Lord Dodds of Duncairn:

Moved by Lord Dodds of Duncairn

114A: Clause 44, page 35, line 25, at end insert—“(2A) The designated persons have an overarching duty to ensure that no memorialisation activities glorify the commission or preparation of Troubles-related offences.”Member’s explanatory statementThis Amendment is intended to ensure that designated persons responsible for making recommendations about the initiation and carrying out of relevant memorialisation activities are under a duty to prevent the glorification of Troubles-related offences.

My Lords, we now come to this group of amendments on memorialisation. This is a very difficult and complex area that we have to wrestle with, both in this Bill and more widely in Northern Ireland. The purpose of Amendments 114A and 114B in my name and those of my noble friends is to ensure that memorialisation activities in no way end up glorifying, eulogising or defending terrorism in any form, whatever side of the community it comes from.

Sadly, as we have said in previous debates on this Bill, it appears there has been an increase in the carrying out of commemorations and eulogies for terrorists by elected representatives including Members of Parliament, Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, a person who would seek to be the First Minister of Northern Ireland, academics and others. They have all commemorated the activities of criminals and murderers in the IRA. It is important that in this Bill—certainly, I will seek reassurances from the Minister on this issue—that we make it clear that that type of eulogy, commemoration or glorification is not acceptable. For the victims, this is an extremely important issue.

Time and again when you meet victims of the terrorist criminal gangs who carried out so much violence in Northern Ireland, the issue they raise is the continued trauma that they have to endure as a result of such celebrations and commemorations. They feel that their trauma, hurt and pain are sidelined while those criminals who carried out this type of heinous activity are elevated.

The purpose of Amendment 114A is

“to ensure that designated persons responsible for making recommendations about the initiation and carrying out of relevant memorialisation activities are under a duty to prevent the glorification of Troubles-related offences”.

Clause 48 tells us that designated persons carrying out Troubles-related work must have due regard

“to the need to ensure that … there is support from different communities in Northern Ireland for the way in which that programme is carried out, and … a variety of views of the Troubles is taken into account in carrying out that programme”.

Those responsible for drafting the memorialisation strategy are bound by this duty under Clause 51(1).

This focus on representativeness can be problematic, given that there are, as I have outlined, sections of our community, including those in high places and political life, who not only refuse to disavow violence but actually express the view that glorifying terrorism via parades, vigils, rallies and so on is a perfectly legitimate memorialisation activity when it is patently not. The Government propose to require the Troubles work programme to promote reconciliation, anti-sectarianism and non-recurrence of political and sectarian hostility between people in Northern Ireland. However, none of these terms are defined. It should be made clear in the Bill that designated persons are not permitted to recommend activities that a reasonable person in Northern Ireland would regard as glorifying past terrorism—in fact, they should be under a duty to prevent this. Memorialisation should not open the door to revisionism and the rule of law must be respected.

Amendment 114B is intended to ensure that only innocent victims are included as victims in the memorialisation strategy. It is critical that the law in this respect is in line with the line that the Government took in relation to the payment of compensation to victims of the Troubles in the Troubles permanent disablement payment scheme and Regulation 6 of the Victims’ Payments Regulations 2020, in which it was made clear, rightly, that someone who had injured themselves as a result of their own actions by being engaged in terrorism would not be eligible under the scheme. There was a difference between those who were injured in innocent circumstances as a result of terrorism carried out by others and those who were injured by their own hand.

We believe it is important for the sake of the victims and respect for the rule of law that a memorialisation strategy does not give credence to terrorists injured or killed by their own hands. They should not be considered victims for the purposes of consultation under this section.

It is regrettable that we have to even raise these issues and put them on the record in the House. However, sadly, as time moves on, the years pass and we move further away from the crimes that were carried out in the names of paramilitaries in Northern Ireland—IRA and loyalist alike—there is a tendency among those in Sinn Féin to ensure that the history of the past is rewritten.

I have a recent example. Someone who was described as a commentator but who was actually a teacher in a secondary school came on to say, “Well, you know, if people are engaging in memorial activities for the military, such as acts of remembrance in November, it’s perfectly acceptable for republicans to remember their dead”. In other words, they were suggesting equivalence between members of the security forces and terrorists who set out with murder and mayhem in their hearts and as the purpose of their activities.

There is no, and can never be, equivalence between members of the security forces in Northern Ireland—Army, Ulster Defence Regiment, Royal Ulster Constabulary, PSNI—and those who, by contrast, came as terrorists to carry out bloodshed against the rule of law. It is important to put that firmly on the record in this debate.

I would like the Minister to consider very carefully the purpose behind these amendments and to reassure us that the memorialisation strategy will indeed reflect the rule of law and will not end up glorifying or eulogising terrorism in any form.

My Lords, I have a certain sympathy with Amendment 114A in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Dodds, Lord Weir and Lord Morrow, because, like the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, I have seen so much revisionism over the last number of years. We have seen revisionism from paramilitary forces in order to justify their campaign of terror and to forget about the real victims, who were never involved in perpetrating acts of violence but were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I remind your Lordships’ House that there has been a constant and unbending democratic resistance among the people of Ireland, both north and south, at the ballot box to state and paramilitary terror. The Minister will be aware of that, but that rewriting of history—of the facts and what happened over the last 50 years, in which people needlessly lost their lives—is offensive to those who lived in that time, who lost loved ones and who followed the path of peace.

