Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). I should declare an interest, as a veteran of Operation Banner.

I will speak as briefly as I can, because I want to give as many other Members as possible an opportunity to speak. Let me begin by saying that the Bill is one of the most controversial pieces of legislation that I have been asked to consider during my time in the House. I do not doubt the sincerity of the Government’s intentions, and I completely understand how complex and difficult this issue is, but if passed in its current form the Bill will mean that those who are guilty of kidnap, torture and murder will never see the inside of a courtroom or a prison, or even, for that matter, be subject to a proper investigation. Indeed, they will not even need to say sorry to be granted immunity for their crimes.

Members have rightly focused today on the impact that the Bill will have on victims. As has already been observed, many of the victims were members of our armed forces, and it is this cohort on whose behalf I want to speak, very briefly, this evening. I know that many of their loved ones and comrades will be watching this with great interest. They will know that 722 UK service personnel were killed in paramilitary attacks while serving on Operation Banner. A freedom of information request to the PSNI from the Centre for Military Justice just this month revealed that it still had 202 unsolved cases of victims who were members of the armed forces and a further 23 cases where the victim was a veteran. That is 225 unsolved alleged murders where the victim was someone who had stepped forward and put themselves in harm’s way to serve our country. Behind every one of those 225 cases is a story of enduring pain caused by the absence of truth and justice.

One of those stories began on 11 August 1971 outside the Corpus Christi church in west Belfast, when a joiner by the name of John McKerr fell to the ground after being shot by a single bullet to the head. John’s family only found out he had been hurt from a newspaper report the following day after he failed to return home from work. He was labelled a member of the IRA. A little over a week later he died of his injuries in hospital, becoming one of the 10 victims of the Ballymurphy massacre. For half a century, John’s family were forced to live under a cloud not just of distress but of deception.

On 11 May last year, Mrs Justice Keegan published the findings of her inquest into the Ballymurphy killings, confirming what John’s loved ones had always known to be true: John was unarmed and not doing anything that could have caused a threat. He had no associations with the IRA. In fact, John had lost his right hand while serving in the British Army in the second world war. His daughter said:

“The only thing he belonged to was the British Legion.”

In the words of the coroner:

“He was an entirely innocent man who was indiscriminately shot on the street.”

The inquest at least removed the stain on John’s character, but it is worth noting that under the Government’s proposals, inquests will be brought to an end, meaning that others will not have the same access to the truth as John’s loved ones. After more than 50 years, the McKerr family still do not know who was responsible for his murder. John sacrificed so that we could be free, but he was shot in the head and left in the street to die. The response of the institution he once proudly served was to tarnish him as a terrorist. John McKerr’s family told the inquest that their objective was not punishment but truth. It is in that spirit that I urge the Minister to consider the merits of amendment 115, about which there has been much debate, and also amendment 111. Strengthening reviews in line with the standards set by Operation Kenova will at least provide the families of members of the armed forces killed during the troubles with a degree of truth and justice.

There is deep unease in the service community about the Government’s proposals, not least from the family of Private Tony Harrison, a soldier from 3 Para who was brutally murdered by the IRA in front of his fiancée and his fiancée’s family. One of those involved has admitted his involvement, but no one directly responsible for his killing has been investigated. We owe John McKerr, Tony Harrison and all those who perished a debt. We can start to repay that debt by giving their families the dignity of knowing what happened to their loved ones. As it stands, the Bill will not afford them any comfort. It will only compound their misery, and for that reason I cannot support it.

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Today I will be speaking against several of the proposals in part 2, specifically clauses 18, 20, 23 and 24, and in support of amendments 111 and 115. My position on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee has allowed me to hear a range of views on the legacy of the troubles, and the reality is that victims and survivors groups have been let down for decades with successive Governments preventing them from finding out the truth about their loved ones and failing to investigate the most horrific crimes. It is now a sad reality that there can be no perfect solution to how we address legacy issues. There is simply too much division and too many lives lost for that ever to be possible. We must one day accept that we will have an imperfect solution, but that does not mean we have to accept this bad one.

The solution offered in part 2 is unquestionably a bad one. It fails victims, denies them justice and conceals the truth. It threatens the Good Friday agreement, violates article 2 of the European convention on human rights and breaches both the Stormont House agreement and the New Decade, New Approach commitment made just two years ago.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 4th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd]

The only thing that I would disagree with there is “could”; the reality is that it will lead to impunity for people from many different backgrounds. This is not where we ought to be at this stage in our society.

