Today I will be speaking against several of the proposals in part 2, specifically clauses 18, 20, 23 and 24, and in support of amendments 111 and 115. My position on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee has allowed me to hear a range of views on the legacy of the troubles, and the
reality is that victims and survivors groups have been let down for decades with successive Governments preventing them from finding out the truth about their loved ones and failing to investigate the most horrific crimes. It is now a sad reality that there can be no perfect solution to how we address legacy issues. There is simply too much division and too many lives lost for that ever to be possible. We must one day accept that we will have an imperfect solution, but that does not mean we have to accept this bad one.
The solution offered in part 2 is unquestionably a bad one. It fails victims, denies them justice and conceals the truth. It threatens the Good Friday agreement, violates article 2 of the European convention on human rights and breaches both the Stormont House agreement and the New Decade, New Approach commitment made just two years ago.
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The Bill has been met with huge disappointment and anger from victims and survivors groups across Northern Ireland. Above all, there is a sense of betrayal that their pain and right to justice have been unilaterally rejected by the British Government. The proposal to create an independent commission for reconciliation and information recovery to review deaths and consider granting immunity from prosecution in relation to the troubles simply does not contain sufficient protections to ensure that information provided by a person seeking immunity is accurate or full.
Under clause 18, the only criteria an individual has to meet to be granted immunity are: first, to apply for immunity; secondly, to give what they believe to be a true account; and thirdly, to give an account that would previously have left them open to investigation for serious troubles-related offences. Essentially, the only criterion for immunity is to provide a true account. This process not only offers immunity; it gives a de facto blanket amnesty.
On amendment 115, I think the Secretary of State has accepted the mood of the Committee that the Bill is not clear on whether sexual offences are excluded. Members of every party, even Conservative Members, have said that we need clarity and absolute certainty on this issue. The Secretary of State should not ask for the amendment to be withdrawn; he should accept it. Sexual assault and rape should never be excused or justified.
There is also no requirement for the information provided to be new or comprehensive. That means someone could provide information that we already know, or that they gleaned from the public domain, and receive immunity from prosecution. They could confess to one murder in order to receive a general immunity covering every serious troubles-related crime they committed, regardless of whether they initially provided a full account. How does that add to the healing process or to the quest for justice?
Furthermore, the Bill offers no thorough verification process to test whether what is said is true. If the information is later proven to be false, the immunity still stands. Shockingly, clause 20 specifically states that there is no requirement to corroborate with any other person what a person seeking immunity says.
On top of that, clauses 23 and 24 talk about a historical record of all remaining deaths, but it is unclear how that can be produced when other measures in the
Bill say there will be no further investigation in some cases. What happens in cases where there has not been an investigation? If the Bill passes, there will be no investigation or review, so the historical record will inevitably be inaccurate and/or incomplete. How can this give any comfort to families who have waited for years to find out what happened to their loved ones? How can people have any faith that the accounts given are a true and accurate report? We cannot let down these families and victims again by providing an amnesty to those who killed their loved ones in order to receive a probably inaccurate official history.
Any individual can apply for immunity, and people who have been convicted of murder can apply for immediate release. This Bill causes more problems than it could ever solve. Ultimately, the immunity element of the Bill is perpetrator-focused and denies justice to victims and families.
As I have touched on, there is the question of article 2 compliance to address. In her evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, Alyson Kilpatrick was clear that the Bill is not compliant with the European convention on human rights, as it fails in the state’s obligation in respect of an effective investigation. Not only is there no requirement for the families of victims to be involved in the process, but the standard of the review process is nowhere near fit for purpose. Although there is no fixing this awful legislation, at the very least the investigations should meet Operation Kenova standards, and I will therefore be supporting amendment 111.
To finish, I want to say that this Government seem intent on ripping up the rights of people in the UK: our right to take industrial action; our right to protest; and now our human rights—and they are breaking the Good Friday agreement in the process. Rather than giving families the answers that they need and that they have been awaiting for years, this Bill removes all possibility of their ever getting to the truth. I, too, went to the play last night and it was about the murder of those six children. This Bill will not achieve anything for those families. What it does will have a devastating impact on their need to heal, recover and move on.