My Lords, I do not support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, who seems to be attempting to turn the ICRIR and its reviews into the sum of all the existing legacy reinvestigations that have already happened, by the PSNI, the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland and by Operation Kenova under Jon Boutcher. His amendment is complicated but would effectively mean that the new arrangements would be no different from what went before, and that the time required and the funding involved would be limitless, as I have said in the past. Given that to date we have already spent some £2 billion on Troubles reinvestigations, for little resultant value, if we are honest, this is not an attractive prospect.
The amendment also attempts to bind the ICRIR to the international standards required by the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg. I thought that the Government had already dealt with that aspect in a very late amendment by invoking the Human Rights Act. That Act has a domestic UK effect which is exactly appropriate for the ICRIR, rather than it having to respond to the political machinations of the court’s enforcing body—the committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
In the earlier stages of this Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and others, presented the Kenova process as a model for the ICRIR. That option seems to have disappeared from today’s amendment. I am not quite sure why the name has been removed. However, it is important to look a little at the background and history. The noble Lord knows that he played a very important role in an earlier stage of legacy policy, as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland between 2005 and 2007. In July 2005, seven years after the Belfast agreement, the IRA, in its words, “dumped arms”. A few months later, the Government responded with the Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill. This proposed an alternative justice system, outside the existing institutions, to deal with the legacy of Northern Ireland’s past.
Government Ministers have not mentioned this precedent for their current Bill, but they could well have cited this attempt to further the process, conducted by then Prime Minister Tony Blair and Jonathan Powell on behalf of the Government, and by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness on behalf of Sinn Féin and the IRA. The political situation in 2005-6 was not unlike that prevailing during the course of this Bill. The then Secretary of State, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, was opposed by all local parties except Sinn Féin. However, Clause 1 of the 2005 Bill referred to offences
“in connection with terrorism and the affairs of Northern Ireland (whether committed for terrorist purposes or not)”.
This meant that the amnesty provisions—and it was an amnesty, which the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, was very honest about in his speech—could extend to the security forces. Immediately, in the other place in December 2005, Mark Durkan, the leader of the SDLP, asserted that the Bloody Sunday soldiers, still being inquired into by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville, could benefit from the Bill. Sinn Féin immediately withdrew its support for the Bill and, in January 200,6 the noble Lord, Lord Hain, dropped the Bill. However, it is important to remember that the Republicans—the IRA/Sinn Féin—did not lose out. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness had been working on the on-the-runs scheme, which would soon move into its Operation Rapid phase, with comfort letters being issued to several hundred IRA men, as the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, has said.
Now, 20 years on, this Bill with its many imperfections sets out what the Government believe is a new model for addressing the legacy of the Troubles, something that—everyone is now being honest—was not considered back in 1998, and which the local political parties have not been able to agree on since. I therefore oppose this amendment, as it brings us back to where we started and is not moving us forward in any way, no matter what we think of the Bill.
I want to mention the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen. I am pleased that I was signature to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, in his amendment, which did not get put to the vote. This amendment, picked up by Labour’s Front Bench, is beginning again to put the victim at the centre of the whole issue. I feel that, if the person who is the victim has gone through the whole process of listening to someone who has come forward and given what they say is the truth, and everyone has listened and a great deal of time has been invested, and in the end the victim—the person who has really suffered—is prepared to accept that that person can have immunity, we can live that. I am disappointed that the Government have not moved a little bit on that, because some sensible suggestions were made in Committee, particularly by the noble and right reverend Lord. I hope that today perhaps they will come back and look at that.
Overall, this legacy Bill is—and I hate to use this expression—a dog’s breakfast. It has been cobbled together in a way that tries to please everyone and is ending up pleasing absolutely nobody. The Government are determined to put it through, which is why I have, in the past, supported certain amendments that would make it slightly better. I think that is all we can do at this stage, but I certainly do not think that the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, is moving us forward in any way.