Northern Ireland Affairs Committee
Oral evidence: Compensation for victims of Gaddafi-sponsored IRA attacks, HC 1283
Wednesday 24 March 2021
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 24 March 2021.
Members present: Simon Hoare (Chair); Scott Benton; Mr Gregory Campbell; Stephen Farry; Mary Kelly Foy; Mr Robert Goodwill; Claire Hanna; Fay Jones; Ian Paisley; Stephanie Peacock; Bob Stewart.
Questions 1 - 76
Witness
I: William Shawcross CVO, Independent Reviewer of Prevent and former Special Representative on UK victims of Qadhafi-sponsored IRA terrorism, Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Witness: William Shawcross.
Q1 Chair: Good morning, colleagues. On behalf of the Committee, Mr Shawcross, can I welcome you to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee meeting? Thank you for appearing before us this morning. We had a lot of questions for you. We still have a lot of questions for you. Following the publication of the Government’s written ministerial statement yesterday afternoon, the multitude of questions remains but their tone and tenor are slightly altered, as you would expect.
Could I ask you first for your response to the Government’s written ministerial statement of yesterday?
William Shawcross: Yes. Can I preface that by saying that, as your excellent Clerk Mr Habberley will have told you, I am in a difficult position here testifying to you? I am delighted to be here. I have the greatest respect for Parliament. I grew up in a parliamentary family. My father was Attorney-General in the Attlee Government. I have dealt with Parliament a lot during the last few years as chairman of the Charity Commission and so on.
As Mr Habberley will have told you, I am under a contract to the Foreign Office to not speak about the contents of my report I talked to Mr Habberley about this, as that could conflict in some ways with my duty to Parliament, which, because of my understanding of parliamentary history and my history with Parliament, I understand to be very important. I do not wish to be in any way disrespectful of Parliament, but there are some constraints on what I can answer, and I apologise, because of my duty of confidentiality.
Chair: Thank you, Mr Shawcross. I propose that we harvest questions that you feel you may not be able to answer in the public sphere. We will then move into private session with you and see if that can tease out the answers to those questions that are unable to be given in public. Let us work on the basis that, given the longevity of this issue and its seriousness, neither of which needs amplification to you, Sir, we will make sure that as much as possible is in the public domain, because the public want to hear what is happening on this issue and, indeed, the events leading up to the written ministerial statement yesterday. I hear precisely what you say in terms of, to quote Geoffrey Howe, the “conflict of loyalty with which I have perhaps wrestled too long”.
William Shawcross: It is not the same.
Q2 Chair: It is not the same, but we will leave you to wrestle with those twin conflicts. If we could always err on the side of it being better to have it in the public domain and deal with the consequences afterwards, that would be the right approach.
What was or is your response to the announcement made by the Government yesterday afternoon?
William Shawcross: I was surprised and disappointed.
Q3 Chair: Had you been briefed about it beforehand?
William Shawcross: No. I had been told very shortly beforehand that a written ministerial statement was to be made. I had not been told in any form what the content of that statement would be.[1]
Q4 Chair: Since you submitted your report in the spring of last year, has any official from the Government or any Minister from the commissioning Department—the FCO as it was then, or the FCDO as it now is—any other Department of Government or No. 10 contacted you about your report?
William Shawcross: No, no one from the FCDO and no senior official, except Mr Cleverly. I had a short conversation with Mr Cleverly about two weeks ago on Teams, which I initiated and in which I said, “NIAC wants to see me and I would like to talk to you.” That was the principal conversation I had. I have never had a conversation with the Foreign Secretary about the report.[2]
Q5 Chair: To clarify for the record, since submission to Government of your report, commissioned directly and personally by the then Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, but with the full authority of that office, effectively binding successors in, no Minister or official has spoken to you about the content of your report.
William Shawcross: I just mentioned Mr Cleverly.
Q6 Chair: Save for this brief conversation with Mr Cleverly, which you instigated following receipt of our invitation to you to give evidence to us this morning, there has been no overture from Her Majesty’s Government, either ministerially or officially, to you to discuss the content of your report or any recommendations that you might have made.
William Shawcross: No. I have talked to other people in and out of Government about my appearance before you, but no one has talked to me or tried to influence me in any way about the content of my report. More importantly, no one tried to do that while I was writing the report.
Q7 Chair: It was perfectly proper that nobody should seek to influence the report, but nobody has asked you in, either physically or virtually, to walk or talk them through your report, and nobody has asked you any questions about it with regard to its content or any recommendations that you have made.
William Shawcross: No. I have had informal discussions with people. You will understand that I know quite a lot of people in Parliament and in Government, in Whitehall and in Westminster, and I have talked informally to people about it, but no one has sought to, in any way, influence or interrogate me.
Q8 Chair: Let me narrow down the scope of people. Has any Minister who would be taking a decision, or senior official who might be making a recommendation or submission to a Minister, based on your report, reached out to you to discuss the report following its submission?
