Northern Ireland: Legacy of the Troubles

Lord Duncan of Springbank Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office and Scotland Office (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, this has been an important debate and I must begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, for bringing it before us this evening. Let me stress that the Government are consulting and the consultation will be extended until 5 October. Let me also say that legacy is a constant companion to all those who have lived in Northern Ireland and indeed to all those who have served there. We can be under no illusion: they will carry that legacy until the day they die.

There are currently many organisations in the Province of Northern Ireland responsible for investigating historical legacy issues, each constituted under slightly different arrangements and each with slightly different approaches. The reality is that, as the noble Lord stressed, there appears to be a very clear skewing of those investigations towards those who have served inside the military and the police services. This widespread view has been echoed tonight. There is no doubt that it is a tragedy that those who served with honour in Northern Ireland, who sought to uphold the rule of law, have found themselves in their retirement years struggling with a legacy that they are unable to respond to and are unclear about when it will end. At the moment, inquests into the Troubles seem primarily focused on former soldiers and police officers. That is under the current arrangements.

The reason that we are consulting today and have brought forward an indication of how we might move this in a different direction is that the current arrangements do not work. It is the current arrangements that have brought us to the situation that we find ourselves in, and that is why we need to think afresh. There needs to be a different approach. We cannot have a situation in which the state, which necessarily records the actions of all those who perform a service for that state, is therefore more likely to be pursued than those who belonged to paramilitary organisations which—as many noble Lords have pointed out—simply did not keep records. We need to recognise that reality. We cannot have those who have served this nation being prosecuted simply because it is easier to prosecute them. Justice must be served, but justice must be blind.

I am also aware that in this consultation, as raised by a number of noble Lords, we have focused only on fatalities. It is of course right to strengthen the point that the number of those who were injured is an order of magnitude greater. I would welcome—in fact, I would strongly urge—those who hold that view to make it very clear to the Government that injuries also need to be considered in the wider approach as we seek to bring this consultation towards a conclusion.

It is important to remember certain aspects that we have not touched on as much this evening, such as that the police ombudsman, by its nature, will investigate only those who are former police officers and, by its nature, 100% of the investigations will necessarily affect only the police services. That is why, in looking at the new institutions that should emerge from this consultation, we need to see how we can address the very issues with which we are so familiar and have heard so much about this evening.

There is no easy answer. If reconciliation were achievable by simply asserting it, we would have made greater progress. But that cannot be done. The question then of a statute of limitations, or indeed of an amnesty, is a challenge that we must confront foursquare. The issue is: shall we now draw that line and say that, before a particular date, all shall therefore be left behind, whereas after that date we shall act? It is not the policy of the Government to move forward with an amnesty but, as has been pointed out, an amnesty could not apply only to one side; it must apply equally to all. Again, I would welcome from noble Lords strong representations to the Government on this, so that we may hear very clearly those points being made; we would therefore need to understand where the will of the House rests on this issue. Importantly, we cannot overlook the reality of what the Troubles meant for those who lived through them and experienced those tragic circumstances. As the noble Lord, Lord Bew, reminds us, to some extent, nothing that we can do could ever truly satisfy those who have been bereaved and those who have experienced the trauma and tragedy of events. I do not believe, if I am honest, that anything that can be achieved from this particular consultation could deliver that satisfaction.

I am aware from listening to a number of contributions this evening, not least from my noble friend Lord King, of the cost of these investigations, what that money represents as a loss, in truth, to the wider Province of Northern Ireland, and how that money could perhaps have been spent on other aspects. Again, as we look at the responses to the consultation, we must hear that, if indeed that is a view that is expressed very strongly.

It is necessary, as we begin to consider what will emerge from the consultation, to see whether we can secure what I hope will be a consensus in moving forward. I suspect the challenge will be that that consensus will be absent. It will call therefore on the Government to lead, to determine what that policy that we will move forward with needs to be. We have, as noble Lords will be aware, adopted the Stormont House agreement, which was hard-fought. It sought to draw on the knowledge and experience of a wide breadth of participants in public life in Northern Ireland. It also sought, again, to explore the views of a wider constituency beyond that. It is upon that Stormont House agreement that we seek to make progress through this consultation.

It has taken too long. Of that there is no doubt. We should have been making progress on this matter when the momentum was with us and the wind was in our sails, but that has not been the case. It would be too easy for me to say, as I have said on so many occasions, “If only we had a devolved Executive. They could just sort it all out”. Unfortunately, this is a bigger challenge than just saying, “We must wait for that Executive to be in formation”. That is why, in putting forward this consultation, and ultimately depending on what emerges from it, we seek to determine a course of action that can bring about each of the elements that we, I believe, all wish to see. Among them is the wish that justice be done; that those who serve with honour do not continue to be persecuted and prosecuted over a lengthy period, as a number of noble Lords have mentioned this evening; and that those who have served their country, be it in the police service or in the Armed Forces, are able to experience a retirement without threat or fear of continued persecution through this process.

