Police Service of Northern Ireland: Security and Data Protection Breach

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful to the former Secretary of State for his questions. He will understand that the timeline is entirely a matter for the Policing Board, which appoints the chief constable. I am sure that it will wish to seek a resolution for this issue very quickly. It is important that the PSNI has strong leadership restored as quickly as possible, but that is entirely a matter for the Policing Board. It is within its power to appoint an interim chief constable while the formal recruitment process is ongoing, but that is its own issue. On the lack of a Justice Minister, in the unfortunate circumstance that the appointment be made before the Executive is re-established, we would have to take powers for His Majesty’s Government to ratify any appointment that would normally be ratified by the Justice Minister. That happened back in 2019, when the outgoing chief constable was appointed and there was no Executive and Assembly functioning.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, could I revert to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce? Would my noble friend, for whom we all have the utmost respect, discuss with the Secretary of State the calling together of the leaders of all the parties in Northern Ireland yet again—I know it has been done before—because it is essential that the Executive are re-established? It is essential that the people of Northern Ireland do not continue to be let down by the failure of their elected politicians.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. I am not sure whether it is in order to refer to people sitting outside the Chamber, but my right honourable friend the Secretary of State might well have heard my noble friend’s question direct. I completely agree with my noble friend that the imperative is to restore the Executive and to get the institutions established by the Belfast agreement fully functioning, up and running, at the earliest opportunity. I can assure my noble friend that the Secretary of State and the entire ministerial team are focused on that outcome and that my right honourable friend has been having a number of discussions over the summer with the political parties towards resolving the issues that are preventing the re-formation of the Executive.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 5th September 2023 Lords Chamber

It is worse than that, because not only are we throwing away the concept of justice and besmirching victims, but there is not even any countervailing benefit on the other side. In opposing the Motion from the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, the Minister said in his opening remarks, “Of course, if this was to be accepted, it would effectively kill off the benefits of the system and we would not have this information flowing”. I say with deep regret—it is something that they can still rectify—that if the Irish Government, who are refusing to have an inquiry into Omagh and, despite countless attempts from the victims’ families, have still not provided all the information that they hold on, for example, the Kingsmill massacre, are not providing that flow of information, what chance is there of the paramilitary organisations opening up their books to say, “Here is what happened in the past”? We are perverting the course of justice to sell fool’s gold to people, because if we are raising any level of expectation among families, and if we seriously believe, that they will get the answers and details as to why their relatives were killed by terrorist organisations, we are living in a fool’s paradise. The reality is that we will have traded in justice for no material benefit whatever. That is why the Bill is fundamentally flawed, but why there is at least a step of mitigation in the Motion from the noble Lord, Lord Murphy.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly on a very sad day. There is no Minister in His Majesty’s Government who has a better command and understanding of his brief than my noble friend Lord Caine. He is rightly respected and admired in Northern Ireland and, I think, in all parts of your Lordships’ House. He was clearly extremely unhappy about the Bill in its original form. He has clearly tried very hard indeed to improve it, and to some small degree it has been improved. But the speech that really should dominate this debate when it comes to be talked about in the future is the extremely powerful and moving speech of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames.

In my time as the chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in the other place, I got to know and love Northern Ireland, and I came to respect a number of people, including the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, but none more than the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, who was rightly held in fond affection throughout Northern Ireland, was looked up to, and did so much, particularly with the commission that he and Denis Bradley chaired. What he said today was an eloquent endorsement of the point made from the Opposition Front Bench by a much-respected former Secretary of State, the noble Lord, Lord Murphy. He effectively said that this Bill is unimprovable.

I missed some of the debates on the Bill for domestic reasons, which many Members of your Lordships’ House are aware of, but I did speak at the beginning on a number of occasions. Although it has been before your Lordships’ House for over a year, it is still, frankly, an unacceptable Bill, because it does not command any support outside the Government, and quite a number of us on the Conservative Benches in both Houses are very unhappy about it.

There was a degree of impeccable logic in the speech of my noble friend Lord Hailsham. There is a case for a statute of limitations; it is a clear, unambiguous answer. It is equally clear—the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, recognised this in his speech—that that would not command support either at the moment.

It is incumbent upon the Government, in view of the widespread concern, anxiety and deep unhappiness, to pause this Bill. We have a new Session of Parliament opening on 7 November, just a little over two months ahead. We have a fairly frenetic week this week and next week, and a few days after, and then we break for the so-called Conference Recess. We come back for about 10 days. There will be no further opportunity for detailed examination of this Bill, and we cannot play indefinite ping-pong. I am one of those who is frequently on record as saying that of course the will of the other place, as the elected House, must prevail in the end.