William Shawcross: No.
Q9 Chair: We refer to it as “the report”, and it has always been capital T, capital S and capital R: “The Shawcross Report”. In written questions that I have submitted to the Foreign Office and, indeed, in correspondence between me, as Chairman, and Foreign Office Ministers, it apparently has been changed to an internal scoping report.
William Shawcross: I always understood that that is what it would be. I was given six months and it was always to be an internal report to the Foreign Secretary. It was also always emphasised that it would be a scoping report. I made clear that it could not be a conclusive report, because it was time-limited. I had six months, and the number of days that I was allowed to work was something like 96.
Q10 Chair: Thank you. That is helpful. I had read something into that, which maybe was not there to read, so that is helpful. In the media release that the then Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, Alistair Burt, issued, he referred to your terms of reference being worked upon and said that they would be published. What were your terms of reference?
William Shawcross: I do not know that I can describe those in detail. Forgive me, but that would be a breach of my terms of confidentiality. I was asked to do an internal scoping report on the predicament of victims of Qadhafi-IRA terrorism, to see whether and how any other forms of compensation could be paid to them, what compensation had been paid and what compensation might be paid. It was stressed to me that this was a scoping report and was not going to be a conclusive report. I always understood that to be the case.
Q11 Chair: Let us call it “report” for shorthand. Did your report make suggestions or recommendations to Government? I am not asking you what they were, but merely whether you did.
William Shawcross: I did.
Q12 Chair: Just to confirm, nobody sought to talk to you about those recommendations subsequent to submission of the report.
William Shawcross: You are correct: nobody.
Q13 Chair: Could I ask for your thoughts on the Government’s decision not to publish your internal scoping report?
William Shawcross: It was never intended to be published, as far as I understood.[3] When I had conversations with people in Northern Ireland,[4] I was able to say to them with confidence, “You can speak to me freely, because this is a confidential report to the Foreign Secretary, which will not be published”. Your Committee knows much better than I do how sensitive situations can be in Northern Ireland, so that confidentiality, which I promised people, was very important.
Q14 Chair: I agree with you and I know that nobody on the Committee would demur from that point, but the recommendations you made in your submission, maybe even with heavy redaction, would not, in any way, have named people. They would just be a set of clean recommendations based on the research and interviews that you had undertaken. Is that correct?
William Shawcross: That is correct.
Q15 Chair: Would you agree with me that the Government have set out a case in the written ministerial statement? Whether one agrees with the case is immaterial for the purpose of this question, but, having set out the case, it is almost like the old O-level: you get some points for showing your working. Would it not be in the interests of the Government to publish at least your recommendations, if not a redacted report, in order to respect those pledges of confidentiality and anonymity that you made to the people you spoke to, as your report would clearly augment the decision that the Government have reached?
William Shawcross: It is not possible for me to speak for the Government in this regard. I apologise. I wish I had a Minister here with me to answer questions like that.
Q16 Chair: That makes two of us. It is not for want of trying. You spoke of your surprise and disappointment at the written ministerial statement yesterday. It has come as a huge disappointment to me and as a bitter blow, I know you will appreciate, to many people who had vested a lot of hope in this process that you had been asked to embark upon. You will be aware that the Committee, before I was Chairman, undertook an inquiry into this issue. In the Eighth Special Report, in the Session of 2017-19, which is House of Commons paper 2352, the Government published their response to our report.
Can I just quote to you some of the things that the Government said in their response? “We are confident that the appointment of a special representative on UK victims of Qadhafi-sponsored IRA terrorism will bring greater focus to our efforts to support these victims”.
In another paragraph, it reads, “The issues Mr Shawcross will advise on is the amount of compensation that should be sought”—not “whether” but “should”. It continues: “The Government believes that any compensation plan should reflect the special representative’s advice on this matter”—not “may”, not “could”, not “might”, but “should reflect the special representative’s advice on this matter”.
Reading on to the conclusion, and this is the Government speaking: “As such, we are committed to supporting these victims and we are confident that the appointment of a special representative will bring greater focus to our efforts”. They say it again: “As such, we are committed to supporting these victims and we are confident that the appointment of a special representative will bring greater focus to our efforts”. So convinced were the Government on this point that, within two paragraphs, they felt they needed to restate the sentiment.
You will be aware, I am sure, that I apportion no blame to you. You are an honourable man who has discharged the duties that the Government asked you to do with care and thought, which is the hallmark of your public life. We thank you for what you have done. But, having spoken to people across Northern Ireland and elsewhere, would you pass comment on how you might assess this?
The Government effectively raised the stakes and said, in terms, “Invest all of your hopes in this process that Mr Shawcross is now embarked upon, because that is the route to a solution, to compensation, to closure and to comfort”. Having waited for such a long time, having seen settlements given in the States, Germany and some other countries, having thought that a solution was within grasp, and having been told you that you and your report were the route to finding closure and a solution, they have now had that cruelly dashed from them. What is the response going to be among those communities to whom you spoke?