That rewriting is also dangerous. It creates false narratives for new generations. At times, the memorialisation is more about triumphalism and justification—be it an FRU trophy photo or applauding IRA killers of civilians in no-warning bombs in crowded places in the middle of the day. We can all cast our minds back to those instances over the last 50 years.

Your Lordships should be in no doubt that respecting those you loved and lost is right, but this aggressive practice is wrong. I will remember sad graveyards and the pain of families—that is remembrance with dignity, with private pain and tears. As a Greek scholar said, the remarkable resilience and inspiration of so many shows how:

“In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until … against our will”, in its own time,

“comes wisdom through the awful grace of God”.

We have to try to prevent glorification of what happened in the past, because what happened in the past was wrong. It caused mayhem, destruction and murder, and it robbed many families of their loved ones. In supporting Amendment 114A, I urge noble Lords to consider that there are paramilitary forces out there—and a certain political party—that are involved in deep levels of revisionism at this moment in time.

My Lords, I join my noble friend Lord Dodds and the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, in supporting Amendments 114A and 114B in the names of my noble friends Lord Dodds, Lord Weir and Lord Morrow.

Recently, the absentee MP for North Belfast, John Finucane, was the main Speaker at what was billed a “South Armagh Volunteers commemoration and fun day”. Let me remind noble Lords of just one action of these South Armagh IRA terrorists—there is certainly no reason to celebrate it, or even commemorate it. I want noble Lords to imagine a young husband leaving home and going to work as usual. His family hear later on that their loved one has gone missing; his young wife is pregnant and has three young children already. Think of the agony this family circle is going through as it becomes clear that the IRA have abducted this young man. Think of the absolute terror he is feeling as he is hooded and taken captive by IRA terrorists.

Then there comes that—in many ways inevitable—phone call that tells the family that that young man has been found dead. However, that call also tells them that his body cannot be recovered, even though it is seen lying in a field in south Armagh, because it is surrounded by Claymore mines. Yes, that body is booby-trapped to explode if moved. A huge, 500-pound bomb is attached to him in milk churns, with command wires leading across the border. Any attempt to move him will blow his corpse to pieces, along with anyone attempting to retrieve him. The authorities have to let him lie there, dead, covered in blood and mud, naked except for his pants and on display for all to see, until the explosives are defused by the bomb squad. Can anyone with a heart have any idea what that dear wife, her three young children and the family circle have to go through as they wait and wait?

In Another place, a Member of Parliament at that time said:

“One of his relatives said that they were horrified at the look of torture and agony … on the face. The fingers of both hands were blackened to the knuckles and holes were punched in the finger tips. Handfuls of grass and earth were clutched in the hands. One side of the face was smashed … to the extent that the nose was broken and displaced to one side. Both arms seemed limp and the genitals had been kicked until swollen out of all proportion. The teeth were smashed, he was shot through the wrists, the mouth, the neck, the throat and several times in the chest”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/5/72; col. 1788.].

What was his crime? His crime was that he was a part-time UDR corporal. Of course, Sinn Féin said that he was therefore a legitimate target; he was a part of the British war machine, simply because he wore the uniform and tried to keep people safe from those who so cowardly and viciously ended his life. Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill has claimed that there was no alternative to such IRA activity and yet, amazingly, she is lauded and applauded by Presidents and Secretaries of State, and John Finucane thinks such deserve to be commemorated—actually, their names written on a marble scroll as if they were heroes and then celebrated with a family fun day.

I ask you: what sort of persons could be so evil as to commit such torture on another human being? What sort of mentality justifies this in any shape or form? Nobody has ever been charged or convicted of this murder, this torture, and those who directed it are equally guilty. The so-called IRA Army Council has not been brought before the International Court of Justice. Rather, some of its leaders are lauded and applauded too. The Sinn Féin leaders and John Finucane talk much about and demand inquiries, they pontificate about human rights, equality and justice, but they do not want justice for them. They do not want inquiries into their leadership role in some of the most vile atrocities ever carried out against mankind. All they want is to blame the police, the army and the part-time soldiers—indeed, everyone who stood against their 30-year campaign of slaughter and murder in their quest for their dream of a united Ireland. Sadly, on many occasions, successive Governments rolled over to Sinn Féin demands and granted it concession after concession. Even just over a week ago, we found that the chief constable apologised to those who were called the hooded men. I ask the Minister: does this legislation stop the memorialisation and glorification of those terrorists across our community?

I finish by saying that every year, in January, I gather with others at the side of a road outside Cookstown, the Teebane. The men there were returning from doing an honest day’s work, but they were murdered, slaughtered, on their way home. We stand at a roadside. Yes, there is a stone there with the names of those lads on it: not to glorify but to humbly remember that they were cruelly done to death along that road.

We cannot have the glorification of terrorist acts. They are to be condemned. While many tell us that everyone, every political party in Northern Ireland, is against this legislation, let me make it clear that the party which I belong to is not to be equated with Sinn Féin/IRA, because its objection to the legislation is that it does not want its comrades to be prosecuted, but it wants the security forces to be persecuted. I will not lend my hand to that.

My Lords, I speak to support Amendments 117 and 118 in my name but agree with the Amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, as well.

I want to look at the academic research Clause, because it addresses a problem with the Government’s funding body, UK Research and Innovation and its councils. Many of us interested in legacy are genuinely concerned about what seems to be the one-sided nature of much of the academic research into our past and the way that the funding has been monopolised by what could be seen as a single legal view that is radical and investigates only faults with the UK state and its security responses during the Troubles.

