Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Organ and Tissue Donation) Bill

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 27th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, this year is of course the anniversary of the Good Friday agreement, but, tragically, it is also the anniversary of the Omagh bombing. Twenty-five years ago, it fell on me to visit that town three days after the bomb went off, and I had to talk to the parents of children who had been massacred in that appalling event. It was something of unparalleled wickedness. In many ways, what has happened to Detective Chief Inspector Caldwell is a terrible echo of that: it was cowardly and wicked and has left a family in ruins. I am sure that all of us in this Chamber share the views said collectively in today’s debate.

On a much happier note, the organ transplant part of the Bill is to be very warmly welcomed. As my noble friend Lady Ritchie said, 146 people in Northern Ireland are waiting for a transplant, including Dáithí, after whom this law will be named. I congratulate the Government on moving so very quickly on something which has complete and unanimous support, not only in this House but in Northern Ireland.

Of course, we support the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Weir, reminded me, I said a few months ago that the timescale that the Government gave themselves was far too tight, that it was not going to work and that it would have been better if we had had a much longer period, to which the Bill now agrees, at an earlier date, but we support it. It has to be done, and I just hope that it is unnecessary in many ways and that we can have a functioning Assembly, Executive and all the other institutions of the Good Friday agreement up and running well before January next year.

Some weeks ago, the Belfast Telegraph published a list of decisions have been held up in Northern Ireland because they have no Government and no Parliament. Thirty-nine major issues were identified, and I will just mention a few of them: services for oncology; services for breast cancer; an environment strategy; sign-language legislation; independent living funds; funding for victims payments; a strategy for refugees. This is all against the difficult financial background throughout the United Kingdom and the need for ministerial decisions. Civil servants in Northern Ireland, however good they are—and they are good—cannot ultimately make decisions in a democratic way on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland. They cannot set their priorities. They cannot make decisions that properly should be made by elected politicians.

Of course, the DUP is right that there is a democratic issue, so far as the protocol is concerned, but there is a democratic deficit equally as big, if not bigger, in not having an Assembly and an Executive. When we say that the Good Friday agreement is invalidated, violated, because of the protocol, it is the same issue that violates the Good Friday agreement with regard to the institutions. The agreement is violated by the absence of an Assembly and an Executive and by north-south bodies as well as east-west institutions. You cannot pick and choose which bits of the agreement you want; you have to look at it as a whole.

I fully understand the problems that the Democratic Unionist Party highlights and the issue of being part of a single market without any say about what the laws are going to be. Of course, we understand that, but which is the greater? I have just outlined a few of the issues that cannot be discussed or decided in Northern Ireland without a Government. What bigger democratic deficit is there than no Government at all? There is none in Northern Ireland and no Parliament. There is nowhere for views to be expressed. However good Dáithí’s law is—and it is good—it is not the place of this Parliament to deal with the domestic issues that were agreed in the agreement and the referendum 25 years ago to be for the people of Northern Ireland themselves.

The other issue is that the people of Northern Ireland do not simply consist of unionists, though the unionists have a very valid point. I will say it again: I accept it, but 56% of people in Northern Ireland voted to stay in the European Union, and I assume that those people actually agree with parts of the protocol—not all of it, but parts of it. In other words, in order for success to be had, you have to compromise. You have to compromise between nationalists and unionists. That was the genius of the agreement 25 years ago.

I do not know what is in the protocol. I have had a little look on my phone now and again during the course of the debate. There are some very interesting things, and I actually congratulate the Prime Minister on what he is trying to do. The protocol was the creature of a previous Prime Minister. It is Boris Johnson’s fault—no Boris Johnson, no protocol—but now the current Prime Minister is doing his best to try to ensure that we can overcome this issue. I will just take one example that I have looked at on my phone, the Stormont brake. There is likely to be, in this agreement, a measure by which the Assembly in Northern Ireland can reject laws from the EU. If they can reject laws from the EU, I suspect that that is a major development in the situation with regard to the protocol that the Prime Minister and the European Union have agreed.

It looks to me like a genuine attempt to solve the issue. It is not just about President Biden coming across to Northern Ireland in April; it is not just about celebrating the 25 years; it is about ensuring that public services operate in Northern Ireland, full stop. They are not operating at the moment, not properly, so at the end of the day, the people who matter are not us: the people who matter are the men, women and children who live there. Nearly 2 million people rely on the Assembly and the Executive for the quality of their life; therefore, those institutions must be restored and this, I believe, is a genuine attempt to do precisely that. It has to be a compromise, I just hope that in this space, which I understand the Prime Minister is suggesting should be made available for everybody to look at the detail of this agreement, all of us will look at it very seriously and, when we do, think not of ourselves but of the people of Northern Ireland.

Postponement of Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 2023

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, the Opposition support the Government in this statutory instrument. When the Minister was explaining the rationale behind it, he also explained how complicated electoral arrangements in Northern Ireland are under the STV system. I had forgotten how long and complicated the process is and, therefore, it is absolutely sensible that this happens and that the elections are postponed to a later date.

I know, from reading the notes on the instrument, that the Government consulted the political parties in Northern Ireland and that no one raised objections to the elections being postponed. In a way, that is quite a good thing, because it means that parties that are not necessarily interested in the Coronation have not opposed the postponement of the elections.

I hope, as the Minister said, that the Coronation will be celebrated in a robust and worthy way in Northern Ireland, as it will be in the rest of the United Kingdom. I too will celebrate it, but it reminds me that when the present King was Prince of Wales, and when I was Secretary of State, he took a huge and very active interest in Northern Ireland matters—not simply going to garden parties and events like that but meeting the main players in civic society in Northern Ireland, in a positive way. I hope that the Coronation, in its new form, and the reign of the King, short as it will be by then, will be fully celebrated in Northern Ireland on that weekend, and that we ensure that there is also an opportunity then to take a break from the politics of Northern Ireland.

This leads me to my last point. I sincerely hope that, by the time the Coronation is held, we have an Assembly and Executive up and running in Northern Ireland.

