Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

4. What recent assessment he has made with (a) Cabinet colleagues and (b) representatives of political parties in Northern Ireland of the adequacy of resources for tackling NHS waiting times in Northern Ireland.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

10. What recent discussions he has had with (a) Cabinet colleagues and (b) representatives of political parties in Northern Ireland on tackling NHS waiting times in Northern Ireland.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Steve Baker)]

We are acutely aware of the pressures facing the health service in Northern Ireland. A fully functioning devolved Government is the only way to deliver the necessary reforms to transform healthcare. We have made that point repeatedly to party leaders.

[Mr Baker]

The hon. Lady will know that we are deeply concerned about the state of the Northern Ireland Executive’s finances and that officials are working urgently with the Northern Ireland civil service to take things forward. Of course we will keep matters under review, but as health is a devolved matter, I have to say that the best way forward would be the restoration of the Executive.

[Tony Lloyd]

Two years ago, the Health Minister Robin Swann, who did such a good job, averted industrial action by ensuring comparability between pay for nurses in Northern Ireland and in England and Wales. The Northern Ireland Fiscal Council says that the budget for health will be 2% lower next year than this year. Will the Minister guarantee that there will be money to pay the nurses, without whom there will be no impact on the dreadful waiting lists?

[Mr Baker]

The recommendations of the independent review bodies, which have responsibility for determining pay for health workers, were published in July 2022. The Minister of Health was unable to implement the recommended pay increases because there had not been a wider Executive decision on public sector pay. Pay parity with NHS England was restored after a Northern Ireland-wide strike in 2019-20, but in the Executive’s absence, pay divergence has occurred again.

I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that the UK Government are providing £121 per person for the Executive for every £100 of equivalent UK Government spending over the 2021 spending review period to deliver public services in Northern Ireland. I think his constituents and mine would consider that quite generous funding.

Northern Ireland Elections

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

My hon. Friend has rich experience in this area, and I recognise everything he has done for Northern Ireland past and present.

I think it is fair to say that everybody recognises the seriousness of the situation between the negotiating partners. Indeed, maintaining and protecting the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and its provisions was at the core of the European Union’s original negotiating mandate. Things have slightly changed with the protocol, which is why the negotiations need to move forward. The Northern Ireland Protocol Bill demonstrates where we want to get to in our relationship with Europe, and I believe some of these aspects are now well recognised.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

Nobody is asking for a running commentary on the protocol negotiations. Three years on, “running” is hardly the expression any of us would use. It is important that we now create trust between the European Commission and the UK Government because, in the end, the protocol must be made to work, which will need compromise on all parts. The gap is very small, but it has to be bridged. Are the Government prepared to make that effort?

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 4th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Conor Burns]

I am slightly confused by that question, given the Government’s commitment to hand over pretty much all the evidence—[Interruption.] I want to say something to the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour party; by the way, I could say this to pretty much any section of political society in Northern Ireland. He says that they just do not believe us, but if everybody goes around telling them not to believe us, there is very little chance—[Interruption.] There is a reason, and I have just referred to it: the people who will be asked, tasked and made responsible for this will be independent of the Government. They will be given a huge degree of leeway in how they set this up, so that it gains the maximum possible public confidence and support.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

Unfortunately, the Minister was interrupted in mid flow. He was about to make the point that the Government will give all available evidence to the recovery body. Two children were killed by plastic bullets, and the evidence around that has been sealed for 45 years, but none of us can understand why national security should mean that that is the case. Will he give a direct answer on this? Will that information be available to the recovery body?

[Conor Burns]

The hon. Gentleman is a distinguished parliamentarian and a former very effective Minister, and he was a police and crime commissioner for a time. He will understand that I cannot possibly comment on an individual case from the Dispatch Box—no Minister could refer directly to that specific example.

--- Later in debate ---

[Carla Lockhart]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. It is well made and has been noted.

New clause 4 seeks to ensure that terrorists receiving immunity cannot proceed to laud their evil activities; it is about ensuring that the book deals do not follow, and the fundraising tours and storytelling events cannot happen. Vitally, it is about protecting victims, for whom such events cause huge hurt and distress. The terrorists gave no thought to the victims and survivors before they made them such, and the activities of terrorists and their political proxies to this day show that they still have no regard for victims and the trauma they continue to inflict upon them. This Bill would be plunged to even deeper depths of moral despondency if it were to facilitate the further glorification of terrorism by those granted immunity in this process. I hope the Government will consider whether this is an outcome they would allow in England and, when they answer that question, act accordingly to amend this Bill to eradicate this extolling of evil in Northern Ireland.