I need to refer to the Queen’s University Belfast’s transitional justice department, which produced the model legacy Bill and many briefings that Opposition and Cross-Bench Peers will have been provided with. That department alone has received the huge amount of £4 million in funding for legacy research—nobody else has. The transitional justice department works in open conjunction with the Committee on the Administration of Justice, the CAJ, which is a largely anti-state nationalist body in Belfast that encourages legacy litigation. Indeed, it is leading efforts to get the Dublin Government to take an inter-state case against the United Kingdom at the European Court of Human Rights over this very Bill once it receives Royal Assent.

The CAJ has already had success, in that Taoiseach Varadkar announced last week in the Dáil, in response to the Sinn Féin leader, that he would indeed

“give consideration to whether an interstate case is appropriate” at Strasbourg. The last attempt, in 2014, to reopen a judgment relating to internment in 1971 which the Strasbourg court decided in 1978 was inhuman treatment and not torture, was lost in 2018 by seven votes to one. The United Kingdom already appears before the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers every quarter on legacy and regularly gets beaten up by the Secretariat on a batch of cases, including those of the McKerr group, involving the deaths of IRA men and Pat Finucane, that go back as far as 1982.

What I want to see today is a recognition by the Minister that, when the Government are looking at how this money is being allocated, there will be an attempt to be much more even-handed. Just recently, the Queen’s University transitional justice department had seminars during the April celebration of the Belfast Agreement’s 25th anniversary, and they were drawn from only one outlook. Any other university would have been embarrassed at such shameless bias. The Minister will know what I mean in relation to being put on the naughty step during those kinds of meetings.

The exact wording of my amendment stems from an Answer I received on 8 November last year from the noble Lord, Lord Callanan. He said that:

“UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funding is allocated according to research excellence as assessed by independent peer review”.

But we are all aware that peer reviews, as I mentioned in Committee, can often become chum reviews, even self-generated assessments, especially when few other academics work in the same field. One academic who does speak out, Dr Cillian McGrattan, wrote that

“the UKRI record does not bode well for the government’s plan to create a multi-disciplinary history that encourages the acceptance of ‘different narratives’ that transcend and challenge ethnic taboos”.

This lack of balance in legacy and justice at Queen’s University makes it essential that the Bill has extra safeguards on academic diversity and fair funding. I really hope that the Minister will tell us how he is going to ensure that this will happen, and that he will be as positive as his own amendments—Amendments 115, 119 and 121, introducing the concept of anti-sectarianism into the Bill regarding Troubles research. I do not intend to move a Division on this amendment, but I really hope that the Minister, and those listening to this debate behind the scenes, will recognise that there is bias and that it needs to be addressed.

My Amendment 118, which we also discussed in Committee, refers to the Bill’s required production of an analysis of patterns and themes in events during the Troubles. It would add to the specific mention of women and girls words concerning research on the experience of the gay and lesbian community. This is a small minority—just 2% of Northern Ireland’s people according to the recent census—but this community has figured centrally in disputes and debates throughout the decades, perhaps more so than any other group outside the two main communities. We all know that the process from decriminalisation to gay equality was effected in a long series of legislative steps. As I mentioned in Committee, I played a small part in that in 1994, with an amendment to keep Northern Ireland in line with the rest of Britain on the gay age of consent. I was helped by the then Shadow Home Secretary Tony Blair, who helped me whip sufficient support from MPs across the parties, enabling my amendment to win by 254 votes to 141.

The particular reason that the experience of the gay community needs addressing and memorialising is that it suffered, as we all did, from death and injury through killings, bombings and shootings by illegal organisations. But it then, separately, had to face those organisations that brought further death and destruction specifically to the gay community. That occurred even after the 1995 ceasefires. Various people were killed, such as the police officer murdered by INLA in 1997 and the Reverend David Templeton murdered by the UVF in 1997. There was a series of bombings of gay venues over 30 years by the IRA and loyalist paramilitaries, and the murders of gay men, often picked off the street, especially in the darkest days of the 1970s. I note, for the record, that Strasbourg is not calling for reinvestigations into any of these cases.

Academic research can provide not just a record of those events but a valuable analysis of how life amid death was experienced. I really hope that the Minister has thought about this since Committee and will look favourably on the matter and provide more reassurance than when he said in Committee:

“The provisions of the Bill as drafted would not preclude relevant research into LGBT experiences”.—[Official Report, 11/5/23; col. 1993.]

I am afraid that inclusion of such research is needed, not a lack of precluding such research. Indeed, if the Northern Ireland Office is requiring in draft regulations, as it is this month, that our schools update their teaching on sexuality, it would seem very strange that it cannot allow this to happen and be put into this Bill.

I said earlier that I was involved with whipping back in the 1994 amendment. I would like to press this vote today if the Minister does not accept it, but I have not actually got round to the whipping and asked anyone to join me. I will wait to hear how the Minister responds before deciding whether to press the vote.

My Lords, within any democracy it is healthy and appropriate that people have a battle of ideas and their own thoughts and opinions. People are perfectly entitled to their own allegiances and opinions. What people are not entitled to is their own truths and their own facts. Sadly, when it comes to the Northern Ireland Troubles, we have seen a perverse and dangerous attempt to rewrite history to pervert the truth and the facts of what happened. In the spirit of ensuring that facts remain, let me highlight four universal facts and truths that I believe everyone in this House could unite around.

First, terrorism was and is wrong. There was never an excuse for terrorism, be it republican or loyalist—I treat both the same. There was never, ever any excuse for violence. Secondly, it therefore flows that memorialisation of that terrorism in present-day circumstances is equally wrong. Whether it is a shrine, a commemoration or the perversity of the equivalent of bouncy castles for a family fun day to commemorate those who carried out the most heinous acts within our society—again, irrespective of the source—that is fundamentally wrong.

