King’s Speech

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I share the pleasure that “Chagos” did not appear in the gracious Speech, and hope that this is the end of the matter.

In the gracious Speech there was a great deal of talk about commitment to the strength and integrity of the union of the United Kingdom; yet, because of the Windsor Framework, Northern Ireland is subject to the EU’s customs code, which declares Great Britain to be a third country. When I travel over each week from Belfast, I am in theory coming to a foreign country. We do not have a full democracy any more; we have a partial democracy, with 300 laws being imposed. This is unsustainable and the integrity is already being threatened.

Now the European partnership Bill seeks to fast-track EU rules into our law. The vote to leave the EU was a vote to take back control, not to give it away, so that we could make our own laws without being overruled by majority voting. That vote was for the exact opposite of what is now happening in Northern Ireland and what the Government now want for the rest of the United Kingdom without any mandate for doing so. The Bill will still leave the United Kingdom divided into two by an international customs union. We must leave the EU properly. I look forward to the Private Member’s Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, drawn as number five, the European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill, which was introduced in the previous Session by the honourable Member for North Antrim.

I will say just a word or two on the reintroduced Troubles Bill. Sir Declan Morgan and the ICRIR must be given a fair chance to succeed. I think that, on this Bill, there is a widely held view that the Secretary of State is far too worried about what the Irish Government want rather than what our veterans want and what our victims need. Last week, we had a Statement from the Secretary of State on the Dillon judgment, which came out from the UK Supreme Court. The unanimous decision of the Supreme Court is massively important for the future of the Troubles Bill. Due to the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, acting on behalf of the Northern Ireland Veterans Movement, the Supreme Court also stated its view on amnesty or conditional immunity for the purpose of reconciliation, as in the 2023 legacy Act.

On the day, the UK Government proclaimed that

“the Court went out of its way to refute the main argument put forward”

for immunity. In the Statement, the Secretary of State said:

“Contrary to what has been claimed by some, the UK Supreme Court has not endorsed the immunity scheme ”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/5/26; col. 141.]


Nobody said that it had, but the judgment summary did say:

“The Supreme Court finds that the Strasbourg court has not decided that there is a reconciliation exception (though it has not ruled out the possibility that such an exception may exist)”.


That is very significant, but was studiously omitted by the Secretary of State. He did admit that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer, had withdrawn the human rights appeal in July 2024.

Is it not a nonsense that we have primary legislation in the form of the Troubles Bill amending the 2023 Act and, alongside it, an unamendable secondary legislation remedial order also amending the 2023 Act? The order should be scrapped and the Bill rewritten. The Supreme Court judgment was a huge blow to the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland courts, which were of course found to have acted unlawfully. Sadly, the NIHRC and the ECNI are part of an industry of lawfare and activist organisations, and they can no longer operate in a way that commands confidence across the political spectrum. It is time to ask whether they serve any useful purpose for the huge amounts of money funded by taxpayers.

Finally, the truth is that Labour’s central belief system is no longer British-based but European-based. What is missing from the King’s Speech is our withdrawal from the ECHR. Until we do that, all talk of toughening our policies on immigration and protecting our veterans will fail.