Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 24th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, in speaking—briefly, the Committee may be pleased to hear—to Amendment 136, I again thank the noble Lords, Lord Hogan-Howe and Lord Blair, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, for adding their considerable names. I am indebted to the noble Baroness for her forensic analysis and for bringing her long experience into the debate through her amendments.

We all understand that, due to the age and complexity of legacy cases, prosecutions will be rare—very rare—but it is important that the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland is sufficiently resourced, with appropriately skilled and experienced lawyers, to promptly review cases referred to it by the commissioner of investigations of the ICRIR, and that is not happening at the moment in respect of the Kenova model. Families have been waiting many years to understand what happened to their loved ones. Delays in prosecution decisions must not be allowed to prolong the wait still further.

Currently, legacy cases are glacially slow, to be decided upon by the PPS Northern Ireland, and, when a decision to prosecute does result, those cases can be expected to take five or more years to come to a conclusion. These cases involve recurring legacy issues and present specific legal challenges, such as the admissibility of evidence, hearsay and the continuity of exhibits. They need to be dealt with by lawyers with experience and expertise in these matters. As an example, Operation Kenova now has 33 files with the PPS Northern Ireland for consideration. The first tranche of files was submitted in October 2019, over two years ago. For most of these cases, families have been waiting for more than 25 years, and in some cases almost 50 years.

The PPS Northern Ireland prioritisation criteria mean that legacy files are effectively put in a queue for examination, as resourcing and demand allow. Understandably, perhaps, given the resources available, priority is given to cases relating to current offences, so the review of legacy cases slips further and further backwards, to the frustration and unnecessary additional traumatisation of the families concerned. The Bill claims to be victim-focused, but it is time that legacy legislation actually demonstrated such an intention because, as currently drafted, it does not do so.

The way that the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland reviews cases differs considerably from the way that terrorism cases are dealt with by the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales. The CPS has a specialist counterterrorism division that engages with the investigation team as soon as a file is submitted. Early joint case conferences with senior counsel and the investigation team are held to assist in understanding the evidential strengths and weaknesses of the file, enabling further evidential recovery and facilitating prompt decision-making. This collaborative approach allows a more informed understanding of the cases and speedy and effective decision-making. The PPS Northern Ireland simply does not have the resources to dedicate lawyers to legacy files in this way.

As part of this Bill, it is important that sufficient funding is allocated to the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland to review files and make timely and good decisions on them. It is essential that the creation of the ICRIR is supported by robust operating practices within the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland that must be adequately resourced to deal promptly with legacy files referred by the ICRIR Commissioner of Investigations.

In conclusion, the Minister cited resources as one of the reasons why he questioned the validity of the Kenova model being inserted into this Bill, as I am proposing to do on Report. The alternative to adequately resourcing this—and Jon Boutcher has already disputed that it will involve massive resources, at least compared to what has been devoted to these legacy cases in the past—is leaving victims betrayed. What is the point of this legislation unless it is to give some relief, closure and sense of justice, as well as, crucially, truth recovery, which is the predominant objective victims are seeking? If this Bill does not deliver that, and if the model adopted does not have the resources to deliver that, then it will fail in its objective, and we might as well say so. If the Government are going for a resource-thinned, slimmed-down operation, as I am afraid this Bill seems to propose—and the Minister’s response to the previous debate seemed to indicate that resources are one of his top concerns about the Kenova model—then they will leave victims completely dissatisfied. I do not think that is where your Lordships’ House wants to be, and I do not think that is where legislation seeking to bring to a head this whole legacy trauma should be either.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I speak for the first time on this legislation. During Second Reading, I was in the south Atlantic on the 40th anniversary of the liberation of the Falklands. Having expected to be fully part of the legislation, I have not been so far. I speak with a fair degree of trepidation because there are clearly so many experts and former Secretaries of State. When I speak on my normal portfolio, I feel as if I am probably just about pitching things right, and I hope this evening I manage to get the tone right.

First, I join the noble Lord, Lord Hain, in pointing out that we are indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan. So many of the amendments on this Bill have been framed by the noble Baroness, who has reviewed the Bill forensically as far as anybody can tell. She has certainly caused these Benches to look at and think about some of the issues that have been raised.

In reporting, there is always a balance between needing to have appropriate reporting and putting too many requirements on to Ministers, officials and others. It is a tendency for opposition parliamentarians when amending legislation to say, “We’d like the Government to report on something.” Amendment 5 makes a lot of sense; we should not have excessive reporting expectations.

I have a few questions about the extent of the pressure we are putting on officials. Would we be able to deliver some of the amendments being proposed? Also, one of the issues that has come up across this group seems to be about resources. One of the issues for your Lordships’ House is that, if something is deemed to be a finance Bill—if we say there needs to be resources—at some point the other place might say “That is not your remit.”

