Northern Ireland: Victims’ Payment Scheme

Baroness Suttie Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Again, the noble Lord makes a good point. It is hugely frustrating that the formal designation of a department to lead on delivering the scheme took so long; in fact, as he will know, it took a court case to get that designation in 2020. However, we have that now and the Department of Justice is working very hard to put the systems in place to do what the noble Lord said: to get the payments to victims.

[Baroness Suttie (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the current very public stalemate is causing great distress and anxiety to many of the victims who hoped to benefit from this scheme. Does the Minister agree with what the Northern Ireland Justice Minister, Naomi Long, said yesterday:

“I will leave no stone unturned in terms of trying to get a resolution to this … We do not want to let the victims down at this late stage, given the good progress that has been made”?


Does he therefore acknowledge that engaging with the Northern Ireland Executive and holding the joint meeting requested by them would do much to help make progress?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I agree with the noble Baroness’s comments in terms of the comments made by Naomi Long, who, again, is working extremely hard to put systems in place, establish the necessary resources and hire the appropriate experienced people. This is what is required to get to the right point. We hope that the month of March will be the launch pad from which payments can be made to victims.