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, the Liberal Democrat Benches also support this order and regard it as a necessary and common-sense approach to solving this issue. We also welcome this opportunity to debate it briefly—and I think that we will all be brief. As the Minister said, under the single transferable vote system—the proportional representation system used in Northern Ireland for local elections—it just would not have been possible to finish the count before the Coronation celebrations and events began. This would have had an impact on the staff and the valuable job that they do in working so hard to handle the count, because counting an STV election is very complex. It could also have an impact on the candidates and the voters.

I have a very brief point on that. It is very important for voters across the United Kingdom, including in Northern Ireland, to have confidence in the democratic system and to know that, once they have voted, their votes will be counted and that, at the next stage, the elected representatives will get on with serving the community in which they have been elected. In that regard, I also hope that, by the time we celebrate the Coronation, there will be a fully functional and active Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive.

Delaying these local elections in Northern Ireland clearly makes sense so that the count will not be interrupted. I, for one, hope that everybody enjoys the celebrations around the Coronation as much as I hope to do; I am grateful that they will be taking place in May, which is usually a wonderful month across the whole United Kingdom. I hope that we will have good weather in Northern Ireland so that people can celebrate.

Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading
Tuesday 7th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been a long night and a difficult debate on difficult issues. I begin by wishing the noble Lord, Lord Empey, who is not in his place, and his family all the very best in the weeks ahead. He is a very old friend: I have known him for 27 years. I hope all goes reasonably well.

We support the Bill; we cannot do anything else. Without it, there is no money or Government in Northern Ireland. But, obviously, we wanted the budget to be decided by the elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland, in Northern Ireland, in the Assembly, with a Northern Ireland Executive. For a place that has roughly 2 million people, twenty-seven thousand million pounds is a lot of money.

While I understand the arguments made by the Minister, and the Minister of State in the other place, that there have been financial difficulties in Northern Ireland—of course there have, and I do not want to comment on individual Ministers or parties in Northern Ireland—it is not the whole story. After all, as a Labour Party Opposition, we would argue that, in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland—or England, for that matter—there have been 10 years of underfunding for our public services. If you look at the budget of Wales or Scotland for comparison, they too will argue that they do not have enough money—to pay their nurses in the current dispute, for example. Of course, recent economic circumstances have not exactly been very happy. The tightness of the Budget that the current Chancellor of the Exchequer has to impose because of the utter inadequacy and incompetence of Ms Truss and her Government means that there are difficulties there too.

On a more technical but important level, some of your Lordships have mentioned the Barnett formula, which I had to live with for 20 years as a Minister for Wales and for Northern Ireland. It is inadequate and there is a Barnett squeeze, but I will say this: the Barnett formula has been changed for the people of Wales, in terms of the different formulae to deal with poverty and all the rest of it. Were that change in the mechanism by which the block grant operates to be transferred to Northern Ireland, it would receive £150 million more than it currently does. That is worth looking at. If the Minister cannot comment in his winding-up speech, I ask him to come back to me.

As the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council has said, inflation, pressures on pay and the pandemic have all meant that financial pressures in Northern Ireland have been considerable. The other very interesting point that this serious and important council has made over the past couple of weeks is that the financial problems the Minister described could have been addressed very differently had an Assembly been functioning. There are no Ministers to look at the way their departments are funded. A departmental Minister in Northern Ireland —there are at least four former Ministers here, and, of course, a former First Minister—would look at their budget every day. I was the Finance Minister in Northern Ireland for two years. My job was to be unpleasant with my colleagues, as all Finance Ministers are. My noble friend Lady Smith will testify to my unpleasantness on financial matters. We would intervene and say, “You shouldn’t be spending there”, or, “You should look at your budgets there”, and so on. But there is no Finance Minister in Northern Ireland. There is no scrutiny by an Assembly. Not one single committee of Members of the Assembly can get together to scrutinise the budget. There are no normal procedures, so if you do not have an Assembly and an Executive then your financial pressures will be even greater.

Every single Member of your Lordships’ House from Northern Ireland has quite rightly looked at the problems that public services face there. The obvious one is the health service. It is indescribably bad because of a lack of money and a lack of reform. Your Lordships have quite rightly mentioned the importance of education in Northern Ireland. If noble Lords were to look through New Decade, New Approach in detail, as I did this morning, they would see the number of projects that require financing and the number of issues that are really important public services, from capital spending to revenue spending in Northern Ireland. It is absolutely immense.

However, we should not expect British Ministers to resolve these issues. We are in a sort of no man’s land, with neither direct rule nor rule from Belfast; we are somewhere in the middle. It is the worst of all worlds, in some respects, because when we were direct Ministers— I was called the direct ruler by another party in Northern Ireland; I never felt that I was a direct ruler when I was there, but that was what they called me—I did not want to rule in Northern Ireland. I wanted the people of Northern Ireland, through their elected representatives, to take decisions. Why should a Welsh MP go across the Irish Sea and tell the people of Northern Ireland how to spend their money? No—of course that it is for them to decide.

The resolution of all this is the restoration of the Executive and the Assembly. I fully understand why they are not being resurrected, because of the difficulties around the Northern Ireland protocol and, indeed, the quite proper assertion by the unionist community that you need consensus right across the board to achieve progress in Northern Ireland. Of course that is not there, but at the same time it is important to understand that nationalists and people who support the Alliance Party might feel differently. The answer is that we have to get a resolution across all that.

My noble friend Lord Hain has introduced his amendment. He does not intend to put it to a vote. It is not Labour Party policy—a number of your Lordships asked that. It is the personal view of my noble friend, but it expresses his frustration, as all of us are expressing our frustration, at the lack of progress. We cannot complain that our schools are crumbling, our hospitals are not working and that proper attention is not given to waiting lists unless we are prepared to govern, and there is no proper Government in Northern Ireland at the moment, and the resolution has to be there for negotiation.