Although I clearly support my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) in amendment 116, which is a serious attempt, I wish we could recognise that the inquest process provides something valuable. The five-year inquest process that the former Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, Declan Morgan, laid out was a very time-limited, credible process that itself was originally frustrated by the refusal to provide the finance to make it work. Had that been done, we would be massively further on than we are today. If we look across the piece at the obfuscation, and the sometimes deliberate attempts in the past to stop the justice process taking place, we can see why people are cynical.

The Minister said to us some moments ago, “Give these new processes a chance to work.” There are two problems with that. First, the real danger is that wiping away the existing mechanisms will mean that there really is no chance of getting properly to the truth that he seeks, with good intent, to create. That is why it is so fundamentally difficult to accept this legislation. Were the inquest process—the continuation of that which Declan Morgan set out in his five-year plan—to be completed, it would go a long way in taking us away from that concern. Secondly, the fact that civil cases are taken out from day one—not day one when the Bill becomes law, but day one when the Bill is published—is quite astonishing. We claim that we do not have retrospective legislation, but this comes desperately close.

I hope the Minister will think about that, because I can see he is moving in the direction of wanting to offer some concessions, whether in the Lords or elsewhere. I agree with the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) that even with those improvements, the Bill will still be bad legislation, and, as bad legislation, it will do nothing to move the reconciliation process further in Northern Ireland.

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I rise in support of the amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle).

As a member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, I have sat through countless evidence sessions and have heard evidence from victims’ groups across the communities, and what comes through above all else is a genuine desire for healing and reconciliation. People will naturally have different ideas about how we can get that, and it will be far from easy. However, there are common themes: people want justice, truth and closure. Those are the criteria against which we should measure the Bill, and, sadly, it is clear that it just does not measure up.

We have already debated how clause 18 will provide a virtually unconditional and completely irrevocable immunity for perpetrators of serious troubles-related crimes. Once immunity has been granted, any hope of justice for the victims vanishes. The review process under the ICRIR is completely inadequate and offers little hope of learning what truly happened to many victims, and much of what would be gathered would simply be the word of a murderer, who could gain immunity for the thinnest account possible. We cannot, as the Bill stands, have any confidence that this body will be fit for purpose.

Despite that, today we must now debate clauses that seek to end almost all other investigations into troubles-related crimes and force victims and their families to pin their hopes on the ICRIR as the only forum for investigation. One justification for that is that the current system of inquests and investigations is broken and offers little value, but that is simply not the case. Yes, those inquests and investigations might be imperfect. They can be slow, expensive and generally have little prospect of securing a prosecution, but there have been successes. These investigations have gathered enormous amounts of information that is of great comfort to the victims’ loved ones. As we have heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) and for Hove, the Ballymurphy inquest demonstrates that perfectly. Joan Connolly, whose mother was wrongly declared an IRA gunwoman, spoke of

“the joy and the peace and the mixed emotions that my mummy has been declared an innocent woman.”

John Teggart, whose father was killed, said:

“We have corrected history today.”

That is the value of these inquests.

In her evidence to our Committee, Alyson Kilpatrick, chief commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, was clear that while there may be concerns with the current system, it is at least underpinned by the rule of law and is largely working as it should. She pointed out that most victims are getting a lot from the current system and that, if we want it to be more successful, we could better fund the existing processes and allow them to work.

Sadly, rather than helping communities heal, part 3 of the Bill will do the opposite. Let us take the case of Patrick McVeigh. Patrick was 44 when he was gunned down by the military reaction force. He was an innocent civilian who was murdered in the street by agents of the British state. His daughter, Patricia, has said that

“truth and justice mean so much to us.”

The clauses that we are debating today could end his family’s hopes of an inquest. Similarly, the Denton review, which was scheduled to be completed in 2024, could now be prevented from finishing, leaving the 127 Denton families uncertain as to whether they will ever get justice.

It is my belief that the Bill cannot be fixed. However, I shall support amendments 116, 117, and 118 as they seek to protect the valuable inquests that are already under way. Similarly, I want to voice my support for amendment 114, which seeks to prevent a person who is granted immunity under this Bill from profiting from their crimes. From speaking to victims’ groups, I know that many are worried that their loved one’s killer will not only be granted immunity under the Bill, but, as we have heard, be able to write a book or exploit other ways to make a profit from someone else’s pain. Supporting amendment 114 would be a compassionate gesture from the Government, and I wholeheartedly urge them to make this concession, as they did on the issue of crimes of sexual violence.

