IRA Terrorism: Compensation for Victims

Lord Bew Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I express my support for the sentiments expressed in the fine speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey. I have two interests to declare. First, the Brown Government—the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, referred to the serious attitude taken by that Government—set up an all-party delegation to Libya, of which I was part. Part of what I will say is based on that but, admittedly, it was more than a decade and a half ago.

Secondly, I am currently involved in a project for an official history, which the noble Lord, Lord Caine, did noble work on in the previous Government. I am glad to say that the right honourable Hilary Benn, the current Secretary of State, is continuing the work. I will not be doing the research, but I am a strong supporter of the belief that it is very much in the interests of the people of Northern Ireland for His Majesty’s Government to open the archives as much as possible and reveal the truth about the past. I will come back to that at the end. Yesterday, Kneecap were raised in the Chamber. I was in this case a premature anti-fascist, to use that phrase, and first raised the issue of official support for Kneecap some weeks ago in the Chamber. I hope there is a way of doing something about compensation for the many victims in this country, particularly in London, and in Northern Ireland. One thing can definitely be done: we could have more truth about what actually went on.

When I was in Libya, we met Libyan government Ministers and discussed quite a bit with officials. I remember that, even at that point, it was clear that our officials did not really believe that there would be any compensation and the best that could be hoped for was that, in a time of better relations with Libya, there would be strengthened economic ties. For example, because I was an academic, there was a lot of discussion with me about what could be done to get more Libyan students to come to the United Kingdom. That was seen as the way forward, rather than a payment in recompense for the horrible crimes committed with Libyan assistance. It was very clear to me, even then—and, to be honest, consistently throughout—that there has been little official belief in the desirability of delivering compensation, although many people have pressed for that with great zeal. There were hints of this even while I was in Libya—I do not think I am really betraying anything now. Even then, it was clear that, in that new era that had already begun, the relationships between our Government and Libyan intelligence were quite close. At the end of the Gaddafi regime in 2011, Moussa Koussa, famously the head of Libyan intelligence, basically collapsed into the arms of the British state for protection.

There is a crucial question here. A significant part of the IRA leadership was in Libya for a long time. It was negotiating the transfer of these weapons. There is a fair amount of speculation on various issues, including who the individuals were. Did our intelligence service ever ask Moussa Koussa, who at that point was on his uppers and relying on us for protection, what happened in the days when he was providing the weaponry? Do not forget that one consignment of the “Marita Ann” was interrupted because of the work of Sean O’Callaghan, but the main consignment of weapons came through. There is all the endless tedium of the decommissioning issue, which took up the lives of a number of people in this room in the early part of this century, and the decommissioning of the weapons that Gaddafi provided. The IRA was armed as if it was more or less a full-scale army. In some ways it became inhibiting, because it was not a full-scale army, and these great stockpiles of weaponry lay in Kerry as a kind of reproof: “Why aren’t you doing more? Why can’t you do more?” I have been told by republicans that there was a strange psychological effect.

However, lots of people died as a result of this weaponry and these explosives, particularly the Semtex. There are questions here. What do we know about it? Who collected it? Who was there? Who is still active in public life in Northern Ireland and these islands? What role did they play? Did we even bother to ask Moussa Koussa, at a time when he very much owed a debt to the British state, which protected him physically in the final crisis of the regime? I do not know, but it is a fundamental test for the official history and people such as me who have argued for this and have been told all along by cynical voices in Belfast, “You will never get the truth. They will hold back the documents”. I again repeat my very deep thanks to Hilary Benn and his team for deciding to go ahead with this project. I will not be working on it, but one of the big tests for the official historians who do is this: will they actually be told what happened? We may not be able to provide recompense, but we should be able to tell people a lot more about what actually happened. The truth matters.

At the weekend, a great friend of mine, an Irish commentator, talked about how sections of Northern Irish opinion—those sections that admire Kneecap, really—were being grabby. We have seen, by the way, the speed with which Kneecap are moving to preserve their income from these concerts. I am delighted to see that the old Irish entrepreneurial spirit is not dead. Having said that I am impressed by that, the other point made by my friend Eoghan Harris was that, in the north, sections of the community had lost their moral compass. One means of restoring a moral compass is that the truth be told about these matters as well as—I am a former historical adviser to the Bloody Sunday tribunal—things on the part of the British state that are not so attractive. It, equally, has to be done.

However, to say that we must release all the documents on Bloody Sunday—I totally agreed with that and was involved in the work on it—and then to say that we cannot possibly tell you what really happened in Libya, even though we have every reason to know all about it, under the circumstances that eventually ensued, would be a double standard that would not actually help people.

Yesterday, the House was generally united. How can Kneecap be so crass as to think that these things about killing MPs and so on are okay and acceptable? Trust me, that type of crassness is widespread in Northern Ireland. It is not a mystery; it would be a surprise if there was any sense of moral scruple, not the other way round, in the sentiments expressed. Even to name the group after the authoritarian act of a paramilitary elite going around shooting teenagers in the knees in Belfast who had got on the wrong side of them—no doubt some were petty criminals—tells your Lordships everything they need to know. My friend at Queen’s, Professor Liam Kennedy, was very clear about that. It is not a surprise.

Arising from this debate at least we have a chance to strengthen the work of the official history and to put down a marker. As I said, there should be no double standards in the delivery of truth. When it is embarrassing to the UK Government, it should be delivered. In this case, when it is more likely to be embarrassing to other people, it should also be delivered. The capacity clearly has to be there—or, just possibly, nobody bothered to ask.