I am in Brussels tomorrow to talk about the Good Friday agreement and undoubtedly this issue will come up there. Where are we with those negotiations? I know it is a secret and we are not supposed to talk about it, but we ought to be told if they are talking and if some sort of progress has been made in Brussels. It is a twofold negotiation as well. It is not just between the United Kingdom Government and the European Union. There should also be simultaneous discussions—and proper, structured ones too—between the Government and the Irish Government, if you like, as they are co-guarantors of the agreement, with all the political parties in Northern Ireland. There has to come a time when, eventually, we will have to decide about all these issues—but will we decide them by 10 April? It does not look like it at the moment. I hope we can, but the only answer is proper, intense negotiation with proper attention to these issues. We cannot allow this to drift any longer.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 31st January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

I want briefly to ask the Minister how he feels people should be incentivised and whether this is the case in the Bill. The reality, as we have heard in previous debates, is that in many cases the consequences of not co-operating are nothing. If you do not co-operate, nothing happens. If the risk of co-operating is increased from £1,000 to £5,000, it is neither here nor there. Would the Minister explain why making that change would significantly affect the number of people who co-operate? Does he accept that victims are somewhat concerned that there is a desire to incentivise certain people to come forward and not others? It will do nothing to ensure that they get the information, knowledge or understanding that they need.

I know that the Minister is trying to reassure people that he is balancing the needs of victims with the concerns of veterans. The danger is that he ends up satisfying neither and alienating both. To what extent does he feel that this contributes constructively to the effective working of the commission?

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

These are reasonably sensible amendments, but they go only so far. The points made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, are valid and we look forward to the Minister’s reply. If these amendments came to a vote, it is highly unlikely that we would oppose them. It was quite good that the Minister had, for example on Amendment 84, listened to the victims’ commissioner. We look forward to his reply.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful to those who took part in this short debate. By way of a brief response, I disagree on the point about incentives. I have spoken to a number of victims’ groups and political parties that, while they might not like other parts of the Bill, have no issue with this and think it a sensible strengthening of the incentives to co-operate and the disincentives not to.

Having reflected on the earlier versions of the Bill, the Government think it right and proportionate that somebody who chooses not to co-operate with the commission on an investigation, if they are subsequently prosecuted and convicted in the normal way, should face and be liable to a full sentence. In many of the circumstances covered by this legislation, such as the Troubles-related offences, that could mean a sentence of life imprisonment. As a matter of common sense, that would be a stronger incentive to co-operate than an individual perhaps serving two years or no sentence at all. This is a sensible and proportionate change to the Bill which should genuinely encourage people to co-operate. If they do not co-operate, they do so in the knowledge that, if someone comes knocking on their door and they are convicted, they are liable for a lengthy prison term. I withdraw the amendment for now.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 31st January 2023 Lords Chamber

Therefore, I would like such appointments to have at least the scrutiny of Members of both Houses. Over the years, many commissioners have been appointed to deal with many sensitive issues, but those appointments have been questioned within the community. I come back to the beginning: the independence of commissioners is vital for success.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an interesting and timely debate. I join many of your Lordships in thanking the Minister for his engagement on this Bill. It does not always happen, but it does in his case, and we thank him for that.

I also thank my noble friend Lord Browne, who introduced his amendment extremely ably, as I would expect, but also forensically. He pointed to the issue of independence, but in reality this is also about confidence. Independence means confidence, and a lack of independence means a lack of confidence. The system for appointing different people has been fraught with difficulty over the years, because those appointments have lacked the confidence of one side of the community or the other. Your Lordships referred to international comparisons, and the reason why people of international repute have been involved in Northern Ireland over the years is to try to ensure that all the people of Northern Ireland had confidence in them. When I was Secretary of State, we appointed Judge Cory to look at various inquiries. It was important that a Canadian judge—in his case—was involved.

If more people in Northern Ireland are to accept this Bill—I am sure it is not accepted at the moment—one possibility is to look at how the commissioner is appointed and who it should be. The Secretary of State has far too many powers in the Bill generally, and on the appointment of the commissioner specifically. When I was the Secretary of State, I tried to shed responsibilities so that they rested with the people of Northern Ireland themselves. I hope that, in the next couple of months—perhaps in a couple of years—we see the restoration of institutions in Northern Ireland. But responsibility for these matters should be taken by the people who were elected in Northern Ireland, not a Secretary of State who represents a constituency in Great Britain. We should be thinking about how there can be confidence in such an appointment.

There may be different ways in which we could ensure independence. The Judicial Appointments Commission in Northern Ireland could do it. Committees of this House and the other House could be involved in the scrutiny; there is merit in what the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, said about that. But it should be transparent and open, and it should certainly not take place through a British Secretary of State, who I hope will eventually have to pass powers to legislators and others in Northern Ireland.

There is another reason too: all the international criticism of this Bill—whether from the Council of Europe, the United States, the United Nations, bodies such as Liberty and all the rest—is about the inadequacy of the Bill’s compliance with human rights. It strikes me that the lack of independence in the way the commissioner is appointed is seriously linked with those concerns. In other words, if there were a more independent system of appointment, perhaps it would be more human rights compliant.

Even though the report is lengthy, I am not terribly convinced by the Government’s reasoning on the Bill’s compliance with the ECHR. Your Lordships will of course remember, as we have said consistently, that in a few months’ time it is the anniversary of the Good Friday agreement, which is based on compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights. This is therefore a timely and important debate, and we very much look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, for his kind words, and to other noble Lords for their engagement on this Bill. I think we are meeting again very shortly, almost immediately after Committee stage concludes, and I will continue to engage closely with all interested parties, bodies and noble Lords across the House on this legislation.

With one thing the noble Lord said, I could not agree more: to be honest, I would be more than happy for the people and the Assembly of Northern Ireland to deal with most of the matters in the Bill. However, I set out to the House at Second Reading and, to some extent, last week in Committee, why and how it went from being primarily a Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly responsibility to a UK Government one. Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson came to see the then Secretary of State after Stormont House and said, “This is all far too difficult for us to do at Stormont. Please will you do it all at Westminster?” We agreed.