Thirdly, we need to nail the lie that there was no alternative to violence. There are many within this Chamber, from all sections of our community, who put their head above the parapet, stood for election in Northern Ireland and used democracy to pursue often competing aims. There was always democracy within Northern Ireland; there was always the opportunity for democratic arguments to be moved forward.

Fourthly, as highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, there was never a democratic mandate for violence. Violence was never the Majority opinion within unionism, it was never the majority opinion within nationalism, and it was never the majority opinion among those who did not identify with either. Similarly, for those who would pursue a particular Irish republican view on it, it was never a majority opinion within any section of the island, north or south.

It is upon those fundamental truths of history and the present-day situation that we must rest where we are. Any attempt to unpick those truths—and the memorialisation of terrorism goes to the heart of that—is deeply dangerous.

Unlike others in this House perhaps, although my entire childhood and much of my adult life was lived through the Troubles, I did not have any personal examples of suffering at the hands of the Troubles directly. I was very fortunate. There was never an attempt on my life or the life of a close family member. I did not lose anybody. There are others in this House who bear much greater burdens than that, and beyond. I cannot even place myself in the shoes of those innocent victims and their families, who suffered at the heart of terrorism throughout the Troubles. It is right that we commemorate innocent victims of the past, and it besmirches their name to create a level of equivalence between them and those who carried out violence. The commemoration and memorialisation, from whatever side, of those who committed those heinous crimes is deeply injurious to the memories of those victims.

This is partly about the past; it is also about the present. For those relatives to have to suffer commemoration and potential memorialisation of those who inflicted that on their families is wholly unacceptable. Even if those were the only reasons, we should be rejecting the idea of memorialisation of terrorism, but it is also, pertinently, about the future. We have seen too many examples of late of the glorification of terrorism resonating among wider society, particularly among younger people who have no collective memory of what happened in the past, be that from circumstances in which there is chanting for terrorist organisations to a recent situation which is not just anecdotal but can be looked up on social media—when the police came to arrest a suspect in relation to the attempted murder of the police officer in Omagh, the suspect was cheered by people within that neighbourhood.

It is deeply worrying that, even today, we see dissident republicans putting up posters against the PSNI and making threats against recruitment of the police and the Prison Service. That rightly drew the ire of political parties, and a joint letter condemning that was signed by four of the five major parties in Northern Ireland—my party, the Ulster Unionist Party, the Alliance Party and the SDLP. Shamefully, to date no representative of Sinn Féin has signed that letter condemning those activities. That is deeply unacceptable. A situation in which hatred and violence are stoked up by a glorification of a violent terrorist past is deeply worrying because it runs the risk of dragging young people into repeating that evil. That is why memorialisation is not simply about the issue of the past or the present but about what future Northern Ireland has.

I await the remarks of the Minister and know that the Government will say that they have no intention of allowing memorialisation. I am sure that is their intention, but in terms of this legislation and why we have put down these amendments we must, as a House and a legislature, be absolutely clear that memorialisation of terrorism in any shape or form is to be prevented. If that means that we have to go the extra mile and put the belt and braces on, beyond what is there at present, let us not be afraid of doing so. Let us ensure that the evils of the past are not repeated in the present or the future.

My Lords, I intervene not as an Irish person but as someone who comes from another Celtic country, which has found another way of dealing with potential and actual terrorism, and that is called political democracy. It has been a terrible thing that, throughout so much of modern Irish history, the tendency has been to equate democratic practices and human rights with one side and not with another.

I was much minded by the wonderful speech of a great man, Arthur Griffith, in passing the Irish Free State treaty of 1922. There did not seem to him to be a living Ireland. There was the “dead past” and the “prophetic future”, both of which were shrouded in unreality, even though the reality was the terrible atrocities of which we have heard.

With deep respect and sympathy for colleagues from Northern Ireland, I would say that we ought not to equate terrorism with one set of values, very commonly the nationalist set of values. We should seek a democratic political solution, as we have in Wales and, with certain difficulties that we are all aware of, in Scotland. In my view, it would be truer to the aspirations of the one-time leader of Sinn Féin, Arthur Griffith, if one conducted affairs in that peaceful, tolerant and open-minded way.

My Lords, this part of the Bill, providing for history and memorialisation, is about creating as true and honest an account as is possible of what happened during our tortured, troubled past, an account which must have integrity.

It is right that no memorialisation activities glorify the commission or preparation-of Troubles-related offences. Yet every day as I drive around Northern Ireland at this time of year, I see the flags erected—the flags which tell me that, as a Catholic, I am not welcome. In today’s Irish News we have an article about one of the Shankill butchers, a gang which went around killing Catholics simply because they were Catholics. This man served life. He is pictured erecting UVF flags commemorating the activities of the organisation to which he belonged.

Terrorism occurred right across our community. It occurred and was perpetrated by members of illegal organisations such as the UVF, the UDA, the IRA et cetera. However, there were also members of the security forces—both the police and the army—who engaged with those groups. We cannot deny this; it has been proved. Most police officers served with honour. Most acted to protect us, as they acted to protect my family one night, when we were under attack, but that was not always the case. There were those who did such terribly wrong things. I think about the Glenanne gang, who for years terrorised south Armagh, killing some 127 Catholics. This is the subject of the present Operation Denton review.

