IRA Terrorism: Compensation for Victims

Debate between Lord Collins of Highbury and Lord Empey

Thursday 1st May 2025 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, for asking this Question for Short Debate. I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Caine, that the terrorist actions of the IRA could never be justified. Therefore I begin by reflecting on some of his points and by reiterating that this Government have profound sympathy for UK victims of Gaddafi-sponsored IRA terrorism, as well as all victims of the Troubles. I know from personal experience as a union officer visiting Belfast throughout the 1980s and 1990s just what that terrorist action caused and the impact it had, but I cannot imagine the pain and suffering that the victims had to endure. I had the benefit of being able to get on a plane and leave but they could not, and that is a really important point.

I hope that the Government’s support and compensation, through the Northern Ireland Executive and the Troubles Permanent Disablement Scheme, is of at least some help. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Caine, I shall ensure that officials write to update him on all the elements of the compensation schemes.

When it comes to getting compensation from Libya, I believe that it is important to distinguish between securing compensation for actions where Libya was a third party and the actions directly carried out by Libya. I do not think that we should ever forget who is responsible for the terrorist actions in Northern Ireland: they were carried out by the IRA. Victims of direct attacks such as Lockerbie and the killing of WPC Fletcher have received compensation—but I repeat that the primary responsibility for Gaddafi-sponsored IRA terrorism lies with the IRA itself. However, the extensive support by the Gaddafi regime, as the noble Lord, Lord Caine, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, made clear, through money, weapons, explosives and training, from the 1970s onwards, undoubtedly enhanced its capacity to carry out attacks in Northern Ireland and, of course, the rest of the United Kingdom.

Responsibility for compensating victims specifically for the actions of the Gaddafi regime rests, as the noble Lord said, with the Libyan state. That is why, in 2011, thanks to a UK initiative, the UN Security Council adopted resolutions 1970 and 1973, which froze Libyan assets to help end the brutality inflicted by the Gaddafi regime on the Libyan people. Nor should we forget that the Libyan people suffered hugely under the actions of that dictator. What those resolutions sought to do was to give the people of Libya the opportunity to determine their own future. These assets have remained frozen to prevent their misuse, with the aim of preserving them for the future benefit of the Libyan people.

Over time, as we have heard in this debate, there have been calls to use these assets to compensate victims of Gaddafi-sponsored IRA terrorism. But, as in the UN resolutions, those assets must be used in line with our UN obligations, which are specifically for the future benefit of the Libyan people. In fact—this is a point I want to stress—it helps the UK’s ability to support Libya’s transition to a democratic, independent and united country. I think we should stress that a united, independent, democratic country is about the future security of this country and of Europe. It is a vital component of our actions in relation to the future of Libya. A politically stable and unified Libya would be better positioned to address the legacy of the Gaddafi regime.

Additionally, seizing frozen assets would hinder international efforts led by the United Nations to achieve that objective of a united Libya, which can work with British victims to address compensation claims. That is why, regrettably, these frozen assets cannot be used to provide compensation for victims of Gaddafi-sponsored terrorism. There are also significant practical difficulties that exist in obtaining compensation from the Libyan state, due to the current political and economic fragmentation and instability. But I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Caine, that the United Kingdom will continue to urge the Libyan authorities to address the compensation claims of British victims. We will remain focused on supporting UN-led efforts to achieve stability and unity.

I would also like to address the proposal to use tax. People have mentioned the G7 efforts, and even that is quite complicated, as the noble Lord, Lord Caine, pointed out. For example, the UK tax collected on frozen assets goes into the Government’s consolidated fund, which is used for essential public services. The real issue is that diverting these vital public funds would not hold the Gaddafi regime accountable for supporting the IRA.

Let me also address concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and the noble Lord, Lord Bew, about the Shawcross report. Since its completion under the previous Government in 2021, there have been consistent calls for its publication from victims, their representatives and parliamentarians. This Government understand the public interest in this report and the previous concern regarding transparency on the issue.

