Claire Hanna MP: speeches

Speeches

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  The Social Democratic and Labour party welcomes this remedial order, which goes some way to restoring the rule of law to legacy processes and in turn to the present day. The introduction by the previous Government of an amnesty and the closure of processes was the very definition of the phrase, “Justice delayed is justice denied”. This order is specifically about the troubles legacy Bill, but across these islands—in every jurisdiction, every day—we can see evidence of cases where wrongs were not properly addressed at the time. We now see the hurt and the damage compounded by delay, whether it is Hillsborough, infected blood, the Post Office scandal or the Magdalene laundries. There will not be a Member of this House who cannot speak to an experience in their own constituency. My ask is simply that Members think about my constituents and people across Northern Ireland in the same way. It is not about who won. I have to bite my tongue quite a lot in this House, and particularly today. The people who are waiting to access some of these processes—none of them have won. All of them have lost members of their family. It is not about people being able to draw a line under the past because MPs in London have told them to. MPs have called them IRA sympathisers. The previous legislation, which this order undoes, was not about reconciliation or truth. The word “reconciliation” appeared in the title of the Bill and nowhere else. The Bill was about closing down truth and ensuring that republican and loyalist paramilitaries would again have their crimes retrospectively legalised. It was not just a free pass for paramilitaries, and I am not here to write a reference for any of them. Tens of thousands of them did at least go through the justice system, but these provisions and amnesties extended to the darkest corners—yes, of the security services, but also to those who directed the terrorism and who played God with people’s lives, and who should of course be held to the law. The Conservatives justified their approach with the fiction that nothing is working, but inquests have worked. They were belated, yes, because there was a failure to address the crimes at the time or to fund the system. Those inquests have been complex and expensive, but that is because of the layers of veto and information suppression that have been applied by those with the most to hide. Those inquiries have also exposed truth and corrected false narratives. I think of the Ballymurphy families; the Parachute Regiment, just five months before they went on to kill in Bloody Sunday, opened fire on innocent civilians, falsely labelling them as armed threats. The 2021 inquest freed those families—freed people who had grown up with a lifetime of being told that their mother, their father or their parish priest was a gunman, when it was entirely obvious that that was not true. They finally got accountability from a regiment that operated without it. False narratives have been used by the security forces, by the IRA and by republican and loyalist terrorists to impugn and to add grievous insult to injury for so many victims. I also think of the Kingsmill massacre; an inquest less than two years ago rightly concluded that that was a sectarian attack, where 10 Protestant workmen were murdered in an act of ethnic cleansing by the IRA. That was carried out by people who claimed the legacy of James Connolly while shooting dead the very people who he would have stood alongside. When people say that it is IRA sympathisers who benefit from these inquests, it is such an insult to decent and non-sectarian people like Alan Black. I particularly welcome the ending of the immunity scheme. We have had the Good Friday agreement and the bitter pills to swallow in that, and Eames-Bradley and Haass-O’Sullivan and the on-the-run letters, and all the other processes that have put the needs of victim makers ahead of victims. This legislation turns that around. However, it is just the beginning: we have to get the processes right if we are to escape the shackles of the past and create a space that is for truth, accountability and remembrance. This has to be rooted in the future as much as it is in the past, but also in human rights compliance, truth and justice. Today I again urge the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, where concerns exist about disclosure, ECHR compatibility and judicial independence, to ensure that we face down those vested interests, in or out of uniform, and show Britain as a democracy that upholds laws and rights. Dealing with legacy will not be confined to the remedial order, the troubles Bill or the joint framework. As Members on both sides of the House know, it shapes our politics, our policing, how communities relate to each other, and how we can best deliver a shared future. We cannot afford another missed opportunity. The answers will not all be found in this order, or in the legislation that is to come. We have never needed a complex legal process for people to acknowledge what they did: for the IRA to acknowledge that they used human lives, nearly 2,000 of them, as collateral damage; for loyalists to acknowledge that their war was with innocent Catholics; and for the UK security forces to acknowledge that their soldiers did not always uphold the law. I can stand here and acknowledge that so many did serve decently—did try to serve decently. I can stand here and acknowledge the pride that many Members feel in the service given by them and by their loved ones. However, I hope that others can acknowledge that that was not the experience that everyone in Northern Ireland had. Three hundred thousand soldiers served in Operation Banner, and fewer than two dozen of them have ever faced judicial proceedings. We have wasted a lot of the time of victims’ families, and we have wasted money as well. It is time to move forward. The Bill is the start of that, and I ask Members to approach it in that framework and with respect for the dignity of all the people who lost their lives in Northern Ireland.