Just a mile down the road from where I live was a young Catholic man who ran a little shop. One night, at two o’clock in the morning, two men came to the door, knocked, and said, “We have a sick child: we need medicine”. The shopkeeper, William Strathearn, got up. His wife and children were sleeping upstairs. He went down, opened the door, and was murdered. The two people who were convicted of his murder were serving members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

So it ran from the earliest days of the Troubles, and ran right through after the Good Friday agreement. I think of my own work investigating the UVF in north Belfast. The UVF murdered Catholics until 1994 and then, once the IRA declared a ceasefire, went on to murder indiscriminately both Catholics and Protestants.

Regrettably, we still see, at regular intervals, events from different sections of the community which glorify individuals who contributed to atrocities and occasions which cause immense pain to so many of us, but particularly to those whose loved ones died or were permanently maimed in the attack being celebrated. Those events cause great pain. They reignite the terrors and agonies of the post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by so many as a consequence of these events. There is no justification whatever for the glorification of terrorism.

The fact remains that, apart from all those who died and were maimed in the Troubles, so many families lived in terror and fear. I remember watching my husband driving out every day with our five sons in the car, and every day I prayed that there would not be a bomb under our car. He was a serving member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party—the party of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie—and for years we lived with terror because of that, and because of my role as police ombudsman. I have no difficulty in supporting any measure which can prevent the glorification of terrorism.

I find myself unable to support Amendment 118A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Godson. It requires that within three and a half years, a definitive public history of the Troubles, commissioned by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, should be completed. I have a number of difficulties with this proposal. Until the work of the ICRIR is completed, it will be a work in progress in establishing, as far as possible, what happened during the Troubles. Therefore, to attempt to write any history of the Troubles would be premature. To attempt to write an official history of the Troubles while the representatives and organs of government are conducting reviews would definitely be premature. In addition to this, and as Sir Joe Pilling’s April 2009 report on the official history programme indicates, there would be minimum government requirements relating to access to papers and clearance of the draft report.

Our history has been the cause of so much Division. For the state to commission a history of the Troubles would immediately arouse suspicion in some parts of the community. People have watched over the years as those with control over materials relating to the Troubles have done all they can to ensure that, in respect of so many critical incidents, the truth has not emerged because of the refusal to disclose the relevant documents, until case after case has been the subject of judicial review and judges’ and coroners’ orders. This has happened from the Bloody Sunday Widgery report in 1971 right through to, most recently, the findings of the inquest in relation to the Ballymurphy shootings. No matter how noble and well-intentioned any historian designated to do this work might be, in Northern Ireland there would be suspicions and assumptions that such a history would not be free from bias. It would be most unlikely to secure public confidence.

One of the things I learned when I investigated police collusion with the UVF was that the loyalist and Protestant community felt very betrayed by the activities of those members of the security forces who colluded with loyalist paramilitary organisations. To impose a duty on the Secretary of State to commission such a history would be to introduce further cause for concern, suspicion and dissension in the communities in Northern Ireland. It would be better that history, in so far as it can be established, should be established by derivation from the findings of inquests, civil actions and criminal prosecutions.

As Maya Angelou said:

“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again”.

That is why this Bill is so misconceived: normal processes under the rule of law are to be abandoned, despite the objections of all the political parties, victims and the people of Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State’s power is woven throughout the new procedures in a way which means that, notwithstanding the integrity of any individual involved, all that will happen if there is an attempt to commission such a history is that it will divide, rather than create reconciliation. We cannot afford further community tensions, such as would emerge in attempts to write an official history of the Troubles.

My Lords, I have frequently felt moved to speak in this House about the suffering that has been endured across Northern Ireland and which is obviously the centre of the approach of this legislation. However, we have also had occasions to be reminded that so little of our society finds, in this proposed legislation, anything that they can have confidence in.

On one occasion in Committee, I centred on the use of the word “reconciliation” in the title of the Bill. The speeches we have heard tonight come from the heart of people who have intimate knowledge of what they are talking about—people who have carried, and through their families have carried, scars over the years. For myself, there are numerous occasions upon which I have tried to bring comfort and reconciliation, in ordinary terms, to people. In the rawness of what we have heard tonight, this is really taking us now to the centre. We are not dealing with the niceties of this legislation. We are being reminded that the rawness of the suffering of ordinary people has brought us to this point.

I have no hesitation in saying that I have total dismay when I look at this legislation. So much could have been achieved. So much was expected, when we were told it was coming, and so little has been achieved, in what we have listened to and discussed. Now we are talking about how future generations will be told about our Troubles. We are told of the need to have an official history. My heavens, do we understand the first fact of what we are talking about when we refer to an “official history” of the Troubles? I venture to suggest it is an impossibility. The history of the Troubles is the photograph on the mantelpiece; the insertion on an anniversary; the plaque on a wall of the church, or a memorial window. The history of the Troubles is when a mother says, “Please, let me know the truth, before I die, of what happened”. And we turn around and produce ways of limiting inquiries, investigations, and questioning—not in the purely legal sense, but in the sense in which normal suffering people are crying out for answers. We have fallen so far short in this legislation of doing that.

I do not want to add to the agony that we have listened to this evening, but I would be failing all I have tried to stand for and what I have tried to achieve over my adult life if I did not say these things at this point. I say to the Minister that I have the utmost respect and admiration for the way in which he has tried to grapple over the months of discussions and analysis that have gone into our proceedings. I have nothing but admiration for him as a person, but I also recognise that he is trapped. He is trapped because the purpose of this legislation was to try to draw a line at last under the agony of Northern Ireland—to say at last, “That’s it; we can say it’s over. It will be wonderful; we’ve got this legislation. It deals with ABCD and it even proposes an official history of the Troubles of Northern Ireland”.