I also agree with those noble Lords who have argued that central to the effective delivery of this legislation is the need for an independent body to carry out reviews, including investigations, and to grant, where the tests are met, immunity from prosecution. The Government fully recognise the need for commissioners to have credibility, expertise and legitimacy, so that effective reviews and investigations can be carried out and information provided to families as soon as possible. The UK-wide nature of the legislation provides for the appointment of a person who holds or has held high judicial office across the United Kingdom. It would therefore not be appropriate, in our view, for the appointment function to sit with the Northern Ireland Judicial Appointments Commission, which, by definition, is concerned solely with judicial appointments within Northern Ireland.

I respectfully disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, and others who have spoken about the independence of the commissioner if he or she is appointed by the Northern Ireland Secretary. The Northern Ireland Act 1998, as the noble Lord alluded, provides the Secretary of State with the power to appoint the commissioners of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland. The Inquiries Act 2005, passed by the Government of which the noble Lords, Lord Murphy and Lord Browne, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, were members, provides for the appointment of an inquiry panel by a Minister.

My experience of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland is that they are fiercely independent of government. I think nobody would dare suggest that the fact that they are appointed by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland makes them in any way in hock to government. They carry out their duties with total independence and they are not slow, as we have seen in respect of this legislation and other legislation which has recently been before your Lordships’ House, to voice their criticisms and their opinions vociferously. Therefore I simply do not accept that appointment by the Secretary of State somehow limits or inhibits the independence of the commissioners.

Another example to which I could refer is that I was involved as a special adviser in the setting up the independent review into the on-the-runs administrative scheme back in 2014 which was conducted by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, then Lady Justice Hallett. She was appointed in 2014 by the Northern Ireland Secretary in consultation with the Lord Chief Justice at the time. The appointment process did not in any way impact on the independence of the review.

To give a further example, in the absence of a sitting Executive in 2019, it was the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Karen Bradley, who appointed the current Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland. I do not think anyone would remotely suggest that Marie Anderson is influenced by His Majesty’s Government because she was appointed by the Northern Ireland Secretary, any more so than any of her distinguished predecessors—I am looking towards the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, as I make those comments.

The noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, referred to some of the overarching powers of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The noble Lord, Lord Browne, raised specific concern over the winding-up power under Clause 33. I remind noble Lords that the Secretary of State has a similar wind-up power contained in the Inquiries Act 2005, which was passed by the previous Labour Government. In respect of this legislation, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland may wind up the commission via an affirmative procedure that would have to be debated by both Houses of Parliament. The Government believe that it is for Parliament to have the final say in the potential winding-up and abolition of what Parliament has created. However, the winding-up order will be laid only when the Secretary of State is satisfied that it is has delivered on its functions.

The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, referred to some of the Secretary of State’s powers in relation to national security. I hardly need to remind her, given her various roles over the years in Northern Ireland, that the Northern Ireland Secretary ultimately has responsibility for national security in Northern Ireland. The powers contained in the Bill are very reflective of what was proposed in the Stormont House agreement and the draft legislation that accompanied it. The power is not in any way extraordinary. I hesitate to remind her that Section 65 of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 1998 also requires the police ombudsman to have regard to guidance given by the Secretary of State on matters relating to disclosure and national security.

The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, raised an important point, and I will try to deal with it. Clause 30(2) stipulates that the Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about the holding and handling of information by the commission. This is about ensuring that information is held securely and destroyed when no longer needed. It is not intended to be a power to place restrictions on the use to which the information can be put nor is it a power to restrict the use of information as evidence in a prosecution. I hope that goes some way to answering the noble Lord’s query.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, as was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, this is an extremely important debate. It may have been long, but it is extremely important. We have heard many detailed and deeply compelling speeches. I will just pay tribute to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, because his intervention reminded us what this is all about. It is about people who have suffered, and it is important to focus on that.

As many noble Lords have said several times during debates on the Bill, we would have preferred it not to proceed at all, not least because of its Clause 18. I think I am not alone on these Benches in rather liking the radical noble Lord, Lord Cormack. He sometimes surprises us with his radicalism, but he was absolutely right to talk about this as trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. There are other, less polite, Scottish versions, but I will not use them today.

I will try to be brief, because time is ticking on and dinner break business is waiting. I am pleased to have added my name to Amendments 112, 124 and 135, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, who made a very compelling argument for them in his intervention. Clause 18 is absolutely the key clause of concern. It is at the very heart of people’s concerns about the Bill as currently drafted, and the proposals for immunity have caused a great deal of distress and anxiety to so many victims by potentially closing the door to hope. The maintenance of that hope that justice could be done has been so vital for so many victims and their families. If Clause 18 is left unamended, it is not clear to me how the Bill will be Article 2 compliant. I know that this view is shared by many others speaking in the debate, not least the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and I feel that the Minister should respond to that in his concluding remarks.

At an earlier meeting on the Bill, I asked the Minister how the “general immunity from prosecution” set out in Clause 18 would sit alongside some of the government amendments proposed, which, in some way, restrict the definition of immunity. I am not a lawyer, but it is not clear to me how the general immunity framed in the existing Clause 18 would sit with some of the exemptions that the Government are proposing. I would be very grateful if the Minister could shed some light on this during his concluding remarks. We all appreciate that the Minister is trying to square multiple circles with this Bill, and that he himself has expressed deep concerns about the prospect of general immunity as it stands.

In conclusion, it would be useful to hear from the Minister whether there is still scope for movement on this between Committee and Report stages. He will have heard the united view of all noble Lords and Baronesses who have spoken this evening. Every single Peer who has spoken in this debate is against Clause 18. The victims are against Clause 18. I know that it was a Conservative Party manifesto commitment, but it is wrong and remains wrong. We would like to hear the Minister’s views on whether we can make progress, perhaps through the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and the Operation Kenova process, but, personally, I think that it should be deleted from the Bill.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a very impressive, rather stunning debate. I have tabled Clause 18 stand part, which would effectively omit immunity from the Bill. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, quite rightly mentioned that this debate, and this and subsequent clauses, are at the heart of the legislation. Without them, there would be no Bill and no argument. If anybody reads in Hansard, or watches on television, the last two hours of debate in your Lordships’ House—and I hope they do—they will see how strong the feeling is across these Benches. This is not just because people do not like it but because noble Lords have spoken from deep experience over decades in Northern Ireland, from living there, being Ministers there, or whatever it might be, unanimous in the belief that this immunity, this amnesty—they are the same thing—should be dropped.