It would be doing a service, to the people of Northern Ireland in particular, to pause on this. However, one service deserves another, and I revert to a point I made during Questions earlier this afternoon. It is incumbent upon political leaders in Northern Ireland to come together and have an Assembly and an Executive, because the ultimate verdict on the Bill should be given in Northern Ireland itself after a close re-examination of all the alternatives, including a statute of limitations. This is not a Bill that should go on to the statute book in the fag end of this Session. With every possible tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Caine, and I genuinely mean what I said, I beg him to have urgent conversations with the Secretary of State and to press the pause button.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

My Lords, I am, as ever, extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have participated in the debate on these amendments. I will attempt to be very brief. I had not planned to make a long wind-up speech. I will reply to just one or two points, if I may.

In his remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, referred to the long history of attempts to deal with legacy issues. In 1998, it was, of course, put into the “too difficult” drawer. There have been subsequent attempts, none of which have come to a successful resolution. I refer to the valiant efforts of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, and his work with Denis Bradley. As noble Lords know, I was involved in the 2014 Stormont House agreement which, despite all of our best efforts, never managed to make it on to the statute book, and the level of consensus that we thought we had achieved at the time very quickly evaporated. There have been many attempts and many failures around legacy over the years.

This legislation, as I made clear in my opening remarks, sets out a different approach. The overall objective is very straightforward. It is to try to get for victims and survivors of the Troubles more information about what happened to loved ones in a far shorter time than is possible under existing mechanisms in a context in which, unfortunately for many, the prospect of prosecutions and convictions is going to be vanishingly rare.

I acknowledged as far back as Second Reading that I totally understand and acknowledge the feelings of many victims and survivors. I have met so many over the years, especially over the course of the past year, and for many the emotion, grief and anguish are as raw today as they were whenever the particular incident that caused their loved ones to be lost actually occurred. I referred in my Second Reading speech last November to my friend Ian Gow. Only last week, I dug out the letter that Ian sent to me on 4 June 1990, looking forward to lunch in the Strangers’ Dining Room on 11 June, just a matter of weeks before he was brutally murdered by the Provisional IRA—so I am acutely aware of the victims of terrorism.

However, I say to noble Lords that, if we are to pause this Bill or to refer it to the Assembly, all we are really doing is setting ourselves up for a further significant delay in providing answers to victims and survivors of the Troubles. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and my noble friend Lord Cormack—I am very grateful for and touched by my noble friend’s generous words towards me—talked about referring this back to the Assembly. I think I said in the past that it was always the assumption, going back to the Haass/O’Sullivan talks in 2013, that these matters would be dealt with in the Assembly after the Stormont House agreement, which largely covered devolved issues. Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson, then Deputy First Minister and First Minister respectively, came to the then Secretary of State and said, “Secretary of State, these issues are all far too difficult for us to deal with in the Assembly. Please could you take all the legislation through Westminster?” That is when we ended up unsuccessfully trying to convert the Stormont House agreement into legislation through this House. So I do not necessarily agree with the noble Lord that the answer is to refer this back to the Assembly.

I dealt in my opening remarks with the Government’s objections to the two amendments; I do not intend to add to those remarks. The subsequent debate has to some extent taken on the nature of another Second Reading debate, in that a number of issues have been raised that have been debated extensively throughout the past year. So, once again, with the greatest respect to the House, I do not intend to go over all those points again; we have debated them exhaustively.

Windsor Framework

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness. I am afraid that I have to disagree rather fundamentally with her characterisation of the agreement negotiated by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and others, which I regard as a very considerable improvement in all respects on the existing protocol. In respect of a number of issues that she raised, the Windsor Framework will allow for the free flow of trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, it will underpin Northern Ireland’s position within our United Kingdom, and the Stormont brake will give the United Kingdom Government a sovereign veto over new legislation within the scope of the protocol.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, it is quite clear that this brilliant achievement by the Prime Minister deserves widespread support. Would my noble friend not agree that those who wish to serve the people of Northern Ireland would do far better to recognise that this is the best that they will ever get and to make it work?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I could hardly agree more with my noble friend.

Stormont Brake

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful to the distinguished former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland for his tone and his comments. On the nature of the engagement, I can assure the noble Lord that my right honourable friend intends to speak to the Northern Ireland parties directly in the coming days. That will be followed by technical engagement at official level and further political engagement—but we intend to move rapidly on this because we recognise its importance.