Let me touch briefly on new clause 5, which stands in my name and those of my colleagues. The Bill is lacking in many areas, but it certainly lacks in the whole sphere of the revocation of immunity. It is vital that this Bill does provide for situations where new evidence emerges showing that condition B in clause 18 was not met because the terrorist has lied. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that such instances will occur, given the types of people we are dealing with. Let us not forget that for many years senior members of the IRA have denied ever being members of the IRA; the truth is very much secondary to the cause. The granting of immunity is in itself abhorrent, but just how abhorrent would it be if someone had been granted immunity on the back of a tall tale and then the appropriate mechanism was not in place to revoke that ill-gotten immunity on the back of new evidence? This must be addressed, and we ask that the Government consider it carefully.

My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East covered our other amendments in his contribution, passionately setting out why we believe they can at least make the Bill more robust. I reiterate his remarks, especially on the need to cut off at the pass any idea that immunity will give terrorists a platform to revel in their deeds and inflict more pain on victims who are already hurting so much because of this Bill.

[Tony Lloyd]

Let me begin by saying that this is an astonishingly important Bill and this is an incredibly incompetent way for this House of Commons to deal with it: to have had two days, in which we have been unable to get into the detail of the Bill, is frankly no way to deal with legislation of this import. The Minister is making valiant attempts to move a little with the mood of the Committee, but he must realise that we have not had the opportunity to get into the level of detail that we ought to on a Bill of this import.

I establish that because, interestingly, people from every party represented from Northern Ireland have spoken, at one stage or another, strongly against what this Bill seeks to do and indeed against individual parts of the Bill. That reflects the mood not only of victims and victims’ groups—I have talked to many of those over the years—but the opinion across the piece of the north of Ireland. It is important that we establish that because one problem with that the position is that it plays into different parties’ existing concerns. We have heard DUP Members say that they see this as a get out of jail free card for those who committed acts of terrorism, and I understand why. Those from the nationalist community will see this, again, as simply another attempt to gloss over the action of the state and the collusion that took place. In that context, the real danger is that rather than being something that moves us towards reconciliation, the Bill will establishes in people the rectitude of their own views of the injustice of the situation. That is very, very dangerous.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying in relation to the nationalist community, but I am sure the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) would agree that the sense of injustice on the part of that community is not just related to the state; there are many, many victims in the nationalist community of paramilitary terrorist organisations who are also looking for justice and who join other innocent victims in regarding this legislation as very harmful to them.

[Tony Lloyd]

I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman on that. I have spoken to many victims, from all quarters, and to hear the pain that still exists all these years on is a measure of the intensity of their grief. It is not just individual familial grief; it is about how communities are seeking to grapple with this, and that applies across the different communities. Bizarrely, there is a common bond that ties people together that goes way beyond individual families—it is societal. That is why this Bill is so inadequate and so dangerous, and that is the central issue we have to grapple with.

Let us look at some of the issues that have been raised today and pick up on the point about collusion, which touches on the role of the state. It would be seen as collusion were Operation Kenova now simply to be wiped from the face of the troubles, as the investigations under it have been so important in trying to establish truth, place it on the record and bring to prosecution those who were involved. In all quarters that would be seen as a form of state collusion. It would lead to the suspicions that already exist. We know that when Dr Michael Maguire was police ombudsman and he was looking at the investigation of what happened at Loughinisland, he discovered references on documents from the security services saying, “This is a slow waltz”; this was about slowing down the pace of investigation. All those things feed into the paranoia that collusion took place.

Then there was the Ormeau Road bombing, about which there is very little doubt. Again, the ombudsman was not provided with evidence by the PSNI; it came out through a civil case. The capacity of discovery through that court process meant that it was seen clearly that an agent of the state—I think it was Brian Nelson—provided weaponry to those who took part in those killings. The question of collusion is real. It does not go away because we skim over it through this new legislative framework.

[Johnny Mercer]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Tony Lloyd]

I will, although I am reluctant to, because the hon. Member has monopolised a lot of this debate.

[Johnny Mercer]

I apologise, but we have to be fair. The hon. Member is talking about collusion. If we dealt with different groups all over the world, they would all have their views about what have been termed collusive behaviours. Unless we get to a point where we actually prove stuff in court, what have we become?

