Northern Ireland Act 1998 (Section 75 —Designation of Public Authority) Order 2020

Lord Hain Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, in thanking the Minister for his clear explanation, I note that one of the functions of the Independent Monitoring Authority that is the subject of this Motion is to

“ensure that persons are not prevented from exercising their rights”

under the citizens’ rights agreement post Brexit. I have no difficulty in supporting this Motion in relation to Section 75 designation; protecting citizens’ rights must be a priority for any Government. Regrettably, however, we have been witnessing a savage denial of rights enshrined in legislation initiated in your Lordships’ House and passed in the other place without a Division, which should be providing modest payments to those terribly injured through no fault of their own during the Northern Ireland Troubles. It is now 40 days since the victims’ payments scheme should have been opened for applications but, because of a disgraceful display of political intransigence in the Executive Office in Stormont, some of the most vulnerable men and women in Northern Ireland and beyond have been denied access to it.

When I last spoke about this at the beginning of June, I said that a severely injured victim, maimed for life in a terrorist atrocity decades ago, had been forced to put the devolved Administration on notice of judicial action to force it to honour its moral and legal obligations. Jennifer McNern was only 21 years old when her legs were blown off in a no-warning IRA bombing in 1972. I have met Jennifer and I can tell your Lordships that she is a courageous and determined woman. She had no option but to go to the High Court to seek legal redress from the Executive Office, which has so blatantly defied the law.

How did the UK Government respond to Jennifer’s attempt to have the very same law that was passed in the Government’s name upheld and implemented? They instructed a Queen’s Counsel to argue before a High Court judge that Jennifer’s judicial review against the Executive Office be set aside to allow another, arguably weaker, judicial review to proceed in its place. That was and is disgusting behaviour by the Secretary of State. As a former holder of that office, my natural stance is to support my successors. However, I say to Brandon Lewis and his Northern Ireland Office officials: you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves, the lot of you. Jennifer’s case will proceed, although it cannot be heard until August, a full six months since the structures to administer the scheme should have been put in place.

In this Parliament we do not have the power to hold the Stormont Executive Office to account for its shocking—and illegal—refusal to implement the law. However, we can and must demand that the UK Government explain what they will do to address this gratuitous insult to victims and survivors, who have suffered so much already through no fault of their own.

It is simply not good enough for Ministers to intone that this is a devolved matter and say how awfully sorry they are that things have turned out this way. The Secretary of State cannot be allowed to wring his hands and sit on them at the same time. I will continue to hound this Government until this is resolved and people like Jennifer get the acknowledgement, recognition and payments for which they have had to struggle for far too long.