Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 5th September 2023 Lords Chamber

It is for that reason that I favour very much a statute of limitations, and I am prepared to call it an amnesty. That is what we recommended when I was at the Foreign Office for many countries that had been through periods of civil discord, and that is what I think is the proper way forward. However, I know full well that that is not a majority view, either in this House or in the Province, or indeed in Ireland itself. That being so, I favour the position adopted by the Government rather than that advocated by the noble Lord, much as I respect him.

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak in favour of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, to the Minister’s Motion on Clause 13, and the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, to the Minister’s Motion on Clause 18.

The Bill removes fundamental legal rights from victims of the Troubles throughout the United Kingdom. The aim of the Bill is clear. The Minister referred to the purpose of the Bill in his introductory remarks, but actually the Long Title says that its purpose is to limit criminal investigations, civil legal proceedings and inquests, despite the fact that by May 2024, there will be some 15 outstanding legacy inquests to be heard. It is also to prevent police complaints investigations—all this into matters arising between 1966 and 1998. All these ancient and balanced legal procedures are being removed under the Bill, as well, it has to be said, as all the protections and powers that the courts have in the conduct of criminal, civil and inquest proceedings.

The Minister’s amendments do not address the deficiencies identified in the Bill by so many across the world—the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, referred to them—and the other place’s responses to the amendments made in your Lordships’ House do not address the deficiencies identified either.

It is important to remember that the Council of Europe, its Committee of Ministers, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN special rapporteurs, national human rights organisations, our own parliamentary committees, civil society organisations, all political parties in the UK, with the exception of the Conservative Party, political parties in Ireland and the US, victims groups and community groups have all declared the Bill to be unacceptable because of its manifest deficiencies, and because of the breach of our international legal obligations.

I remind noble Lords of the fact that, under the Bill, the ICRIR does not even have powers to demand information as of right but must justify each request as reasonable. That does not happen in normal criminal investigations. Yet untrammelled access to information is fundamental to the conduct of criminal investigations, and it has frequently only been the determination of judges, coroners, lawyers and litigants which has resulted in the disclosure of relevant and important information which should have been disclosed as a matter of course. Even in that situation, the police and the MoD have frequently said that they cannot produce the material because they do not have the resources to do so.

The answer to this situation cannot be to close down the justice system; rather, as Patten recommended, policing must be delivered in the context of a coherent and co-operative justice system. We do not have that in Northern Ireland. For example, the Kenova investigation submitted some 33 files from 2019 onwards, but no decisions have been made by the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland because it does not have access to the lawyers it needs.

The Secretary of State and the Minister keep reiterating that resources must be found within the Northern Ireland budget, yet what happened in Northern Ireland over the years of the Troubles was not the responsibility of paramilitaries alone. Agents of the state also played their part. In my 2007 report on the case of the murder of Raymond McCord Junior and associated matters, I said:

“it has emerged that all of the informants at the centre of this investigation were members of the UVF. There was no effective strategic management of these informants, and as a consequence of the practices of Special Branch, the position of the UVF particularly, in North Belfast and Newtownabbey, was consolidated and strengthened … information was withheld … Instructions were given that matters should not be recorded. The general absence of records has prevented senior officers, who clearly have significant responsibility for the failings, from being held to account. It is abundantly clear that this was not an oversight, but was a deliberate strategy and had the effect of avoiding proper accountability”.

That was accepted by the chief constable at the time and by the Secretary of State. In many other cases, there were similar findings. It is these situations, for which the state had responsibility, which demonstrate what happened and show the responsibility of the state for some of it. That is why I would argue that the Government have, at the very least, a moral duty to support those engaged in the pursuit of justice and truth and not to impede their search for it through passing this Bill—for that is what this Bill in its final form will do.

Your Lordships have discussed at length the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights in the context of investigation and pondered the Government’s commitments under the Good Friday agreement. The Minister’s Motion A does not make the Bill compliant with the ECHR or the Good Friday agreement. The amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, would at least impose an obligation for any regulations made by the Secretary of State in this context to be compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights and be subject, as he so articulately said, to the affirmative procedure.

