A spotlight has fallen once again on the prospect of Gerry Adams being given a government payout, following exchanges in Parliament between MPs and Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn.

The DUP leader Gavin Robinson has interpreted them as meaning that the government's position is Mr Adams will get "none" of the damages which he seeks over his internment during the 1970s.

The whole issue stems from a 2020 Supreme Court judgement on something called the Carltona Principle.

This was the long-standing custom that junior ministers could carry out the functions of senior ministers in their absence.

placeholder image — Gerry Adams had been put in line for a compensation payout from the government over his internment in the 1970s by a 2020 Supreme Court judgment (photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

It applies to the Adams case because the Northern Ireland Secretary of the day had not been the one to sign Mr Adams' internment order personally; rather, it was signed by one of his subordinates.

Therefore the Supreme Court found that Mr Adams' convictions for escaping detention had to be quashed because his detention had not been lawful to begin with.

Mr Benn had said when asked about the issue on Tuesday: "The main issue here is the application of the Carltona principle in the context of Interim Custody Orders.

"The previous government’s attempt to address this following the 2020 Supreme Court judgment in Adams [namely, the Legacy Act] has been found by the Northern Ireland courts to be unlawful, and we need to find a better way of reaffirming this principle.

"The government will therefore legislate to address this issue in forthcoming primary legislation."

He was then asked about it again in the Commons on today, to which the reply came: “I answered a parliamentary question yesterday in which I made it clear that we will deal with this issue, which arises because of the application of the Carltona principle in the Supreme Court judgment of 2020, which the last government could not sort out in two and a half years.

"We will deal with it in our forthcoming legislation, and I will keep the House updated."

Reacting, DUP leader Mr Robinson said: "I commend the Secretary of State for at least answering a question yesterday.

"Despite it being a day when the Labour government were prepared to take money out of the pockets of the most vulnerable, they at least had the courage to stand forward and say that Gerry Adams would get none, so I thank the Secretary of State for that."

Back on January 15, the Prime Minister Keir Starmer had said "we will look at every conceivable way to prevent these types of cases from claiming damages", but did not mention legislating about the Carltona principle specifically, which was at the heart of the 2020 Supreme Court judgment.

Policy Exchange, the conservative think-tank, today published a document setting out the options it believes are open to the government.

It argued that the Supreme Court did not in fact rule that the Legacy Act's attempt to ban claims over internment (Sections 46 and 47) were "unlawful".

Instead, it had ruled they were "incompatible" with a piece of human rights law – but this does not oblige the government to do anything about it.

Therefore, Policy Exchange argued, "the most straightforward, simple and perfectly lawful way for the government to ensure that Gerry Adams and others like him are not paid public money for their detention in the 1970s, and to reaffirm the Carltona principle, is to maintain sections 46 and 47 on the statute book without repealing them either in a remedial order or primary legislation".