Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Committee (1st Day)

Motion

That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.

Amendment to the Motion

At end insert “but that the House should not be invited to read the Bill a third time until the Northern Ireland Assembly has agreed a Legislative Consent Motion in respect of the Bill”.

My Lords, policing and justice were devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2009, years after other areas of governance. How to handle Northern Ireland’s legacy of pain has been a source of contention for decades, for reasons which are well known. Despite that, agreement was reached in principle in the Stormont House agreement of 2014, the terms of which were compliant with all international legal obligations and the rule of law, of which the UK is so proud. For a variety of reasons, the Northern Ireland Assembly has not yet legislated a way forward, although the content of the agreement is largely accepted in Northern Ireland. We do not have an Assembly at the moment, the reasons for which your Lordships are very well informed about. However, in July 2021, a Motion rejecting the proposals contained in the Government’s Command Paper on legacy, which led to the Bill now before your Lordships’ House, was passed without any dissent by the Northern Ireland Assembly; the Motion was accepted by the Assembly.

When the Government legislate on a matter which has been devolved, the Sewel convention—of course, it is only a convention—requires that the Government seek legislative consent from each devolved Administration affected by the legislation. There has been no legislative consent Motion from the Northern Ireland Assembly for the Bill we will discuss today. My amendment to the Government’s Motion is very simple: it requires that a legislative consent Motion be secured before the Bill goes to Third Reading.

The reasons for that are equally simple. The Bill has been rejected by every political party in Northern Ireland and by the churches, victims’ groups and other individuals, human rights organisations, the Northern Ireland victims’ commissioner, victims’ organisations—such as the cross-community group WAVE, which has done magnificent work to help those who have suffered so grievously during the Troubles—and veterans’ organisations. The Minister has himself admitted that he has not met anyone who actually wants it to be enacted; he has encountered constant opposition to the Bill. It has been seriously criticised by the chief commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, whose role is to advise government, because it is not compliant with the UK’s international legal obligations or with the fundamental precepts of the rule of law. There has been a total failure to consult victims and survivors properly and to respond meaningfully, even at this stage, to their very real objections and concerns.

The Supreme Court set out the ECHR obligations very simply in December 2021, in its judgment in relation to the application by McQuillan and others:

“As the State has a general duty under article 1 of the Convention to secure to everyone the rights and freedoms defined in the Convention, the combination of articles 1 and 2 requires by implication that there be some form of official investigation when individuals have been killed by the use of force … The essential purpose of such an investigation is two-fold. It is to secure the effective implementation of the domestic laws that protect the right to life; and, in cases involving State agents or bodies, it is to ensure their accountability for deaths occurring under their responsibility … A similar duty of investigation arises under article 3 of the Convention where there is a reasonable suspicion that a person has been subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment”.

Under the Bill, people will no longer be able to go to a coroner’s court for an inquest to determine where, when and how their loved ones died, even when inquests have already been scheduled—a cruel move. Inquests have been enormously important in unpicking the web of deception that has permeated so much of the proceedings of the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland. One example is the recent inquest into the deaths in Ballymurphy in August 1971. For decades, it was said that those who were killed there had been involved in terrorism, yet, in May 2021, 50 years after the event, it was found that the 10 people who died there on those fateful August days were unarmed civilians who had posed no threat. Nine were killed by members of the Parachute Regiment, but it was not possible to prove who had shot the 10th person dead. For over 1,000 years, inquests have enabled people, through a judicial process, to seek to know when, where and how people died. That will no longer be the case in Northern Ireland for those died between 1966 and 1998 if the Bill is passed.

During the Troubles, many cases were not investigated for a variety of reasons, and perpetrators were not prosecuted. Those reasons included the need to protect informants. It is fundamental and vital to protect those who assist the forces of law and order in protecting against atrocities. But, on many occasions, those same informants were involved in murder and the most serious of crimes, and they were allowed to continue to be involved in terrorism, both republican and loyalist. I have reported on many such cases. It seems impossible now, but it happened; people died, lives were wrecked and hearts were broken.