The conditional immunity scheme, despite the Government’s amendments and others tabled by noble Lords, remains in breach of the Government’s obligations under the Good Friday agreement to provide people with access to the courts and remedies for breaches of the convention. That fact is profoundly important.

Victims’ groups such as the Truth and Justice Movement regard this Bill as destroying their democratic and human right to truth and justice. Nobody, not even the Government, thinks that this Bill will provide truth and justice, let alone reconciliation. The Secretary of State has repeatedly acknowledged the problems with the Bill, most recently stating:

“This Government believes that the conditional immunity provisions will be key in helping to generate the greatest volume of information, in the quickest possible time”.


There is no evidence to demonstrate that immunity will have this effect and it is well known that former paramilitaries involved in murder really have no incentive to tell all. All they have to do is sit out the five years within which cases may be brought for review. Even when information is provided, it is rarely the whole truth. On some occasions, information that has been provided has been demonstrated to be untrue.

The conditional immunity scheme which the Minister is again promoting, and which we are debating, would result in impunity for serious human rights violations and the unilateral shutting down of avenues to justice for victims and would give rise to questions about the ability of the independent commission for information recovery to deliver outcomes that would meet human rights standards.

The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, seeks by his amendment to provide the victims of the Troubles and the close family members of those who died with the right to be asked for their consent to a grant of immunity. It states that the chief commissioner must be satisfied

“the close family member has given consent for the granting of immunity and no objections have been raised by any other close family member within three months of the consent being given”.

Alternatively,

“if no consent has been given by that close family member within three months or an objection has been raised by any other close family member”

within three months, the chief commissioner can decide that

“it is nevertheless in the public interest to proceed with the granting of immunity”,

regardless of the views of the family. This modest amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, seeks to put victims at the centre of the process of granting immunity. It is qualified by an overriding right of the ICRIR chief commissioner to determine that, even when victims do not want immunity granted to a perpetrator, the views of the victims can be overridden in the public interest.

One of the problems of the current system is that judicial review has repeatedly been necessary to challenge decisions made by public authorities involved in dealing with legacy. Judicial reviews cost a lot of money. They take a long time to be resolved in our underresourced legal system, and they cause immense further distress to victims. If approved, the Secretary of State’s amendment will simply lead to more judicial reviews. Rather than solve the problem, it will add to it.

Your Lordships were right to remove Clause 18 from the Bill. The other place has—as it is entitled to do—overridden your Lordships. This amendment, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, will at least qualify the operation of Clause 18 by inserting some recognition of the fact that any process which ignores the views of victims simply has the capacity to cause them even more suffering, rather than to promote reconciliation.

As the noble Lords, Lord Murphy and Lord Hain, said, the Bill is fatally flawed. It deprives people across the United Kingdom who suffered so grievously during the Troubles of their fundamental rights under the Good Friday agreement, the European Convention of Human Rights and the Human Rights Act. If and when it is passed, it will lead to lengthy and complex litigation—something welcomed by the former Lord Chief Justice, Declan Morgan. This is not the way to promote reconciliation in a divided society. In the event of a Division, I will support the noble Lords, Lord Hain and Lord Murphy.

[Lord Eames (CB)]

My Lords, I once more find myself speaking as earnestly as I can in support of the sentiments of two former Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland—two men who undertook those tasks at times of division, suffering and what I can only term injustice for so many people in Northern Ireland. Given the fact that two men who had that experience have voiced sentiments in your Lordships’ House this afternoon and spoken in terms of their experience, I cannot understand why His Majesty’s Government do not understand that there are those outside this Chamber and this Mother of Parliaments who cannot understand why their voices are being ignored.

Yes, there have been attempts to bring the concept of victimhood into the legislation that is proposed, and yes, the Government can claim that they have made efforts, but, in God’s name, I ask your Lordships to consider the overall impetus of what changes have been made to try to recognise the needs of victims and their families, and of those who, in years to come, when they read what has been said, attempted and failed to be produced, will find it incredulous to understand that the Mother of Parliaments has ignored their crying.