Supreme Court Dillon Judgment

Lord Faulks Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My noble friend has just used the word “consensus” in relation to Northern Ireland politicians. With the best of efforts—looking at the noble Lord, Lord Caine—while I consider myself not to be a bad politician, I am not sure that I have those diplomatic skills that will deliver for everybody. I say that as someone who just called the noble Lord “my noble friend”.

Having said that, we are working cross-party with all key parties. The noble Lord is absolutely right. There is one part of our politics that genuinely should not be party-political in a GB sense: the politics of Northern Ireland and making sure that peace is sustainable in Northern Ireland and that we are doing what we can collectively and taking the responsibility of being the main political parties in the United Kingdom to deliver for the people of NI as we do for every other corner of the country. Noble Lords will appreciate that there are always challenges in this space, but I will try to be as charming as possible to deliver what I can in getting a level of support, as my honourable friend in the other place, the Secretary of State, is doing too.

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

The Minister referred to the interim custody orders, and how the Bill is going to put beyond doubt the validity of interim custody orders, and the reappraisal and reconfirmation of the Carltona principle. This is a reference to how the first-instance judgment in Dillon was going to allow Gerry Adams and a number of other people to sue for the alleged unlawful detention by the Government. The previous Government was appealing the first-instance decision, but this Government abandoned the appeal. Can the noble Baroness explain why they abandoned the appeal? Does she accept that, had they not abandoned the appeal, they would not now need to legislate to at last put right the status of the interim custody orders?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord lived and breathed this during the last piece of legislation: the legacy Act that we are discussing. The appeal was not continued—I have said this from the Dispatch Box before—because it was made very clear to us by the courts that we would not win. Therefore, we needed to come up with an alternative solution. That is what we are seeking to do in the new Bill.