[Tony Lloyd]

If the hon. Member had listened to me, he would know that the reference I made—the case of the Ormeau Road killings—was precisely that: a civil court process that revealed that collusion had taken place. [Interruption.] Well, it was a court process that led to the discovery; I am not sure where we go beyond that.

[Ian Paisley]

In the debate about the difference between murders that have occurred, and whether they have affected one section of the tribe in Northern Ireland or another section, I often remember often the words of John Hume, speaking from the Bench in front of us, when he once said that Irish Republicans killed more people in the name of Ireland and Irishness than all the other groups on our island put together. I think, whenever we get things into proportion, we see where the real killing fields were, and we should not allow any piece of legislation to distract us from getting those people to justice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Lloyd]

I agree, particularly for this reason: killing is killing. We do not have a statute of limitations for murder more generally. It is hard to understand in this most brutal of backgrounds—when a whole society has been traumatised and continues to be—that we are now moving on. I agree with the hon. Gentleman entirely. I refer to the issue of collusion not because the state is any more guilty than others, but because every murder deserves the same proper and complete investigation, and we will not see that under this Bill.

I will make a couple of other points. I am seriously concerned that the new independent commission for reconciliation and information recovery simply will not have the powers of an inquest or the capacity of civil cases. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State is not intervening, but I think he is assuring me from a sedentary position, “Yes, it will.” Let me tell him this: if we go back nearly 20 years, the British Government—a Labour Government at the time, by the way—were taken before the European Court of Human Rights, and one of ways in which the Court concluded that our country’s actions were incompatible with article 2 of the European convention was on the inability of the process at the time to lead from investigation and inquest through to prosecution. That is a significant issue, because there is no capacity in which the new body can deliver that prosecutorial process. Therefore, in the same way we will be in default on our article 2 obligations here. That is a serious point about which we should be very worried.

[Colum Eastwood]

The hon. Member is making an important speech. I wonder whether he has heard that the Council of Europe commissioner for human rights has today said that the Bill

“raises serious questions about the extent to which the proposed mechanism…is compliant with ECHR standards on independent and effective investigations. The possibility to grant immunity…on a low evidentiary bar raises concerns that this could lead to impunity.”

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

Turning to new clause 6, the Bill already includes a provision that goes further than ever before in statute in terms of requiring relevant authorities, including state bodies, to release any material to the ICRIR that they may reasonably require for the purposes of its investigations. On amendments 108 and 109 and new clause 3, the Government understand and sympathise with the principle that lies behind the new clause. We recognise the importance of ensuring that individuals are sufficiently incentivised to co-operate with the commission both financially and, potentially, in terms of sentencing, and that the removal of early release provisions for those who do not participate could indeed act as such an incentive. I reiterate to hon. Members who have raised this that we are willing to look at it, but it is vital that in considering any amendment of this nature we look at the potential legal implications, and I commit from the Front Bench, on behalf of the Secretary of State and myself, to doing so. The Government remain absolutely open to constructive dialogue with all parties about how this might be reasonably and appropriately addressed as the Bill continues its passage.

[Tony Lloyd]

I have a lot of sympathy with what the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) is trying to achieve in his amendment. If I were to lie before a court in a murder case and that was discovered later on, I would of course be brought back with the charge of perjury. Is it not possible to look at whether the same concept can apply to the ICRIR?

[Conor Burns]

Clause 20(2) makes very clear the obligations of the body to look at the totality of the information available to it, not solely to rely on the testimony—the account—of the individual who is appearing before it. As I just reiterated, it will be led by a judicially experienced figure. The team that that person will assemble will comprise people who are expert and professional and have had careers in investigation and information retrieval. They will be able to look at biometrics and other things as well. We therefore think it is highly unlikely that the commission could be duped by somebody who has come forward, particularly given that, as I said, there is an obligation in the Bill on institutions of the state to provide full information.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

rose—

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

rose—

[Johnny Mercer]

I will give way to my hon. Friend, then to the hon. Member, and then I will shut up.

[Johnny Mercer]

We are here because over many years our predecessors looked at this issue and thought that it was too difficult. I focus on two groups: the victims, who have been dragged down the legal pathway; and veterans, for whom—I am sorry—the experience is equally unacceptable. I have seen 85-year-old men in court who needed a loo break every half-hour—they could not remember what happened yesterday—getting spat at on their way in. They were not guilty of anything. Their cases got thrown out and the judge said, “I can’t believe this has come this far.” So there are two sides to the ledger, and we are here because we have not had the courage to deal with the issue as we find it.