We are actively considering whether elements of this report can be published. As the noble Lord, Lord Caine, pointed out, as this report was commissioned as an internal document to provide advice to Ministers and draws on private and confidential conversations, its release would have damaging implications for the UK’s national security and international relations. Therefore, this process is not straightforward. But I know that it is important, as the noble Lord, Lord Bew, indicated, that to be as transparent as possible with the public it is better to explain the difficulties and complexities behind the issues. This includes the challenges of obtaining compensation from a divided and fragmented Libya, and defining the parameters for identifying the British victims of Gaddafi-sponsored IRA terrorism and how this report adds to the wider debate on support for people who have lost loved ones during the Troubles. That is why I reiterate that this Government are committed to being as transparent as possible over this issue.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, mentioned the letter written from representatives of victims of Gaddafi-sponsored IRA terrorism to the Prime Minister. It has been received, but it requires cross-Whitehall consideration. That is being given, and the Government will respond to it as soon as possible. Let me reassure her and other noble Lords that Hamish Falconer, the Minister for Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan, wrote to some of the victims and their families earlier this week. He has extended an invitation to meet them to convey this Government’s position in greater detail and for him to better understand their perspectives, too. Also, let me reassure the noble Baroness that this engagement will not be a one-off occasion, as this Government are committed to a constructive and collaborative engagement with those affected.

The noble Lord, Lord Bew, also raised the question of Kneecap. I think my noble friend the Leader of the House responded very strongly to that yesterday, making very clear how abhorrent and dangerous the comments were. She also specifically mentioned that their so-called apology was totally inadequate, and I think that that is really important.

Despite this being a Question for Short Debate, I think we have covered as much as possible in the time permitted. I want to reassure noble Lords and repeat—I know that this is not a partisan issue and that we have been working collaboratively across the Room—that this Government are committed to supporting the victims of IRA terrorism. We will be open and transparent about our efforts, and continue to press the Libyan authorities to address their country’s historic responsibility for the Gaddafi regime’s support for the IRA.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

I just want to say to the Minister that I do not think there is any fundamental disagreement in the Room about where we should be going, but we have been getting the answers that he gave on the status quo about the legalities and so on for 10 or 12 years. Whenever compensation has been mentioned, elements in Libya have attacked the group here in Parliament, attacked this country and said that it is their money and they want it back. They wanted to go to the United Nations to get the Security Council to release it. The United Kingdom has a veto. Will we use it?

Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 15) Regulations 2022

Debate between Lord Collins of Highbury and Lord Empey

Monday 21st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, referred to £18 billion-worth of assets that have been seized. The noble Lord will be well aware of the billions that have been frozen under a United Nations resolution with regard to Libya, which have been untouched and from which victims in this country have not received any support. Is it the case that we could be seeing a repeat of that performance and that those assets will have to be managed? Perhaps investment should be improved by people in our system and then given back again whenever the conflict ends.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I am just waiting to see whether anyone else wishes to comment—every time someone says something, it provokes a point. I hope I am not going to be too provocative. I want to start by being very clear that the Opposition are at one with the Government on these sanctions. We will do whatever we can to support their speedy reduction. If there is one message from this House, it is that this country is absolutely united against Putin’s illegal war and, in particular, as we have seen, the recent indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure, designed to do one thing, which is to damage the homes and the heating of families and children. So I start by saying that we are absolutely at one with the Government.

The No. 15 regulations rightly extend the prohibitions on goods critical to Russian industries. I am particularly pleased about that instrument ending the importation of liquefied natural gas—LNG—originating from Russia. Western allies, including the EU, have made real progress this year, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said, in obtaining liquefied natural gas from appropriate sources, such as the United States. Prohibiting this Russian source is a good step towards energy security.

There is one thing about the speed of the introduction. The Minister highlighted an error that occurred, but another thing that struck me was that the import ban will not come in until January 2023. He explained that the error would mean that certain prohibitions will not come in until January, but why will that ban not come into force until January 2023?

