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Queen’s Speech

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to speak for the first time in your Lordships’ House and to contribute to this debate. Before I do anything else, I, too, express my gratitude to all noble Lords who have welcomed me so warmly and to all the staff, who have been so helpful as I have sought to find my way around and to comply with all the conventions of this great House. I have long watched with interest the splendid, detailed and often very challenging work of the House, involving the contributions of noble Lords with great expertise in areas such as human rights, justice and ethics, in which I have a great interest. It is a huge privilege to be given the opportunity to serve in this House. Her Majesty stated in her Speech: ""My Government will continue to work closely with the devolved administrations in the interests of all the people of the United Kingdom. My Government is committed to the Northern Ireland political process and will continue to work with Northern Ireland’s leaders to complete the devolution of policing and justice and to ensure its success"." The House is well aware of the decades of violence that have blighted the lives of so many in Northern Ireland, in the rest of the United Kingdom and further afield. The years of conflict were very difficult, but for many years now there have been those who have worked valiantly seeking to bring peace. The road to peace has of course been rocky. Since the Good Friday agreement we have seen bombs, shootings and other paramilitary activity. Only four months after the agreement, dissident republicans planted a massive bomb in the centre of Omagh on a glorious day, 15 August 1998. That bomb killed 29 people and unborn twins. Just last Saturday night—two days ago—a 400-pound bomb was left at the headquarters of the Policing Board and an attempt was made to shoot a police officer. This year, we have seen the terrible murders in Antrim of two young soldiers awaiting deployment to Afghanistan: Sapper Mark Quinsey, who was 23, and Sapper Patrick Azimkar, who was 21. Both were serving with the 38 Engineer Regiment. They were murdered on 7 March. Just two days later, on 9 March, a young constable, Stephen Carroll, was responding to a call for help when he, too, was murdered. As we contemplate all that has been achieved in Northern Ireland, we remember them and their families, as well as all the victims of the Troubles. I moved from England to County Antrim some 33 years ago. The Northern Ireland in which I now live is unrecognisable by comparison with what we knew. There is a sense of hope and much more stability than we had. The establishment of an infrastructure to support peace and to enable progress has been a complex and lengthy process. We have many new institutions of governance and I was privileged to be appointed in 1999 to establish one of those institutions, the office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland. My remit was to investigate alleged police wrongdoing. Under the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 1998, I was charged with establishing a police complaints system in the manner that I thought most likely to secure the confidence of the police and of the people in that system. As noble Lords will be aware, it was a very challenging role at a very delicate time. With the assistance of a dedicated and professional staff, we dealt with more than 30,000 issues during my tenure as Police Ombudsman. Our complainants came from right across our divided community: from police families, military families, prison officer families and from Catholic and Protestant families. In doing this work, we consistently acknowledged, as I do now, the bravery and professionalism of so many police officers, some of whom, such as PC Stephen Carroll, laid down their lives in the service of policing. By the end of my term as Police Ombudsman, 84 per cent of our community believed that we were fair and 83 per cent of police officers who had been investigated also thought that they had been treated fairly. It was a privilege to be involved and to be able to make a contribution at such a seminal time in Northern Ireland’s history. There is of course a bitter legacy from our Troubles: a legacy of bereavement, of ongoing injury, of loss, trauma, fear, division and sectarianism. Our challenge is to continue to build a society in which we have a shared future and shared hope. As the great African-American poet and civil rights activist, Dr Maya Angelou, wrote: ""History, despite all its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again"." One particular legacy of the Troubles must be resolved. Between 1972 and 1985, a number of people, aged from 17 to 55, were abducted by paramilitaries and were never seen again. Their disappearance has been the cause of immense grief to those who loved them. In five cases, their bodies have been found; they were Eamon Molloy, John McClory, Brian McKinney, Jean McConville—a 37 year-old mother of 10 children—and Danny McIlhone. Those whose bodies have never been found include Kevin McKee, Seamus Wright, Peter Wilson, John McIlroy, Columba McVeigh, Captain Robert Nairac, Brendan Megraw, Gerry Evans, Charles Armstrong and Seamus Ruddy. I am sure that noble Lords will agree with me that it is vital that those who abducted and murdered these people, and anyone who has any knowledge about their disappearance or murder, provide the information that will enable their families to recover their bodies and lay them to rest at last. By actions such as these will our peace be made real for those who have suffered so much. It is imperative that we sustain and build our peace. The devolution of policing and justice will be part of that process. I look forward to participating in the detailed work of the House in the days ahead, to engaging in debate and to learning much. In closing, I thank noble Lords for their courtesy in listening to me today.