Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Loan and Lord Eames

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 12th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in opposition to the Government’s removal of the opportunity for family members of those who died in the Troubles to play a role in the decision as to whether immunity should be granted under the Bill. Accepting your Lordships’ amendment would have given victims the opportunity, at least, to have a role in the decision as to whether to grant murderers immunity for the murder of their loved one.

Today is a terrible day for the people of the United Kingdom and for the rule of law in the United Kingdom. It is a day of shame. It is the day on which Parliament is legislating to remove from people across the UK who were victims of the Troubles access, in accordance with the rule of law and our international legal obligations, to criminal prosecutions, civil actions for damages for loss and injury caused, and to inquests. Moreover, His Majesty’s Government are forcing through not only these restrictions but their immunity clause, despite the fact that, as the Secretary of State said most recently,

“There are no guarantees that the Bill will bring information forward”—[Official Report, Commons, 6/9/23; col. 439.]


at all.

How do your Lordships think the people of Northern Ireland and the other victims of the Troubles across Great Britain felt on hearing those words? At least the current system had been gradually providing verifiable and accurate information for victims, despite the best efforts of those who sought to limit access to information. The Secretary of State said yesterday that, despite the widespread opposition to the legacy Bill from politicians and victims, he has not been presented with an alternative option. This is untrue. The Government have been presented with alternatives during the passage of the Bill which included a fully empowered independent commission that would have investigated in compliance with all our legal obligations. Those alternatives have all been rejected by the Government, who have used their parliamentary majority to force through this iniquitous Bill against the wishes of every political party, community group, victims’ group, human rights organisation, et cetera. Nobody in Northern Ireland and nobody among the GB victims’ groups wants this law.

On this day, His Majesty’s Government are using their parliamentary majority to force through a Bill that is already subject to challenge in the courts. There is now tremendous pressure on the party in opposition to live up to its commitment to repeal the Bill if it wins the next election. Even more, there is huge international pressure on the Irish Government to institute legal proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights in respect of the UK’s failure to comply with its legal obligations under the treaty. I very much hope that they will bring those proceedings.

A country which does not respect the rule of law and its international legal obligations loses its legitimacy in the wider world. In passing this Bill, the United Kingdom is not, as His Majesty’s Government have claimed, seeking to provide truth and reconciliation for the people of Northern Ireland and for all the victims of the Troubles across the United Kingdom. The noble Lord, Lord Bruce, asked a very pertinent question, and I hope the Minister will reply to it. The effect of this Bill is to restrict access to legal remedies, which are enjoyed by everybody else in the United Kingdom, for that small and unfortunate group of victims, several thousand in number, who suffered so terribly during the Troubles. I cannot support this amendment.

[Lord Eames (CB)]

My Lords, in my years of service to this House I cannot think of an occasion when sadness, disillusionment and indeed anger pressed upon me to the extent they do today. Over the months we have worked to try to improve this Bill, I have listened to many highly technical speeches based on great parliamentary experience. But to that I have to add one other element today which it has been my sad duty to bring to the attention of this House over that period.

It is to tell noble Lords that the word “victimhood” has become so used that we have lost sight of what or who a victim is. A victim exists with a picture on the mantelpiece. A victim exists with frequent visits to a hospital for treatment. A victim exists in the grandmother trying to explain to grandchildren what happened to members of that family. A victim is one who believed at one stage that the mother of Parliaments would understand their dilemma.

I have paid tribute on several occasions to the Minister for his patience in dealing with this issue, but I have to say this afternoon that he has not gone far enough. The feeling of sadness which overwhelms me is based on my many years of service to victims—to the men, women and children who were the real sufferers of our Troubles. I cannot get them out of my mind at this moment: the funerals, the addresses at funerals, the comfort in the hospital ward or beside a bedside. That is the whole background: the human side of “victim”. The human side is an ageing population who have been through the Troubles, and who now, by the passage of time, have looked with some hope to what we were going to pass in Parliament.