The Stormont House agreement gives us a foundation on which we can work, but it will not solve all the problems. We must ensure that those institutions that are developed are able to deliver almost the impossible, which is to satisfy those who have lived through the Troubles, to address those who would seek justice, and to address those who believe that justice simply cannot be served. We must also make sure that those who serve in the military, those who have served in the military and those who might serve will not be victims of an ongoing persecution that will continue long after they have resigned their commission or retired from the services.

We are asked, as a Government, to do a great deal. In formulating a new Historical Investigations Unit and in seeking to recognise that thus far the previous incarnation of that entity has sought to gather the low-hanging fruit, we need to recognise that it is only fair and proper that the future activities of such an institution address each fairly, that justice be served blindly and that we do not simply cast our eyes to the horizon and say, “This will never end”. It will continue for as long as it must continue. In limiting it to five years, we recognise the challenge that that represents, but we also recognise the near impossibility of delivering within that. None the less, there must come that time when a line is drawn. The line will be drawn either by the Government or in due course by the passing on of all those who have experienced tragedy or have been in the Troubles.

I do not believe the Government can easily answer those questions, but they must try. They must do so irrespective of whether a new Executive are formed, because the time is slowly but surely trickling through the hourglass. As well as the Historical Investigations Unit, the Government have put forward three other institutions for consideration. One is a commission on information retrieval, which will be an independent institution established by agreement between the UK Government and the Irish Government to enable victims and survivors in the UK and Ireland to seek and privately receive information about the Troubles-related deaths of their relatives. That will be an important step forward. Another is an oral history archive—again, independent—enabling people from all backgrounds to share experiences and narratives related to the Troubles. The third is an implementation and reconciliation group, again an independent institution to promote reconciliation and to review and assess the implementation of the aforementioned institutions to deal with the past. Those are anticipated within the overall consultation. However, I stress again that the key, beating heart of this is the belief in the fairness and transparency of the actions, and that this too will come to an end—because it must. We do not wish to see hundreds of millions of pounds spent trying to achieve the impossible. None the less, we wish to see a move forward that gives satisfaction to those who have lived through the Troubles in whatever capacity they themselves did.

I therefore say to the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, that the current system does not work. It has been a prosecutorial system which has sought to gather the low-hanging fruit, and that has been intrinsically unfair. There have been a number of difficulties in trying to prosecute and pursue those guilty of terrorist atrocities. Just because it is hard does not mean that it should not be pursued with the utmost rigour. Justice must be done and must be seen to be done. It would be patently unfair for the perception of skewing to manifest itself in any way as a reality.

I know noble Lords will be offered an opportunity to revisit this as the consultation itself concludes, but before we get to that stage it is critical that the views that noble Lords express, which represent a large constituency of various interests, are part of the consideration of that consultation. We must make sure that what emerges from that consultation works, because the current arrangements do not. We must make sure that there is confidence in those arrangements—that there is fairness, honesty and integrity and, ultimately, that justice is served by them. Perhaps hardest of all, we must also recognise that this consultation and the institutions it may yet deliver will not themselves salve the wounds of those who were harmed or hurt in the tragedies. None the less, they may serve as a final attempt to address the concerns expressed by those pursuing justice, as they have done over the years.

It will not be an easy outcome. The Government are fully aware of how difficult it will be to satisfy each of the constituent elements, some of whom have spoken this evening. However, two things must stand above all else. First, the British Armed Forces served with honour in Northern Ireland. There have been occasions, as inevitably there will be in any comparable situation, where difficulties will have arisen, and they need to be pursued to the fullness of justice. But equally, justice cannot focus only on the state actors, which is why we must move forward on both.

On the notion of an amnesty, which many of Lords have spoken of—again, I strongly urge noble Lords to make those points clearly in the consultation itself—it is not the policy of my party or of the Government to believe that we are in a situation where we can overlook those crimes of the past. We believe that they must be pursued to the fullness of justice: that is what we ultimately wish to do. We must also recognise, however, that old men forget and that, with the passage of time, it becomes ever more difficult to find the truth and gather the evidence, and ever more trying to bring yourself into a situation in which you can secure that which I believe all would wish to see: justice done and justice served.

A number of noble Lords have stressed how important it is that this be a sensible solution, and that we should not simply believe that by casting further hard-fought money into a procedure we can achieve the ultimate ambition of salving the wounds of all who grieve. We cannot do that. But we must be in a position where the Government have been seen to do their job, which is to recognise that those in Northern Ireland who seek justice are in a position to believe that justice has been done. We must also be in a situation in which those who have served the state in Northern Ireland do not find themselves enjoying, one would hope, their twilight years while always finding themselves pursued to the point of ill health.

It would be easy for me to simply say, “It’s a consultation—let’s wait and see”. But the reality remains that we must act and must do so on the basis of consensus, which we hope we shall draw ultimately from this consultation. This has been a worthy debate, which has made me think very carefully about many different aspects of it, so I thank your Lordships very much.