Queen’s Speech

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, Her Majesty stated in the gracious Speech:

“My Government will continue to work with the devolved Administration in Northern Ireland to … promote reconciliation and create a shared future”.

The devolved Administration are not succeeding in their attempts. It was disappointing that, having travelled so far towards resolution of matters relating to the past, to parades and to flags, politicians were unable to reach agreement at the Haas talks. It is to be hoped that the Government will give every encouragement and assistance to those involved in the further talks, which are starting now.

Our security situation and our peace remain fragile, and that is of importance to the United Kingdom as a whole. During the year 2013-14, there was one death, 54 shooting incidents, 69 bombing incidents, 28 paramilitary shooting casualties and 42 paramilitary-style assault casualties, and 10 firearms and 23 kilograms of explosives were seized. Thirty-two people were charged under the Terrorism Act.

Critical to the security of the peace process and our shared future are the institutions established under the Good Friday agreement. They form part of a complex structure which underpins the growing acceptance of the rule of law and constitutional process. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission is one such institution. It is facing major budget cuts, which will reduce its income to the level that it was at 13 years ago, when it was established. Responsibility for the Human Rights Commission remains here, not in Northern Ireland, and today the Joint Committee on Human Rights wrote to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland expressing concern at the situation. If the cuts go ahead, there is a very real fear that the NIHRC will not be able to comply with the Paris principles. Its category A status will be put in jeopardy and, because of that, the category A status of the British Equality and Human Rights Commission will also be jeopardised. What we have achieved in human rights terms gives us the moral authority to speak on the international stage on such matters. If category A status is lost, the UK’s standing internationally will be harmed.

Many people wish that the past would go away; it will not do so. At present, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee of the other place is inquiring about the Government’s “on the run” scheme, under which comfort letters were provided through Sinn Fein to various people who had reason to believe that they might be under investigation by the state. The revelation of the OTR scheme has caused outrage, not least because, as your Lordships know, a man was freed by the Old Bailey in March this year, having been charged with the Hyde Park bombing, because he had received one of these letters.

Another issue which is causing significant concern and which has the capacity to undermine attempts to build a shared future relates to matters falling within the grey area between justice, which is devolved, and national security, which is not devolved. National security, as your Lordships know, does not have a specific definition. The problem is that it can be used, sometimes without justification, as a reason for refusal to allow access to material required by those charged with investigating what has happened in the past.

There are serious problems with our inquest system. While justice is devolved and security is not, it is the UK which has a duty to provide timely Article 2-compliant inquests. That is not happening. Inquests for people who died at the hands of paramilitaries and of the state, and which were opened soon after the deaths, were adjourned because coroners could get neither the necessary information nor the resources. In a letter, which has been made public, dated May 2014 to the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland from the coroner service, it was stated:

“It should be viewed as an enormous … embarrassment to the State that these Inquests have not been held”.

Some of these cases are decades old. In 2001, the European Court of Human Rights awarded damages to one family who were still awaiting an inquest after the shooting of their son in 1992. The damages were small—£10,000. Thirteen years later, the High Court in Belfast has awarded the same family £7,500 for frustration. Again, they are small damages but the costs of such actions are enormous, and the embarrassment to the Government for failing to provide a proper inquest system is high. This money could have been used to improve the coronial system. Further damages claims are now inevitable.

In January this year, the findings of an inquest into a police shooting 20 years ago were quashed on a variety of grounds. In delivering his judgment, the judge found the PSNI responsible for a delay of up to 11 years in holding the hearing. At present, the coroner is trying to conduct inquests into cases which were investigated by John Stalker and Colin Sampson. He opened the inquests again in 2007 and asked for access to the reports. In 2010 he got some access to redacted reports, but access to the full files has remained very difficult. In 2010 he also asked for an investigator to assist the process—a perfectly normal request. This has not been granted.

Over four years, only 50% of the Stalker/Sampson material has been examined and made available to the coroner. The process of redaction is being carried out by former RUC/PSNI Special Branch officers. Some of these former officers have been identified as having served with or known 92 of the potential inquest witnesses. In the May 2014 letter, the coroner stated that the present attitude of the PSNI to classification of the material is driving up costs, not reducing them.

A few years ago, Her Majesty’s Coroner was allowed to go into a police station and look at the secret material. He could make notes on it but could not take them out of the police station. Now, he is allowed to send in junior counsel. Junior counsel can record notes on a laptop, which is provided, but junior counsel is not permitted, except in very limited circumstances, to take that laptop away. Junior counsel, who is security-cleared, then has to brief senior counsel, who is not and not working full-time on the job. The consequence is that junior counsel cannot tell senior counsel what junior counsel has found out, yet senior counsel has to advise the coroner.

There are two obvious consequences to that situation. One is that the gatekeepers to access to this material are people who have a possible conflict of interest. I say no more. The other is that the whole process is so slow that at this rate it is not even possible to contemplate when the inquests might begin. As the state is seen to fail repeatedly in the discharge of its obligations under the law, the process of growing trust in the rule of law is inevitably damaged.

There are things that the Government can do to address these issues—they are not complex. I acknowledge and defend the need to protect national security. The concept can, however, be used as a barrier to due process rather than a shield from threats against the state. I acknowledge that much resource has been made available to Northern Ireland, but the reality is that Northern Ireland is carrying a burden which England, Scotland and Wales do not. It is the burden of the legacy of the Troubles. It requires both resources and courage to face the extent to which wrong things were done.

Government have a significant responsibility to ensure that the coronial system is fit for purpose and resourced to succeed. Failure to do so will end up only in our being back in the European court. There is an enormous funding deficit in this area. Government have recently submitted to the Committee of Ministers plans for a legacy inquest unit and a cross-agency group on delay, but there is little detail on what is being proposed and it is far from clear whether it will address the enormous problems and endemic delay currently in the system. I therefore ask the Government to deal with these very real problems and, by so doing, to give real assistance to those currently trying to sustain and consolidate the peace process and to build a shared future.