[Tony Lloyd]

Like the hon. Member, I believe that, had there been action in the past, we may not have needed to be here today. He said that the search for truth by the families of victims is valid, but he also said that little can be done now. We recently had the Ballymurphy inquest, which came to a definitive conclusion and gave some truth to the victims’ families. On that basis, will he at least accept that getting rid of inquests would fly in the face of the interests of victims’ families?

[Johnny Mercer]

This will be deeply unpopular on the Opposition Benches, but the reason we have inquests and they do not result in criminal convictions is that they do not reach that threshold. Obviously, the evidence is there in the inquests, and I do not decry them—they are very important—but they are not at the criminal threshold, which has driven the experiences of veterans and so on. Yes, inquests have made findings—they have found things around collusive behaviour—but they have never been proved in court. While people will have very strong views—I have seen that across the Committee—we have to go with what is proved in court. That is the lie of the land. Even cases that I cannot believe have not been prosecuted have not been proved in court. It is a desperately sorry situation for everybody—the victims, veterans and so on. While I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern, I just do not see what good end point that achieves.

I understand that we must be open. The Department could be more open with this process than it is with inquests, because of all the legalities included in that. The idea behind this immunity from prosecution is that there could be total transparency. I accept that people think, “They won’t be transparent,” but what do we do? Do we just throw away this last chance—do we let these old guys die in a hotel room in Belfast and let the sectarianism continue, the protests outside the courts continue, the spitting at me when I walk in continue—or do we try to do something just a little bit different?

I have never asked for favours for anybody. All I have asked for is fairness—just fairness. There are some people you will never find me defending, because I have my own thoughts about it. All I have asked for is fairness, and I have been treated in a particular way in Northern Ireland. I just urge colleagues to think about the art of the possible. We all have a duty—to victims and to veterans.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 24th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman gives a powerful and clear outline of the difficulty and pain that people feel, as he has just shown, in this very complex and sensitive area. He makes that point better than almost anybody else could. He touches on the very challenge we face, as we have seen over the past few decades, with the failure of the current system to bring that accountability, understanding and truth for people. As I will outline over the next few minutes, through this legislation we want to achieve an outcome that means people get the truth, with which comes accountability. He is right to focus on that for his constituents.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

Like the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), I have met many victims of the violence and the loved ones of those who died. They still want the Stormont House agreement to be implemented. The Secretary of State has to account for this. The civil proceedings on the Ormeau Road events revealed a lot of detail, as did the Kingsmill and Ballymurphy inquests. They all revealed truths that had not been known. What the Secretary of State describes as an adversarial approach to seeking justice actually works. This will disappear and he has to account for that.

[Brandon Lewis]

It is not going to disappear. What we are looking to do is to have a full, independent, investigative, article 2-compliant process. I will touch on that in the next few minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I hope that the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) will echo not simply around the Chamber but around these islands. The tone that he struck was the one that I wish to see, and I wish—I do not mean this personally—that it were the one coming from the Government. His points about reconciliation are absolutely fundamental. Like many hon. Members, I have met many victims of the violence and the loved ones of those who were killed, and it is hard to listen to victims without recognising their tremendous hurt and how that will continue to be there. They need to go through the knowledge process, which is so fundamental to their own ability not to reconcile—in a way, it is a very difficult thing to lose a loved one—but at least to accept that the state, as the arbiter of these things, has made every conceivable effort to ensure that their pain is recognised and moved through.

I can think of no victims who will be satisfied by the Bill. The Secretary of State cannot say that any of them are in favour of this piece of legislation, nor did he even try to suggest it. Many of the victims would say to me that the two-year limitation of sentences is already a betrayal of what they seek, and I have genuine sympathy with that. We can almost certainly balance that with the fact that the process led to peace. Different people have different views on that, but, nevertheless, even with that two-year sentence limitation, it is not about the magnitude of the sentence; it is about recognition that somebody has been held to account for the crimes that took their loved ones away or changed their individual lives. That is so important.

Do we have a victim-centred process before us? The answer is, simply, no. I really regret that. Yes, it is an improvement on the absolutism of the amnesty that we had before us only a few months ago, but it is only a very limited improvement. In any case, in five years’ time, we will have a de facto amnesty. In the short-term, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) pointed out, because of the very low bar on granting immunity, it is nearly certain that the amnesty will become the de facto process that applies.

