Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Debate between Alexander Stafford and Richard Thomson

2nd reading
Tuesday 24th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Thomson]

I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention. He is certainly correct that this is a very difficult and intractable set of issues that need to be navigated through, but if he really imagines that by introducing this Bill the Government are in some way cutting the Gordian knot, he is very sadly mistaken. I do not think that that kind of approach is the one that could yield the greatest amount of fruit. I do not believe that it needed to be the case that this was the outcome.

Stormont House was not agreed by everybody, but nevertheless it did provide a platform for a potential route forward. By failing to try to establish and build on what consensus there was in that, we are highly unlikely to reveal truth satisfactorily and we are certainly not creating the conditions whereby reconciliation might be achieved.

It is fair to say—certainly from the representations that I have received, particularly over the last 48 to 72 hours, from groups in civil society in Northern Ireland and from those who take an interest in the law and its application—that confidence in this process and this legislation is low. It is not being helped by the fact that we are here to discuss the Bill on Second Reading just days after it was announced formally in the Queen’s Speech. To only have two days in Committee here is, I think, thoroughly inadequate for the parliamentary scrutiny that a Bill of this kind deserves. It certainly does not pay the respect that I believe is due to victims groups and those with a stake in the outcomes here, in and across the island of Ireland and in veterans communities, to try to get us to a place of closer consensus.

In responding to the statement on 14 July, I was clear that I felt Ministers needed to think again about introducing any statutes of limitations or effective amnesties. I was also clear that, whatever proposals were eventually brought to the House, where independent prosecutors considered that there was sufficiency of evidence, a likelihood of a successful conviction and, most important of all, it was in the public interest to do so, they would still be able to bring those prosecutions. It is not simply about achieving truth and perhaps closure, and it is not necessarily about a prosecution resulting in a conviction; that investigative process and that testing of facts in a court of law, but even just simply the investigative process undertaken by the authorities, can in and of itself help to provide some of the closure that is required by the families.

[Alexander Stafford]

The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point about closure. I do not think that so far in this debate there has been enough conversation or debate about closure. Convictions are important, but we also need to make sure that the families of victims have the facts to bring closure—whether that is where the bodies of the disappeared are buried, how their loved ones were murdered, or if they had a glass of water before they were executed. Does he not agree that the Bill will make it more likely that some of these terrorists and people will come forward to give those details? It tries to bring closure for victims’ families.

[Richard Thomson]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. No, I do not agree with that and I will go on to explain in a bit more detail why.

As I have said, the Bill would clearly make that kind of continuation of the judicial process and the process of investigation impossible. So the question that I have been left wrestling with is whether the approach in the Bill can work and, if it can, whether the potential benefits of doing that outweigh the very negative and real consequences of bypassing the normal processes of the rule of law. I have to say that I have reached the conclusion, and my group has reached the conclusion, that they do not.

We have very deep concerns about the manner in which somebody might be granted immunity. There is a real danger that the process set out in the Bill as it stands actually puts more power in the hands of the perpetrators of past crimes or atrocities than it does in the victims’. The bar, as has been set out by the Labour shadow Secretary of State, is extraordinarily low in this respect. Simply to say that to give somebody immunity they have to request it but that what they then say has to be true to the best of their knowledge is not the sort of standard we should be hoping for in a completely open and accountable process of reconciliation and truth telling, because it means that there is absolutely no compulsion in there to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Even if we did wish to remove the process from a purely judicial setting, surely the very least we should expect from somebody seeking amnesty for their crimes is to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth before such a panel or tribunal.

I will be interested to hear what the Minister of State has to say, when he sums up, about the exemptions that are to be granted on the grounds of national security and what the independent commission should or should not do. Clearly, we would not want the commission to do anything that would imperil national security, but we can all see the potential conflict between revealing information that is held on file and the use of the national security clause to draw a veil over it. The process of reconciliation will require some hard truths, not just from the UK Government but, I suspect, from the records of the Government of the Irish Republic. Having that prohibition in the Bill potentially represents a further tilting of the balance away from revealing the truth and delivering justice.

