My Lords, I rise to deal particularly with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and support, in as far as it goes, the good intentions of his amendment. I say “as far as it goes”, because I think the noble Lord himself would be the first to admit the limitations that can be brought forward at this stage of any amendment. There have been, throughout this process, as my noble friend Lord Dodds highlighted, from all sides of this Chamber, attempts to mitigate and ameliorate this Bill. I am glad that at least some of those have been successful, and I think we should acknowledge where improvements have been made. It is undoubtedly the case that, despite of all that, we are left with a Bill that is unsalvageable and insupportable and which perverts the course of justice to the detriment of victims.

Nevertheless, as a House, I think we are left with no alternative but to seize, where possible, any opportunity to make any improvements that we can, however small. I support in particular the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, because it seeks to put the rights of victims much closer to the heart of this Bill, irrespective of what community those victims come from, irrespective of whether they come from Northern Ireland or are external to Northern Ireland, and irrespective of what organisation has been responsible for making them victims. It is right that the ultimate focus should be on victims.

When dealing with Northern Ireland, there are two glib but dangerous lies that are often told. First, it is said that collectively there is guilt for what has happened —that we are, in some shape or form, all perpetrators. That is fundamentally wrong. The vast majority of people in Northern Ireland, from whatever community, were never involved in nor supported violence. They got on with their day-to-day lives. If there is acceptance of the idea that, in some way, there is a collective guilt, it gives credence to the notion that there was no alternative to violence. The vast majority of people in Northern Ireland pursued that alternative—the democratic alternative—and the violence was imposed by tiny minorities on both sides, and victims suffered as a result of it.

The second lie that is often told in Northern Ireland is that somehow collectively in our society we are all victims. There are many—indeed, there are some in this House—who have suffered that victimhood at first hand, and there are far too many victims in Northern Ireland, but we are not all victims. For my part, I was fortunate enough to grow up in as relative normality as I could. I was not a victim. I cannot and do not claim victimhood, which is one of the reasons why I am particularly disturbed by this legislation, because it seeks to impose on others a system that denies them their opportunities.

The principal reason why I was not a victim in Northern Ireland was because of the brave work of the men and women of our security forces in keeping us safe. I particularly want to highlight the brave women of the security forces, because they are sometimes forgotten. In particular, this month represents the 50th anniversary of the formation and first enlistment of the UDR Greenfinches. I think they were the first units in the British Army to serve alongside men on the front line. Four of the Greenfinches—Eva Martin, Jean Leggett, Ann Hearst and Heather Kerrigan—paid the ultimate sacrifice for protecting ordinary citizens like me against terrorism. That is a very good reason why we cannot throw justice out of the window.

The reality is that if we accept this Bill—I appreciate that, from the point of view of this House, there may be a limited amount that we can do—we accept the notion of a codification of the perversion of justice. It would take away victims’ right to have any prospect of justice. There will be those who say that, given the passage of time, it is unlikely that there will be many convictions in Northern Ireland. There are practical barriers to getting a conviction, but there is a fundamental difference between saying that and saying, “We are taking away your right or your opportunity to ever have justice”. That is something that I do not believe we are entitled to do. Indeed, we also would be saying to those victims, from whatever source they come, “Your relative, or you yourself, are a lesser person than others”, because we would be applying a different standard of justice than we apply in any other crime. We must acknowledge that what happened throughout the Troubles was a crime.

It is worse than that, because not only are we throwing away the concept of justice and besmirching victims, but there is not even any countervailing benefit on the other side. In opposing the Motion from the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, the Minister said in his opening remarks, “Of course, if this was to be accepted, it would effectively kill off the benefits of the system and we would not have this information flowing”. I say with deep regret—it is something that they can still rectify—that if the Irish Government, who are refusing to have an inquiry into Omagh and, despite countless attempts from the victims’ families, have still not provided all the information that they hold on, for example, the Kingsmill massacre, are not providing that flow of information, what chance is there of the paramilitary organisations opening up their books to say, “Here is what happened in the past”? We are perverting the course of justice to sell fool’s gold to people, because if we are raising any level of expectation among families, and if we seriously believe, that they will get the answers and details as to why their relatives were killed by terrorist organisations, we are living in a fool’s paradise. The reality is that we will have traded in justice for no material benefit whatever. That is why the Bill is fundamentally flawed, but why there is at least a step of mitigation in the Motion from the noble Lord, Lord Murphy.