I agree entirely with the noble Lord about the absolute necessity and priority of restoring the institutions. It is the Government’s hope that the Windsor Framework will now allow us to move forward in a way that allows the institutions to be fully restored and works to build a better Northern Ireland for everybody. Speaking as somebody who believes passionately in the union of the Great Britain and Northern Ireland, let me say that the surest foundation for strengthening the union is a Northern Ireland that works.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, in agreeing very much with what my noble friend the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, have just said, do not all those in Northern Ireland who have been elected to the Assembly now have a duty to meet and discuss together the historic achievement of the Prime Minister, which will not be bettered, so that we can move forward as a United Kingdom?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I very much agree with the sentiments behind my noble friend’s question. As I have indicated, the Secretary of State will speak to all the Northern Ireland parties in the very near future. I agree with my noble friend about the achievements of the 1998 Belfast agreement; as we approach its 25th anniversary, it is important that we seek to move that forward. He is absolutely right.

Omagh Bombing

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Caine (Con)]

It is with some trepidation that I rise to answer the questions of the noble Baroness, given her previous role as a distinguished Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland: she probably knows as much about this case as any other living person. In answer to her questions, of course I can confirm that the inquiry will take place under the Inquiries Act 2005. The inquiry will have full powers of compulsion and access to all the relevant material. Naturally, we expect as much of the inquiry as possible to be conducted in public, but as she will understand, some of the material will be of such a national security-sensitive status that it will not be possible in all circumstances.

On the terms of reference, I refer to the targeted nature of the inquiry in respect of those areas where the judge has held that we have not fully discharged our obligations. The final terms of reference are, of course, a matter to be decided between His Majesty’s Government and the individual who chairs the inquiry, but I very much take on board the noble Baroness’s comments about the Northern Ireland legacy Bill, which has been debated extensively in your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in the other place produced a report on Omagh under my chairmanship, and I take this opportunity of saluting the courageous persistence of Mr Gallagher and others, which has led to today. I also take up the point just made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan. If one had to categorise the Statement, I would say that its hallmark was sensitivity. The problem with the Bill is that its hallmark is insensitivity, and frankly I believe that it is incompatible with beginning this inquiry to continue with the Bill. My noble friend has handled this with extreme care, but will he have a special conversation with the Secretary of State, who made this Statement last week, and say to him, “Really, as far as the legacy Bill is concerned, enough is enough. Let’s start again”?

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful, as always, to my noble friend for his kind words. He makes his case with customary force and eloquence. Of course, we have yet to complete Committee on the legacy Bill in your Lordships’ House, there is still a further amending stage to come after that, and I remain committed to fulfilling the pledge that I have made on a number of occasions, from this Dispatch Box and elsewhere, to do whatever I can to improve the legislation and to send it back to the House of Commons in a much better state than when the House of Commons sent it to us. I will, of course, continue to have discussions with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State towards that end.

Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: Supreme Court Judgment

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Caine (Con)]

The noble Baroness will be aware that I have been a consistent supporter of the Belfast agreement since it was reached on 10 April 1998. We are about to mark its 25th anniversary. I agree with her earlier comments. A protocol that was designed to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland and to protect the 1998 agreement in all its parts is now having the unintended consequence of undermining and placing strain on that agreement. I agree with the noble Baroness entirely that we need to resolve these issues as quickly as possible and get Stormont back to work.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for all that he continues to do in the interests of good sense and Northern Ireland. Is he confident that, given sufficient time—we do not need to rush this or try to accomplish it as soon as we can—negotiation is the only sensible way to resolve this issue? The dairy industry, which has been to see me and others, will then feel that its protection is complete and will be very happy that others should have similar benefits.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend and thank him for his kind words. We are seeking to achieve, as I indicated in my opening Answer, a situation that respects the integrity of the EU single market and the UK’s internal market, and Northern Ireland’s constitutional position as an integral part of our United Kingdom—a position, I hasten to add, that I wish never to see change.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 31st January 2023 Lords Chamber

I will draw my remarks on these amendments to a close. We have to show victims and survivors that, in this House at least, they have not been completely abandoned. I strongly appeal to the Minister—and, above all, to the Cabinet Ministers behind the Bill—to think again. If they agree our Kenova Amendments 112, 124 and 72, including the ones on immunity, they will be able to deliver a Bill with cross-community support rather than the one we have before us—with or without his government amendments, which do not really address the substance—which has provoked near-universal cross-community hostility in Northern Ireland and, frankly, huge opposition across the UK, and this House in particular. I urge him to persuade his colleagues sitting above him in the Cabinet to think again and to engage constructively on this.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am very glad to have added my name to Amendment 112, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hain. But there was a contradiction running through even the very eloquent and powerful speech that we have just heard from my friend—I deliberately call him that—the noble Lord, Lord Hain. He worked with extreme sensitivity when he had the honour to be Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and I saw at first hand how he agonised over things and cared about people. At the beginning of his speech, he said—in as many words—that this Bill was beyond improvement: that whatever we did to it, we could not really make it into a decent Bill. Then he went on to urge us all to support the amendments. I understand the contradiction—of course I do, because we have the Bill before us. But every word I have heard uttered in these debates—and I have heard most of them—and on Second Reading, underlines the fact that, to quote the noble Lord, Lord Reid of Cardowan, in a different context, this is not fit for purpose. It really is not.

