Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 20th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I welcome this Bill and look forward to the detailed scrutiny that will be given it by the many experts and ex-senior Armed Forces people who serve in your Lordships’ House. I pay tribute to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Johnny Mercer, in the other place, who fought very hard to get this Bill right through Committee unscathed.

Of course, the Long Title excludes the Armed Forces acting within the borders of the United Kingdom, as has been mentioned by other noble Lords today—those involved in the Northern Ireland Troubles, the Operation Banner soldiers. They are not just soldiers but police and members of the security services, civil servants and even politicians. The object of some of the lawfare operations is to get Members of this House, even former Ministers, into court so that history can be rewritten and an equivalence proved between terrorists and the Army.

Operation Banner ran for three decades from 1969 and was the greatest civil conflict in Europe since 1945—that is, until the break-up of Yugoslavia. While our military casualties were never exceeded in the 70 years after the Korean War—neither in Iraq nor Afghanistan—those sacrifices are largely forgotten. The names of the 700 dead soldiers, many of them young teenagers from “red wall” seats, do not even appear on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. It is almost as if Governments of all persuasions are embarrassed to mention them.

The repeated promises, from the Prime Minister down, for Northern Ireland veteran equivalence in some future legacy legislation is very welcome, but it must not be delayed or watered down. They need to get on with it, and I believe that it should be separated out from all the other legacy issues in Northern Ireland. The Army and police stopped a civil war from breaking out completely in Northern Ireland, for which they get few thanks, just vexation prosecutions and unending reinvestigations—due in large part to overinterpretation of, ironically, the “right to life” in Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

They paid a colossal price in blood—some 700 murdered soldiers, including from the Ulster Defence Regiment and some 300 in the Royal Ulster Constabulary. That excludes the very many who died in accidents or suicides, or whose lives were shortened by terrible injuries. The equivalent number of police officers killed on a UK-wide basis would be 10,000. That says it all. Yet it is former RUC officers who are now being arraigned in reinvestigations, reopened inquests or pointless public inquiries, with their reputations trashed and all without the benefit of being able to respond.

I praise the many recently formed veterans groups without whose efforts and organisation this Bill would not have happened. The power of social media has, in this instance, proved invaluable. Their immediate concerns are about new prosecutions. I accept that reopening investigations of old cases will continue if sufficient credible evidence of wrongdoing is provided to justify it, but it must be a high evidential hurdle, as high as the Bill provides in relation to prosecutions, not just for political harassment.

Let us not forget that the only cases now involving veterans are ones pending in Northern Ireland, which concern events of 50 years ago or more. For that reason, we need to get on with a Northern Ireland equivalent law, especially as this Bill usefully carries permission in Clause 1 for prosecutors to consider whether or not any proceedings against a person for a relevant offence should be continued.

In conclusion, much has been made by certain civil liberties groups about Clause 12, which requires the Government, in any significant new overseas conflict, to consider derogating from the European Convention on Human Rights. This is useful, but Clause 12 does not mean more than what it says, and probably no more than what normally happens. The new duty simply requires the Government to consider derogation so the process cannot be discreetly avoided. The convention, as we know, is a living instrument, but enforcement is not necessarily a one-way street—something our representatives in Strasbourg need to bear in mind when responding to pressure from the Irish Government in cases involving so-called Article 2 compliance.

I hope that the Minister will, as she has been asked by many noble Lords today, give us a date for the Bill to repay the debt to all who served in Northern Ireland. They deserve our support and for us to value them just as much as we value those who served overseas.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 13th April 2021 Lords Chamber

In summary, I make one final request to seek a meeting with the Minister, together with the rights-based organisations, to clarify fully the issues and to demonstrate clearly how this Bill contravenes the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, particularly in relation to the ECHR. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, Amendment 18 stands in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. It is a simple amendment to Clause 15, seeking to put into legislation the promise made by the Government that the same protections in relation to prosecutions of veterans of overseas operations will apply to those who served in Northern Ireland—that is, to the 300,000 service personnel involved in Operation Banner from 1969. The amendment requires the Government to report on progress to that end before the necessary commencing regulations under subsection (2) are made. I hope that progress will come early rather than later, although I recognise that it will require courage within government—the same kind of courage as was displayed by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Johnny Mercer MP, who took this Bill through Committee in the other place.