When I meet, as I still do, widows or children then, who are now adults, who will never see their father come home again—either because he wore a uniform or because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time as a civilian—whether they were Roman Catholic or Protestant, it does not matter; it is irrelevant, because the raw truth of the Troubles is that it was evil. It was the failure of society to grapple with its own past that allowed these things to happen.

I am not going to give a sermon but I will say that I have seen faith, courage and strength over the years which are truly remarkable, and I have seen the depths to which others have sunk. So, at this stage, as I wait to hear the response of the Minister once more to what he has had to listen to on the Floor of the House, my plea is simply this: let us be realistic, let us be honest and, when we talk about such things as the official history of all this agony, let us recognise what in fact we are asking for. The memory that I believe Northern Ireland society needs more than any other memory at the moment is the recognition of the human suffering of so many.

My Lords, I did not intend to contribute to this debate, but sitting here listening to some of the speeches, not least the wonderful remarks we have just heard, reminded me of what I think was the most difficult period of my life, when I was responsible for the committee that, after the Good Friday agreement, reorganised the police service in Northern Ireland. With my colleagues—people such as the late Maurice Hayes, Peter Smith and others—we thought we needed to have public meetings around Northern Ireland. When we suggested this, people said, “But nobody’ll come, nobody goes to public meetings now”. But come they did; to 40 meetings, probably 40,000 people came, and each of those meetings was a reminder not just of exactly what has just been said, the horror of the violence, but of the intimacy of the violence.

I think people who have not lived or been very much to Northern Ireland simply never comprehend how awful the intimacy of that violence is. I remember one evening having a public meeting in a rather raw little town in Northern Ireland—I had better not mention which one—and it was pretty difficult. A terrorist from the borders, Slab Murphy, had come down with some of his colleagues and we were quite worried that there would be violence. I undertook all those public meetings without police protection because you could not examine the record of the police and have yourself guarded by policemen. We got out of the meeting in one piece—I think it was Maurice Hayes and myself—largely because of the extremely sensitive and sensible chairmanship of a solicitor who had made her reputation invariably defending republicans who were accused of violence.

From Portadown we then went to a meeting in Craigavon and the first three questions I had were from the widows of police officers. The man accused in the case of the husband of the last of these had been got off on a technicality in his trial, with the solicitor working for him being the same woman who had kept the peace in the meeting I had just come from.

I think going through all those horror stories, trying to be objective and balance one bit of horror against another, is a less than useful idea. I think I am right in saying that it was the episcopal father of Louis MacNeice who said in a famous sermon words to the effect that we should remember the past the better to forget it. Northern Ireland remembers the past too much and does not spend enough time building a better present and a better future, even today; even today that is the situation.

The very last public meeting that we had in Northern Ireland was in a little fishing village. It was a difficult meeting; three of us were sat up on a stage like that in “Cinema Paradiso”, and, as the meeting went on and on, the thought of getting back to Hillsborough for a glass of whiskey became more and more enticing. Eventually, we brought the meeting to a close and got up ready to leave, and I made a little speech about reconciliation, healing and hope. A little lady at the back of the room stood up and said, “Mr Patten, before you go off, before you go back to London, before you make any more speeches about reconciliation, healing and hope, and all of us getting on with one another, I would like you to know that this man here”—and she put a hand on the shoulder of the man in front of her—“killed my son”. It was true. He had been one of those let out as part of the Good Friday agreement. We forget sometimes, standing in a queue in Morrisons, how it would be seeing in the next queue somebody who killed your uncle or tried to kill you. I have never believed that you actually deal with that problem by going over again and again who was right and who was wrong about that particular barbarity—the sort of barbarity that was mentioned earlier.

The best book I have read on Northern Ireland was Seamus Mallon’s memoir. I think Seamus Mallon is one of the great, largely unsung heroes of the attempt to produce decency in Northern Ireland. I recall from that extraordinary book how he went again and again to the funeral or wake of anybody in his Constituency who had been killed. It was difficult. Sometimes he had a problem getting out without being beaten up by people who did not want to see him there because he was from the wrong side. On one occasion, he is at a wake and they do not want him there. He is helped to leave safely through the Intervention of a man who is a part-time—a reservist—police officer. Two days later, on his way to the pharmacy in the local village, Seamus sees the same man gunned down by republicans. Seamus has to spend the man’s last moments with him, under a lorry leaking animal urine, as they lie there saying the Lord’s Prayer.

As I say, I do not see how you deal with those sorts of memories by going through the catalogue of who did what to whom and whether one horror was greater than another. I think it is the case that good sermons are likely to make more of an impact than endless historical reconstruction.

When it comes to that, I will say what I have never said before: I am not sure that the Church of which I am a member has been wise in the view that it has taken over the years about segregated education. If we want kids to learn the sort of history that we would like them to, you do not slant it and insist that, in order to listen to your version, they must go to one of your schools otherwise they cannot get confirmed, which was the situation when I was a Minister in Northern Ireland for years.

I had not meant to say any of this. When it comes to history, however brilliant the historians and however balanced they try to be, we have difficulty even in producing official histories of our relationship with the EU, so producing a balanced history of what has happened in Northern Ireland would be very difficult. We should try to understand what has happened, of course, but—I sound like a bishop now—we should build on the decencies that have ensured that, despite all the trouble and the extremism, Northern Ireland still exists as, in many respects, a thoroughly decent community.

