Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Lord Swire and Julian Lewis

Money resolution: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lewis]

I acknowledge the hon. Lady’s making her own position clear. I trust that, in the remarks that I am about to make, I will address precisely that point. It relates in particular to the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998. If I fail to mention that later, I hope that the hon. Lady will leap up and remind me to do so. I just wish to continue with my theme for the moment, which is the Government’s initial response to the passages—the recommendations—that I just read out.

The Government said:

“While the Government believes that the most effective option to address Northern Ireland’s past is to implement the proposals set out in the Stormont House Agreement, the Government acknowledges that others have different views on the best way forward, including approaches such as that proposed by the Committee which do not involve recourse to the criminal justice system. As such, the Government intends to include within its forthcoming consultation on the draft Northern Ireland (Stormont House Agreement) Bill a section entitled ‘Alternative approaches to addressing the past’. This section of the consultation will discuss alternative ways forward and include a description of the Committee’s recommendation. The consultation will invite respondents to give their views on ‘the potential effectiveness and appropriateness of alternative approaches such as amnesties and a statute of limitations to address the legacy of Northern Ireland’s past’. Following the consultation’s conclusion, the Government will consider all views carefully to inform next steps.”

Now, all I can say is that the Committee was greatly encouraged by that positive response, and we were then considerably discouraged by the fact—which may or may not be connected with the change in Secretary of State—that we subsequently found that the consultation was not going to include the section as described officially in the response to our report. That seemed to be a step backwards.

I have heard it said time and again—this evening and in previous debates on the subject—the rather obvious truth that there is no moral equivalence between terrorists or people accused of terrorist offences, and people accused of having committed offences when they were members of the armed forces or security forces trying to protect the people of Northern Ireland. As I said, that is an obvious truth; there is no moral equivalence. However, it can be argued—and I feel that it must be argued—that there is a legal equivalence, because everybody who is accused of a crime is, in a sense, equal before the law. But something strange and particular happened in the context of Northern Ireland, and that was—this is where I come to the intervention of the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon)—the passage of the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998. If I understand the Act correctly, and I think I do, it means that nobody can serve more than a two-year sentence, no matter how heinous the crimes that they committed, in the context of the troubles in Northern Ireland, which presumably means that, in practice, no one will spend more than half that length of time—12 months—in jail. Whether it be a question of pursuing terrorists decades after the event or of trying to pursue security personnel or members of the armed forces decades after the event, at the end of that whole process, even if anybody is found guilty of a crime that would normally attract a life sentence, they will end up spending no more than 12 months in jail.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

I am listening to my right hon. Friend’s argument very carefully. It is not just a question of how much time some of these accused former servicemen may spend in jail—it is about the question mark hanging over them in later life, and their fear that when they go back to court in Northern Ireland they will not be protected. They get all kinds of memories coming back, and feel very afraid. So in a sense, their sentence is already a life sentence while the current legislation continues.

[Dr Lewis]

I entirely agree with every syllable of what my right hon. and gallant Friend says. We are now in a perverse situation where people are being pursued decades after the event without any scintilla of a suggestion that new evidence has been found. They are put through this disproportionate and agonising process, and at the end of it, in the unlikely event that they were found guilty, any sentence that they served would in no way be proportionate to the crime. The whole process has been undermined, because while one might make a moral, political or legal case to pursue someone to the ends of time for a capital crime—a crime of murder—if one knows right at the beginning that at the end of that huge process they are going to serve only a derisory sentence, that has to call into question the legitimacy of the proceedings.