William Shawcross: As I said, and as you have said yourself, a lot of people will be very disappointed at this statement. I completely understand that. I cannot explain the contrast between the statement you read out and the decision in the statement yesterday. I am afraid that that is something you have to ask the Government about.[5]
I am aware, of course, of the agony of people’s expectations in Northern Ireland. It was brought home to me throughout my sojourn there and my six months working on this. The raised expectations and disappointed expectations of people over years and years are a terrible thing in Northern Ireland and, of course, among the victims of IRA-Qadhafi attacks on the mainland.
I had wished and hoped to speak to victims, but because it was only a scoping exercise I was strongly advised by people in Northern Ireland, whom I respected, not to approach victims directly and not even to approach the main victims’ groups. It was thought, and I understood and agreed with this, that that would add too much to people’s expectations that I was going to provide a complete answer. My report does not provide a complete answer. In six months, it was clear to me that the situation in Northern Ireland, given the differences between different victims of different atrocities, was so complicated that it would be impudent and completely wrong of me to say, “Here is the solution.” My report did not provide an easy, quick answer to the Government.
Chair: No, but it made some recommendations.
William Shawcross: It did.
Q17 Chair: As recently as 8 February, albeit in the House of Lords, the Foreign Office Minister Lord Ahmad was saying, “Ministers across Government are carefully considering the internal scoping report that Mr Shawcross has produced in order to do justice to the important and sensitive issues that it covers, giving due respect to the victims”. Does the written ministerial statement do justice and give respect?
William Shawcross: I have told you that I was disappointed with the statement and surprised by it, and I will rest on that, if I may.
Q18 Chair: As a final introductory question from me, you have referenced that you had conversations across Northern Ireland. There are, of course, victims of terrorism on the mainland.
William Shawcross: I mentioned those.
Q19 Chair: Did you at any time speak to anybody in Libya involved with the governance of that country?
William Shawcross: No. Libya, as you know, is a land in great turmoil. I would love to go to Libya. I did go to Libya once, years ago, with Kofi Annan, under Qadhafi’s regime, but I have not been since.
Q20 Chair: Given the turbulence in that country, it is slightly strange that the Government seem to be resting their hope of a solution on a change of heart from the Libyan authorities to self-author some form of compensation scheme, is it not?
William Shawcross: The prospect of Libya becoming stable enough and having a decent representative Government that accepts its blame for the appalling crimes of Qadhafi, committed with the IRA against the British people in Northern Ireland and on the mainland, is devoutly to be wished for, but I do not see it happening very soon, alas.
Q21 Bob Stewart: Mr Shawcross, I think we once met a very long time ago in different lives, but it is very nice to see you. Thank you so much for coming to this Committee, which we know you might have had difficulty with. I totally respect and understand your difficulty in answering the questions so far. I am not going to pursue that line, but to ask you whether it is possible for you to tell us, in round terms, how many victims you assess there might be of the Enniskillen and Docklands bombings, so that we are talking in round terms. Are you able to answer that question?
William Shawcross: Not with a proper degree of accuracy. I cannot tell you off the top of my head. I am sure that a number of members of your Committee know those numbers much better than I do, but, if you wish, I will try to get you an answer in writing as soon as possible.
Q22 Bob Stewart: That is fine. We can get those numbers. You have already said that you did not speak to any of the victims directly. Presumably, you have not met people like the Docklands committee that was set up by Ganesh and other people like that. Is that correct?
William Shawcross: I did meet Mr Ganesh. He was the only victims’ representative who was persistent in calling me directly. Although I had made it a rule not to see people in Northern Ireland, I considered carefully and thought that it would be very churlish not to speak to him, because he had been so determined to speak to me. We had a very good conversation; I hope he was pleased with it. I was very impressed by all the work he has done for the Docklands Victims’ Association.
Bob Stewart: I am going to pull stumps at that point, because I do not think William can answer very many more questions of detail beyond that. Thank you so much.
Q23 Claire Hanna: Thank you very much, Mr Shawcross. We appreciate you coming before us today. We have referred to the Dockland Victims’ Association, which I know you met with. Jonathan Ganesh said that, in response to an FOI his group had submitted, it was indicated to them that the reason for the delay of the publication of the report was that it would affect British interests abroad. Then he said that the group were told that publication would prejudice relations with the Executive. Finally, they were told that the report contains private and confidential information. Do you recognise any of those descriptions as accurate interpretations of the contents of your report?
William Shawcross: The report did contain a lot of information that was, as I said to the Chairman earlier, given to me confidentially, on the basis that the report was always intended to be a private, internal report for the Foreign Secretary. In a sense, all those descriptions that you have just given me fit the contents of the report, so I suppose the answer is yes.
Q24 Claire Hanna: Specifically in terms of the impact on Britain’s relations overseas and its relationships with the Northern Ireland Executive, are you able to comment on those aspects of your report?
