Troubles pension: Cross party pressure on government in House of Lords

UUP peer Lord Empey asked government minister Viscount Younger what is being done to ensure payments are made to victims as part of the long delayed pension.

He noted that Westminster had passed the legislation to ensure that victims are paid and asked Viscount Younger to assure the House that “these pensions will be paid in the next financial year; that applications will be accepted in March; and that this nonsense will come to an end before more people are traumatised?”

Former Secretary of State Lord Hain warned that if government refuses to “seriously” engage on the issue, the scheme could be “stillborn” and cast “a toxic cloud” over any future legacy efforts.

The DUP’s Lord Dodds added that victims’ uncertainty must be removed “as soon as possible”.

Noting that his party and the UK government had excluded perpetrators from eligibility, he added that many people across the UK would be eligible for payments, not just in NI. He pressed the government on whether it therefore agreed that it has “a national duty in relation to its financing because of the recipients, who are likely to be in receipt of benefits and pensions?”

Another former Secretary of State, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, asked for the Secretary of State to personally deal with the finance problem and to meet the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister.

But Viscount Younger said it was always clear that funding the scheme was a devolved matter for Stormont, using the annual block grant, £14.1bn this year, but that an additional £918m would be made available for the scheme.

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