Much as I admire—and I do admire—the noble Lord, Lord Caine, as I have said before during the passage of this Bill, with all the good will in the world, and I know he has a great measure of that, he cannot really make this better. It is as if you are confronted with a cake made with poisonous fruit. Any amount of cream, any amount of icing and any amount of titivation will not make it anything other than a poisonous cake. I am afraid that the Government have, with a combination of insensitivity and ignorance—and this emphatically does not apply to my noble friend on the Front Bench—created a monster of a Bill that has alienated every community in Northern Ireland. There is only one answer, and I have said this before, and that is to go back to the drawing board and try to produce something that really does meet many of the points that have been made by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and others during the course of our debates.

While I am here because I believe that the subject is important—I care deeply about Northern Ireland, although I have never had the good fortune to live there, and have been there many times and heard many stories—I feel we are not serving the people of Northern Ireland as we should if we try to make the proverbial silk purse out of the sow’s ear that the Bill is.

For those who are not from Northern Ireland, I would say this: a fortnight ago, I had a message that somebody from Northern Ireland wished to see me. Of course, I saw him. He was a man who had appeared as a witness when the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee—under my chairmanship—conducted an inquiry into organised crime. We had to take a unique departure for a Select Committee—I do not think it has happened since—which was that every evidence session was taken in camera, because people were not prepared to give evidence in public as their lives were at stake. This was a man who had suffered from extortion by—I hate the term—loyalist terrorists. How you can be a loyalist and a terrorist is completely beyond me, but the term is used. He wanted to come and tell me what had happened since that day in 2006 when he gave evidence to my committee. I was moved and impressed by his courage, his resilience and his determination. He had suffered quite considerably, and suffered physically as well. How would a man like that ever buy this Bill? It is from individual examples such as that that one can try to gain an understanding of what it is like, and has been like, in Northern Ireland, and realise that we really have a duty to produce something that can be acceptable to those who have suffered so much.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

I do not disagree with anything the noble Lord has said. The problem is that the House’s role is not normally—if ever—to reject a Bill, especially one that, at least in part, has a manifesto commitment in it. So we just have to do our best to make it less unacceptable. That is what my amendments have been designed to do and I am very grateful that he has supported them.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Caine (Con)]

The words “I’ll believe it when I see it” spring to mind, given the experience of successive Governments over the past 25 years who have sought to grapple with this issue.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

I do not want to delay things unduly but, if my noble friend were to have a round table with those who have taken part tonight, who have a fairly common view of the inadequacy of this legislation but a desire to make progress, I do not think we would be talking about five years—five months, maybe.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

It might well be that a round table of noble Lords who have taken part in this debate could produce some proposals within five months, but we have all seen the difficulty of getting agreement from all the political parties in Northern Ireland for legacy proposals, and the huge difficulty of getting consensus and agreement from the victims’ groups in Northern Ireland. That is a very laborious process. After the Stormont House agreement, I went through four or five years of trying to get that agreement into legislation and before your Lordships’ House; that was despite it being a manifesto commitment in 2015 and 2017 and a Queen’s Speech commitment in 2015.

It is a very long and difficult process to get consensus. With the criticism there is of this legislation—I accept that it is criticism and that it does not have widespread consensus—the onus would be on those coming forward with other proposals, alternative suggestions, to build consensus. That would take a long time, and then to turn that consensus into legislation, to legislate and to establish new bodies is not something that could be done very quickly.

Turning back to the debate itself, it is the Government’s view that the immunity test is robust. It requires individuals to apply for immunity and, in so doing, acknowledge their role in Troubles-related incidents. Immunity will be granted only in relation to conduct that individuals disclose, and only where the panel is satisfied that the conduct exposes the individual to criminal liability.

Crucially, it requires the individual to provide an account that is true to the best of their knowledge and belief. In determining whether that is the case, there is a legal obligation on the commission to consider all the information that it holds that is relevant to that decision. If an individual provides an account that contains truthful information about numerous offences, but that same account includes untruthful information about just one offence, they will not be granted immunity at all. This will help prevent people from trying to minimise their role in incidents.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 24th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

He is a young man.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

He is a very young man.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am a child in your Lordships’ House.