The other unanimous view in the debate was that the legislation completely ignores the victims: it is not about them, whereas it should be. Looking back over the last 25 years—particularly, I suppose, at the agreement—as I was saying to someone today, there were a number of things that we could have done and did not. We did many things when we introduced the agreement, but we could have improved on how we dealt with victims. In the years that followed, there were brave attempts: the Eames-Bradley review and others all tried to put right that which was not right a quarter of a century ago. What is certain is that this legislation does not. To the contrary, it makes things worse. Over 25 years, I have never experienced such unanimity on a difficult issue like this in Northern Ireland—I have experienced much disunity—so it cannot be right that we go ahead.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, made the interesting point about whether we should go ahead with the Bill, as it is so bad. Then the noble Lord, Lord Hain, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and others put their amendments forward, all first class with excellent speeches. They give an opportunity to improve it. Revocation of immunity, conditional immunity and licensing around immunity would all certainly improve it. The whole issue of trying to improve it was discussed last week in our first day of debates on Kenova. That is a dilemma for us in this House. We could have done nothing, let the Bill go through on the nod, and said that it was so bad that we would have to wait for a change of Government to repeal it, which the leader of my party has said that he will do. But there is a duty on us to try to ensure that it is not as bad as it is at the moment when it leaves this Chamber and goes back to the other place.

This part of the Bill in particular goes fundamentally against the rule of law. If I thought for one second that we could salvage some of this, that would be all well and good. But my feeling is that the Government simply want to go ahead, come what may. The amendments that they have put forward are all right, but they do not go far enough. My plea, and, I am sure, that of everybody in this Chamber, is to drop it.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to say that I will try to be brief, but I fear that that might be impossible in response to a debate that has lasted for one hour and 58 minutes. I think the only debate that has lasted longer since I joined your Lordships’ House in October 2016 was on one of the amendments to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill from my noble friend Lord Patten of Barnes, which lasted longer than two hours.

This has obviously been an extensive debate. I say sincerely that I am grateful to all those who have taken part. Noble Lords are absolutely right that these clauses and amendments go to the heart of the legislation before the Committee. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if I take longer than normal in trying to respond to as many points as possible, in the knowledge that I will not be able to deal with everything but will try my best.

I start by expressing my gratitude to my noble friend Lord Bew for his kind words at the outset of this group some time ago. He and others who have spoken were absolutely right to draw attention to occasions in the past when quite extraordinary changes have been made to the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland: the noble Baroness referred to the decommissioning Act of 1997, the location of victims’ remains Act of 1999, and the early release scheme in the 1998 agreement and the subsequent Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act—the latter have caused so much difficulty, not least for my noble friends on the Democratic Unionist Benches. Those remind us that it is far from unknown for changes to be made to the normal process of the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland.

My noble friend Lord Bew referred to the importance of the commission following best practice in carrying out reviews and so on. I assure him that it is already under a clearly defined obligation in Clause 4(1)(b) not to do anything which

“would risk putting, or would put, the life or safety of any person at risk”.

It is the Government’s view that this safeguard is wide enough to offer protections of the kind to which he was referring.

A large number of amendments in this group, the vast bulk of them, consider the immunity process. It is worth reflecting at the outset that the Written Ministerial Statement of March 2020 and Command Paper of July 2021, both published by my right honourable friend Brandon Lewis when Secretary of State, envisaged a form of unconditional closure of cases which would apply to all Troubles-related offences, including offences carried out by members of terrorist organisations and the security forces. I am on record as saying that I do not support, and have never supported, a blanket statute of limitations. My position has not changed, so, as I said in the House last week, if the Government were still pursuing the position from the Command Paper of 2021, I would not be standing here taking the Bill through.

The point is that the legislation before us today is very different. Rather than a statute of limitations, it provides for a conditional immunity model whereby immunity from prosecution will be granted only on a case-by-case basis, and will depend on individuals providing an account that is assessed by the commission, using all the evidence available to it, to be true to the best of their knowledge and belief. I will go into some of the points raised in connection to that later. If individuals do not do so, they remain liable to prosecution should sufficient evidence exist or come to light.  I want to be absolutely clear that prosecutions in circumstances where individuals do not engage and co-operate fully with the commission will still be possible.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 24th January 2023 Lords Chamber

and so on. If the Minister were minded to accept this amendment or something like it, would it be possible or desirable to define a little better what could be meant by “best endeavours”? Again, we could be looking at putting a lot of resource into some activity that might be really difficult. All these amendments have some merit, but with Amendment 99 there are some questions about its proportionality.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

I think the amendments are very sensible, they come from sensible people and the Minister should take them very seriously. They improve a Bill which we do not like, as we are again in this dilemma. Nevertheless, the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and the noble Lord, Lord Bew, really are worth investigating and we would support them.

My noble friend Lord Hain again has made an extremely sensible suggestion that we need to look at the resourcing. In the case of his amendment, that is with regard to prosecution, but the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, has made the very valid point that the whole apparatus that is to be set up by the Bill needs to be resourced. We are not in good financial times, so I am assuming that the Government have costed what all this will take and that it will be put into a Budget. We will have the Budget in a week or two’s time, so it is probably too early yet for the establishment of these institutions. Nevertheless, these are hugely important issues, not the least of which is linked to time. People should not have to wait a long time to have their case heard because there are no resources for it. We look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, and will, as ever, seek to deliver a sensible reply. My friend the noble Lord, Lord Bew, referred to this having already been a hard day’s work. I trust that it will not turn into a hard day’s night—but enough song references for this evening.