Way back, all those years ago, when Denis Bradley and I were asked to make the first attempt at dealing with the combined reconciliation and legacy issue, we set out on a journey which ends at this moment, in your Lordships’ House, so my feelings run very deep. Irrespective of the Opposition’s assurance that they will repeal this legislation one day if they are in power, and irrespective of the politics of it all, I speak of the broken hearts, the broken bodies and the irreconcilable issues that face ordinary decent people. I think of the members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Ulster Defence Regiment, the civilians, caught up in this. I think of the work in hospital wards by dedicated doctors and nurses, and I can still hear in my mind the drumbeat of the procession to the grave. I say to the Government: surely, they have brought us not to a crossroads but to the edge of a cliff, and Northern Ireland is tottering at the edge.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Loan and Lord Eames

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 5th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak in favour of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, to the Minister’s Motion on Clause 13, and the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, to the Minister’s Motion on Clause 18.

The Bill removes fundamental legal rights from victims of the Troubles throughout the United Kingdom. The aim of the Bill is clear. The Minister referred to the purpose of the Bill in his introductory remarks, but actually the Long Title says that its purpose is to limit criminal investigations, civil legal proceedings and inquests, despite the fact that by May 2024, there will be some 15 outstanding legacy inquests to be heard. It is also to prevent police complaints investigations—all this into matters arising between 1966 and 1998. All these ancient and balanced legal procedures are being removed under the Bill, as well, it has to be said, as all the protections and powers that the courts have in the conduct of criminal, civil and inquest proceedings.

The Minister’s amendments do not address the deficiencies identified in the Bill by so many across the world—the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, referred to them—and the other place’s responses to the amendments made in your Lordships’ House do not address the deficiencies identified either.

It is important to remember that the Council of Europe, its Committee of Ministers, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN special rapporteurs, national human rights organisations, our own parliamentary committees, civil society organisations, all political parties in the UK, with the exception of the Conservative Party, political parties in Ireland and the US, victims groups and community groups have all declared the Bill to be unacceptable because of its manifest deficiencies, and because of the breach of our international legal obligations.

I remind noble Lords of the fact that, under the Bill, the ICRIR does not even have powers to demand information as of right but must justify each request as reasonable. That does not happen in normal criminal investigations. Yet untrammelled access to information is fundamental to the conduct of criminal investigations, and it has frequently only been the determination of judges, coroners, lawyers and litigants which has resulted in the disclosure of relevant and important information which should have been disclosed as a matter of course. Even in that situation, the police and the MoD have frequently said that they cannot produce the material because they do not have the resources to do so.

The answer to this situation cannot be to close down the justice system; rather, as Patten recommended, policing must be delivered in the context of a coherent and co-operative justice system. We do not have that in Northern Ireland. For example, the Kenova investigation submitted some 33 files from 2019 onwards, but no decisions have been made by the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland because it does not have access to the lawyers it needs.

The Secretary of State and the Minister keep reiterating that resources must be found within the Northern Ireland budget, yet what happened in Northern Ireland over the years of the Troubles was not the responsibility of paramilitaries alone. Agents of the state also played their part. In my 2007 report on the case of the murder of Raymond McCord Junior and associated matters, I said:

“it has emerged that all of the informants at the centre of this investigation were members of the UVF. There was no effective strategic management of these informants, and as a consequence of the practices of Special Branch, the position of the UVF particularly, in North Belfast and Newtownabbey, was consolidated and strengthened … information was withheld … Instructions were given that matters should not be recorded. The general absence of records has prevented senior officers, who clearly have significant responsibility for the failings, from being held to account. It is abundantly clear that this was not an oversight, but was a deliberate strategy and had the effect of avoiding proper accountability”.

That was accepted by the chief constable at the time and by the Secretary of State. In many other cases, there were similar findings. It is these situations, for which the state had responsibility, which demonstrate what happened and show the responsibility of the state for some of it. That is why I would argue that the Government have, at the very least, a moral duty to support those engaged in the pursuit of justice and truth and not to impede their search for it through passing this Bill—for that is what this Bill in its final form will do.

Your Lordships have discussed at length the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights in the context of investigation and pondered the Government’s commitments under the Good Friday agreement. The Minister’s Motion A does not make the Bill compliant with the ECHR or the Good Friday agreement. The amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, would at least impose an obligation for any regulations made by the Secretary of State in this context to be compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights and be subject, as he so articulately said, to the affirmative procedure.

