Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Debate between Bob Stewart and Owen Smith

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 9th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

Let me agree with the hon. Gentleman partly. As I shall talk about in a moment, I do believe that this place should legislate on the late Sir Anthony Hart’s recommendations on historic abuse. I am loth to suggest that there is a hierarchy of rights, but there are certain inalienable universal human rights that should be observed and afforded to people in every part of the world, including Northern Ireland. We are increasingly mindful of the fact that we in this place cannot allow ourselves to be hamstrung by the fact of devolution when it comes to the failure to see those rights observed for and afforded to women and the LGBT community in Northern Ireland. That is why this place, with lots of reluctance on the part of some Members, such as me, who are Unionists but who also believe fundamentally in devolution, is coming to the view that there should now be not just reports but legislation in this place to put in place those rights for Northern Ireland.

I support new clause 1, which was spoken to excellently and eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), who has been a brilliant campaigner on the issue in recent years, and I also support the excellent work undertaken by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) and, indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) in respect of women’s reproductive rights in Northern Ireland. However, I wish to concentrate on two other issues that have not been spoken about much today but that are addressed in the series of new clauses and amendments: first, the pension for victims of the troubles in Northern Ireland; and secondly, the victims of the historical sexual abuse in care homes in Northern Ireland, which the hon. Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan) mentioned a moment ago. When I was the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, I spoke from the Front Bench on these issues and devoted a lot of my time to them, and I shall simply repeat what I said from the Front Bench about what I think we ought to do.

Let me illustrate and humanise the issue of a pension for severely physically disabled victims of the troubles—those people in Northern Ireland who were injured through no fault of their own, of whom there are around 500—by talking a little about the case of a man I have met on many occasions and whom I greatly admire: Peter Heathwood. In 1979, Peter was in his flat in Belfast when loyalist gunmen broke in, dragged his wife down the hall by her hair, and shot Peter twice, paralysing him for life. The configuration of the building in which they lived meant that when the ambulance men arrived, they could not put Peter’s damaged, broken body on to a stretcher, so he was put into a body bag. He was carried down the steps of his flat in the body bag. His father, Herbert, arrived at the scene thinking that his son, Peter, had died, and collapsed of a heart attack and died. Peter has been paralysed and in a wheelchair since 1979, unable to work, and surviving on benefits. He is a perfect, awful and tragic illustration of the reality of the lives of some 500 members of our community, our country, in Northern Ireland who were injured during the troubles. He is a perfect illustration of why this Government—any Government in Northern Ireland or in this place—need to act with compassion and speed to help those people and to offer them a victim’s pension, as has been talked about for so long, to give them the extra support that they need.

Many right hon. and hon. Members, particularly from the DUP, quite rightly point to the difficulty that is at the heart of the reason why this has not been done. It is that, among that 500, there are perhaps 10 people who were injured by their own hand, who, in the course of commissioning acts of terrorism, blew themselves up or shot themselves. The consideration, as always, has quite rightly been that it would be invidious if those people, having tried to perpetrate violence against the state and against innocent victims, were then supported by the state. I completely understand that, but I simply say that people like Peter are getting older. They will die at some point; many people have died in the intervening period. It was back in 2014, at the signing of the Stormont House agreement, that the state in our country effectively decreed that we should be offering this support to those people.

[Bob Stewart]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Owen Smith]

Let me finish this point then I will gladly give way.

My simple plea is that we must not let the perfect be the enemy of the good in this place. We should legislate to provide for these people. I think that that will happen, and I am pleased about that, but I urge the Secretary of State to get on with it.

[Bob Stewart]

It should not be beyond the wit of man to devise a system where someone who has actually caused damage to himself is not part of this scheme. Peter requires to be compensated as much as possible and as quickly as possible. It may well be that we will be bringing further measures back to the House, because, frankly, it does not look to me like we will get the Northern Ireland Executive up and running within the time period, and it is time for us to take some action to support people in Northern Ireland.

[Owen Smith]

I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman. It should not be beyond the wit of man to create some sort of process and a mechanism to do this, but, to date, it has been beyond the wit of the men and women in this place and in Northern Ireland to do so. That is because of the thorny issue of how we define a victim in Northern Ireland. I understand that that is a complex area from which there would be many ramifications, but we really must legislate on this.

Finally, on the victim’s pension, I want to pay tribute to the work of the WAVE group in Northern Ireland, which has been quite brilliant in supporting the victims of the troubles and in pressing the case for a pension. It is doing great work, and I know that the Secretary of State is a great fan of all that it has done. I also wish to pay tribute to Sir Anthony Hart, who, I was shocked to learn in the Chamber today, died just this morning. Sir Anthony was a very distinguished judge who took on a very difficult task in 2012 on behalf of the Assembly to undertake a review into the historical abuse in 22 homes run by the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland and Barnardo’s in Northern Ireland between 1922 and the 1990s. It was the biggest such inquiry ever undertaken in the UK, and it found that there had been grievous abuse of boys and girls in these homes over a very long period, and he found—he undertook harrowing work—that there should be compensation to the tune of £7,000 to £100,000 paid out to those victims. Sir Anthony died this morning with his work unfinished, with the legislation not passed either by the Assembly or by this place, and that is a badge of shame for politicians in Northern Ireland and in this place. We desperately need to act on this, too, because those victims deserve it; they deserve Northern Ireland’s politicians to do it, but if those politicians cannot, they deserve us in this place to take our responsibility and to legislate here.

Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill

Debate between Bob Stewart and Owen Smith

2nd reading: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that confirmation. I am sure that people in Northern Ireland will find that reassuring. I also ask her to consider the plea made by the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland for a separate set of resources to allow the few remaining legacy inquests to be undertaken in a timely fashion. Some of the people affected are, of course, ill and some have already died. Every passing month leaves injustice hanging in the air. We could also be dealing with that issue in this place.

My third point is that the Bill could and should have included financial provision for a pension for the seriously injured victims and survivors of the troubles. There are still around 500 seriously physically injured survivors, many of whom live in significant financial hardship due to their injuries and the loss of earnings during their lives as a result of the legacy of the troubles. Some believe that we cannot provide a pension for all those 500, as among them are some who were injured by their own hand. I believe that there are six loyalists and four republicans who were injured by their own actions during the troubles. I acknowledge those concerns and the difficulty that this poses. I understand that right hon. and hon. Members have considerable issues with what that would mean for the treatment of victims and for how we move forward in respect of legislation for victims.

[Bob Stewart]

Many soldiers have actually received compensation and pensions. Is the hon. Gentleman including them in the figure of 500, or are they separate?

[Owen Smith]

No, there are 500 civilian victims. As the hon. Gentleman says, there are separate provisions regarding injured soldiers. The reality is that many of the 500 have received some form of stipend or financial compensation, but for many that money has long since run out. The loss of earnings over a protracted period has left significant hardship as the daily reality for many men and women in Northern Ireland. This is another area where we cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Notwithstanding the difficulties, the Secretary of State in particular right now should be thinking about how we provide for those people.