The former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams and 400 others interned during the Northern Ireland Troubles would be in line for compensation from the British government if Labour’s plan to ditch controversial laws dealing with the period goes ahead, it has been claimed.
Jonathan Caine, a former government adviser to three Northern Ireland secretaries, has urged the government to rethink its planned repeal of the Legacy Act 2023. Lord Caine told BBC Northern Ireland that Labour’s decision was “political”.
The Conservatives had inserted a clause into the Legacy Act blocking compensation payments to Adams and others who had been unlawfully interred during the 1970s after a supreme court ruling in 2020.
That ruling in effect quashed Adams’s conviction for two attempts to escape the Maze prison in 1973 and 1974 after being detained without trial, a practice imposed by the British government in Northern Ireland to combat republican violence.
The government has now tabled a remedial order in parliament that would repeal parts of the act, including sections covering interim custody orders not signed by the Northern Ireland secretary at the time.
The chief secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, declined to say if Adams would be entitled to compensation when interviewed on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday.
He said: “The government inherited a scheme from the Conservative party that didn’t have the support of anybody in Northern Ireland, that was found in many cases to be unlawful, and which actually, under the conservative scheme, gave immunity to people who committed appalling acts of terrorism.”
Jones added that the Northern Ireland secretary, Hilary Benn, was working with parties in Northern Ireland and would “report to parliament in due course”.
Caine said the Labour move was “inexplicable” as the party had “never opposed the amendment” to the Legacy Act addressing compensation.
“They have made a political decision,” he said.
A number of peers including Ken McDonald, a former director of public prosecutions, the shadow secretary general, David Wolfson, and the Northern Ireland historian Paul Bew have backed a thinktank paper by Policy Exchange criticising the Labour move.
It claims that such a move would not progress “the cause of reconciliation in Northern Ireland to leave open the possibility of meritless litigation”.
Lord Wolfson said the government’s claims that the repeal signals a commitment to the Human Rights Act “makes no sense and warrants the sharp criticism that this paper ably provides”.
The Legacy Act was opposed by the unionist parties, Sinn Féin, the Irish government and the US government and Labour made a commitment to replace it when it came to power.
Unionist parties in Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Office have been approached for comment.