William Shawcross: I am not sure what that was referring to in terms of overseas relations. That is, again, something that is above my paygrade. You probably should speak to a Minister about that.
Q25 Claire Hanna: As the Chair has indicated, we have tried and I am sure we will try again. Regarding the comment from that victims’ association about prejudicing relationships with the Northern Ireland Executive, does that ring true to you?
William Shawcross: I wish I was more of an expert on Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is a wonderful place and a wonderful part of the United Kingdom, but I am not competent to say whether it would jeopardise relations.
Q26 Claire Hanna: You spoke about the feelings of victims. I want to assure you that we understand your approach and your integrity on that, but this issue interacts and overlaps with a number of issues that this Committee is working on and will work on, around legacy and the past. Your work and, I suppose, the trajectory of your report and its life say a lot about the reach of national security as an issue. In our work on legacy and the past, it has demonstrated just how much the perception of national security will give a veto to vested interests and militias, as we try to explore other areas of the past and how broadly defined that is going to be. What has been the value of this exercise to anybody other than those vested interests within the state and within militias in Northern Ireland?
William Shawcross: What has been the value of my report, are you asking?
Claire Hanna: Of the entire exercise.
William Shawcross: I do not know whether it will be the first time, but I hope that the report gathers a lot of the history of the Troubles and what has happened to the victims of the Troubles. It shows the huge complications of the victims’ lives and problems in Northern Ireland and on the mainland. You are quite right to say that I should not avoid talking about the mainland, and I do not wish to do that at all. The report shows the huge complexity of the issues, and that may be one of the reasons why the Government have decided not to press ahead in their statement yesterday.
I was told by some people whom I respected, particularly in Northern Ireland but also in London, that it was a great mistake to do this report at all, because any recommendations that I made could create more turmoil and unhappiness within Northern Ireland itself. For example, somebody said to me that you might have a street in which there was a widow whose husband was killed by Qadhafi-IRA weapons, and another widow whose husband was killed by other IRA weapons not from Qadhafi. It could cause problems between families, neighbours and communities if Qadhafi victims were singled out for special treatment. That is one of the issues that I have gone into the report. It seems to me that that is an important issue that should be addressed, and I have tried to address it in some, although not enough, detail in the report.
All of you would know better than I how complex and emotional these issues are. There is no question but that the victims of the Troubles, and of the IRA, the Provisional IRA and Qadhafi, have borne terrible pain. I am still horrified by that, but I am also aware that sorting out that pain in a way that is not to the detriment of others is complicated. When you ask what the value of the report is, I appreciate that, at the moment, it has no public value, but I hope that it has amassed all the detail of the issues that need to be considered in trying to deal with some of the legacy issues that are so important in Northern Ireland and for the United Kingdom.
Q27 Claire Hanna: That is a concern. Not through your fault, it has created yet another layer of expectation among victims and survivors, which is why many of us are seeking a comprehensive solution to issues around legacy, including issues of compensation. It does appear, in this case, as in so many other occasions over the decades in Northern Ireland, that the needs and wants of victims and survivors are subservient to the needs and wants of vested interests and victim-makers. Do you believe that, because your report got into participants in Libya and Ireland, and perhaps even their names, that is the reason why your report will not be published?
William Shawcross: I was very careful not to name people directly. There are very few names in the report,[6] for that reason, because I was aware of the sensitivity of all these issues.
Q28 Claire Hanna: Is the presence of some names the key reason that this report is not going to be published?
William Shawcross: No. The report is not going to be published because it was never intended to be published. It was always an internal scoping report. I must emphasise again the “scoping”, because it was never going to be a final report. It was always an internal report from me to the Foreign Secretary. That is how it was conceived by Mr Johnson, as Foreign Secretary, in July 2018. He asked me if I would be interested in doing this, and I immediately looked at the subject, got back to him and said yes. It was always to be an internal report to the Foreign Secretary.[7]
Q29 Chair: Can we just pause there? I am not accusing you of this, Mr Shawcross, but there is a little bit of retrofitting here. At no point in the Foreign Secretary’s press release of 6 March 2019 do we see reference to an internal scoping report. All it tells us is that “among the issues Mr Shawcross will advise on is the amount of compensation that should be sought”. Again, “should” is definitive—not “might be”, not “could be”, but “should be”.
William Shawcross: I have not recommended that. There was no way that, in six months, I could possibly be so presumptuous as to recommend what amounts of compensation should be paid to anybody. I would never have dreamed of doing that. That would be quite improper.
Q30 Chair: There would be no breach of anonymity, would there, were your terms of reference to be published?
William Shawcross: Do you mean whether the terms of reference mention individuals?
Q31 Chair: You have told us that it may be right for the Government not to publish the report because there are some names—not many but a few—within the report. Those could be redacted. You said the report contains “very few names” in answer to a question from Mr Hanna a moment ago.