I have to say to Conservative Members who campaign for the rights of veterans that it is worth reflecting on the over 700 veterans who died during the conflict, because they, as victims, also have rights. I think the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) made exactly that point about those with whom he had served in the UDR, and we can take that across different parts of our armed forces.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

indicated assent.

[Tony Lloyd]

So there is a genuine issue about victims, but victims who were serving soldiers.

I have to make this point as well. I have listened to this debate over many years. One of the things I find intriguing is that when I talk to former members of the RUC, the PSNI and the armed forces they will say to me very directly that those who were culpable of criminal acts should be prosecuted, because they offer no credit to those who served under the law and in protection of the people of Northern Ireland. The idea, therefore, that we pit the rights of veterans in some way in opposition to the rights of victims is simply a dangerous fiction and one we have to dispense with. Frankly, that lies very much at the heart of the Bill. The reality is that the Secretary of State has given in to what he perceives to be the demand from his own Back Benchers, but at the expense of the many people who could have been served by a much better Bill. That has to be recognised.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind me saying so, I think he is mischaracterising the concern of those of us who served and who remember what others went through. No one has ever asked for immunity. Everybody has always said that those guilty of a crime must face the normal judicial process. That is an established fact. The problem for them is that, because they are the ones on which information exists, there has been a fishing expedition going on without any real evidence to start the process. Then there is an inquiry and it goes on and on for people, without end. That is the problem: it is the process that is actually the penalty, not the prosecution.

[Tony Lloyd]

Actually, I would not want to mischaracterise the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks, because I have heard him say that before. I have always welcomed the fact—the Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace) made the same point and he is a very well-respected former serving soldier—that there is no demand for an absolute amnesty, and that those who broke the law should face the consequences of the law, whether they are from a paramilitary organisation or from those who claim they were there to serve the public good. That is right and proper. I recognise that that is the position he has always taken, but nevertheless there has been the demand elsewhere for amnesty as a way of simply saying, “Let’s move on”. That is precisely what the Bill will do. In five years’ time, there will be an absolute amnesty. De facto, there will be an effective amnesty under the provisions in the Bill.

We need to look at whether the Bill is compliant with the European convention on human rights. I know that for some on the Conservative Benches that is a contentious issue in its own right, but nevertheless we should be compliant with that convention. There is considerable opinion that the Bill does not conform to either articles 2 or 3 of the convention in terms of the need for proper investigation, in particular in terms of torture, and to make sure there is adequate redress. The Bill is almost certainly not compliant, but, in a way, important though it is, that is a lawyer’s point. What lies behind the lawyer’s point is delivering justice to the people who suffered during that period of violence.

There are other defects in the Bill that have to be established, because any system of justice, if it is going to satisfy victims, must have enough transparency and a sense of independence. The Bill simply has neither. When the Secretary of State appoints the commissioners, the process will already be undermined because it is open to political manipulation. When the Secretary of State can direct the commissioner, for example in granting immunity, we have a very dangerous political precedent. The idea that this will be equivalent to the South African truth and reconciliation process is, frankly, a joke. There was a very different process in South Africa, one that was independent of politicians—that was important—and one that, of itself, allowed for challenge of the evidence brought forward by those who came seeking the amnesty process. That is why only 17% of those in South Africa were allowed that form of immunity from prosecution.

In that context, we have to recognise that there are many, many things that must change in Committee. In the end, we have to deliver something that is trusted. The words on reconciliation depend on trust. As the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon rightly said a few moments ago, the words on reconciliation need all parties—the IRA, the loyalist paramilitaries, the Irish Government and our own Government—to stand up and accept that things went wrong in their name. That process is important to reconciliation and it is not there in the Bill. In the end, it is important that there is trust in the justice process that, frankly, will not be there and is not there, because victims’ groups and politicians across the piece in Northern Ireland just do not accept that this is the legislation that will move things on. Unless we have that trust, we will not move further on down the road of reconciliation.

I will finish at this point because of the time and to let others speak. I hope the Secretary of State will now listen to the voices that have come here. This is not a party political division or a division on ideological grounds; it is a division because this is a bad Bill that will not deliver justice to either veterans or victims. It will not deliver the capacity for Northern Ireland to move on down that road of reconciliation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Conor Burns]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, the Chair of the Select Committee, and I shall be saying something about his speech in a moment. We have heard concern expressed on both sides of the House about the amount of time that will be available in Committee. Both the Secretary of State and I are very open to the idea of expanding that, and conversations have already begun with business managers. Subject to their agreement, we would look to provide a little more time—

[Tony Lloyd]

Will the Minister give way?