We are looking at cases which go back very many years and where, as the noble Lord rightly says, the chance of prosecutions is rare. In response to his amendment requiring the Secretary of State to make payments where conduct has been referred, I do not think he will be remotely surprised to hear me repeat what I have said in the Chamber on a number of previous occasions in response to him and the noble Baronesses, Lady O’Loan and Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, the latter of whom is not in her place, unfortunately: that funding for the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland is a devolved matter, and one for the Executive to consider.

I will say, almost in parenthesis, that I understand the comments about resource, but I have spoken to senior members of the legal profession in Belfast. While they would of course always welcome more resources, they are also adamant that the speed with which some of the cases proceed is not entirely down to resourcing; there are other issues involved. Having said that, I remind the Committee that the 2021 spending review set out historical levels of funding for the devolved Administrations, including the Northern Ireland Executive. Spending per head in Northern Ireland is already the highest of any region of the UK: Northern Ireland receives 21% more funding per head than the UK average. Also, a sizeable amount of money— £250 million, to be exact—will be made available by the Government to fund the institutions established by the Bill, including the investigative function of the commission.

I turn now to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and her amendments—

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 24th January 2023 Lords Chamber

You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. The Government should take that old proverb to heart and stop trying to defy the rules of political gravity. To proceed pell-mell by putting this contested Bill on to the statute book lacks wisdom and prudence. At the very minimum, it should be considered by the Northern Ireland Assembly whenever that is reconstituted and before this goes on to the statute book. This amendment would stop it in its tracks at Third Reading, when we would have carried out our constitutional duty of scrutinising the Bill which has been laid before us. That is why I urge noble Lords to support my noble friend’s amendment to the Motion.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, during my time as chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in another place I came to know, respect and admire a lot of people, none more than the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan—a Roman Catholic of deep faith and a police ombudsman of utter impartiality—and the man who had been Primate of All Ireland, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, who is respected and indeed loved by people throughout the island of Ireland. They have both made very powerful speeches today, and we should reflect very carefully on what they and others have said.

But we are dealing with thousands of human tragedies, and this terrible legacy, without the input of the devolved Assembly in Northern Ireland. I want to make a plea to the party politicians in Northern Ireland: for goodness’ sake, come together and discuss. It is absurd not to because of one issue over the protocol, important as it is. They have not even discussed that. There is an Assembly, it has been elected, and an Executive could be appointed within 24 hours of its meeting. In my view, it is very important indeed that, before we go very much further forward with the Bill, the Assembly comes together and recognises its constitutional responsibility to the people of Northern Ireland to make its views known on all issues of importance to them.

Of course, the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, would allow this House to proceed, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said a moment or two ago. On balance, I think she is right to do that, because we have a constitutional duty too. But for the Bill to pass on to the statute book without a proper input from Northern Ireland would be, to put it very mildly, deeply unfortunate. So I hope that our friends and colleagues who have influence over the Members of the Assembly, as many do, will urge them to come together and discuss. Of course, they will not agree on everything. Of course, there will be vigorous debates on the protocol. But that is the purpose of a democratically elected body.

My noble friend the Minister’s behaviour has been exemplary: he listened carefully to all that was said on Second Reading, indicated his own discomfort with the Bill—I do not think that anybody could be comfortable with it—and promised to come back with some amendments. He has done that. He is an honourable man. He knows and cares more about Northern Ireland than most people who do not live there. He has spent much of his life there and has given much of his professional career to serving its people.

We have a good Minister, a decent man, with a bad Bill. I do not think that anybody disputes that. But I think that what the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, said was wise and sensible. We ought to resolve that this will not go on to the statute book until the Assembly in Northern Ireland has met. It must not continue to abdicate its responsibilities. It has a duty to the people who elected it, to serve them.

So, really, the substance of my brief remarks is to appeal across the Irish Sea, to a very beautiful part of the United Kingdom which I got to know well and love deeply: please do not continue to neglect your democratic responsibilities. Let us have your views on this Bill. I suspect that they will not be very different from most of ours.

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

My Lords, I realise that I run the risk of striking a discordant note in this afternoon’s debate, and I very much understand the widespread criticism of this Bill from virtually every quarter that has been identified. However, I choose to identify with the remarks made earlier by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and take issue with just one of the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, when, in the list of those opposing the Bill, she mentioned veterans.

