Do you know what? I won’t.
The Bill is attempting to close down the police ombudsman’s opportunity to investigate issues of the past. I wonder why. It is also closing down access to the civil route for families. What happened last Tuesday? The Secretary of State announced that there would be no new civil cases after that day. Families who had been told that they were supposed to be at the centre of this were running around with their lawyers trying to get access to the courts before they closed that day. That is some way to treat the people who have suffered the most!
It is all right for the rest of us, who are still here and doing quite well out of the peace process. The people who have been left behind have been treated shoddily by this Government as recently as last week. People who have waited decades for an inquest and are now in the queue for one are being told that they will not have any opportunity to get the proper truth. If this is about truth, why are we afraid of inquests? I just do not understand it.
This legislation is riddled with Government overdrive and there is nothing independent about how the organisation will be constituted. There is no meaningful article 2 compliant investigation. Frankly, it is a recipe for impunity.
I have heard reference to Kenova. This Bill is not Kenova. It is nothing like Kenova. Kenova allowed proper judicial processes and proper investigation processes so that families and the rest of us could get access to the truth. South Africa, equally, it is not, and that argument has been well debunked.
The Government are telling us they want to see access to truth. Let me tell the House about two cases I know well. Paul Whitters was 15 years old in 1981. He was shot in the head by a police officer with a plastic bullet. Despite promises from this Government given to me, his file has been closed for a further number of years. Mr Deputy Speaker, do you know when that file will apparently be opened? In 2084. He was 15 years old. In the same year, 1981, the British Army fired a plastic bullet that killed Julie Livingstone, 14 years old, in Lenadoon, west Belfast. Her file will not be opened until 2062.
The Government are telling us that they want truth and access to reconciliation for victims, but every single thing they have done—whether this Bill, the Ballymurphy inquest or the Bloody Sunday inquiry—has been to protect the state, to deny access to truth and to deny access to justice for those people who do not have the same ability to protect themselves. I heard we have a new shiny headquarters in Belfast for the Northern Ireland Office. Victims were standing outside it today, protesting these proposals. They were also in Derry and at Downing Street, because they believe—to a man and woman, in my experience—that these proposals are absolutely wrong. Raymond McCord is in the Public Gallery. He has had to fight against the state and loyalist paramilitaries to try and find truth and justice for his son, Raymond.
The question is, do this Government really care about Raymond and all of those victims, or do they simply care about fulfilling a manifesto commitment, protecting the state and protecting paramilitary killers, because that is exactly what this piece of legislation will do if it is passed?