[Conor Burns]

Will the hon. Gentleman bear with me while I give this commitment?

We would look to try and find more parliamentary time for consideration in Committee, in a spirit of being open to input from Members on both sides of the House. Now I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Tony Lloyd]

I am grateful to the Minister.

Given that the period between First Reading and Second Reading was so short, and given that consultation was virtually non-existent, would Ministers be prepared to refer the Bill to the Select Committee, or some other forum, for prelegislative scrutiny? I think that that would move us on a little bit.

[Conor Burns]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but the timetabling of today’s Second Reading debate was agreed through the usual channels. I must say to him candidly that I do not agree with his points about a lack of engagement. There has been considerable engagement, much of which has been undertaken directly by the Secretary of State and me, often with groups who did not welcome that engagement being publicised. Much of it, of necessity, took place in private, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that in some of the meetings that I attended, the emotion was heard, and heard very clearly, by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and me.

We are tackling this, and I think that my right hon. Friend deserves a measure of credit, because it is an intensely difficult and controversial area for any Government to get involved in. That is why successive Governments have left it alone. The fact that my right hon. Friend worked so diligently on these proposals—and, indeed, the flak that has been taken when we have missed deadlines in order to take the time to try to refine and improve the Bill that we were going to bring to the House today—show, I think, that we were listening. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister: the Government he leads will deliver shortly on the language and cultural commitments that they have undertaken.

Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 7th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to his place in leading on this important Bill, which has taken on great significance due to the resignation of the First Minister of Northern Ireland. I thank colleagues from across the House who served in Committee and those in the other place who worked to secure the necessary amendments that we are discussing today.

The Belfast/Good Friday agreement is one of Labour’s most important political legacies. We therefore welcome attempts to safeguard power sharing and improve the sustainability of the Executive, the Assembly and the institutions, which have collapsed previously and are in crisis once again. The Bill emerged from a cross-party commitment made in the New Decade, New Approach deal, which was signed over two years ago. I pay tribute to the considerable work and achievements of the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) in negotiating that deal, which thankfully returned a functioning Executive in time to serve the people of Northern Ireland during the pandemic. It is a crying shame that the Government did not treat legislation that flowed from that agreement with the same priority as those who negotiated it. Because of the two-year delay in reaching this point, we have found ourselves in a situation where this Bill is being treated as emergency legislation whose retrospective powers will be activated immediately on Royal Assent.

New Decade, New Approach was about strengthening the institutional framework on which politics in Northern Ireland can be built in the coming period. By leaving it so late, Ministers have allowed it to be perceived as keeping the wheels turning for as long as possible before they come loose. The delay is symptomatic of an approach to Northern Ireland where promises are constantly allowed to drift. The amendments before us today were drafted to deal with a hypothetical power vacuum that has become a reality due to the Government’s lack of focus on the political deterioration in Northern Ireland. They will remove the requirement for the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to set a date for an election if the positions of First Minister and Deputy First Minister are not filled by the end of this week.

That these amendments were accepted by the Government in the Lords is an admission that the delayed passage of this Bill was negligent. The instability caused by a First Minister resigning is unsettling for all of us who cherish the Good Friday agreement and believe that its institutions and the principles that underpin it represent the best way forward for Northern Ireland. As ever, that instability has been most keenly felt by the people of Northern Ireland. It is regrettable that a political crisis in one of our United Kingdom’s devolved legislatures is not on the front page of every national newspaper.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that in that light, because there now is a crisis, it is astonishing that we have not seen any Government Minister come to the Dispatch Box to make a statement on the Government’s policy? That would have been in the interests of everybody, whatever their views.