Veterans are not a homogenous group; veterans come in very different categories. I feel that this debate would be lacking if someone did not speak for UK-based veterans who, for 38 years, served and did their duty, in the main, to the utmost of their ability. Yes, of course, there were tragedies, and errors were committed by the British Army. We know what they were, and I am not going to go into those; but the vast majority of soldiers, as we have debated in this Chamber before—I have had debates in my name making exactly these points over the years—did their duty to the best of their ability. Their voice must be heard.

We do not want, as a veteran group, to set ourselves against all the other powerful arguments against the Bill, but the voice that I speak for is the voice that has had enough of investigations being mounted on now quite elderly soldiers on the whim of evidence, often causing them a lot of fear and upset, some of them going to their grave with the allegations not fully investigated. If the Bill is intended by the Government to stop that process, it is a very blunt instrument to achieve a particular aim. On that basis, I would ask the Government to think again about the Bill, but if the Bill is lost, for all the very good reasons that people have been talking about, what must not be lost is some way for veterans who did their duty to be protected.

I am not going to personalise it; I am one of them. My colleagues and I, on the whole, did our best, serving to the best of our ability. There must be some protection for us. We tried to raise it in the context of the overseas operations Bill, but those protections were dismissed by the Government, who said we would come back to it in the Northern Ireland Bill. We are back now. If we lose this Bill, the vast majority of UK-based veterans—not all—will feel that they have been let down by the Government and that successive promises have been broken. That is the only point that I will make.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for her interruption. She makes a telling correction, or at least clarification, to the point I make. I agree with her, and take her point entirely, especially having worked with her and respected her for her work when I was Secretary of State.

However, there is regular contact with the families and regular updates; that should be the model adopted going forward. Not only is Kenova a model of effective police work and a model for how to work with the families concerned but it has the most robust governance and oversight structures in place. Two of our distinguished colleagues in this House, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, serve on one such body, along with those who have extensive international policing experience. That is the model that should be adopted for any investigative process coming out of this legislation.

In bringing my remarks on this amendment to a close, I confess that I am still not absolutely sure where the Government stand on Operation Kenova. For a time, the mantra was trotted out at official and ministerial level that Kenova could not be said to be successful because no prosecutions had resulted. This was disingenuous at best. The Secretary of State who peddled this line knew full well that over 30 files sat with the seriously overstretched and underresourced Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland and have now done for three years or so. I will refer more to this in the debate on Amendment 136. If cases do not come before the courts for whatever reason, one cannot blame the investigation. Now it is conceded by Ministers and officials that Kenova does good work, but we are told it could not be upscaled, because it would be too expensive and investigations would take far too long. Jon Boutcher has made it clear that in his view the essential elements of Operation Kenova could be upscaled and investigations completed within a manageable timescale and not at an eye-watering cost.

I said at the outset that this is bad legislation. Our amendments could turn it into acceptable legislation and surely the Government are therefore duty bound to accept them.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I was very glad to add my name to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and will speak briefly in its support. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, for the way in which she introduced this mammoth group of amendments.

As I listened to the noble Baroness, and to my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, I kept thinking of those immortal words from the Irish story: “I wouldn’t have started from here.” What we have is a terrible ragbag of a Bill. Of course, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hain, that if our amendment were accepted, the Bill would be very significantly improved. However, we really need to go back to the drawing board here. The Bill is far too complicated and complex. It tries to treat a whole range of people with what I would call an artificial equality and, in the process, upsets everybody. We have heard that quoted time and again, at Second Reading and in the debates today. You cannot please everybody; you have to try to be fair and just. In particular, you must have regard for those who have been slaughtered or maimed in terrible incidents of which they were not the perpetrators and where they were seeking to defend what was right.

The House does not need me to give a whole series of encapsulations of dreadful events such as Enniskillen. But we cannot have this Bill because it does not recognise—as the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, put it graphically earlier in our debate today—for instance, the proper desserts of the veterans of those forces who were seeking to defend, and who were not engaged in terrorist acts.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope that the Government will have a very serious look at this proposal, because it might save the Bill—not save it in the sense of whether it would go through the two Houses of Parliament, but save it in that, whatever happens here, if it goes back to Northern Ireland and nobody wants it, it is doomed. It is as a simple as that—but it could be saved. It is significant that we have had two former Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police speak powerfully in favour of the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Hain. Perhaps above all else, the Operation Kenova system, if you can call it that, puts the victims at its very heart. Frankly, that is what is missing in the current proposals that the Government are putting forward—so I suggest to the Minister that it is not just worth considering but that he must consider it.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

You are on!

[Lord Caine (Con)]

As if I need reminding. I am grateful to all who have contributed to this extensive and far-reaching debate. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, referred to my all-Peers letter in which I described this legislation as “challenging”. I assure him that that word was not chosen by the Civil Service—it was inserted by me. I think that the intention could best be described as ironic understatement.

