Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

Actually, the hon. Lady in a way has highlighted the point I was making last week; I think there is a way to do information recovery to get to truth and accountability. Operation Kenova, which is behind the evidence that she outlined, has shown over the past five years that, despite not having prosecutions, for many victims and families it has been able to help them understand and get to the truth. This is another example of that; they have managed to get some evidence to be able to get to what may well be the truth.

But I would just caution the hon. Lady to look carefully at the statement from Operation Kenova about exactly what it has found; Operation Kenova has not yet had any prosecutions. But it is right that we continue to get information. We are clear that we want to make sure that we are getting information to people, and potentially in a way that we have not seen before, to really be able to get to the bottom of what happened and for people to have a true understanding of what happened at that time.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Michael Gallagher, who lost his son in the Omagh bombing, this week said, “Please don’t take away the only hope victims have of ever seeing justice.” I know that the Secretary of State will be struck by what has been said by the victims of terrorism—mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters who have lost loved ones through the troubles. Although I know it is not his wish to see any moral or legal equivalence between vexatious claims against our armed services and those who perpetrated terrorism in our society, he must accept that an unintended consequence of the proposals before the House now is that they will do exactly that: they will aid and abet criminals and allow many on-the-runs to continue to be free. So I ask the Secretary of State: how will he ensure that he will not extinguish the only light and hope that the victims have that they will one day see justice for their loved ones? How will he ensure that for people like Michael Gallagher that hope will not be extinguished?

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman gives a powerful example of the sensitivity and complexity of this issue. I have met victims with similar scenarios and some very harrowing cases, where we can see why people want to be able to get to the truth and the accountability that comes with that.

We also need to recognise, as I outlined last week, the reality of where we are today, following the decisions, which I think were correct—I am not criticising them at all; they were absolutely the right decisions—to see peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland with the Good Friday/Belfast agreement and, in particular, the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998, which came with it, let alone what then followed, particularly with decommissioning and, as we have seen recently, quite rightly, arguably in effect a statute of limitations on 40,000 crimes coming out of Stormont House. We need to understand where we are and be up front with people about the diminishing reality of the possibility of getting prosecutions and what impact that is having on the criminal justice system and the ability to get to truth and accountability. But that is exactly what we want to be working through with groups across Northern Ireland, including victims groups, having absolutely in our heart an understanding of the trauma that people can face in these situations.