. The Government’s reliance on the doctrine of necessity does not justify introducing this Bill. This raises the question of whether ministers might be thought to have contravened their obligation under the Ministerial Code to comply with the law, including international law.”


This is the most serious of observations by the Constitution Committee. I will vote against the Bill when we get an opportunity to do so but, at present, I support the amendments.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Loan and Lord Cormack

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

The noble Lord certainly left out Henry VIII and many other things. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, put the thing beautifully in context and gave a very remarkable speech. We should all be grateful to my friend the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for introducing the amendment in the way that he did but I hope he will not push it to a vote. I say that with great respect. He knows I mean that because I had many dealings with him when he was Secretary of State and I had the honour to be the chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in another place. I had members of seven parties on my committee and we remained unanimous throughout, even though we looked at issues such as organised crime, prisons and many others. He knows how closely we worked together as a committee.

What we need today—and I hope we will get it—is an assurance from my noble friend the Minister that the Government truly recognise the importance of the points that have been raised. They recognise that Northern Ireland is not only in many ways the most beautiful part of the United Kingdom but also the most vulnerable. We are not going to strengthen this procedural Bill by hanging this amendment on it. There may well be a time when we return in the context of the negotiations that will follow. There may well be amendments later in this Bill that I will feel I need to support to ask colleagues in the other place to think again, but this is not one of them and I very much hope that my friend the noble Lord, Lord Hain, will withdraw his amendment at the end of the debate.

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, I actually live in Northern Ireland and have lived there for the past nearly 50 years; I have experienced the Troubles personally, having lost a child in a bomb explosion, and having nearly lost a son to a sectarian attack. Article 50 is about taking the United Kingdom out of the European Union—it is not about the Good Friday agreement; it is not about the security of Northern Ireland. To attempt to introduce it in this haphazard and hasty way—with great respect to noble Lords—does not serve the interests of the country. The interests of the security and the economy of the United Kingdom and the security and the economy of the Irish Republic will be best served if these things are dealt with in the course of negotiations, with complete flexibility. We should not, in any way, attempt to fetter the discretion of the Prime Minister. This is not an amendment that would benefit the United Kingdom or any part of it.

Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Loan and Lord Cormack

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

I wish to speak first of the reduction, the possible reduction and future reduction in the number of constituencies. The constituency in which I live is some 75% or 80% unionist. Of the original seats, two managed to elect nationalist, non-unionist politicians. The boundaries were withdrawn. One of the nationalist seats disappeared, so we are now down to five unionist and one nationalist seat. I declare an interest because my husband held one of those seats in the Assembly.

My point is that the impact of reducing the number of seats on the possibility of there being any purpose at all in voting in Northern Ireland is something of which the people of Northern Ireland are very aware. There are whole constituencies on both sides of the divide where people feel that at present there is little purpose in voting. We have single transferable voting so there is some purpose but I would very much endorse the words of my noble colleagues in regretting any attempt not to preserve the current numbers of Members of the Assembly.

I also want to talk about a matter which other noble Lords have addressed; namely, the crisis—it is a crisis—in the justice system in Northern Ireland at present. It is reaching right across the community. It has introduced a sense of distrust, which was beginning to be healed, throughout our community.

There has been no discussion in your Lordships’ House about what was done. Last week, a man walked free from court because he had had a letter that said the police had no interest in him. As the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, said, we believe that there are 187 such letters. I heard one former Secretary of State talk of the possibility of 200 such letters.

The problem is that letters of comfort may or may not have had the effect of removing the possibility of any future prosecution—not least because their very existence gives rise to the possibility of an abuse of process application in the event of any attempt to prosecute, but also because the letters of comfort have generated such consternation. There was no knowledge of these letters of comfort among the general population of Northern Ireland. It was a betrayal of the people.

Great courage was needed to do some of the things that had to be done, and I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, for what he did to bring peace to Northern Ireland. However, it was a very difficult time, and I have said repeatedly in your Lordships’ Chamber that this deal is not done and settled; it is a very fragile state of affairs. The noble Lord, Lord Trimble, told us that Adams said it would be better if it were an invisible process—but it was an invisible process. I know, because in 2001 I was investigating cases involving IRA men who were acting as agents of the state for the police. In investigating those cases I had to look at the criminality of the IRA personnel. The HET is investigating the criminality of the IRA personnel, and the PSNI currently is also investigating that criminality. Neither the HET nor the criminal investigations branch of the PSNI was informed of the situation. None of us knew who we might have in our sights, if you like, and who would have been taken out of the sights of the Director of Public Prosecutions by virtue of a letter that may or may not have been issued, which may or may not have been correct in its terminology but which ultimately might have the effect of compromising any possibility of prosecution.

In such circumstances, the Government are spending huge sums of money to sustain a criminal justice system in Northern Ireland that is based on, to some extent, very significant failure. Throughout the Haass talks, there was a lot of talk about how we would deal with the past; it was one of the three strands of the talks. As I understand it, the possibility of letters of comfort did not at any stage get a mention.

We knew about royal pardons and the exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy. We could identify where both those might have happened, although the information was generally not made public. However, we did not know about these letters. It is profoundly important that this Parliament should concern itself with them. This Parliament is concerned that those who might have abused children in years past, and who are being investigated in the Savile investigation, should be prosecuted. Surely this Parliament has a duty to have the same standards of justice for the people of Northern Ireland.

The final thing I will say is that this was a secret process that has, as I said, undermined our justice system. The fact that it would do so was recognised in 2000 when the process started. There is much work to be done to try to explain what happened and what the ongoing implications are for the operation of the justice system in Northern Ireland today.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I will not detain the House for long, but I had the honour to be the chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in another place for the whole of the previous Parliament. During that time, I came to know, respect and admire many of those, from all parts of the community, who were fighting very courageously for peace. I came to have a particular regard for the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan. I had many meetings with her and admired the judicious sensitivity with which she approached her difficult task.

I have always had a very high regard for my noble friend Lord Trimble, who was a very courageous trailblazer. Without him, and without what he and Seamus Mallon did, we would not have had the Good Friday agreement. Although that came about during the premiership of Tony Blair, Prime Minister Blair himself was the first to acknowledge, in the ceremony that was held a few yards from here in the Royal Gallery, that without what John Major had done he could not have achieved what he did.