I thank my noble friend Lord Morrow for giving way. Would he agree with me that if we fail to put this on the face of the Bill and run the risk that former operatives of the RUC, the PSNI and the HET are barred from the ICRIR, we would be sending out a signal that, institutionally, we regard those organisations as being party to the conflict and that we would, in effect, be placing them on a parallel level and a par with the paramilitary organisations, given that the purpose of this is to investigate all crimes across the Troubles? That would send out a signal. If there is concern—which I think all of us share—about some who try to rewrite the past and justify what happened, this would send out completely the wrong signal. I suspect also that if there was a legal challenge in terms of a fair employment case, the provision would not survive that.
Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Weir of Ballyholme
(Democratic Unionist Party)
in the House of Lords on Tuesday, 24 January 2023.
It occurred during Committee of the Whole House (HL)
and
Debate on bills on Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill.
About this proceeding contribution
Reference
827 c197 Session
2022-23Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamberSubjects
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2023-01-25 15:56:28 +0000
URI
http://hansard.intranet.data.parliament.uk/Lords/2023-01-24/23012476000009
In Indexing
http://indexing.parliament.uk/Content/Edit/1?uri=http://hansard.intranet.data.parliament.uk/Lords/2023-01-24/23012476000009
In Solr
https://search.parliament.uk/claw/solr/?id=http://hansard.intranet.data.parliament.uk/Lords/2023-01-24/23012476000009