The conditional immunity scheme, despite the Government’s amendments and others tabled by noble Lords, remains in breach of the Government’s obligations under the Good Friday agreement to provide people with access to the courts and remedies for breaches of the convention. That fact is profoundly important.

Victims’ groups such as the Truth and Justice Movement regard this Bill as destroying their democratic and human right to truth and justice. Nobody, not even the Government, thinks that this Bill will provide truth and justice, let alone reconciliation. The Secretary of State has repeatedly acknowledged the problems with the Bill, most recently stating:

“This Government believes that the conditional immunity provisions will be key in helping to generate the greatest volume of information, in the quickest possible time”.


There is no evidence to demonstrate that immunity will have this effect and it is well known that former paramilitaries involved in murder really have no incentive to tell all. All they have to do is sit out the five years within which cases may be brought for review. Even when information is provided, it is rarely the whole truth. On some occasions, information that has been provided has been demonstrated to be untrue.

The conditional immunity scheme which the Minister is again promoting, and which we are debating, would result in impunity for serious human rights violations and the unilateral shutting down of avenues to justice for victims and would give rise to questions about the ability of the independent commission for information recovery to deliver outcomes that would meet human rights standards.

The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, seeks by his amendment to provide the victims of the Troubles and the close family members of those who died with the right to be asked for their consent to a grant of immunity. It states that the chief commissioner must be satisfied

“the close family member has given consent for the granting of immunity and no objections have been raised by any other close family member within three months of the consent being given”.

Alternatively,

“if no consent has been given by that close family member within three months or an objection has been raised by any other close family member”

within three months, the chief commissioner can decide that

“it is nevertheless in the public interest to proceed with the granting of immunity”,

regardless of the views of the family. This modest amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, seeks to put victims at the centre of the process of granting immunity. It is qualified by an overriding right of the ICRIR chief commissioner to determine that, even when victims do not want immunity granted to a perpetrator, the views of the victims can be overridden in the public interest.

One of the problems of the current system is that judicial review has repeatedly been necessary to challenge decisions made by public authorities involved in dealing with legacy. Judicial reviews cost a lot of money. They take a long time to be resolved in our underresourced legal system, and they cause immense further distress to victims. If approved, the Secretary of State’s amendment will simply lead to more judicial reviews. Rather than solve the problem, it will add to it.

Your Lordships were right to remove Clause 18 from the Bill. The other place has—as it is entitled to do—overridden your Lordships. This amendment, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, will at least qualify the operation of Clause 18 by inserting some recognition of the fact that any process which ignores the views of victims simply has the capacity to cause them even more suffering, rather than to promote reconciliation.

As the noble Lords, Lord Murphy and Lord Hain, said, the Bill is fatally flawed. It deprives people across the United Kingdom who suffered so grievously during the Troubles of their fundamental rights under the Good Friday agreement, the European Convention of Human Rights and the Human Rights Act. If and when it is passed, it will lead to lengthy and complex litigation—something welcomed by the former Lord Chief Justice, Declan Morgan. This is not the way to promote reconciliation in a divided society. In the event of a Division, I will support the noble Lords, Lord Hain and Lord Murphy.

[Lord Eames (CB)]

My Lords, I once more find myself speaking as earnestly as I can in support of the sentiments of two former Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland—two men who undertook those tasks at times of division, suffering and what I can only term injustice for so many people in Northern Ireland. Given the fact that two men who had that experience have voiced sentiments in your Lordships’ House this afternoon and spoken in terms of their experience, I cannot understand why His Majesty’s Government do not understand that there are those outside this Chamber and this Mother of Parliaments who cannot understand why their voices are being ignored.

Yes, there have been attempts to bring the concept of victimhood into the legislation that is proposed, and yes, the Government can claim that they have made efforts, but, in God’s name, I ask your Lordships to consider the overall impetus of what changes have been made to try to recognise the needs of victims and their families, and of those who, in years to come, when they read what has been said, attempted and failed to be produced, will find it incredulous to understand that the Mother of Parliaments has ignored their crying.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Loan and Lord Eames

Report stage
Monday 26th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, this part of the Bill, providing for history and memorialisation, is about creating as true and honest an account as is possible of what happened during our tortured, troubled past, an account which must have integrity.