I am also grateful for the words of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, about the role of this House and the attempts to improve the Bill. I genuinely hope that, whether one agrees with my amendments or not—and I suspect from what I have heard across the Chamber that a large number of your Lordships would fall into the latter category—it is recognised that I am trying sincerely to improve the Bill as best as I can, and will continue in those endeavours.

On the various amendments before the Committee, as noble Lords are aware, the legislation establishes the commission to carry out reviews of Troubles-related deaths and incidents involving serious injury. I have tabled Amendment 76 to make it clear, I hope, beyond any doubt that the commissioner for investigations is to decide whether a criminal investigation should form part of a review in any case that is considered by the commission. I reiterate the point that, under the legislation currently before the Committee, “review” is intended to be an umbrella term that can include a criminal investigation. We have tried to take on board some of the concerns and criticisms over the use of that word.

In the Government’s view, the amendment that I have tabled would confirm very clearly that the Government can meet and deliver on their international obligations in respect of investigations. The Bill does this by ensuring that the commissioner for investigations, as a person with the powers of a police constable, has access to the complete range of investigative measures, including as part of a criminal investigation, while giving them the discretion and flexibility to determine how they can best fulfil the needs of victims and survivors.

I completely understand that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, who proposed a series of amendments, does not agree, and does not believe that the amendment goes far enough. In all honesty with your Lordships, I tread warily on this issue of the ECHR. I am not a lawyer, unlike the noble Baroness. The Government’s position on this is that obviously it follows that, when immunity is granted by the commission, the commission will not be capable of following that with a process leading to a prosecution or the punishment of an individual concerned. Nevertheless, the Government consider that result to be compatible with their international obligations, for the following reason. The absence of a prosecution or punishment outcome in individual cases where immunity is granted can, in the Government’s view, be justified on the basis that the conferral of such immunity in those circumstances, in a limited and specific way, is necessary to ensure the recovery of information about Troubles-related deaths or serious incidents that would not otherwise come to light. Such recovery is an important part of trying to help society in Northern Ireland move forward. I think we will touch on that issue further in a later group of amendments.

I turn to the amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and others. The Government do not believe that it would be appropriate or effective to stipulate that all reviews must entail criminal investigations, which would be the effect of Amendment 72, or that in some cases a criminal investigation, and only a criminal investigation, must be carried out. There are circumstances where families might wish simply to gain a further degree of information about something that happened on the day, about some specific aspect of what happened, and we would envisage that the commission in those circumstances might determine that a short review is all that is required to answer a small number of specific questions—and that information might be readily available in the archive of material available to the commission without having to go down the criminal investigation route.

We believe that stipulating that all reviews entail criminal investigation would—I do not think the noble Lord will be surprised to hear me say this—add a significant amount of time and resource to how long it would take the body to work through its caseload and prevent it being able to prioritise appropriately. We are clear that, in all cases, the commission will be able to conduct full, effective investigations capable of discharging our obligations. The commission will have all the necessary powers to conduct investigations, including the powers and privileges of a police constable, the power to compel evidence from witnesses and full access to state records.

As I said in response to an earlier group, it is of course vital that the commission is informed by best practice from elsewhere, including Operation Kenova, which I agree with many noble Lords across the Committee has achieved very positive outcomes in building strong relationships with victims and helping them to better understand the circumstances around what happened to their loved ones. Like many noble Lords across the Committee, I have met Jon Boutcher on a number of occasions and continue to engage with him, and I pay tribute to him for the work he has carried out—specifically for the way he has conducted relations with families.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour and something of a burden to follow three distinguished Members from Northern Ireland: the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, and the noble Lord, Lord Rogan. Of course, I cannot begin to claim the detailed knowledge that they have, but I was with Airey Neave the night before he was assassinated. I knew very well Robert Bradford, who had an office next to mine in the Norman Shaw building and was murdered at his surgery. When she was acting as a secretary for me, my wife shared an office with Ian Gow’s secretary; I shall never forget when I received the news of his death.

I got to know Northern Ireland well when I had the honour of chairing the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in the other place. We had a true all-party committee, with four parties from Northern Ireland represented, only one other Tory and seven Labour Members. We worked together. All our reports were unanimous. I enjoyed the confidence of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, when he was Secretary of State, and that of his successor, Shaun Woodward. From time to time, the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, would ring up and discuss Northern Ireland affairs. I not only got to know the Province but grew to love it and its wonderful countryside, its quite remarkable people—in both communities and, at its best, with one community.

