Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Lord Dannatt Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 24th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

I agree with everything that the noble Lord has said. Would he agree that, at the end of the day, we are going to have to have a statute of limitations? It has to apply to all security personnel, but because of that, I am afraid that it has also to apply to those who are alleged to have been involved in terrorist activities.

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

I accept the noble Viscount’s point. I say simply that, if investigations are going to continue, and the rule of law is going to continue to be applied, I would seek for protocols to be put in place to protect the manner in which investigations were carried out and the way in which people who were required to take part in questioning were handled. I would want to ensure that their dignity, their respect, their age and their previous service were taken into due consideration. That is a minimum ask. That is a reasonable ask, and I speak on behalf of veterans who served their country in Northern Ireland over a very extended period.

[Viscount Brookeborough (CB)]

I suggest that the noble Lord may have meant GB-based veterans and not UK-based veterans, since Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom.

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

I accept that point entirely. I meant people such as me who live in England—I am three-quarters English and one-quarter Welsh. It is people such as me whom I had in mind, fully accepting that veterans from Northern Ireland have a very different outlook on the whole matter—quite understandably—because they were living and working within their own homeland. I am talking about soldiers who were brought up elsewhere than in Northern Ireland. I apologise for poor use of our language.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, in supporting the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, I will not repeat the cogent and compelling case she put. While Secretary of State for Northern Ireland I tried to grapple with legacy issues, which are incredibly difficult. I was bruised by them, and I had to withdraw a Bill I introduced that had been in gestation prior to my appointment because it was opposed by everybody. That is what should happen to this Bill.

However, I would have liked to support the Bill for that very reason of having grappled with these issues. I would particularly have liked to support the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Caine, because of his commitment to Northern Ireland, his long service and the high regard in which we all hold him in this House. But the Bill is opposed by every political party in Northern Ireland, and by every victims group. They do not agree between themselves very often and they do not agree about the definition of a victim, but they agree in their total, unanimous opposition to the Bill.