On Second Reading, I explained that the Army and the police stopped a civil war breaking out in Northern Ireland, for which they get little thanks, just vexation, prosecutions and unending reinvestigations—largely due, ironically, to the overinterpretation of the right to life in Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. They paid a colossal price in blood: some 700 soldiers, including in the UDR, and 300 RUC officers were murdered. The equivalent number of police officers killed on a UK-wide basis would be 10,000; that figure says it all.

In reality, the Bill is limited in its provisions. Reinvestigations will not be ended but I hope that they will be curtailed. It does not constitute an amnesty, although it is worth pointing out that, since the Belfast agreement, we have already had many elements of an amnesty, including the early release of all paramilitary prisoners and the letters of comfort for IRA members on the run.

Now the only matters investigated and coming to prosecution are those involving Army veterans, half a dozen of whom are awaiting trial in relation to events 50 years ago. That process has taken a very long time. Much of the investigation evidence appears to be based on files in the National Archives at Kew, where the Troubles archaeology proceeds apace. The IRA did not leave any paperwork to be excavated, of course.

The Bill before us carries in Clause 1 a permission for prosecutors to consider

“whether or not any proceedings against a person for a relevant offence should be continued”.

This is a key provision that must be extended to Northern Ireland and just might enable the persecution to cease. Our Amendment 18 is grouped with 17 others, all in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, from whom we have just heard. Those 17 amendments are a pre-emptive strike against the extension of the Bill to Northern Ireland, which is what my amendment wants. It is being pushed hard by the legal academics at Queen’s University and the CAJ, who all seem to be more obsessed with persecuting veterans than real justice.

In the Member’s explanatory statement, the noble Baroness states that the Bill is incompatible

“with the provisions of the Belfast Agreement that require incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into Northern Irish law”.

However, in my view, she misinterprets the 1998 Belfast agreement. It said nothing about the prosecution or non-prosecution of members of the security forces. Yes, the UK Government undertook to incorporate the ECHR into British law; they duly did so in the November of that year when the Human Rights Act received Royal Assent. As the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, said at Second Reading,

“nothing in the Bill could be interpreted as undermining the commitments contained in the Belfast agreement, and nothing that would diminish the essence of the protections that the Human Rights Act currently offers to the people of Northern Ireland.”—[Official Report, 9/3/21; col. 1585.]

The Government gave a promise. I strongly want to believe that promise but I am afraid that some of the things that have happened in Northern Ireland recently show even more that there is a need for this Government, and us in your Lordships’ House, to show that we mean what we say. That is why I very much hope that the Minister will be able to accept my amendment and put it into the Bill.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of the collection of amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick. It does not take me to remind your Lordships that this is a very difficult moment in Northern Ireland and not one to be doing anything to undermine, or anything that could be interpreted as undermining, the Good Friday agreement.

I hear the endorsement from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, of the Government’s position: that the Bill must do nothing to jeopardise the ECHR and the agreement. With respect, however, that view is not shared by human rights analysts in the United Kingdom, in Northern Ireland and internationally. Of course, in this respect, even the perception of jeopardising the convention, and therefore the agreement, is a significant problem.

In the context of Northern Ireland, the problem stems from going down this road of de facto—or attempted—immunities and statutes of limitation in the first place. The amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, further demonstrates the difficulty with opening this Pandora’s box and going for limits on prosecution and on suits against the Government rather than bolstering the robustness and timeliness of investigations and providing adequate support for veterans and serving personnel.