Northern Ireland Troubles: Operation Kenova Debate
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Tonia Antoniazzi
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Northern Ireland Troubles: Operation Kenova
Tonia Antoniazzi Excerpts(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
As my Committee’s report on legacy last week outlined, information disclosure has been, and remains, one of the biggest challenges with legacy investigations. The Kenova report outlines the failure of MI5 to disclose all relevant material pertaining to Stakeknife in a timely manner. The chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland said today that he remains concerned that
“there continues to be an unhelpful, unnecessary and protectionist approach to the disclosure of official records.”
Given those comments and the significant concerns outlined in our report on the Government’s new approach to disclosure, how can families have confidence in the new process?
Hilary Benn
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Select Committee, for what she has just said. She refers to the unfortunate episode in which MI5 discovered further files relating to the work of Operation Kenova that it had not previously been able to identify. The authors of the Kenova report say that they have no reason to believe that those files were withheld; MI5 was not able to find them, and the head of MI5 set up a process to review exactly what had occurred.
Under the current legacy Act, the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, which will become the legacy commission under our legislation, has the ability to request and see all information. That will remain the case for the reformed legacy commission, because the commission has the ability to deal with closed material; the coronial system does not, as the House is aware. Precisely as my hon. Friend has said, it is vital for the confidence of families that they know the bodies that are charged with investigating what happened in the past—the people who are trying to find out what happened to their loved ones—are able to see all the relevant material.