Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Report (1st Day)

Clause 2: The Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery

Amendment 1

1: Clause 2, page 3, line 11, leave out “one, two or three” and insert “between one and five” Member’s explanatory statement This provides that the ICRIR will have between one and five other Commissioners (in addition to the Chief Commissioner and the Commissioner for Investigations), with the actual number to be decided (as currently) by the Secretary of State under paragraph 6 of Schedule 1.

My Lords, before I begin, I will take a moment to mark, on the longest day of the year, the annual day of reflection to remember the losses experienced by so many during the Troubles. It is also an opportunity to remind ourselves of how far Northern Ireland has come since the most difficult days of the Troubles; to remember the steps that have been taken since 1998 to build a more peaceful, prosperous and stable Northern Ireland; and to ensure that the experiences and horrors of the Troubles are never repeated.

I remind the House that this is Report, and the Bill has been debated extensively in Committee. I have held countless meetings with noble Lords over recent weeks and months. In accordance with the Standing Orders of the House, I will seek to be brief, and I hope that other noble Lords will attempt to follow suit.

I have always maintained that central to the effective delivery of this legislation is the need for an independent body to carry out reviews and, where an individual co-operates properly with the body, to grant immunity from prosecution. The Government fully recognise the need for the commission to have credibility, expertise and legitimacy so that effective investigations can be carried out and information provided to families as soon as possible.

As I mentioned, we debated the independence of the commission extensively in Committee, and I have sought to address as many concerns as possible. On the final day of Committee, I announced the intended appointment of the former Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, Sir Declan Morgan KC, as the chief commissioner, having obtained input from the Lord Chief Justices of Northern Ireland and England and Wales, and the Lord President of the Court of Session in Scotland.

To allay further concerns around the integrity and independence of the immunity process, I tabled Amendments 79 to 83, placing a duty on the commission to produce guidance related to determining a request for immunity. This will replace the power that, in the Bill as currently drafted, sits with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. It was the subject of some debate, as noble Lords will recall.

I associate myself with the Minister in remembering those who suffered violence over the last number of years and thank him for the way in which he has engaged with Members of this House and beyond. His amendments generally improve the Bill, but I suspect that he will find this evening that they do not go far enough for those with fundamental objections to the Bill. We shall certainly not vote against them today or Monday, as they do, as I say, improve it.

The Minister made reference to Sir Declan Morgan, who has been appointed as the chief commissioner designate—a clever move on the Government’s part, because he is a man of huge integrity, experience and expertise. There is some doubt as to whether it should have been announced quite this early, but I understand why the Government decided so to do.

I am sure that this evening we will hear a number of important points on the many issues, from immunity to prosecution and other matters. I hope that the House will be able to give consideration briefly to those points.

I echo a lot of the comments that the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, has just made, and the Minister’s comments about remembering. It is very important that we never forget all those impacted and killed by the Troubles.

I too start by thanking the Minister for the constructive way in which he has engaged on the Bill, given the constraints that he faces at the other end of the building. He has always shown himself willing to meet and discuss, and I know that he has dedicated a considerable amount of time to the Bill, including during the summer holiday last year, perhaps. For that we thank him.

Again, like the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, most of us feel that, although the amendments are to a very large degree to be welcomed, they are not game-changing; they have not really changed the Bill to the extent to which many of us would have liked to see. I am sure that we will return to that issue at later stages, but this group is a positive example of amendments that these Benches are happy to welcome.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord and noble Baroness for their support and kind words, and I hope that this year I might actually get some time off during the summer. That might be the triumph of hope over experience, but you never know. I take great heart from the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, when he describes the Government as having made a “clever move”. I welcome that, and I am very grateful. The amendments that I have proposed will strengthen the independence of the commission.

Amendment 1 agreed.

Amendment 2

2: Clause 2, page 3, line 11, at end insert— “(3A) The principal objective of the ICRIR in exercising its functions is to promote reconciliation.”Member’s explanatory statement This would impose the principal objective of promoting reconciliation on the exercise of the ICRIR’s functions.