In 2006, we published a well-received and unanimous report on organised crime in Northern Ireland. I learned so much from the evidence, all of which had to be taken in camera; it was, I think, unique for a Select Committee to have all its sessions in camera because those people who came to speak would not otherwise have been able to open up in the way they did. We heard some terrible and grisly stories from them. When we published the report, which we did in Armagh with a special session, we had to get the permission of the chief constable, Sir Hugh Orde, because all previous reports had been published in Belfast, mostly in Stormont. However, he was very encouraging and helpful.

I then had the great privilege of getting to know one of the most remarkable men in Northern Ireland in recent years, who is deservedly a member of the Order of Merit and a Member of your Lordships’ House. I am of course referring to the right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, a former Primate of All Ireland, who, along with Denis Bradley, produced that remarkable report; I had the great privilege of being able to discuss it with both of them. He did a great service to Northern Ireland.

The other vivid memory that I have of terrorism and crime was addressing a meeting in Crossmaglen village hall. I was told that I was the first Conservative politician to do such a thing since 1906, but it was because a brave couple—the Quinns—came to see me; I then introduced them to my committee. The murder of that young boy, Paul Quinn, was one of the most dastardly murders in the Troubles.

So I approach this Bill as one who has some knowledge of, and a great deal of concern for, one of the most beautiful parts of the United Kingdom; indeed, I want it to remain so. However, we must face up to the fact that legacy can be both a poison and paralysis, and can become a cancer in the body politic. I pay great tribute to my noble friend Lord Caine, who made what I thought was a very moving and powerful introductory speech. It was one of the most honest speeches I have heard from a Minister on the Front Bench in either House because he actually said to your Lordships, “I don’t much care for this Bill. I’m troubled by it. I shall be bringing in some amendments.” We should all reserve our final verdict. I say that to the noble Lord, Lord Rogan; I know why he said what he said, but let us give the man a chance. Let us see what the amendments are like. There are other amendments, some of which I have signed, which are to be tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hain. Let us try and see what we can do with this Bill.

We must remember that there will come a time, and it is fast approaching, when almost everybody involved in the Troubles, in whatever capacity, will advance into real old age and within a decade or so, a very large number of them will be dead. We have to ask ourselves the question—it is a painful one, but it would be dishonest if we did not ask it in this debate—is the proper answer a statute of limitations? We have to be very careful to distinguish between those who died in the course of duty and the innocent civilians who were murdered by terrorists, and the terrorists themselves, who sometimes lost their own lives, mostly by accident—they did not go in for self-immolation. We have to face up to these questions as we debate this Bill in Committee.

I was one of those who, in another place, spoke out and voted against the War Crimes Bill, which was rejected in your Lordships’ House, one of the main arguments being that as time passed by, memories faded. Let us be honest: they sometimes become distorted as well. Therefore, I did not think it right, in the 1990s, to be passing a Bill dealing with crimes committed in the 1940s. Of course, very few people have come to trial. There have been a few in Europe, but nobody has been sentenced in this country.

These are painful questions that we have to face up to. But I want to end on a note of hope that is my most remarkable memory of my time as chairman of that committee. Ian Paisley and I entered the House of Commons on the same day. I got to know him perfectly well. I liked him, though I did not agree with him on many things. At the service to commemorate the 450th anniversary of the death of Sir Thomas More, I was the steward who escorted Ian Paisley out of the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft when he got up to protest.

When he became First Minister, he asked me to see him. The Secretary of State made his study available at Hillsborough. When I went in, he said, “I want you to know something. Martin McGuiness has a spiritual dimension.” You could have knocked me over with the proverbial feather; but he meant it. When Ian Paisley stood down as First Minister, I had the honour to be at the dinner at Hillsborough, hosted by the Secretary of State and attended by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Taoiseach. The panegyric to Ian Paisley—for it was nothing less—was delivered by Martin McGuiness, to his “friend and mentor”. As we all know, they were known as the Chuckle Brothers in the popular press. If those two men could come together in that way, then we need people of stature to come together now. We need Stormont reactivating. We need an Executive that will look after the affairs of Northern Ireland for its people, rather than refusing to do so because of a disagreement on a wholly different political issue.

I very much hope that in Committee, we can come to an agreement across your Lordships’ House, send back to the Commons a Bill that is much better than the one it sent to us, and move forward; and that, at the same time, those who have been elected to Stormont can realise the proper obligations of the elected, come together for the people of Northern Ireland and work together for them, both Executive and Members of the Assembly. This is the challenge. We must see that it is achieved if we possibly can. All those of us who care about the future of the United Kingdom in general, and the future of Northern Ireland in particular, have a duty in this.