Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill
Debate between Lord Bew and Lord Murphy of TorfaenWednesday 21st June 2023
(1 year, 5 months 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: HL Bill 37—R—I(Rev) Revised marshalled list for Report - (20 Jun 2023)
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
My Lords, there are a lot of technical amendments to this and obviously we support those, as we support the other amendments in this group. Annual reports, work plans—all very sensible—but, in the nature of things, this is a relatively small part of this controversial Bill, and we will not oppose the amendments.
Lord Bew (CB)
My Lords, I wish to return to something I focused on in Committee: the role of the ICRIR and its officers. Tomorrow, I have the honour of addressing former Chief Constable Boutcher’s staff who are working on the Kenova inquiry. There are some 80 staff and a budget, so far, of over £40 million. We must have in our mind’s eye the criteria for people who work for the ICRIR. The concerns I had in the past have been greatly mollified by the fact that Sir Declan Morgan will now play such a key role in this new body. It is important to recall that there is no obstacle to employment in the ICRIR for those officers with, for example, HET experience, who did a good job, and former officers of the PSNI, and I am simply asking for reaffirmation of this from the Minister. We have to think about the complexity of issues, such as expense. Kenova is running to a cost of £40 million now, dealing with only a tiny percentage of the case load that the ICRIR might have, and therefore we do need experienced officers who know the ground working in this area. The Minister has been helpful in the past, but I am looking for a degree of reassurance.