I turn to the amendments introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan. Clause 15 places a duty on the chief commissioner to produce a final report on the findings of each review that the commission has carried out, as soon as is practicable once the review has concluded. This, as noble Lords will recognise, is designed to support information recovery.

However, where the commissioner for investigations has referred a case to prosecutors for possible prosecution, Clause 17(2) and (3) already require the chief commissioner to postpone publication of the final report pending a decision by the prosecutor, or the outcome of any criminal proceedings which might flow from that decision. In the Government’s view, therefore, Amendments 5 and 89 are not needed as the Bill already achieves their purpose.

I note the noble Baroness’s comments on sharing reports, which I take seriously. The commissioner will of course be subject to the safeguards set out in Clause 4, but I am happy to sit down with her and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, whom I welcome to our debates, to discuss the matter further. Where the legislation makes reference to “material” criticising an individual under Clause 15, it means

“material which, in the Chief Commissioner’s view, constitutes significant criticism of a living individual who was involved in the conduct forming part of the Troubles, or other harmful conduct … to which a review relates”.

I am advised that language in that space is aligned with the Inquiries Act, but, as I have said, I am very happy, between now and the next stage, to sit down with the two noble Baronesses to discuss those matters further.

My friend, the noble Lord, Lord Bew, rightly considered the importance of ensuring that the commission should follow best practice in carrying out reviews within the exercise of its power. The commission is already under a clearly defined obligation in Clause 4, to which I have just referred, not to do anything that

“would risk putting, or would put, the life or safety of any person at risk”.

It is the Government’s view that this safeguard is wide enough to offer sufficient protection to the rights of anyone likely to be named in reports. Therefore, in our view, the amendment is unnecessary. Additionally, we would expect the commission, as a public body, to maintain high standards and follow best practice when discharging all its functions, including those which relate to naming individuals in reports—but, as ever, I am very happy to discuss that further.

The noble Lord, Lord Hain, the former Secretary of State, referred to prosecutions and acknowledged, as he has done throughout, that the prospect of prosecutions is very rare. It is worth remembering, when looking at this legislation, that the most recent case that will be examined by the commission is now over a quarter of a century old, and the oldest case is just slightly older than me. I will be 57 in April, for those who are unaware.

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Committee stage
Tuesday 24th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, I will be extremely brief, given the hour and the desire to move on to the dinner break business. From these Benches, we very much support the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, to impose a function of investigation on the ICRIR, as well as one of review. She made very compelling arguments and I will not repeat them, but I hope that the Minister will take on board the strength of feeling in the debate on these amendments this evening.

I will speak briefly to Amendment 72 in this group, to which I have added my name. I was struck by the personal and powerful speech of the noble Lord, Lord Blair, as well as the practical suggestions of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for some ways forward. Perhaps we could take this forward with the noble Lord, Lord Hain, before Report.

The noble Lord, Lord Hain, made the case powerfully that the process being used by Jon Boutcher in Operation Kenova has cross-party support and has acquired the confidence of all those who have been directly engaged in it. Perhaps most importantly, it demonstrably works. As the noble Lord, Lord Hain, said, we do not need to reinvent the wheel. I suspect that virtually everyone taking part in this debate has spoken to Jon Boutcher. If you meet him, it is hard not to be overwhelmingly impressed by his commitment, dedication and drive. He is really committed to this process, and we should seriously consider it between now and report.

I urge the Minister to look closely at Amendment 72. I look forward to his response at the end of this group, not least to some of the questions that have been asked on the Government’s response to the option of upscaling the processes used in Operation Kenova, which seems to me to be a preferable approach compared to the proposals in the Bill.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, if I were still Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and someone had suggested to me that the Bill should be introduced and then, immediately after suggesting it, said that all the international bodies concerned with human rights, Members of Congress in the United States, every single political party in Northern Ireland, every Church in Northern Ireland, and more or less everyone in Northern Ireland was against it, you might understand what my response would have been. The Bill certainly would not have ended up in this Chamber.

What I do not underestimate is the problem that the Minister and Government face. Of course, we have to try to resolve these issues—we have been 25 years trying to resolve these issues, and we did not do it when we did the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, because there were all sorts of other things to do. We have tried and tried, not least with the Eames-Bradley report, which I am sure the noble and right reverend Lord remembers. However, there is a dilemma: should the Government abandon the Bill—should they dump it? I think they probably should—or should it be improved? That is the work of the House of Lords, which is trying to improve it, to see whether there is any consensus at all among political parties here and in Northern Ireland as to what should replace it.

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Committee stage
Monday 5th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to move the amendment in my name. My noble friend Lady Suttie would have been here, but she is recovering from Covid, so the Committee is stuck with me for the duration. I am glad to say that she is well on the way to recovery.

This amendment was tabled by our Alliance Party colleague in the other place. The feeling, which has been expressed by the noble Lords, Lord Murphy and Lord Godson, is that the timescale is tight to the point of being unrealistic. If the Minister honestly believes that we could get a scenario where, let us be clear, the DUP would be willing to engage and come back because there was sufficient progress by 19 January, nobody would be more pleased than me, these Benches and probably the whole House, but if not, it will mean that the Government have to come back and introduce another Bill. I genuinely think that it would be helpful for the Government if they gave themselves the space not to have to do that.

The only other thing we want to say is that while all this is going on, whether now or subsequent to 19 January, what information will the Government make available in the public domain on decisions that have been taken in Northern Ireland by civil servants for people to be aware of them? What information are the Government prepared to share in broad terms about negotiations that may be taking place and whether all-party talks could be initiated?

The purpose of this amendment is to create the space for the Government to get where we all want them to go on the basis that the deadline seems unrealistically tight. I beg to move.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand the reasoning behind this amendment. We touched on it in the debate a couple of hours ago with regard to the deadline. It is very tight. I cannot honestly think we will actually achieve much between now and then because of the Christmas period.

