It might well be that a round table of noble Lords who have taken part in this debate could produce some proposals within five months,
but we have all seen the difficulty of getting agreement from all the political parties in Northern Ireland for legacy proposals, and the huge difficulty of getting consensus and agreement from the victims’ groups in Northern Ireland. That is a very laborious process. After the Stormont House agreement, I went through four or five years of trying to get that agreement into legislation and before your Lordships’ House; that was despite it being a manifesto commitment in 2015 and 2017 and a Queen’s Speech commitment in 2015.
It is a very long and difficult process to get consensus. With the criticism there is of this legislation—I accept that it is criticism and that it does not have widespread consensus—the onus would be on those coming forward with other proposals, alternative suggestions, to build consensus. That would take a long time, and then to turn that consensus into legislation, to legislate and to establish new bodies is not something that could be done very quickly.
Turning back to the debate itself, it is the Government’s view that the immunity test is robust. It requires individuals to apply for immunity and, in so doing, acknowledge their role in Troubles-related incidents. Immunity will be granted only in relation to conduct that individuals disclose, and only where the panel is satisfied that the conduct exposes the individual to criminal liability.
Crucially, it requires the individual to provide an account that is true to the best of their knowledge and belief. In determining whether that is the case, there is a legal obligation on the commission to consider all the information that it holds that is relevant to that decision. If an individual provides an account that contains truthful information about numerous offences, but that same account includes untruthful information about just one offence, they will not be granted immunity at all. This will help prevent people from trying to minimise their role in incidents.
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The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, suggested that all a perpetrator would have to do is sit out the five-year period. Within the same five-year period, families, the Secretary of State, the coroners and, I think, the Attorney- General for Northern Ireland can all refer cases that could—depending on the outcome of immunity—lead to a prosecution of that individual. So it is not just about trying to sit something out.
The noble Baroness also raised an important point about whether the account to the commission has to be both true and complete. The commission can, of course, ask whatever questions it thinks appropriate and the director of investigations, as we have said before, will have the powers of a police constable. The way that someone answers those questions will help determine the outcome of the immunity application. The commission must also consider any evidence it holds when determining the truthfulness of an account and this should help the commission ensure that it will be able to obtain as full and complete an account as possible.
The noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, raised the question of someone who clearly lies because they do not want to name accomplices. That person would
not get immunity because the commission would determine that they had not been truthful in their account. If they did name accomplices, those people could be investigated by the commission and, if they did not engage, they could be prosecuted.