Tonia Antoniazzi

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South (Hilary Benn) for his work on the Bill and for the way in which he engaged with our Committee, especially during our inquiry into the legacy of the troubles. As Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, I have heard at first hand from families whose lives were changed forever by the troubles and who decades later are still searching for answers about what happened to their loved ones. That is why it is so important that we get the legislation right for all those who continue to carry the legacy of the past. Amendment 286 reflects a recommendation of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee following our extensive inquiry into the legacy of the troubles and speaks to the very heart of an issue we heard about time and again. Throughout our inquiry, victims, survivors and families spoke of the frustration of delay. Many have waited decades for answers, so we should be looking to remove obstacles to information recovery and not to create new ones. I pay tribute to Joe McVey, the Victims and Survivors Commissioner, who is in the Gallery, for the work he has done and for working with our Committee. The Bill as drafted requires organisations such as the Police Service of Northern Ireland to assess and classify material as “sensitive or prejudicial” before it can be transferred to the legacy commission. The Committee concluded that that requirement may be unnecessary and risks creating a substantial administrative burden. On a matter of principle, an independent commission should be trusted to make its own judgments about the handling and disclosure of information. If Parliament is establishing a body to investigate the past, that body should have direct access to the records it needs to do that work. There is also a practical case for the amendment: much of the material needed for legacy investigations is actually held by the PSNI, often in records more than 30 years old and spread across multiple systems and archives. The chief constable has warned that locating, reviewing and disclosing such material is already a resource-intensive task, yet the Bill places further obligations on the PSNI to carry out sensitivity assessments before information can even reach the commission. Those concerns are not new. During our inquiry, the PSNI argued that direct access for the commission would be far more effective, pointing to Operation Kenova, which operated without such a requirement. The chief constable recently wrote to the Government again to voice those concerns, warning that without dedicated capacity there is a material risk of delay and damage to confidence in the wider legacy process. Critically, no additional funding has been identified for the work, which creates a risk that resources are diverted from present-day policing to administer the past. The amendment would not remove safeguards for sensitive information. It would simply place responsibility where it belongs: with the independent commission. Victims and families are not asking for additional bureaucracy; they are asking for answers, as the Secretary of State rightly pointed out. If we are serious about delivering those answers, about building confidence in the process and about using public resources effectively, we should remove this unnecessary hurdle. I encourage the Government and the Secretary of State to reflect on the substance of amendment 286.