One of the things I want to ask the Minister is the extent to which he envisages it being possible for the Government to look at the appropriate resource to enable the aims and ambitions of the Bill to be fulfilled. As the noble Lord, Lord Hain, pointed out, there is not a great deal of point in pushing through legislation, which in itself is disputed and contested by so many, if, in the end, victims feel that their cases are not being looked at adequately. Can the Minister either tell the House or undertake to go away and consider whether it is realistic to be thinking about resources to ensure that His Majesty’s Government will provide additional funding to investigate legacy cases, so that those do not fall on the budget of the current Government of Northern Ireland? That seems to be something which we ought to look into.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 31st January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group deal with the requirements in Clause 5 to provide full disclosure of information to the ICRIR. They are intended to assist the ICRIR in its work and are quite simple, but slightly technical.

In normal circumstances, the Police Ombudsman and many other public policing authorities with criminal investigation powers are entitled to require information to be supplied by relevant authorities such as those in Clause 54, where a whole list of police organisations is given. The ones from which there is no power to require information are the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ. Clause 5 as drafted imposes a requirement that any request for information must be reasonable. That is an unnecessary restriction, as the purposes for which the information will be required are the statutory functions of investigation. If the essential amendments providing for investigation, review and immunity are accepted, this information, which will be sought by the ICRIR, will be that required for the purposes of investigation, review and immunity.

The effect of my amendments is to take that composite group in Clause 54 of relevant authorities and divide it into two: relevant authorities and special relevant authorities. Relevant authorities will have to supply information. There will be one category of relevant authority, which will be under the obligation to provide information as provided for in Clause 5, as amended by Amendments 37 and 39. That will include all the authorities listed in Clause 54 except the Secret Intelligence Service, the Security Service and GCHQ. I suggest that the House remove them from the list by accepting Amendment 191. Through Amendment 197, a new category of “Special relevant authority” would be created into which the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ would be inserted.

Imposing a requirement of reasonableness on the process of making requests for information, which can be very complicated, imposes an unnecessary hurdle. When I was Police Ombudsman, I had complete power to require information, and it was delivered. There were a few early hiccups in the process, but everyone settled into it. When I was doing the non-statutory review of the Daniel Morgan inquiry for the Home Secretary, I had no power to require information and we had endless arguments about which information should and should not be required. Those arguments cost a lot of money and took a lot of time.

If the Bill is passed as drafted, there would need to be a process for determining reasonableness and a determination as to who other than a court might determine what is reasonable. This would lead to disputes and the matter ultimately would end up in court, particularly if a relevant authority is reluctant to disclose information about, for example, the handling of an informant or the way in which physical evidence was managed. To impose the restriction of a requirement of reasonableness, which will be assessed, on the ICRIR, would impact on the perception and reality of its independence and powers. For this reason, Amendment 37 simply excludes “reasonably” from Clause 5(1). That would make it consistent with current law as it applies, for example, to the Police Ombudsman and the police. It would apply to all the authorities listed as relevant authorities, as I said, except the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ.

Amendment 39 adds to the list of those required to provide reasonable assistance to facilitate the effective use of information, documents and other material. When one gets information from policing organisations, the way in which it has previously been handled can often be very helpful, particularly if it is on a digitised account such as the HOLMES investigation accounts. If there is a requirement, as there is in Clause 5, to provide reasonable assistance, the policing organisation supplying the material would also have to provide assistance to access those databases, et cetera.

The reason I suggest that other organisations should be included under Amendment 39 is that some of the criminal offences the ICRIR will investigate or review relate to events such as the bombings in Hyde Park, Manchester, London, et cetera, which were not investigated by the PSNI but by other police forces. The clause as it stands requires only the PSNI and the Police Ombudsman to provide assistance, but I suggest to your Lordships that all the other policing organisations should be under a similar obligation. Without this amendment, those providing information as relevant authorities would not be under the same obligation as, say, the PSNI to assist in the effective use of the information. Amendment 39 is therefore designed to assist the ICRIR in conducting its investigations.

Because we have to deal with GCHQ, the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service, Amendment 197 suggests a new category of “special relevant authority” in which those three organisations would sit. They would be required to supply information if the request by the ICRIR was reasonable. I would prefer that they had to provide it without a reasonableness requirement, but I understand that noble Lords might be reluctant to impose an obligation on the security services to provide information. This would enable those agencies to protect national security, which is their function. To give effect to that new special category of three organisations for which there would be a reasonableness requirement, a new clause, Clause 5A, would be required. That is provided by Amendment 40.

Amendment 185 is very simple: it would include the director-general of the NCA in the list of chief officers of police for the purposes of the Bill, to enable them to assist the ICRIR. It may be that the National Crime Agency will not have material relevant to the ICRIR, but it is distinctly possible that it will. It is important that it be empowered to provide information.

Finally, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, which relates to the power of the Secretary of State to make regulations under Clause 31 about biometric materials and raises the level of procedure required for such regulations to the affirmative procedure. I beg to move.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 145 in my name, and I also support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan. Amendment 145 is quite different from most of the other amendments put forward to the Bill. I am aware that it might sound a bit geeky, but much legislation brought forward by His Majesty’s Government seems to include sweeping powers for Secretaries of State in whichever department. This Bill does not have quite as many egregious cases of Henry VIII clauses but with Clause 31, about retention of biometric material, there is some concern that the Secretary of State can make regulations for which there would be very little scrutiny and by which, potentially, individuals’ rights are interfered with.