My Lords, at Second Reading I committed to carrying out extensive engagement, which has just been recognised by the noble Lord and the noble Baroness—and I hope it is recognised more widely across the House that this is exactly what I have done. The amendments that I am bringing forward in this group seek to take on board and respond to a number of concerns raised in the House and elsewhere, as far as possible.

The Government remain committed to delivering better outcomes for those most affected by the Troubles by providing more information in a more timely manner to more people than is possible under current mechanisms. This is a hugely difficult task, and the legislation—as I have admitted both in this House and in the media—requires some finely balanced political and moral choices that are challenging for many, myself included. We must be realistic about what we can deliver. I have reflected on how we can strengthen the Bill and I am thankful for the many conversations that I have had on this, including with the Commissioner for Victims and Survivors in Northern Ireland, Ian Jeffers. While we have our differences, I am grateful for the way in which he has always conducted our meetings. It is widely recognised that the current mechanisms for addressing legacy issues provide satisfactory outcomes to very few of those affected, leaving far too many victims and families—including many of those who died while serving the state—empty-handed.

Amendments 2, 3 and 7 to Clause 2 in my name place the commission, when exercising its functions, under a duty to have regard to the general interests of persons affected by Troubles-related deaths and serious injuries. These amendments also provide that, in exercising its functions, the commission’s principal objective is to promote reconciliation. It is our view that putting more information in the public domain via an effective information recovery process, subject to the exceptions set out in Clause 4, will help to do that. These amendments seek to strengthen our commitment to victims, provide greater direction to the commissioner and respond to the debate in Committee, where your Lordships raised concerns over the extent to which the commission would take a victim-centred approach to its work.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation of the amendments in this group about making the Bill more victim-centred. Undoubtedly, the most important people in all this are the victims. Many of them have passed on and their families—some of whom have passed on, through the passage of time—have not seen justice and truth: the very things they were looking for. I acknowledge what both the Minister and my noble friend Lord Murphy said, on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, which is the day that victims of the Troubles in Northern Ireland are remembered.

In relation to Amendment 2, can the Minister, in his wind-up, explain the practical application of the amendment on the operation of the ICRIR. How will the amendment really promote reconciliation in the exercise of those functions, given that the Bill has been opposed by legal representatives, such as the European Council of Ministers, political representatives from the Irish Government and all the political parties in Northern Ireland, and the victims and survivors—a wide spectrum?

My Lords, first, my colleagues and I associate ourselves with the earlier remarks noting and indeed supporting real victims of the Troubles. It is important that they are at the forefront of our mind as we debate all these amendments today.

I acknowledge that the amendments before us in this group all represent very small steps forward. They are small ameliorations and small improvements. It is difficult to quibble with their exact wording; there is nothing that we would seek to divide on in this group of amendments. However, by their very nature, they are symptomatic of the wider problems with this Bill. Whatever small improvements are made, they cannot turn the irreconcilable and the unacceptable into something that is acceptable and worthy of legislation. They omit some of the most important aspects. Indeed, part of the problem with these amendments is that they have sins of omission, rather than sins of commission. What do I mean by that? If we first take Amendment 2, we see that it introduces the concept of reconciliation, which is on the face of the Bill, directly into the work of the commission, but there is a danger of that being seen as tokenistic. At no stage does the Bill actually define what the objectives of reconciliation are. There is a danger that this has been thrown in simply so that there can be a direct reference to reconciliation, but with no meat put on the substance.

The other, more fundamental, issue regarding reconciliation is that many victims will see this legislation as being entirely unacceptable, taking away from them any prospect at all of justice and granting immunity to those who carried out some of the most heinous crimes during the Troubles. Therefore, the idea of reconciliation being at the heart of the Bill while immunity from prosecution remains is a central paradox of the Bill that is not properly addressed by Amendment 2.