Draft Historical Abuse Bill (Northern Ireland)

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

I join the hon. Gentleman in his tribute to Sir Anthony Hart. In the past couple of weeks, during the passage of the Bill that he mentioned, tributes were paid to Sir Anthony for his contribution. Sadly he is no longer with us, but I hope he will be looking down and cheering on the progress of the legislation we are talking about today.

The hon. Gentleman is also right to say that the issue unites political parties not just here but in Northern Ireland. I mentioned in my earlier remarks that there have been efforts to get cross-party consensus on the updates to the legislation. He is also right that what happened to what was supposed to be a three-clause Bill is incredibly frustrating. He and others in his party and I at the time all pointed out that it turned into a Christmas tree—I think that was the phrase everyone was using—with other issues added to it. I know that he would therefore not have wanted that Bill to be added to still further.

This important issue has not yet been properly debated in a legislature. It will need primary legislation to be taken through. It is something that is new and it needs to be dealt with carefully. I am afraid that I therefore cannot tell the hon. Gentleman that the Bill is ready to go today. As I said, it arrived with us a couple of days ago. It is being gone through in huge detail. There are also all sorts of supporting documents, explanatory memorandums and so on and so forth that need to be put together. That is being done at pace—I can promise him that—but it will need to be taken forward by the incoming Administration. It may be the two incumbents or others sitting in the Northern Ireland Office who do that, but I do not think there is any shortage of good will, energy or cross-party agreement to take the legislation forward. I therefore hope that we will be able to introduce the legislation at pace and at the very latest by the end of this year.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

What estimate has the Minister made of the possibility of meeting the substantial financial costs of the measure by having recourse to the sometimes quite wealthy institutions that perpetrated the abuse in the first place?