William Shawcross: It probably has no names. I deliberately kept names out.[8] I apologise if I mis-spoke there. There are FEW individual people named.[9] It was my concern that people to whom I had spoken on the grounds of confidentiality and to whom I had promised confidentiality might consider that they could be recognised. The report is very carefully written to protect people in Northern Ireland.[10]
Q32 Chair: Coming from you, we would expect nothing else. Let us look briefly at the terms of reference. Given that there would be no names at all in the terms of reference, because it is just your terms of reference, there would be no harm, would there, no breach of national security and no terrible precedent set, were your terms of reference to be put into the public domain?
William Shawcross: Again, you are putting me in a very difficult position. I am not blaming you for that. As I said at the beginning of this meeting, which I welcome, I am finding myself conflicted between my duty to Parliament, which is very important, and my—
Q33 Chair: Let me phrase the question again. Would you be disappointed, were the terms of reference to be published?
William Shawcross: No. It depends on who published them and how, but not in principle.
Chair: You would not be disappointed, were they to be published by the Foreign Office. Thank you.
Q34 Mr Campbell: Mr Shawcross, you are very welcome. The statement yesterday could have been made at any point in the last two or three months, but, for some reason, the Government chose a few hours before you coming before the Committee to issue it. You have referred us to the Government, and we will talk to them about that. This morning, you referred to your report as not being a conclusive report, and you have referred to it several times as being an internal scoping report. Does the fact that you regard it as not a conclusive report imply that it was suggested to you that there would be a conclusive report following yours?
William Shawcross: I always knew from the start, certainly after I had done a few days and week of research, that there was no way that, in six months, I could provide an answer to all the incredibly complicated problems of the victims and the legacy issues of Northern Ireland. My report could only be an attempt to collate the evidence and to hand it over to the Foreign Secretary, as intended, as an internal report to be the basis of further action, or discussion at least. Once I had delivered it to the Foreign Office last March, at the beginning of the Covid crisis, it was out of my hands.
When I said at the beginning of this session that I was disappointed, I would like, in an ideal world, my report to be built on and further work to be done on the basis of it, if that were deemed to be possible. At the moment, the Foreign Office has decided that that is not possible, perhaps because of the restrictions and the horror of Covid in the last year. I am sure that that is a big factor in everybody’s decision making at the moment, but, yes, I saw my report as a step, not an ending.
Q35 Mr Campbell: You referred earlier to not unnecessarily raising expectation levels. I think everyone would concur with that. At the other end of the spectrum, no one would want to embark on a never-ending process that simply drags things out, with no hope of a conclusion. Somewhere in between, you seem to be suggesting that you have done your report, which was never intended to be public, but are you saying that, beyond your report, in its non-published form, there is now scope for a conclusive report that builds on the work that you have done?
William Shawcross: That is a really difficult question. You know better than I do the problems in Northern Ireland. I do not know whether it is possible to make a conclusive report. One or two people, including serious politicians in Northern Ireland, said to me that my work, while not a waste of time, was very difficult to justify because it is so long ago that these things happened and it was now too late to reopen them. It is going to be too painful and it is too complicated, they said, and we can never get the truth on the total number of people hurt or murdered by Qadhafi-IRA weapons. The evidence is too old. Several people said that to me, and I have included that sentiment in the report. Whether anything can be conclusive is not for me to say, but my report is only a scoping report and it is only fair that everyone recognises that. It does not provide conclusions.
Q36 Mr Campbell: The length of time has not stopped the police knocking on the doors of former soldiers 40 or 50 years after their service in Northern Ireland, but I will park that. On the issue then of what happens now, can you say to us that, given the context of the past 12 months, there is now room for work to begin immediately on the conclusive report that you have alluded to?
William Shawcross: With great respect, I did not refer to a conclusive report. I said it would be very difficult and not for me to say how you get to a conclusive report. What I said—and forgive me if I did not speak clearly enough—was that there is room to do more work on the basis of the report I have delivered, because it provides quite a lot of information in one place. None of it would be new to any of you, I suspect, because you are much greater students than I am of the Troubles. I have spent only six months on it and you have spent many years or most of your lives looking at these horrors that were inflicted on Northern Ireland. A conclusive report would be very hard to reach, but more research could be done and it might be possible to more completely identify the victims who have not yet been adequately compensated.
None of us has mentioned this morning that there have been, and still are, a lot of compensation schemes in Northern Ireland and on the mainland for victims of the Troubles. These are part of the legacy problems that have been referred to already. If I may, I would just say that I hope my report could be a basis at some stage for further work, but conclusions are much more difficult.
Q37 Mr Campbell: You referred there to the victims, who are central to this. You are not the person to whom anyone should go, but I have a small number of constituents who were directly affected because their relatives were the victims of Qadhafi-sponsored IRA terrorism. To whom should they go if they believe they have been overlooked in the quest to seek closure and some form of compensation? It is not to you, but what is your understanding, from having dealt with this issue for some time, of whom they should go to, to try to ensure that they are included in any potential future investigation?
