I will try to be brief, because I appreciate that there are colleagues who have been working on these issues for years and decades, who understand them fully and who wish to advocate for their constituents. I shall build on the points that we made on Second Reading and speak to some of the amendments in my name and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) and the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry).
By way of context, we spent Monday discussing the departure from the rule of law and bilateralism that is the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill. This is another day and another treaty breach. People have to understand that many see this Bill in that context—that it is unravelling
the culture of lawfulness that we have been working on for many decades. I say that completely without pleasure and I agree with the chief commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, who believes that the Bill is unamendable.
I will focus on the setting up of the ICRIR. It relies on the fiction that is being presented, which is that we are doing the same things over and over again. We are here because things have not been done, because the architecture to enable truth and justice has been suppressed, because files have been locked up, because omertà has been practised by paramilitaries, and not because we have done all these things incorrectly. We are taking this action when there is a live and productive programme of investigations. Hon. Members have referred to Operation Kenova, which is an active programme of investigation and inquest.
The Bill exploits a population who are worn down by discussing legacy. They are tired of these issues, the politicking and the revisionism. Nobody is being false with victims. Everybody knows that the possibility of prosecutions is vanishingly rare, but information can come out of these inquests and investigations. That is what people want and it has absolutely not been demonstrated that that will come out of these bodies in any way. That is why victims oppose this. Nobody wants to move on more than victims, but we have a general amnesty masquerading as a conditional amnesty, with perpetrators walking free. As Members have indicated, they will have no licence, which they would have had under prisoner release. Perhaps the Minister will confirm whether the licences of prisoners who have already been released will go under the Bill as well.
We have examples on the books, such as the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains, which existed for years. People could clear their conscience and give information to relieve families and give them the dignity of a burial without any threat of prosecution, but people did not do that. Nothing in the Bill or during these days of debates has indicated why we suddenly believe that people will come forward.
It is fair to say that the amnesty is a variation on a theme. We have been down this road before. My hon. Friend the Member for Foyle asked about files that have been sealed for decades and will be sealed for decades to come. How are people supposed to believe that the same Government who do that are suddenly interested in advancing information to them? As we all know, national security means whatever the security agents want it to mean. We know that they were intimately involved with both loyalist and republican paramilitaries—it is a fact. Although Members may wish to shut down the inquests, court cases and civil actions that establish that, it is a fact, as has been acknowledged by many people. How are people supposed to believe that the same Government who are suppressing that information suddenly want to advance it?
We know that the first motivation is the protection of security force elites, but we can call a spade a spade: this applies equally to paramilitaries. There is a joined-up quid pro quo between the sets of victim makers that keeps all this behind closed doors. Our amendments seek to address that.
The Bill outlines reviews that are not compliant with article 2 of the ECHR. They are a sham and are half-baked. The ruling on “flexibilities” because of reconciliation has been ruled out by a number of witnesses to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. It is also clear that the Secretary of State will be the person who can appoint all the commissioners who will be involved in the process of investigation. I refer to my earlier points about the fact that they have been actors. Essentially, victims are being told, “Move on because Brandon Lewis and Boris Johnson want you to move on, and they will create all the people who will help to facilitate it.”
I want to be very clear: the SDLP does not propose that we do nothing, and we are not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. We have worked with integrity on the issues for many years. We supported Eames-Bradley, which was imperfect; we supported Stormont House, which was imperfect; and we supported Haass-O’Sullivan, which was imperfect. The Government committed to Stormont House in December 2014 and committed to it again two and a half years ago, under this Prime Minister, so they cannot say that it has been done on anybody else’s watch. We are asking for the principles of that agreement to be enacted, which would address the issues with the jurisdiction of the Republic of Ireland. It was a bilateral treaty that had obligations for the Irish Government as well.
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In summary, the ICRIR has no requirement for truth, no requirement for any accounts to be corroborated and no capacity for any of those affected, whose lives were completely ruined and derailed by the killings, to have any representation or any voice in the process. The fallacy keeps being repeated that if people do not co-operate, they will face prosecution. How will they face prosecution if there is no investigative body?
Let me briefly address the issue of sexual offences. For many well-documented and distressing reasons, many people do not come forward for years as a result of the long-term effects of their awful experiences. We know that many people have been manipulated into non-disclosure. Rightly, society does not apply a statute of limitations to any sexual offences. We will support amendments on that issue, but we want to be very clear that although we support the categorical exclusion of sexual offences, for which there is precedent in places such as Colombia, we cannot get into the business of parcelling up who should or should not get amnesties or what they should or should not get them for. We have a principled objection to the concept of unfettered amnesty. I caution hon. Members against being sucked into the fiction that the Bill is amendable and that we can improve it. The principle of these amnesties is at stake.
I implore all hon. Members to listen to the voices of the victims—all of the victims. Other hon. Members have mentioned the play at the Derry Playhouse last night about six children—minors—who were killed by loyalist paramilitaries, by republican paramilitaries and by the state. They were different kids from different families in different circumstances, but the impact was exactly the same. People have experienced absolutely the same fetters on their access to justice. The Bill will not give them closure. They have been very clear about. They are not stupid. They are not being duped by us or by anybody else, but really by this Bill.