Now, in the Bill, the Government propose to remove the obligations that exist in law, domestic and international, and to deprive victims and survivors of proper investigation in the fullest sense and of any meaningful reconciliation. The Bill will also remove the right to bring civil actions for damages for injury and death resulting from the Troubles. Such actions have been critical in uncovering the truth about deaths and serious harm to people caused by terrorists, some of whom were state informants working with paramilitary groups such as the IRA and the UVF. Many such civil actions were settled in the courts and upheld. If the Bill passes, these actions will no longer be possible.

The Bill will introduce conditional immunity, which, to quote the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, speaking last week,

“would likely be at variance with the UK’s obligations under international human rights law to investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute and punish those found responsible for serious human rights violations”.

This Bill has been rejected by virtually everyone. The Assembly has not had the opportunity to comment on its content; it comprises multiple breaches of the UK’s obligations under domestic and international law; and it does not have the consent of the people affected by its provisions—those whose loved ones died, or were seriously injured, in places such as London, Birmingham, Manchester, Hyde Park, Warrenpoint, Enniskillen and so many other places. It will deprive the UK of its reputation as a state in which the rule of law is respected and upheld. I beg to move.

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly to the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, with which I am bound to say that I have very great sympathy, although for different reasons from those advanced by the noble Baroness. I would like the Assembly to consider the propriety of the linkage between what is, in effect, an amnesty and the establishment of and participation in the commission. I happen to think that those are wholly different issues and should not be linked.

As it happens, I am an agnostic on the question of the commission, but I am not an agnostic on the question of a statute of limitations—an amnesty. I feel very strongly in favour of it. There should be a statute of limitations to preclude prosecutions in respect of any crimes alleged to have been committed and connected with terrorism prior to the Good Friday agreement. There are a number of pragmatic reasons for that, which I am not going to trouble noble Lords with, but there is an essential concern that I have: I believe that it is offensive and a serious abuse of process for servicemen to be prosecuted for alleged offences while at the same time many people who have been, or are alleged to have been, involved in the commission of terrorist offences have been admitted to high political office. I find the letters of comfort offensive if servicemen are to be prosecuted. I look at Mr Martin McGuinness, who served as Deputy First Minister; it seems that he did participate in serious offences. Given all that, can it be right to prosecute servicemen, when in all probability their level of culpability is lower?

It is in my view an abuse of process to do so, and it is for that reason that I want to see a statute of limitations that covers all offences. I do not think that it is possible, in law or practice, to make a distinction between those who are alleged to have been terrorists and servicepeople. I do not think that that distinction is possible, so it has to be a general statute of limitations. I would like the Assembly to discuss this matter, although I am bound to say that I think that the outcome is likely to be different from that which I would wish.

My Lords, in producing this amendment, the noble Baroness is representing the widespread frustration that exists in Northern Ireland in the light of this proposed legislation. Speaking from my experience and years of service to Northern Ireland, I have never come across such widespread opposition to a proposal such as this as is the case today. A lot of that frustration, I have to say to His Majesty’s Government, is caused by their failure to produce the amendments to this legislation that they had promised. They made a solemn promise to this House and the other House that they would take very seriously the expressions of frustration that many of us had brought to the Floor of this House and to the other place. We are disappointed in the result and the failure to fulfil that promise.

The failure of this legislation to have at its heart the needs of survivors and victims and their families and loved ones is a total disaster. Because of the way this new commission is proposed to operate, many people in Northern Ireland are going to be denied justice and denied the opportunity to be heard. I speak from many years’ experience of pastoral service to the people of Northern Ireland when I say that this is nothing less than a tragedy.

It is for those reasons that so many of us have a lot of sympathy with what the noble Baroness has said. No one knows better than she does, from her public service, what the feelings of opposition amount to in Northern Ireland at the present time. I appeal to those noble Lords who have serious concerns, who do not live in Northern Ireland, who have not experienced what we have come through; I appeal to them to see the opposition to this legislation as a matter of right and wrong, for it is, I believe, verging on a moral issue.