I hope we will, but one of the problems that these negotiations face is that there is more than one government department dealing with them. If the Foreign Secretary and his team are dealing with it, then the Northern Ireland Secretary and his team are dealing with it from only a secondary point of view, whereas in reality they are equally important. Could the Minister enlighten us not only in response to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, about the deadline, but about the nature—not the detail—of the negotiations? If we have a Foreign Office team looking at the protocol here and the Northern Ireland Office team looking at the situation in Northern Ireland there, do they meet? Do they talk to each other? Are they in direct communication with each other about the implications in those negotiations?

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2nd reading
Monday 5th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bruce. He talks enormous common sense, and that, of course, is what we want in a debate on Northern Ireland. But as your Lordships have witnessed over the last two and a half hours, it is not always easy when dealing with Northern Ireland issues. It never will be and it never was, but that does not mean to say that we cannot solve this issue. It is a question of how determined the political parties in Northern Ireland are and how determined the Government and the European Union are.

Before we come to that, I very much want to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Weir, who made a quite outstanding maiden speech. He made it, as your Lordships will recall, without a single note in front of him, with great fluency and, above all, with great experience and wisdom collected over the past 20-odd years, which is roughly the time I have known him. It is a great privilege to be able to speak in a debate with him. We all welcome him to our deliberations, not just on Northern Ireland but on wider issues.

The noble Lord, Lord Weir, rightly referred to his and my noble friend Lord Trimble. The noble Lord, Lord Godson, paid a very good tribute to our mutual friend; he also wrote an extremely good and unique biography of Lord Trimble, which is probably one of the finest blow-by-blow accounts of the negotiations in 1998. We all miss Lord Trimble. I have not had the opportunity properly over the past few months since he died to pay tribute to him. He was undoubtedly a giant—there is no question about that. All of us miss him personally. I miss him for the chats we used to have on classical music and all sorts of other things. It is perhaps unusual to think that a Welsh-Irish Catholic had such a unique relationship with a Northern Ireland Protestant, but it worked extremely well. We all miss him.

As many have said, we accept the Bill in front of us but we do not welcome it. There is nothing to welcome about it at all, because it reflects the dreadful situation in Northern Ireland at the moment, which has to be addressed; the Government have to do something about it. The effects of having no institutions in Northern Ireland—whether they be the Assembly or the Executive, or the north-south and east-west institutions—are really dramatic. I cannot quite agree that the institutions, or the lack of them, would make no difference in this current economic climate. I think they would. The fact that Wales has a Senedd that deals with the economic and social issues in front of the people of Wales, and that people in Scotland have the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, means that solutions to problems can be geared according to the way that they think the people of Wales and Scotland would react to them. Of course the people of Northern Ireland should expect representatives to be able to deal with these hugely significant issues in a very special Northern Ireland way. It is not right to say that the absence of the Assembly or the Executive is meaningless. It is hugely significant to the well-being of the people of Northern Ireland.

The issues raised by former heads of the Northern Ireland Civil Service over the last few weeks are valid. When, a couple of years past, we had to introduce legislation to allow civil servants to take decisions in the absence of elected representatives, it was a different world; now, the civil servants have to institute cuts and reductions in services. What mandate do they have to say that that should be cut there or that this should be cut here? That is a political decision that should be made by politicians, so I actually feel very sorry for them; they should not be put in that situation. But what is the option? Government has to go on, and that is the best but least worst option at the moment.

I agree entirely with the late Lord Trimble and the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, when he says that the issue of consent is absolutely crucial to the success of the Good Friday agreement and the St Andrews agreement. There has to be consent across the board, but that also means the consent of nationalists too, whose views on the protocol are different from those of unionists, as my noble friend Lady Ritchie made absolutely clear. The violation of the agreement—which is the case with regard to the lack of consensus—is there, but so is the violation of the agreement in not having the institutions. There should be institutions in Northern Ireland because they were set up by the Good Friday agreement and the St Andrews agreement. That is equally a violation of those agreements. But telling each other that everybody is violating everybody else in a sense is not going to answer the problems that we have in front of us.

At the time of the creation of the protocol, which was drawn up as a result of the decision to leave the European Union, there was no functioning Executive or Assembly for the whole of that period. Had there been so, it would have been for the Northern Ireland politicians to resolve how to deal best with Brexit. As it was, the issue was rushed, it was hurried and it was poor, and it was not accepted. One of the reasons for that was that, on that occasion, Sinn Féin decided that it did not want to ensure that there was an Executive and Assembly in place. Had there been so, would it have been different? I think it would have been. That is why the issue of talks in parallel is important.

The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, rightly said that, ultimately, this is to be resolved only between the European Union on the one hand and the United Kingdom on the other. But I believe that the Irish Government could play a different role than they have in the past, by looking at the detail of any discussion. But that has to be done in parallel with negotiations or talks between the Northern Ireland parties on how to deal with the issue.

If there were a functioning Executive, they would not have been left out. They would have talked about it and they would have dealt with these issues. I still think that there is an opportunity for that to happen, but it cannot be done in seven weeks. That is absolutely the case. Frankly, I think it is a bit daft putting in a deadline of seven weeks; I just do not understand the logic behind it, at all. There is Christmas in between so, for at least two or probably three weeks, nothing—but nothing—will happen. Of course it will not—it is Christmas. These negotiations and talks will not really start until the second week in January. Are we really saying that two or three weeks will resolve the enormous issues which we have just been talking about for two and half hours? Of course not.

I urge the Government really to think a bit more about that 19 January deadline. Unless it is a clever ruse—which I do not think it is—I rather suspect that it needs to be rethought. George Mitchell put in a clever ruse: he said that 10 April 1998, Good Friday, would be the deadline and that, if we did not get there, he would go home to New York. It worked, but there was a much longer period in between, and—this is the point—there was a proper, more effective talks process. The problem we have had over the past nine months is that there has not been any process; there has not been a process nor any negotiations, as far as I know. It is all secret; that is what we are told. No one knows what is happening. We are told they are “technical”, but I do not have a clue what that means. What is a “technical negotiation”? I assume, though I do not know, that they are talking about electronic devices to work out how the protocol works, but I doubt that is what it is.