William Shawcross: I would imagine, if I was one of those victims, that I would go first to my Member of Parliament. I am sure that you, as you have just said, have those and can direct those victims very well.
Q38 Mr Campbell: It is just that the written ministerial statement yesterday seemed to indicate that they should go to the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland, Naomi Long, which really is not the appropriate source for Qadhafi-sponsored IRA terrorism, I would have thought.
William Shawcross: The Government also say that the chief responsibility for righting all these wrongs lies with the Libyan Government. That is true in law and, of course, the Libyan Government are responsible for the appalling crimes that Qadhafi inflicted upon the British people in Northern Ireland and on the mainland. One day, I hope that there will be a Libyan Government that accepts that responsibility, but, for the moment, I am afraid that that is a distant hope.
Chair: Our fear has to be that, by the time that happens, most of the people we are talking about will probably be dead.
William Shawcross: I completely agree.
Q39 Chair: Could I ask you a very quick question? To how many pages does your internal scoping report run?
William Shawcross: It is 80 to 90 pages, with annexes.
Chair: It has 90 pages, excluding annexes.
William Shawcross: Yes.
Chair: We can only conclude from that that the Government are slow readers.
Q40 Ian Paisley: Mr Shawcross, thank you for your candour today. For full disclosure, I should say that, early on in your investigation, you met with me and we had an opportunity to put some issues to you. Did you conclude how many potential claimants there are?
William Shawcross: No. That is one of the real problems.
Q41 Ian Paisley: Did you conclude, because of these problems, that this is all too complicated to solve?
William Shawcross: I did not conclude that, but I understand why a lot of people would think that. As I said a few minutes ago, people in Northern Ireland, whom I respect, said to me that it is too complicated to solve, and the process of investigating and trying to find a solution could cause a lot of grief and arouse emotional feelings that have been dimmed. The way it was expressed to me was that “there are downsides to what you are doing”, and that is putting it mildly.
Q42 Ian Paisley: I know that you cannot tell us what you concluded, but are you able to tell us how many conclusions you made?
William Shawcross: I made about six conclusions, of which two or three were the most important.[11]
Q43 Ian Paisley: Were those two or three then your recommendations or were there other recommendations?
William Shawcross: Those are my recommendations.
Q44 Ian Paisley: I do not know if you answered this fully or if it has been put to you yet. You may have answered it when Bob Stewart questioned you, but did you examine any specific or actual cases as a case study to bring out your conclusions?
William Shawcross: Do you mean actual people—going to see one family or something like that?
Q45 Ian Paisley: No, actual cases. Did you take a specific case, pull it out and look at it as part of the process you were engaged in?
William Shawcross: I looked at lots of different cases. Do you mean bombing attacks like Enniskillen or something like that?
Ian Paisley: Yes.
William Shawcross: Yes and no. There was no case that I devoted a disproportionate or a lot of attention to, but I do look at many of the incidents—or many of the atrocities. Let me put it that way.
Q46 Ian Paisley: In the statement issued yesterday by the Government, they indicate that they have repeatedly lobbied and, I assume, continue to lobby the Libyan Government on this issue. Given that you have said that the situation in Libya is in disarray, who are the Government lobbying to solve this?
William Shawcross: I really cannot answer that question. We do still have formal relations with the Libyan Government, despite the assaults upon it by General Haftar and others. There is always hope in the Foreign Office and, indeed, in other European capitals that a resolution will be found and that Libya can become a peaceful country again. I cannot possibly tell you whom they deal with at the moment, but I understand that we still have diplomatic relations.
Q47 Ian Paisley: Your reaction was probably most people’s reaction. You laughed out loud.
William Shawcross: I hope not.
Q48 Ian Paisley: No, I am not criticising you for it. When I read the Government’s statement yesterday, I laughed out loud at how anyone could take seriously the suggestion that they are lobbying the Government of a country in disarray about how they may compensate victims, while those left in that Government or political situation wash their hands of what Mr Qadhafi has done. It is laughable that we are being told to tell our constituents, “It is okay. Her Majesty’s Government are consistently lobbying Libya to solve this.” It is laughable, is it not?
William Shawcross: I do not know what secret lines there are to Libya. Maybe there are. I hope there are discussions going on with what Government do exist in Tripoli now, and perhaps things are better than they appear on the surface. The Government are correct that the ultimate responsibility for this does lie with Libya. It was the monstrous Qadhafi who committed these crimes against the people of Northern Ireland and the mainland.
Q49 Ian Paisley: Are you able to outline to us what options there are for compensation?
William Shawcross: That is the complexity of it. You probably know better than I do what the options are, because you all know Northern Ireland much better than I do. I have tried to detail the options, but I have not come to any conclusions. Again, it was clear to me that, within six months of a scoping exercise, I could not possibly lay down the law in that way, but I tried to discuss the options.