The people who I remember when I look back are the heroes. Some of the civil servants and public servants that I had, people such as Norman Dugdale and Maurice Hayes, were great human beings who gave their lives to the attempt to produce decency, prosperity and peace in Northern Ireland. But, please—no official history.

This has been a powerful debate in many ways. I suppose it should be, bearing in mind what has happened in Northern Ireland over 40 years. This part of the Bill was meant to be the easy bit but it is not; as noble Lords have heard over the past hour or so, it is possibly even more difficult than the rest of this legislation.

I remember vividly going to Northern Ireland to help chair the talks on the Good Friday agreement, back in 1997. About 10 months in, I was chairing strand 1 of the talks and I had had enough of history by then. I told the people at the talks that I had spent 17 years of my life before I became an MP teaching history but had had enough of it, 10 months into the talks. I suddenly realised that it was a bit daft to say that because the people in those talks were revealing their past in a very special way. Looking back, I can see that there were not just one or two but even more versions of the same history, in exactly the same place, and we have heard a bit about that in today’s debate. That is not easy.

The noble Lord, Lord Patten, mentioned the word “intimacy”. In all the contributions that we have heard—for example, from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames—it is about individual human beings and what they have suffered. It struck me within days when I went to Northern Ireland that every single family I met had a story to tell, and usually a terrible story about someone being killed or injured. When you look at the figures of 3,500 people killed over 30 years in a very small place, and perhaps 50,000 injured, you realise how tremendously difficult it was.

They sent me to South Africa some years later to see the South African peace and reconciliation process. I quickly came to the conclusion that that was not going to work in Northern Ireland. South Africa is a huge continent of a country; Northern Ireland is a place with just over 1.5 million people, where everyone knows everyone else. As a consequence, we have to look at these issues differently. I do not think for one second that we should not try to tackle them, but neither should we pretend that it is easy. Frankly, I am not sure that legislation is the answer. Yes, we should remember and perhaps we should memorialise, but we should never memorialise violence, death, misery and mayhem; that is terrible and you can never justify it. You can perhaps understand why people do it but never justify it.

I look forward to what the Minister has to say. Everything in the Bill, all the time, should be underpinned by reconciliation. Whatever happens regarding memorialisation and history telling, that ultimately should be the final aim.

My Lords, I am grateful as always to those who have contributed to this debate, which was lengthier than some of us had perhaps anticipated. We went over many of these issues extensively in Committee only a few weeks ago. I will therefore try to be as brief as possible and address my remarks in large part to the amendments.

Obviously I am aware that there have been a number of powerful and deeply moving contributions today that reflect the experiences of individual Members of your Lordships’ House who have suffered at the hands of terrorism and violence in Northern Ireland over many decades. I refer in particular to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, who shared some of her personal experiences. The House cannot fail to be moved by some of the remarks and reflections, including also those of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, that we have heard today.

As I have said many times, we are never going to agree on a common narrative about the past in Northern Ireland, but we can seek to put in place structures that will help all in society, including future generations, to have a better understanding of the past, with the overarching aim of enabling people in Northern Ireland to move forward, on which I agree wholeheartedly with the comments of my noble friend Lord Patten of Barnes.

I turn first to the memorialisation strategy, which will seek to build consensus around new structures and initiatives to commemorate those lost during the Troubles and to seek to ensure that the lessons of the past are not forgotten. The noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, highlighted with his Amendments 114A and 114B that this objective would be fundamentally compromised if it allowed for the glorification of acts of terrorism. I am on record many times in this House as saying that politically-motivated violence on all sides, whether republican or loyalist, was never justified in Northern Ireland, and I agree completely with the words of the noble Lords, Lord Dodds, Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown and Lord Weir of Ballyholme, and others on that. The Government will never accept any suggestion that there was, to use the quote, “no alternative”, which is peddled by those with a political motivation to rewrite history in order to denigrate the actions of the state along with the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Armed Forces.

I take on board some of the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan. There are of course examples where members of the security forces have fallen short of the highest standards, but I maintain that the vast Majority of those who served in Northern Ireland did so with great courage, professionalism and integrity, while defending democracy and the rule of law. Without their service and sacrifice, there would have been no peace process; we owe them an enormous debt of gratitude. The noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, can be assured that this Government will never accept any moral equivalence between those who defended democracy and the rule of law and those who sought to destroy both.

Having listened to the strength of feeling on this issue, the Government have tabled an Amendment to Clause 48, adding an overarching duty that would require the designated persons to have regard to the need to promote

“reconciliation … anti-sectarianism, and … non-recurrence of political and sectarian hostility”.

In the Government’s view, this goes further than the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, in that the overarching duty would apply to all the measures in Part 4, not only to the memorialisation strategy set out in Clause 44. Any attempt to glorify terrorism, or to revise or rewrite history in ways that justify it, would be fundamentally incompatible with this new overarching duty. Non-recurrence speaks to the avoidance of future political violence, which necessarily includes ensuring that no memorialisation activities glorify the commission or preparation of Troubles-related offences. The Government will also ensure that this understanding is reflected in any guidance documents or terms of reference.

Further amendments tabled by the Government commit the Secretary of State to consulting organisations with experience and expertise in promoting reconciliation and anti-sectarianism between communities in Northern Ireland before designating the delivery organisations and, crucially, before responding to each of the

“recommendations made in the memorialisation strategy”.

