Legacy Bill: Baroness Hoey warns of vast probes into the past that rewrite history and could cost a billion pounds

Baroness Hoey, a former Labour MP from Northern Ireland, warned fellow peers about the possibility of the controversial legislation creating a massive reinvestigation of the past.

If, she said, constraints were not added to the Legacy Bill, such as the need for “compelling new evidence”, then the planned Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) “will end up reinvestigating every one of the nearly 4,000 deaths”.

Baroness Hoey said: “This is where judicially-led inquiries go, especially when internationalised. If ICRIR, as suggested in the minister’s letter to peers of January 17, is obliged to act simply on allegations, that can be the only consequence.

“Legacy practitioners, a new force in Belfast – not the victims' relatives as the bill naively believes – using the concept of collusion, or ‘collusive behaviours’, the version relied on now by the police ombudsman, can design a case to investigate every death.”

In a hard-hitting speech that challenged many of the conventional wisdoms around legacy, Baroness Hoey added: “Collusion can be alleged in relation to all loyalist killings and, indeed all republican ones, by virtue of the use of security force agents in both paramilitary groups, let alone alleged investigatory failings that Strasbourg complains of.

“I have to refer to my second reading speech on the Overseas Operation Bill, almost exactly two years ago on January 20 2021. I said then, 'Let us not forget that the only cases now involving veterans are ones pending in Northern Ireland, which concern events of 50 years ago or more. For that reason, we need to get on with a Northern Ireland equivalent law'.

“Extending that act to cover Operation Banner would have dealt with the issue in hand, rather than this increasingly complex confection of ICRIR.

“No murder case in England would ever see this level of reinvestigation, and certainly not of funding. Have we learned no lessons from the Iraq historical allegations and solicitor Phil Shiner?”

Ms Hoey pointed out that 60% of Troubles deaths were caused by republicans, and 30% by loyalists: “The state – police officers and soldiers – was responsible for approximately 10% of the killings. Very few of those state killings were unlawful, as the force used was not unreasonable. But all the republican and loyalist murders were, most certainly, unlawful.”

She added: “Rewriting of history is about the complexity of the Troubles being distorted into a ... narrative of the IRA being a popular resistance force that had no alternative to killing.”

Also in the debate, the NIO minister Lord Caine said that ditching the legacy legislation risks at least a further five-year delay in tackling the past.

Urging ministers to “think again”, former deputy DUP leader Lord Dodds of Duncairn said: “I would appeal – listen to the victims.”

Lord Eames, the former archbishop of Armagh and primate of All Ireland, said: “I have never, never come across such widespread opposition to a proposal such as this. There are so many people in Northern Ireland who are going to be denied justice.”

Northern Ireland’s first police ombudsman Baroness O’Loan, who during a previous debate recalled losing her unborn baby after surviving an IRA bomb in 1977, said: “The government’s actions in bringing this bill and continuing to push the bill is doing very serious damage to our reputation as a country.”

DUP peer and former education minister in Northern Ireland Lord Weir of Ballyholme said: “The bill represents very clearly a denial of justice.”

Former SDLP leader Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick said: “They (the victims) feel this bill robs them of their opportunity to access justice, to access investigations and to access inquests, which they believe, quite rightly, is their right.”

Labour leader in the Lords Baroness Smith of Basildon said: “Our position remains the same. We do not support this bill. We share the desire there should be a process. We share the desire to move forward and deal with the issues, but I have to say we do not believe this bill is the case.”