One of the most pernicious aspects of the Bill is the way in which it seeks almost to bring down the shutters on families who have already engaged in inquiries or in the process preparatory to inquiries. To remove the rights of individuals to pursue a criminal or civil remedy appears to me to be in clear breach of article 2 of the European convention on human rights, and therefore aspects of the Good Friday agreement, as the convention is hardwired into it.

My reasons for opposing the Bill are ones of principle, articulated by those with a care for the legal and constitutional implications of what is before us, as well as the many strong and clear voices of those who have been affected by the troubles. In the light of those real concerns, I remain unpersuaded that the goal of truth and reconciliation will be more likely to be achieved by this process, or that it justifies setting aside the norms of the rule of law and the fundamental rights of the individual to seek recourse or to uphold their rights through the law.

I am also bound to observe the dismay of the Irish Government at the proposals. At a time when open dialogue and good will are in greater demand than they perhaps have ever been as far as the present UK Government are concerned, it is a missed opportunity to go about this process as they have, rather than try to find a way in which both Governments’ sets of records could be made available and open up a process applicable to all victims on both sides of the border.

Operation Kenova shows what can be done when police investigations into historical inquiries are allowed to take place. It is not good enough to point to the backlog in the PSNI historical inquiry unit as a reason for introducing the processes in the Bill. That backlog is an argument for adequately resourcing the PSNI so that the historical inquiry unit can complete the work it was tasked to do.

I do not think that reconciliation is something that can ever be imposed. It is something that has to be achieved. The legislation is being imposed, to the great distress of many, and that is unnecessary. The Bill in its current form is not one that my party can support.

National Insurance Contributions (Increase of Thresholds) Bill

Debate between Alexander Stafford and Richard Thomson

2nd reading
Thursday 24th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alexander Stafford]

Of course, we all have to live within our means: we cannot just keep on spending money. It was right for us to spend £400 billion to save jobs, save lives, prop up our economy and make sure that people have jobs, but we need to pay that back, so unfortunately we cannot have huge, sweeping tax cuts, however much we might like to. The Government need to make and are making the tough but responsible choices.

I also feel we are in a parallel universe when I hear Opposition Members talking about being on the side of working people and saying that they would do more if they were in our shoes. My local council, Labour-run Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, is not only increasing council tax for hard-working people but doing so with the ninth-largest increase, in cash terms, in the entire country. That is despite the council having £58 million in reserve for rainy days. If this is not a rainy day, I do not know what is. Instead of increasing council tax by so much, the council should spend the money it has in reserves and lower council tax for hard-working people.

Let me turn to an even more ridiculous example. Last year, the Labour police and crime commissioner for South Yorkshire underspent his budget by £2 million. That is a big saving. What would a fiscally prudent person do? They could spend it on reopening the police stations on Maltby High Street or in Dinnington, as I advocate, or perhaps freeze or even cut the precept. But no: the precept for the South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner is increasing, despite that budget underspend. It is a parallel universe.

The Government are introducing tax cuts for hard-working people. We should emphasise that it is about the working people, because we want to put more money into people’s pockets. The Bill is a good, strong and stable measure, because it will look after people and put pounds in their pockets, where they matter. It is my fundamental belief, shared by my colleagues on the Conservative Benches, that if someone works hard, they will get the fruits of their labour—they will get out what they put in. Under this Bill, the more someone works, the more money they will get in their pocket, and more money in their pocket is better for them and their family, community and society. That is what the Bill does: it looks after people by putting more money in their pockets, because the individual knows best. That has been what goes on since time immemorial.

[Richard Thomson]

According to the IFS, median earners on around £27,500 can expect to be around £400 worse off in 2022-23 than in this financial year, even after the increase to the national insurance floor. Are they getting back all that they put in? How do the hon. Gentleman’s comments square with the lived experience that people on median earnings will have in the forthcoming financial year?

[Alexander Stafford]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that interesting point, but it is clear that 70% of working people are going to have a tax cut. In fact, not only is there a tax cut in the Bill, but we know that there will be an income tax cut in 2023-24. I hope the Scottish Government also reduce income tax, so that they too are on the side of hard-working people.