[Peter Kyle]

I am grateful for the service to the people of Northern Ireland that my hon. Friend has given from the Labour Front Bench over the years. He makes a very pertinent point. I was flabbergasted, on a Friday during a real crisis in Northern Ireland, to see the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland tweeting about “Game of Thrones” and not the situation that was unfolding. That was a negligent approach to the situation and to the responsibility that the Northern Ireland Secretary has to be present. There are several Secretaries of State with responsibility for negotiating, commenting on and making policy that has a profound impact on the people and politics of Northern Ireland. The fact that none of them has come to this place to answer questions in recent days is negligent.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

As I have outlined, as the Prime Minister said at the time and as I have said in responding to public inquiries recently, we as the Government must accept responsibility for what has happened in the past. When things are wrong, we need to be clear about that, as we have been. It is right that we have apologised for that, and I have added my own personal apology to that of the Government. We also need to ensure that we all work together to find a way forward to ensure that people are clear that violence is not an answer to anything in Northern Ireland or elsewhere.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State rightly made his comments about Bloody Sunday at the beginning of his remarks, but he will recognise that it took nearly 40 years for the Saville inquiry to clear the innocent victims who were murdered that day and those who were injured. Will he confirm that under the proposals that he will bring to the House a judicial inquiry will still be possible? If not, we condemn victims and their families to the accusation of guilt when an inquiry would prove their innocence.

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman gives a powerful example. Ballymurphy, which I spoke about at the Dispatch Box not that long ago, is another powerful example of it taking far too long in these situations for families to get answers and to get to the truth. I can be very clear with the House, as I have been before, that I am determined that the legislation we bring forward will allow families to get to the truth and understand what happened quicker than we have seen before. People should not be waiting decades for information.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

I appreciate that my right hon. Friend has campaigned on the issue for a long time and he has been forthright in his determination to deliver for the veterans community. We set out our Command Paper in July just before the summer recess. As we said we would, we have been engaging with interested parties in the past couple of months, including not just the veterans community but victims, civic society and, more widely, the political parties in Northern Ireland. As we said in the Command Paper, we are still focused on delivering legislation to the House this autumn.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

Can the Secretary of State tell the House clearly which of the groups representing the families of victims that he has met have agreed with his proposals?

[Brandon Lewis]

As I said when I launched the Command Paper, we appreciate that it is a very sensitive and complex issue that will affect a huge range of people. We have had wide engagement across victims groups and with victims who are not represented by groups. We are taking on that feedback at the moment and we will come forward with proposals very soon.

Northern Ireland Protocol

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

Yes, and we are looking forward to having those very conversations with the EU in the weeks ahead.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

The Secretary of State knows as well as I do that the bulk of commerce and industry in Northern Ireland is getting on with making the protocol work, but a veterinary agreement would solve the problems that have not yet been resolved. Does he not recognise that public diplomacy and unilateralism may please his Back Benchers, but it is dangerous in the context of Northern Ireland? Will he insist to the Prime Minister and the noble Lord Frost that they get back to the negotiating table and do that in private until they come up with an acceptable result?

[Brandon Lewis]

Again, perhaps the hon. Gentleman should have a look in detail at the statement I gave a short while ago and the Command Paper, because we are specifically setting out that we want to negotiate a solution with the European Union. I would just say to him that we are the party that has put forward a whole series of pages to the EU, which we are waiting for proper engagement on. We have not publicised them; we have not gone to the press about that. We have been doing that because we want to give space for a proper negotiation and the freedom to do that, to get a proper solution for the people of Northern Ireland. I ask the hon. Gentleman to consider getting behind the UK Government to get a positive solution for Northern Ireland.

Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

Can the Secretary of State honestly think of any circumstance where he would say to the families of victims of murder anywhere else in the United Kingdom—including Northern Ireland, under different circumstances—that an amnesty was the way to bring them reconciliation and peace? If not, how does he say to the families of victims of the troubles that this is the correct way forward? Far from this practically meaning that we will move towards reconciliation, if he carries on with it, he will set up another wave of intercommunal unhappiness. That cannot be the way forward.

[Brandon Lewis]

Where I agree with the hon. Gentleman is on the desire to end the intergenerational challenge and trauma that we are seeing, with families and people now with us who were simply not alive at the time of the troubles and have no recollection of just how dreadful a situation that was for Northern Ireland. We need to stop this intergenerational issue.

I will say in direct answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question that the troubles represent a uniquely troubled time in our history. The Good Friday/Belfast agreement itself acknowledged that. In focusing on a shared future for Northern Ireland, we sometimes need to make difficult decisions in relation to the past, as his colleagues did and as our colleagues did back at the time of the Belfast agreement. We are in a different situation in Northern Ireland with the troubles from most other crimes because of the sentencing Act that followed the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. We need to be honest about that and deal with the reality of where we are, however difficult that may be.