I want to pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, because he is absolutely right. It is not just about working with allies to impose sanctions. What are we doing to support countries which need these energy supplies? What are we doing to advise them on and provide help with alternative sources? It is not easy for countries to suddenly switch if they have become reliant over the years, so it is not just a question of offering sticks. It is also about encouragement and support, so I hope the Minister can tell us a bit about that.

The ban on liquefied natural gas also prohibits loans to firms that support Russian interests, even if they are based outside Russia. To what extent are the Government already monitoring which companies are providing finance for these purposes? The Minister has said on many occasions that whatever sanctions we may introduce, there will be someone trying to circumvent them. That means enforcement is critical—the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, made this point. The United States appears to have quite strong enforcement measures. Are we examining not just how we act in concert when introducing legislation, but exactly how we can more effectively act in concert on enforcement, which will ensure that people do not easily circumvent it?

My noble friend’s question on circumvention was a good one. If this is being done so explicitly, I hope we can take more direct action on it. However, the regulations also have exceptions—I want the Minister to highlight some of these—which will allow oil products to be provided to third countries. Can he explain a little more about the circumstances where this would be permissible? In particular, we have heard about other countries’ roles in importing and then exporting. We need to be reassured that we are taking that into account.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, made the broader point about international co-operation and co-ordination on sanctions. In our consideration of each statutory instrument as it has come in, we have certainly raised with the Minister the fact that the United States and Canada seem able to introduce sanctions faster, or well before our own. There may be good reasons for that—it is an incremental build.

As we move into a longer period of these sanctions, I wonder whether the FCDO has done a general assessment of where and why there may be gaps, and how we can hit Russia with one big hit, rather than taking an incremental approach. It would be really good if Parliament could be given such an assessment. How are we building up allies and persuading others to join, even if they are unable to match our speed of implementation? Are they at least coming on board in some of the other areas?

In conclusion, I reiterate the Opposition’s full support for the Government’s actions here, and we look forward to further clarification.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Debate between Lord Collins of Highbury and Lord Empey

Tuesday 24th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

My Lords, I hope to be brief, not least because I hope to pop along to say farewell to Peggy Byatt, who has been one of the longest serving members of staff of this House.

Last May, when this Bill was introduced in the House of Commons, Mark Harper, the Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform, stated that the aim of the Bill was to,

“tackle electoral fraud, increase the number of people registered to vote and improve the integrity of the electoral register”.—[Official Report, Commons, 23/5/12; col. 1172.]

No one would disagree with that. As my noble friend Lord Wills has stated, it was for these precise reasons that the previous Labour Government, with cross-party support, put through the Political Parties and Elections Act. Those reasons also paved the way for individual registration.

However, in committing to this, we also provided for a phased timetable and independent testing of any new system, backed up with strong and effective monitoring by the Electoral Commission. Why did we do it in that way? We wanted to make sure that the systems to stop fraud, which we are all committed to stopping, did not also exacerbate an already growing problem of underregistration. As we have heard today, there are millions of unregistered—mainly young and low-income—voters missing from the electoral roll. The Electoral Commission’s briefing, which has also been quoted today, states that the December 2010 register was between 85% and 87% complete, with at least 6 million eligible people missing from it. It is the biggest scandal for our democracy that so many people are denied the opportunity to vote. The other issue that is combined with underregistration is the prospect that the growing number of people who do not vote in elections will not see the point of registering to vote. That concern is also shared by the Electoral Commission.

Without a concerted and prolonged campaign, it is possible that the register may go from the near 90% completeness that we hope we currently have to something like 65%. As my noble friend Lady Gould said, 65% will result in as many as 10 million voters losing the opportunity to vote. What sort of democracy is that? I shall repeat the question of my noble friend Lady Gould. Will the Minister give us the details of the implementation plan now? Will they set out the timetable in more detail and will they give us better figures on a budget to ensure that we have an effective campaign? This is not scaremongering when you consider the experience of Northern Ireland, on which we have had some very interesting perspectives. When the system was changed there in 2002 it resulted in a huge drop in the size of the register. It was such a drop that we had to address it in subsequent legislation, so we know that there is a problem that we need to address.