Before I finish, I wish to register my opposition to clause 38, which, if allowed to stand, will retrospectively ban any civil action that was not begun before the First Reading of this Bill—a measure that makes a mockery of our legal system. As the human rights group Liberty has said:

“Another form of scrutiny cut off, another route to justice denied.”

I understand that the troubles are a difficult issue for any Government, and, indeed, it is an enormously difficult matter for the people of Ireland to deal with. However, although it is frustrating, it feels to me as if this Bill is the Government trying to force a conclusion with an incredibly blunt instrument. The healing process has not been prioritised as it should have been. We believe that this will only cause more hurt in the communities in Ireland, so I cannot support it.

Sadly, the Government seem intent on ripping up the rights of people in the UK—from our right to take industrial action to our right to protest, and now our human rights—and destroying the Good Friday agreement in the process.

Ministers should be ashamed that they are attempting to destroy the very backbone of the UK, and presiding over the destruction of our values and our access to truth and justice. Rather than giving families the answers that they have been waiting for for years, this Bill, in seeking to end almost all other investigations into troubles-related crimes, removes all possibility of them ever getting the full truth. Those who have unlawfully killed or committed torture will be handed immunity from prosecution in return for almost nothing. This is not a healing process. There is no justice, no accountability, and no closure for the victims of the troubles and their families.

I wish to end with the words of Alyson Kilpatrick, because they have stuck with me:

“When people say that things have been tried and failed, I struggle to see what has been tried. I see many things that have begun but not been allowed to complete”.

The Bill is being presented to us as a choice between this or nothing, but that is simply not the case. Let us work to improve the current system, or keep trying to find a better solution, because what is before us today will achieve little other than to let murderers sleep a little easier in their beds at night and ensure that their victims’ families get a little less rest.

[Jim Shannon]

I have spoken at some length on this matter. On the first occasion, I spoke about family members and illustrated the issues with the Bill. I have spoken in the past about those who have served alongside, and about the iniquities of a system that seems to let those who carried out the crimes get off scot-free. Tonight, I will do some of that again, but I also want to take an angle that perhaps I have not taken in the past, although I touched on it in an earlier intervention on the Minister of State. Members will know that I have spoken passionately on these matters, as all in this Chamber have done. The passion comes off the back of those we know, those who have given their lives and those who still seek justice across the Province.

I wish to make it abundantly clear that I am not speaking simply because I have been personally touched by the loss of loved ones and friends, although that is very important. I speak because I get phone calls to my office from serving personnel, highlighting the fact that matters are complex in Northern Ireland and extend further than many would think. Many Members have referred to the truth of the debate, but the IRA would not know the truth if it bit them on the end of their nose and hurt them. Indeed, they could not be hurt enough. The fact is that they have no morals and no understanding of the hurt they have inflicted on the people.

I have been asked to raise the question of whether this legislation extends to protecting those in the Irish Government who are accused of colluding to hide and protect murderers and bombers who sought to run and find refuge in the Republic of Ireland. I mentioned earlier that my cousin Kenneth Smyth and Daniel McCormick both served in the Ulster Defence Regiment, one as a serving member and the other as a part-timer. One was a Protestant and one was Catholic, but they were both murdered by the IRA. The people who carried out those murders ran across the border and took sanctuary there, and they were never made accountable for their crimes. You can understand, Mr Evans, why I feel quite aggrieved that this legacy Bill does not give us, as a family, the justice that we seek.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) has raised the matter of collusion on a number of occasions. Last Friday, a gentleman came into my office and asked me to raise it again in the House, and I am doing so today. When we think about the Garda Siochana, the RUC inspectors who were blown up on the border and the people who murdered in Northern Ireland and then ran across the border, it becomes clear why I want justice not just for those—for example, in the IRA—who perpetrated crimes, but for those who colluded with them in the Republic of Ireland and the Garda Siochana.

Some 25 years ago this November, Raymond McCord’s son was murdered by the UVF. I represented my party, the DUP, at a cross-community group of victims—I would say it was probably a unity of victims—and we remembered that Raymond has not had justice for his son, almost 25 years on. I have not had justice for my cousin Kenneth or Daniel McCormick, 50 and a half years on.