Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 21st June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, the Minister was at pains to point out that Amendment 2 is all about reconciliation, yet no matter how much you search through the Bill, there is no definition of reconciliation in it. I am having difficulty, as are my colleagues, in being reconciled to the Bill and to have reconciliation with it, but I hope the Minister will—and I am sure he will—when he is winding up on Clause 2, give his definition of reconciliation. It seems to me that reconciliation means different things to different people. I am sure he will have observed that all the victims groups that have spoken about the Bill have not spoken in favour of it; therefore, I think he has a job to do. However, as my noble friend Lord Weir has said, we will not be dividing the House on this, but I earnestly ask the Minister why there is no definition of reconciliation in the Bill.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

My Lords, I know my noble friend Lord Weir touched on this, but Amendment 3 requires the ICRIR to

“have regard to the general interests of persons affected by Troubles-related deaths and serious injuries”.

I ask the Minister to clarify: have the Government failed conclusively to rule out perpetrators, including those who died or were injured at their own hand, from the scope of this duty which is now being placed upon the ICRIR? It would certainly be wrong that those who have been perpetrators and died or were injured at their own hand should be placed on the same level as those who are innocent victims.

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, I place on record my thanks to the Minister for introducing Amendments 85 and 86, which, in essence, as he has said, are the same amendments that I tabled in Committee and were recommended by the victims’ commissioner, Ian Jeffers. It is a very welcome and common-sense change to the Bill, allowing for individuals affected by death and other harmful conduct to provide and publish personal statements to the ICRIR. I am very grateful that he is willing to make this small but important change, notwithstanding my earlier comments about the bigger picture of the Bill, including, in particular, immunity and other issues that we will get to later this evening. I will be very interested to hear the Minister’s response to the important points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, about the potential conflict between reconciliation and investigation.

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[Viscount Brookeborough (CB)]

My Lords, I have listened to everything. I have not bothered to intervene because I basically agree that this is not a great Bill and that all we can hope to do is make it less damaging to what is happening in Northern Ireland.

The one thing that strikes me is that reconciliation is on the face of the Bill. I have been struggling with that and with the definition of “reconciliation”. I decided to look it up on my phone. It is on the face of the Bill: therefore, it is the number one objective of the Bill. If we had reconciliation, we would not be worried about the other things. “Reconciliation” is defined as

“the restoration of friendly relations”

and

“the action of making one view or belief compatible with another”.

The definition goes on to say

“an act of reconciling, as when former enemies agree to an amicable truce”.

The problem is that we know that there is not an amicable truce. We know from the glorification of terrorism and lots of other parts of what we have been discussing that that is not there. Yet it is on the face of the Bill as being the number one objective.

What troubles so many of us in Northern Ireland, whether our families have directly suffered a death, or for all the people we k now who have suffered and their families—one family has been mentioned; three of my soldiers were killed, one after the other, and a sister was mown down on a checkpoint for serving in the security forces—is that the people in Northern Ireland see the Bill coming and would love to have reconciliation but the Government are not giving one little inch to assuaging their lives and their fears. I know that there have been amendments, and everybody is very grateful for that, but, if people are to accept this and if it is to work, there has to be something significant, so they actually feel that it was made for them.

All I plead is this: we really hope that the Government accept some of these amendments, which will enable people to say “Yes, but they have done this and they have worked towards us, and we want to make it work”. We know that at the moment virtually nobody in Northern Ireland is saying that.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

My Lords, Amendment 61A stands in the name of my noble friends Lord Dodds, Lord Weir and Lord Morrow. The explanatory statement says:

“This amendment would require an individual to be disengaged from activity which would be reasonably regarded as precluding reconciliation in order to be eligible for immunity from prosecution”.


There is another amendment in the name of my noble friends that is in a similar vein.

I draw attention to something that my noble friend Lord Dodds has already mentioned. There is a question in my mind concerning the legislation as it stands. My noble friend mentioned the late Joe Clarke, one of the hooded men who received an apology on his deathbed from the chief constable of the PSNI over his treatment while he was interned in 1971. He was one of 14 men who claimed that they were subjected to state-sanctioned torture. They all claim innocence. However, at his funeral the other day, Mr Clarke was buried with what appeared to be full so-called IRA military honours: his coffin was draped in the tricolour and he was escorted by men and women in some sort of uniform—white gloves, black ties and white shirts. I believe that this is reserved for members of the IRA, particularly those who have carried out what is known as IRA active service—and we know what that really means.

To deepen the plot, one of those carrying Clarke’s coffin in that military-style uniform was none other than a man who had been arrested and imprisoned over the murder of two soldiers at the Massereene barracks in Antrim during the time when I was the local Member of Parliament for that constituency. That person and his doctors told the court that he had only three to four years to live at most. Strangely, 14 years later, he is the picture of health, miraculously cured and carrying an IRA man’s coffin. Actually, that person is a neighbour of mine. I ask the Minister this: would the likes of Mr Shivers receive immunity or an amnesty under the present legislation as it stands, without the amendments suggested by my noble friends Lord Dodds, Lord Weir and Lord Morrow?

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, the sheer number and scope of amendments in this group should serve as a clear indication to the Government that there continue to be grave concerns about the proposals for immunity set out in Clause 18. I have added my name on behalf of these Benches to Amendment 66, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and also signed by the noble Baronesses, Lady O’Loan and Lady Ritchie, which would remove Clause 18.