• 13 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Political Institutions: Reform · Hansard source

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  Clearly, we are a more pluralist society. I am unashamedly a new Irelander, and that is an important part of my identity. That is a factor in our politics, as is the legitimate position of Unionists, so we cannot wish it away. We cannot say, “I don’t see colour or designation,” but for so many of us it is clearly not the primary identifier. Many of the reforms can take effect even without going into what, as I said, my colleague called the “ugly scaffolding”. The proposals we are making are keyhole surgery. They are not a lobotomy or amputation; they do not fundamentally undermine the principles of power sharing. I remind hon. Members that of course the agreement is not an ornament to sit on the mantelpiece; it is not a relic. It is a toolkit, and it envisaged change. It has been changed on the Floor of the Assembly, and it allows for that. We want to put down some modest proposals, some of which I have advanced through the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and its excellent 2023 report on the existence of an Assembly. We propose the election of a Speaker by a two-thirds majority. Two thirds exists elsewhere in the agreement, for example in the threshold for calling an election, and I do not think anybody could say that the election of a Speaker oppresses or suppresses any community. Mike Nesbitt of the Ulster Unionist party and Patsy McGlone of the SDLP both achieved that threshold during the stalemates. That would allow an Assembly to exist, even if an Executive does not. On Executive formation, we would call, first, to rename the joint office of the First Minister, reflecting the fact that one of those Ministers cannot order paperclips without the other, and restoring the intent and joint nature of that office. Ideally, we would then move on to the reforms that the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann) suggested around St Andrews.

• 13 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Political Institutions: Reform · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I confess that I have not been in Westminster Hall for a while; I was watching the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) to see exactly when I should stand up. I thank the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) for securing the debate, which is an important part of the conversation as the case for modest Assembly reform builds. The Social Democratic and Labour party has been working quite intensively to find common ground and take this conversation beyond campaigning and graphics and into the realm of the possible. I welcome the indications from the Prime Minister last week, when I asked him at Prime Minister’s questions, that the UK Government are freshly open to engagement. There had been a fairly hands-off approach. I restate the SDLP’s frustration that the Executive parties have made not a single step towards reform. In spite of election campaigning, there is nothing in the programme for government. I welcome the Assembly’s acceptance of an SDLP proposal to take some of this issue on through the Assembly and Executive Review Committee, but if anybody wants to see an example of an issue being slow-walked, it is that committee’s discussion and inquiry over the past year. As with the agreement that created the institutions, we accept that parties are approaching this issue from different places and at different paces. As with that agreement, it is also clear that we will not come to a conclusion without some sort of facilitation. I will not spend much time on the need for reform: the periodic collapses, the quagmire and stalemate on public policy, the daily draining away of public confidence, this week’s failure to agree a multi-year budget and the feedback from Baroness Hallett in the covid inquiry last week all ably make the case, as did the hon. Member for Lagan Valley. The flaws are by culture and by design. There is much recrimination about some of what is in the agreement, but hon. Members need to be reminded that we were trying to end a hot war and resolve a centuries-old conflict, which the agreement very largely did, in spite of what my colleague Mark Durkan memorably called the “ugly scaffolding”.

• 13 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Political Institutions: Reform · Hansard source

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  Bluntly, my view is that the agreement is trying to salve, resolve and manage a centuries-old division—a society that has been divided into two tribes. It is not my belief that creating a third tribe is the solution to that, but I understand that it is important that all parties feel that they are represented. As I have said, on joint First Ministers, there are plenty of possibilities for further reforms. I think both the DUP and Sinn Féin have, at times, said that they would be very relaxed about the creation of an office of joint First Ministers; in fact, at different times they have used the phrase “joint First Minister”. As I say, the SDLP has been looking for consensus. We would propose appointing the Justice Minister through the d’Hondt formula as well. It is worth saying that if we are talking about people’s votes counting equally, there have been times when the Alliance party, for example, had far fewer Members than the Ulster Unionist party or the SDLP, but was gifted an extra Ministry. Those distortions exist under the current rules. I do not believe in the principle that a Unionist or a nationalist is not fit to be the Justice Minister, and I think that Ministry should return to the d’Hondt formula. Another modest proposal is a reform of the St Andrews veto within the Executive that allows a single party to prevent items even coming on to the Executive agenda. That could be progressed further with legislation for joined-up government, potentially something like the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 that exists elsewhere in the UK. Meaningful reform is going to need a process, weight and urgency. If we limp along to the next election, there may not even be an Assembly that comes back after May 2027. Certainly, people’s belief in the primacy of politics and in the ability of the Good Friday agreement to solve their problems is ebbing away with every stagnant day in the Assembly. I have written to the other party leaders asking them to join me in the meeting that the Prime Minister has indicated he will have, and I hope that we can find some consensus.