Q50 Ian Paisley: You have not been conclusive on them, but there are definitely options that the Government could follow to pay victims. Would that be fair?
William Shawcross: No, that is an exaggeration. I do not mean to say that. I have laid out what the existing schemes are and how they work, but I have not said, “This is how you compensate victims of Qadhafi-IRA terrorism,” specifically, because, as I said, it is so hard to identify, properly and honourably, all those victims.
Q51 Ian Paisley: I have a constituent called Billy O’Flaherty. Billy was a police officer. He lost his arm when an incendiary device went off when he was rushing to help a member of the public. A landmine went off and turned his vehicle upside down, and he was very seriously injured. What do I tell Billy when I see him this weekend in Ballymena about this report and where it is going? How do I even begin to empathise with him about what is happening?
William Shawcross: That is an incredibly important question and an incredibly difficult one for me to answer. What I can say is that you have spoken to the author of this report, who understands the agony that Northern Ireland and its people have gone through, because of the crimes of Qadhafi and the IRA, and others. He has tried to lay out those issues as fully as he can within a six-month scoping exercise.
This argument will continue. I am sure that there will be many people, including you on this Committee, who will not be satisfied with the Foreign Office’s response yesterday. Has your constituent had compensation of any sort so far?
Q52 Ian Paisley: I will not go into his specific compensation in a public forum, because that would be unfair on him. There will be compensation lines open to him, but the issue that we are looking at is that the culprits are getting off.
William Shawcross: That takes us into a lot of difficult political decisions that have been made over the last decade and longer, which is not my competence and certainly not the subject we are discussing. Of course, I do not want you to tell me about the personal circumstances of any particular constituent, but have people like him had compensation already?
Q53 Ian Paisley: They probably would have had access in the 1980s to some compensation, but it would have been minuscule in terms of the suffering. You are talking about circumstances where people have lost limbs and cannot continue in the employment that they were engaged in. They have to wrestle with that ongoing pain forever. The compensation in the 1980s runs out by the 1990s and, as they get older, they have more problems and more disability. More issues arise, and then there are generational issues. They have not been able to provide for their children and grandchildren in the way they would have expected to be able to provide. This is a generational problem.
That is the issue that the Government are missing. When you address issues of compensation, it is not the monetary amount. That is not what anyone ever talks about. It is dealing with the ongoing consequences and impact. That is the tragedy. I must say, William, that I cannot tell Billy anything when I see him at the weekend. Parliament has failed him. This process has failed him.
William Shawcross: It is quite clear from what you say and what so many people feel, quite understandably, that this process is not over. Is it permitted for me to ask a question, Mr Chairman?
Chair: It depends on to whom and on what. It should probably go through me. Could I just apologise to colleagues for having to change rooms? I was being told by the Clerk that my signal was not so good today, so I hope nobody thinks it is too informal, but I have moved into the kitchen rather than my study. It in no way detracts from the seriousness of this issue, if anybody was offended by that. I apologise if they were. Mr Shawcross, please ask your question.
William Shawcross: I was just going to ask, coming from what we were just discussing, whether you thought—it is impertinent of me to ask this question—that any compensation should be wider than Qadhafi-IRA victims, because there are so many other people who have suffered and who were not particular victims of the Qadhafi-IRA atrocities.
Q54 Ian Paisley: Could I turn that back on you and ask whether that has been one of your conclusions?
William Shawcross: It is a question I raised.
Q55 Ian Paisley: Did you conclude on it?
William Shawcross: No. This is going to sound very unsatisfactory to you, but I cannot say that I made many hard and fast conclusions, because I did not think I had enough evidence to do that.
Q56 Ian Paisley: As a final question, if you were in the position of a Government Minister, a Foreign Office Minister or the Prime Minister, who all initiated this and whose fingerprints are on it, would you be paying additional compensation to the victims of Libyan-sponsored IRA terrorism?
William Shawcross: I do not have to answer that question, do I? I hope that I have shown to you this morning, and I hope that the report shows, that I have huge sympathy for all the victims of Qadhafi-IRA terrorism and for all the victims of terrorism in Northern Ireland and on the mainland. They all deserve to be looked after. Some perhaps have been, and many have not been, adequately looked after. That is clear, I am sure. All of you on this great Committee understand the problems that have afflicted Northern Ireland far better than I do. I was honoured to spend time in Northern Ireland. I am sorry that it was a short time and I hope that I will be able to spend more time in the future, because it is a very important part of the United Kingdom. The suffering that it has endured is terrible.
Ian Paisley: Thank you, and I do thank you for your work.