It is right that no memorialisation activities glorify the commission or preparation-of Troubles-related offences. Yet every day as I drive around Northern Ireland at this time of year, I see the flags erected—the flags which tell me that, as a Catholic, I am not welcome. In today’s Irish News we have an article about one of the Shankill butchers, a gang which went around killing Catholics simply because they were Catholics. This man served life. He is pictured erecting UVF flags commemorating the activities of the organisation to which he belonged.

Terrorism occurred right across our community. It occurred and was perpetrated by members of illegal organisations such as the UVF, the UDA, the IRA et cetera. However, there were also members of the security forces—both the police and the Army—who engaged with those groups. We cannot deny this; it has been proved. Most police officers served with honour. Most acted to protect us, as they acted to protect my family one night, when we were under attack, but that was not always the case. There were those who did such terribly wrong things. I think about the Glenanne gang, who for years terrorised south Armagh, killing some 127 Catholics. This is the subject of the present Operation Denton review.

Just a mile down the road from where I live was a young Catholic man who ran a little shop. One night, at two o’clock in the morning, two men came to the door, knocked, and said, “We have a sick child: we need medicine”. The shopkeeper, William Strathearn, got up. His wife and children were sleeping upstairs. He went down, opened the door, and was murdered. The two people who were convicted of his murder were serving members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

So it ran from the earliest days of the Troubles, and ran right through after the Good Friday agreement. I think of my own work investigating the UVF in north Belfast. The UVF murdered Catholics until 1994 and then, once the IRA declared a ceasefire, went on to murder indiscriminately both Catholics and Protestants.

Regrettably, we still see, at regular intervals, events from different sections of the community which glorify individuals who contributed to atrocities and occasions which cause immense pain to so many of us, but particularly to those whose loved ones died or were permanently maimed in the attack being celebrated. Those events cause great pain. They reignite the terrors and agonies of the post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by so many as a consequence of these events. There is no justification whatever for the glorification of terrorism.

The fact remains that, apart from all those who died and were maimed in the Troubles, so many families lived in terror and fear. I remember watching my husband driving out every day with our five sons in the car, and every day I prayed that there would not be a bomb under our car. He was a serving member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party—the party of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie—and for years we lived with terror because of that, and because of my role as police ombudsman. I have no difficulty in supporting any measure which can prevent the glorification of terrorism.

I find myself unable to support Amendment 118A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Godson. It requires that within three and a half years, a definitive public history of the Troubles, commissioned by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, should be completed. I have a number of difficulties with this proposal. Until the work of the ICRIR is completed, it will be a work in progress in establishing, as far as possible, what happened during the Troubles. Therefore, to attempt to write any history of the Troubles would be premature. To attempt to write an official history of the Troubles while the representatives and organs of government are conducting reviews would definitely be premature. In addition to this, and as Sir Joe Pilling’s April 2009 report on the official history programme indicates, there would be minimum government requirements relating to access to papers and clearance of the draft report.

Our history has been the cause of so much division. For the state to commission a history of the Troubles would immediately arouse suspicion in some parts of the community. People have watched over the years as those with control over materials relating to the Troubles have done all they can to ensure that, in respect of so many critical incidents, the truth has not emerged because of the refusal to disclose the relevant documents, until case after case has been the subject of judicial review and judges’ and coroners’ orders. This has happened from the Bloody Sunday Widgery report in 1971 right through to, most recently, the findings of the inquest in relation to the Ballymurphy shootings. No matter how noble and well-intentioned any historian designated to do this work might be, in Northern Ireland there would be suspicions and assumptions that such a history would not be free from bias. It would be most unlikely to secure public confidence.

One of the things I learned when I investigated police collusion with the UVF was that the loyalist and Protestant community felt very betrayed by the activities of those members of the security forces who colluded with loyalist paramilitary organisations. To impose a duty on the Secretary of State to commission such a history would be to introduce further cause for concern, suspicion and dissension in the communities in Northern Ireland. It would be better that history, in so far as it can be established, should be established by derivation from the findings of inquests, civil actions and criminal prosecutions.

