Amendment 9

Part of Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill - Report (1st Day) – in the House of Lords at 6:15 pm on 21 June 2023.

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Photo of Lord Eames Lord Eames Crossbench 6:15, 21 June 2023

My Lords, I rise to address Amendment 9, recognising the consequential relationship of Amendments 20, 27, 29, 59, 61, 62 and 69. In Committee, I frequently reminded noble Lords of the centrality of the urgency of victims’ needs. I also referred to my personal experience, over my adult life, of being in close contact with so many victims. No later than this week, knowing this debate was taking place, I have been reminded of this by two families who are not members of any organisation for victimhood, but who quietly and with dignity carry the wounds of their victimhood in the privacy of their own homes.

It is that morass of emotions which prompted me to table this amendment, because back home in Northern Ireland there is almost universal opposition to this Bill. The more you think about it and try to analyse it, you come up with a conclusion that, first, we differ on what reconciliation means; secondly, any attempt through legislation to define reconciliation is going to run into a multitude of difficulties; and, thirdly, the reconciliation in the Bill is, for many of us who have experience of the Troubles, nothing short of hypocrisy. My amendment seeks to recognise the need of victimhood not just to be recognised as a term but to be experienced in the process of reaching what the Bill is set out to aim for: reconciliation with a small R.

When we come to consider the role of the ICRIR, we should recognise that there are limits to what this legislation or any other legislation can define or describe. A lot is going to be left to the way in which this new organisation runs its affairs. The reason the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and I are suggesting the incorporation of the terms of Amendment 9 is not to oppose the Bill but to try to make it better, more acceptable. Is how we get to a definition of immunity or how we reach the process of immunity more important than recognising victimhood? Is it more important than recognising that people have their memories, their hurts and their scars? We have said that so often in this House, and we have been reminded tonight by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and others of the significance of today as a day of remembrance.

I will be as brief as I can in moving this amendment. Once again, I thank the Minister for his compassion, as well as his listening ability. I ask him to accept that this is not an attempt to derail what he has said already—not least what he has said tonight—but an attempt to make it more acceptable to that vast community which thinks at this moment that what we are talking about has no relevancy to their situation.

I ask again, which is more important in the process of reconciliation: to create a technical process for immunity or to recognise by involvement the needs of suffering people who are carrying in their hearts and minds the scars of our Troubles? In my opinion and, I think, that of many of my colleagues who, like me, have given so much of their lives to this process, it has to be stated for the record that the immunity process has to climb over the reality of victimhood. Until it does so, it will be very unsatisfactory as an attempt at reconciliation. I beg to move Amendment 9.