Although I believe very strongly that the timetable proposed in the Bill is too rushed, I welcome the concession that there will be a carryover for those who are currently on but fail to register individually. However, this will not happen in my household or in the many, many other households where everyone is registered to vote by post. As many noble Lords have pointed out, for many elderly people and people with disabilities, voting by post is their only real opportunity to vote. I do not accept the assertion of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, that the fundamental problem with our electoral system is the extension of postal voting. With the right measures—we have talked about how those measures can be improved—postal voting undoubtedly increases turnover. What we want is more people participating in our democracy. The fundamental problems are more to do with false entries on the register. All parties and all individuals can take responsibility to highlight where they think there are problems and address them. When I had that responsibility in the Labour Party we were very rigorous in pursuing any example where we found multiple registrations.

Why, therefore, will postal voters and proxy voters be excluded from this carryover which, as we have heard, is going to affect a lot of elderly people and people with disabilities? For the record, in my own household, neither my husband nor I will be eligible to vote when it comes to the general election; me because of my membership of this House and he because he is a Spanish national. We have talked about the errors that can occur and about checking each signature. Unfortunately, on one occasion—I am not going to say which election because I have proudly voted in every one—when we were completing our postal votes on the dinner table, I mistakenly signed his declaration and he mistakenly signed mine. Despite efforts to contact the appropriate authorities, I fear that my vote was not counted on that occasion.

As many of my noble friends have pointed out, the Bill rushes through a process that actually needs a lot of careful consideration and planning. Why the rush for the next general election? My sentiments about the Bill are accurately reflected in the following quote:

“I also agree with the Minister that it would be difficult to introduce a new system shortly before a general election. There should be other ways of testing the system along the way to ensure that the accuracy, integrity and comprehensiveness of the register and the system are always utterly watertight. I hope that that reassures the Minister on that point”.—[Official Report, Commons,13/7/09; col. 109.]

That was Eleanor Laing MP, Shadow Conservative Minister, speaking in 2009.

The noble Lord, Lord Empey, in his excellent contribution, mentioned those dreaded words “ID cards”. This is why I have always supported the principle of national ID cards—a national ID system. I have always been committed to it because it carries with it clear rights and responsibilities. I am sorry that many of my noble friends—I mean to say many of the noble Lords opposite—are not committed to that principle despite the fact that they want to ensure that the electoral register has as many constraints on it as possible. Yet they are not in favour of the one thing that would deliver a system of integrity in our democracy.

[Lord Empey]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for giving way. I referred to our system of electoral identity cards which are very specific and can be used only for voting purposes. They are slightly different from the national identity cards which were proposed here some time ago. Nevertheless, I am sure the noble Lord accepts that I agree with the point, which I suspect he is trying to make, that it gives an opportunity to know that the person standing in front of the polling station clerk is the person who is entitled to vote.

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

I thank the noble Lord for that contribution. I agree with him completely but I have to confess that I was using the opportunity of his reference to ID cards to have a little go. When we are talking about secure systems, we have to understand that that issue cuts across all civic society.

We need to ensure that any scheme of individual registration passes the test of accuracy and completeness. Here I agree 100% with the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. He and I have a lot in common in terms of our previous experiences of elections. He may have won a lot more elections, but the fact is that we spent our livelihoods and lifetimes trying to tell politicians to follow the rules and regulations. I agree with him 100% when he asks whether by focusing on accuracy we are missing the fundamental importance of completeness. That is what this debate is about, and it is what the Bill needs to focus on. I am sure that that is what the discussions in Committee will be about.

Despite some welcome concessions from the Government that we heard articulated today, I am afraid that they do not represent sufficient safeguards to ensure that the Bill will not result in millions of people being unregistered and therefore unable to vote. What we have is a speeded-up timetable for the introduction of individual registration purely—I put this at its best—to save money. Combine that with another important issue, the downgrading of the role of the Electoral Commission, and we are left with the potential for long-term deterioration in the accuracy of the electoral register.