As Maya Angelou said:

“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again”.


That is why this Bill is so misconceived: normal processes under the rule of law are to be abandoned, despite the objections of all the political parties, victims and the people of Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State’s power is woven throughout the new procedures in a way which means that, notwithstanding the integrity of any individual involved, all that will happen if there is an attempt to commission such a history is that it will divide, rather than create reconciliation. We cannot afford further community tensions, such as would emerge in attempts to write an official history of the Troubles.

[Lord Eames (CB)]

My Lords, I have frequently felt moved to speak in this House about the suffering that has been endured across Northern Ireland and which is obviously the centre of the approach of this legislation. However, we have also had occasions to be reminded that so little of our society finds, in this proposed legislation, anything that they can have confidence in.

On one occasion in Committee, I centred on the use of the word “reconciliation” in the title of the Bill. The speeches we have heard tonight come from the heart of people who have intimate knowledge of what they are talking about—people who have carried, and through their families have carried, scars over the years. For myself, there are numerous occasions upon which I have tried to bring comfort and reconciliation, in ordinary terms, to people. In the rawness of what we have heard tonight, this is really taking us now to the centre. We are not dealing with the niceties of this legislation. We are being reminded that the rawness of the suffering of ordinary people has brought us to this point.

I have no hesitation in saying that I have total dismay when I look at this legislation. So much could have been achieved. So much was expected, when we were told it was coming, and so little has been achieved, in what we have listened to and discussed. Now we are talking about how future generations will be told about our Troubles. We are told of the need to have an official history. My heavens, do we understand the first fact of what we are talking about when we refer to an “official history” of the Troubles? I venture to suggest it is an impossibility. The history of the Troubles is the photograph on the mantelpiece; the insertion on an anniversary; the plaque on a wall of the church, or a memorial window. The history of the Troubles is when a mother says, “Please, let me know the truth, before I die, of what happened”. And we turn around and produce ways of limiting inquiries, investigations, and questioning—not in the purely legal sense, but in the sense in which normal suffering people are crying out for answers. We have fallen so far short in this legislation of doing that.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Loan and Lord Eames

Committee stage
Tuesday 31st January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendments tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Suttie and Lady Ritchie, and the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, which provide for the inclusion of victim impact assessments, which are now part of normal criminal justice processes, in the consideration of a final report on a review or an investigation.

I cannot help noticing that the word “victims” appears but twice in the Bill. One is in Clause 49, which states that the designated persons are to be appointed by the Secretary of State under Clause 50 if he

“is satisfied that the person would make a significant contribution to the performance of the functions which are imposed by sections 43, 44 and 46”,

in Part 4, “Memorialising the Troubles”. Clause 50 states:

“When deciding whether to designate a person, the Secretary of State must have regard to whether the person is supported by different communities in Northern Ireland and will act independently of the influence of any other persons.”


Questions must arise here. Do they have to be supported by different communities? What are different communities? Are we back to sectarian headcounts? The legislation provides that:

“The designated persons must use their best endeavours to establish an advisory forum consisting of other persons”—


simply “use their best endeavours”, not just establish it—including

“persons who represent the views of victims and survivors of events and conduct forming part of the Troubles”.

The only other reference to victims appears in paragraph 5 of Schedule 11, which relates to the situation in which a person asks the Secretary of State for information about any application which may have been made for release under the sentences Act by a person who is serving a sentence of imprisonment for at least five years or for life. Two fairly insignificant changes are made to the information to be provided to the victim about the convicted person. In a Bill that the Government have presented as being designed to bring reconciliation to Northern Ireland, these minor but very important amendments would do something to promote the interests of victims.

[Lord Eames (CB)]

My Lords, I too want to give some support to this amendment because it touches on what we were crying out for in earlier debates, which is a small but significant voice for victims. As I tried to say this afternoon, these are real people who would perceive in some ways the legislation as it stands as being tilted against the victimhood that they had suffered. I want to see some more thought given to what that means, but I support the pith and substance of what is involved.