I hope that the Government’s amendments here address some of the noble Lord’s concerns around glorification, which I know are shared across the House, as has been so vividly set out this evening. Indeed, a core objective of the strategy, along with other measures in Part 4, is to confront the glorification of terrorism.

Amendments 117 and 118 are in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey. As I said during Committee, I fully support the sentiment behind these amendments, which seek to ensure that any Troubles-related academic research is suitably diverse and not, as the noble Baroness said, monopolised by a single view. But while she rightly highlighted that funding applications are assessed based on the past record of those applying, that is not the sole criterion used by research councils: for example, research impact, value for money and public engagement are a few of the other criteria used. As such, the wording of this amendment would have little practical effect. Going further, Clause 48 specifically requires that the designated persons, in delivering this work, ensure that a variety of views of the Troubles are taken into account. However, I take on board the noble Baroness’s comments about even-handedness.

On Amendment 118, as I said in Committee, nothing in the provisions of the Bill would preclude research into LGBT experiences during the Troubles, should the academic community feel that there is a particular need. I am sure noble Lords will agree that if we were to debate the inclusion of every theme relating to the Troubles, or themes which occurred during the same period, we would be here for a very long time.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, referred to the clauses that deal with the role of women. There are international precedents and standards affirming the important role of women in the resolution of conflicts, in peace negotiations and in reconstruction. I visited an exhibition dealing with those issues at Ulster Museum only a couple of weeks ago. I would therefore respectfully maintain our position that these amendments are not required, but I am grateful to the noble Baroness, along with Jeff Dudgeon and the Malone House Group in Northern Ireland, for their ongoing constructive engagement on these matters. I think the noble Baroness will be aware that I had a useful meeting with the Malone House Group in the last two weeks.

Touching briefly on the advisory forum under Clause 49, I think noble Lords are understandably concerned with ensuring that the advisory panel overseeing the measures in Part 4 is not politically biased in its composition. As I said in Committee, I respectfully suggest that this amendment is not expressly necessary. Clause 49(2)(b) already states that, in establishing an advisory forum, due regard must be given to the need for the forum to have a balance in terms of members who are associated with different parts of the community in Northern Ireland—“different communities” being defined in the Bill as those which have differing views on the constitutional status of Northern Ireland.

Lastly, Amendment 118A in the name of my noble friend Lord Godson would enshrine in legislation the Government’s commitment to commissioning an independent public history relating to the Troubles. The term used throughout the debate this evening was “an official history”; the updated term, following the Pilling review, is a “public history”. Noble Lords will recall the fairly recent debate on this amendment during Committee, when noble Lords had an opportunity to discuss these proposals. From those who contributed on that occasion, there was certainly support in Committee for this project in principle.

It is clear that the main practical concern is around the extent to which the Government’s official history programme, which has been in hiatus since 2008, is a suitable delivery vehicle for a historical project of this scale and importance. Let me therefore clarify to noble Lords that, while this project would be akin to the official history programme for the purpose of using long-standing protocols to grant the necessary access to archival material, it will be driven forward separately by the Northern Ireland Office, consistent with subsection (5) of my noble friend’s proposed new clause.

I turn briefly to the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames—whom I have always listened to with huge admiration and respect, even when we may occasionally disagree slightly—and my noble friend Lord Patten of Barnes. It was in recognition of some of the difficulties that all three of them raised in their comments that the former Secretary of State specified in moving this project forward that, in keeping with previous official histories commissioned by the Government, this official history would focus primarily on the UK Government’s policy towards Northern Ireland during the Troubles, rather than attempting to write a general history of the Troubles themselves.

Returning to my noble friend Lord Godson’s amendment, in respect of funding, I can confirm that the project will be fully funded from the £250 million pot that the Government set aside for the establishment of legacy mechanisms as part of the Stormont House and New Decade, New Approach agreements. Having written to my noble friend, I hope that the update and clarifications have gone some way to providing assurances on the concerns which may have prompted his amendment, and otherwise demonstrated the seriousness with which the Government are approaching this endeavour, so I would respectfully suggest that he does not press his amendment. I am of course happy to engage with him further in advance of Third Reading, recognising his strong interest in this matter and his expert advice, which I warmly welcome.

On that basis, I urge noble Lords to withdraw or not to press these amendments.

My Lords, I will be happy not to press my Amendment.

My Lords, this has been a very powerful debate, with powerful contributions from all sides of your Lordships’ House. What is clear from everyone who has spoken is the recognition that all terrorism, from whatever side it comes, is wrong. It is not a question of pitting one atrocity against another or of identifying terrorism with one community. I remember that, during the Troubles, some of the most powerful voices against republican terrorism were in the nationalist community. There were people such as John Hume, who spoke out against terrorism relentlessly. Sadly, what is happening today in Northern Ireland is that that history is being rewritten and there is a revision of the past.

Now the main party representing nationalists and republicans in Northern Ireland goes out of its way to eulogise terrorism. That is why this issue is so important and why, when we put provisions into legislation, we must get them right. We must not allow that warped, perverse narrative to gain ground for the sake of future generations: so that they do not believe that somehow this activity resulted in progress, when it held Northern Ireland back in a terrible way, at the cost of thousands of lives, and heartbreak, for so many years.

I have listened to what the Minister said about the purpose of his amendments. We will obviously closely monitor this in the months and years ahead. I trust that what he says will come to fruition. Clearly, if it does not, we will have to return to these matters. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment 114A withdrawn.

Amendment 114B not moved.

Clause 45: Response to the memorialisation strategy