There is not sufficient transparency about the detail of the negotiations. You cannot have a blow-by-blow account of what happens every day, but there should be some idea of whether people are talking to each other. Are Ministers talking to each other? Are civil servants talking to each other? Are experts talking to each other? Are Northern Ireland people talking to other Northern Ireland people? We do not know; no one tells us.

There is an opportunity between now and Christmas to devise a plan and to decide on a timetable and a structure so that, when we all come back in the second week in January, we will know what exactly is being negotiated, where they are negotiating, who is doing the negotiating, and how it links with negotiations in Belfast and in Brussels and London. There is no evidence that anything has happened over the last eight months.

It must begin to happen properly; it must not drift. The great danger in Northern Ireland is always drift. You can drift into violence; you can drift into a vacuum; you can drift into a position where nobody wants the institutions any more because it is all too difficult, and so we all go back into our respective corners. That is not the answer. The answer is that there should be proper negotiations after Christmas, so that we all know what is happening, if not the detail. That 19 January deadline should be fiction. I also think that Parliament should be kept informed on a formal basis every couple of weeks about what exactly is happening.

I hope that, when he winds up, the Minister will be able to address some of those issues and some of the important matters that have been discussed in the last two and a half hours.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

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2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a very powerful, informed and serious debate. In fact, nothing else could be graver than the issues that we have been discussing for the last number of hours. It is about life and death; it is about the whole way in which Northern Ireland has suffered for so many years. So many people have lost their lives; so many families have been bereaved; so many people have been injured and maimed in all sorts of mental and physical ways. Of course, nothing could be more important than what we have been debating this evening.

I have been involved in Northern Ireland for about 28 years now. A Welshman with an Irish background, I was called by Mo Mowlam to be her deputy back in the time of the Labour Opposition before 1997, and then I became Minister of State and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Some of the highs—indeed, the highs—of my political life have been there. The Good Friday agreement was obviously one of them. However, some of the lows were there, too, and this debate is talking about the lows. The lowest point was when I had to fly back from a holiday in France to go to Omagh and talk to all the parents of those children who had been blown up by that terrible bomb. That occurred not long after the Good Friday agreement had been signed.

I believe that everybody who has spoken in this debate spoke from the basis of great sincerity and a belief that they want to ensure that right is done in terms of where we are going on legacy and reconciliation. I have done a little tally of Members of the House who spoke on this: about 19 Members have spoken against the Bill, four have spoken absolutely in favour of it, and about four were somewhere in between. That is not a scientific or mathematical way to look at how we should deal with these matters in the House, but it is an indicator of what people—people who take a great interest in, or come from, Northern Ireland—are feeling about this hugely important subject.

I agree very much with the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Bruce, and others too, who said that we should not be doing this at all. It is not a matter for us: it is a matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Northern Ireland Executive to do. As we know, however, neither of those institutions is up and running, and that is why this House of Lords and the House of Commons have to deal with it. It is a great pity because, although I think it would probably be more difficult for political parties in Northern Ireland to deal with it, ultimately those parties in Northern Ireland own this problem and need to resolve it.

The Minister made a first-class speech, mainly because he spoke from his very great experience in Northern Ireland and knows what he is talking about. He was right to say that we could have amendments to this Bill, including amendments that the Government themselves will table to try to improve it. There are those who think that the Bill is entirely unamendable—that it is so bad that it should be dumped. I am veering that way myself, but, of course, we do not dare dump Bills in this House. We go through a Second Reading and we go through all the other stages. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and others made wonderful speeches saying in general what the principles behind the Bill are, how they are wrong and how we ought to be able to change that.

Your Lordships ran through a huge number of issues which will undoubtedly come up in Committee: immunity, the powers of the Secretary of State, human rights, the rule of law, the glorification of terrorist acts, oral history, reviews as opposed to investigation, inquests, civil litigation, and others. These are all hugely significant issues that will undoubtedly occupy us for some weeks ahead.

We talked about veterans and their importance in all this. I sometimes think we overlook the problems of veterans in Northern Ireland who, more than veterans in any other part of the United Kingdom, have been adversely affected over the past 40 years. Above all, the theme, if there is a theme of this debate, is victims. That is at the heart of this. All the organisations in Northern Ireland, so far as I can tell, including the Victims Commissioner himself, are opposed to the Bill. That should be so important in our deliberations. I think what actually underpins the objections of everybody who is against this Bill, from whatever part of the community in Northern Ireland they come, is how it deals with victims, survivors and families. All those people would feel so adversely affected and let down if the Bill, in its present form, were allowed to go through. It has lots of flaws, and we will address them in the stages to come, but the biggest one is the issue of victims. I know the Minister has met victims’ organisations, he has met victims, but at the same time, we have to understand that they are crucial to all this.

The other big issue, of course, is that people are against it. Everyone is against it. Every single political party in Northern Ireland does not want it. Had the Assembly and the Executive been in operation, it would not have seen the light of day: it would not have got anywhere because everybody would have been against it. The NGOs are against it. The Human Rights Commission is against it. Amnesty is against it. Ireland is against it, which is important because Ireland is a co-guarantor of the Good Friday agreement. The United States is against it. The European Union is against it. The Council of Europe is against it. That is a pretty substantial and impressive list of people who do not want it.

As a consequence of that, it is bad law; it is unfair law; it is unworkable law. If I were still Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, I would not touch it with a bargepole. I would say, “Let’s start again.” It is an important issue: we cannot dodge the issue—of course we cannot. If we keep on saying, “It’s all too difficult, we can’t do this,” we would be wrong. Try and try. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, referred to South Africa. Many years ago, I went to talk to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and listened to people, including the current President of South Africa, and heard some wonderful ideas, but South Africa is not Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is too small. South Africa is huge, but there were issues we could learn from.

We must not rush this through; that will not be good for anybody. I urge the Minister, even at this late hour—and it is pretty late—to go to his boss and say, “It’s not good enough; let’s start again.”