Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill: Motion to disagree

Proposed by The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendments 44D, 44E, 44F, 44G, 44H and 44J. Let me begin by reminding the House that the Government have sought to make a realistic assessment of what we can best deliver for families more than a quarter of a century after the 1998 Belfast/Good Fri… I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendments 44D, 44E, 44F, 44G, 44H and 44J. Let me begin by reminding the House that the Government have sought to make a realistic assessment of what we can best deliver for families more than a quarter of a century after the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday agreement, nearly 30 years since the first ceasefires, and well over 50 years since the troubles began. The backdrop is that current mechanisms for addressing legacy matters work for only a very small number of people, rather than the overwhelming majority, and established criminal justice processes are increasingly unlikely to deliver outcomes that people desire, especially in respect of prosecutions. We have only one issue left to debate today: conditional immunity. The purpose of this legislation is to give people more information in a shorter timeframe than is possible with the current mechanisms. We do that by creating an effective information recovery process that relies on a conditional immunity model. I attended a decent chunk of the debate in the House of Lords yesterday, and although I am sympathetic to the intent behind Lords amendment 44E, which is to give family members a role in deciding whether immunity should or should not be granted, immunity risks undermining the effectiveness of these provisions and the principal aim of information recovery. For example, the “public interest” consideration element in condition D would lead to uncertainty about the circumstances in which immunity will be granted, undermining the clear and transparent approach that we have developed over time. If we are to ensure that the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery can obtain as much information for families as possible, we need to ensure that the right incentives are in place for individuals to come forward to provide that information.

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