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Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 Section 7

May I begin by repeating what the Secretary of State has just said, because we can ask no more of the victims, and obviously we can ask no more of Lord Justice Hart. The report before us includes this telling sentence:

“There is no doubt that victims of abuse have shown incredible dignity throughout the inquiry and that an apology is long overdue.”

In fact, the victims have shown incredible dignity over the many years they have suffered as a result of the abuse and as a result of the delay and obfuscation by the political system, which failed to address the record of the past and the needs of those individuals. I share with the Secretary of State and with his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), the view that that there is a sense of urgency, as we have heard in the Chamber. The hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) is right, and made the valid point that between 1922 and 1995, the period covered by the Hart inquiry, there were significant amounts of time under direct rule, when the responsibility for the governance of Northern Ireland lay with Whitehall and Westminster. We should bear that in mind, because it gives us all the sense that we need to bring this to a credible conclusion.

The Secretary of State will know that the shock that was experienced when Parliament was prorogued several weeks ago was felt across the whole of Northern Ireland and across the whole nation, and by no one more than the victims of institutional abuse, who thought that that the probability that at last they were seeing some resolution of their suffering was about to be truncated. I hope that today we can give some comfort to those victims that all is now back on track.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

664 cc1025-6 

Session

2017-19

Chamber / Committee

House of Commons chamber
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