Q57 Chair: Mr Shawcross, it is not my place to answer your question per se, because I am not here to answer on behalf of the Government. It is just worthwhile us all reminding ourselves that, yes, there are many victims of terrorism from a variety of sources, but it was Her Majesty’s Government who sculpted this area out to appoint a special representative, principally, I suggest, because it involved sponsorship by a foreign state and, therefore, there is a differential. It would be wrong to conclude that, therefore, that meant victims of non-Qadhafi-sponsored or supplied terrorist atrocities were precluded from other schemes and initiatives, but it was Government who set you the charge of being a special representative on this point.
Just pausing there for a moment, you referenced that a number of people had said to you, “All of these events happened a long time ago”. The chronology and the dates are the immutable things in all of this. That was known and the complexity was known when you were appointed. It is not as if the window between your appointment and the events happening suddenly grew bigger; it had been a big window in any event. This pointed to a lackadaisical approach in trying to solve this problem for too many years by, let us be frank, successive Governments.
William Shawcross: I completely agree with that last statement. It is a tragedy that it was not settled many decades ago when we first resumed relations with Libya.
Q58 Chair: Have you ever received or found a compelling reason or argument as to why Her Majesty’s Government decided not to go down the route as followed by, for example, Germany and the United States? I have not. I wondered if you had unearthed something during the progress of your internal scoping report.
William Shawcross: I have not unearthed anything new that you do not know.
Q59 Stephen Farry: Good morning to Mr Shawcross. I want to turn to some of the financial aspects. First of all, back in November 2018, officials from the then Foreign Office gave a figure on the value of the frozen assets of somewhere exceeding £12 billion. Is that still the current understanding of the valuation of the assets?
William Shawcross: I am not sure what the total value of the frozen assets is.[12] The Government said correctly in their statement yesterday that no Government can seize frozen assets under international law. I have written about that in my report. However, there has been a discussion for a long time about whether the tax that accrues to the Treasury on Libyan frozen assets in Britain could be used to help offset any scheme for victims of Libyan IRA terrorism. I know your Committee has already considered that.
Stephen Farry: Yes.
William Shawcross: As you know, the Treasury does not like to hypothecate tax in any way; that is not something it usually does. My understanding is that approximately £21 million of tax has been collected since the financial year 2016-17. The tax on the frozen assets in Britain accrues at about £5 million a year. There is a strong argument, although it would have to be a Cabinet decision, that that tax could be hypothecated by the Exchequer to go towards a scheme for victims of Qadhafi-IRA terrorism. It is not a huge amount of money in the scheme of things.
Q60 Stephen Farry: Thanks for that. You well anticipated my second follow-up question in that respect. That is probably the most fruitful area in terms of trying to get some money flowing in some respect.
On a different financial aspect, we understand that the assets are largely owned and controlled by the Libyan Investment Authority, which is a sovereign wealth fund. I fully take your point around the UN rules on the seizing of assets. With the assets being frozen, I understand that licences can be granted in relation to those frozen assets, but there is a lack of transparency over to whom those licences have been granted. That then begs the second question. Are there entities making profits based upon licences that they may have against the frozen assets?
William Shawcross: I am afraid I cannot answer that question. If you would like me to try to find out the answer to it, I will send it to you in writing.[13]
Stephen Farry: Yes, that would be much appreciated. That answer goes to perhaps either easing, or potentially exacerbating, a sense of injustice if compensation is not flowing to victims of terrorism, but others are still making some degree of direct or indirect profit from having a licence against the frozen assets. Any information you could provide in that respect, Mr Shawcross, would be incredibly helpful. Thank you.
William Shawcross: I will try.
Stephen Farry: I know the track record.
William Shawcross: I have to remind you that I no longer have any standing to make such inquiries. You have greater standing than I do. I will make some inquiries if you wish me to, but I suspect that you will get the answers quicker than I will.
Stephen Farry: Sure, no problem—thanks very much for your answers.
Chair: I would not necessarily bet on that, Mr Shawcross, but hope springs eternal.
Q61 Mr Goodwill: Good morning, Mr Shawcross. So far, we have focused on the victims of Qadhafi-sponsored IRA terrorism, both in Northern Ireland and on the mainland. Of course, another group of people could benefit from this money, which we speculate could be as much as £12 billion. They are the Libyan people from whom this money was stolen and salted away in various places around the world. I was involved in similar negotiations with Nigeria when I was a Home Office Minister. There was a slightly different situation, but the British and Nigerian Governments wanted something, and an accommodation was reached.
Was there any discussion of how an agreement could be made as to how much should be divvied up, if I can use that expression, for compensation, and how much should be returned to help with education, health and all those other things that Libya is having difficulty doing? Would it come down to a simple negotiation like that on how we split the fund? After that, we could decide how that money was distributed to the victims.
William Shawcross: I am not an international lawyer and you probably know the situation much better than I do. In fact, the Foreign Office statement yesterday did dwell on this in one paragraph. “The aim of the financial sanctions regime is to ensure that the assets frozen pursuant to resolutions 1970 and 1973 in 2011 shall as soon as possible be made available to and for the benefit of the people of Libya.” That is the correct reading of the UN resolutions.
I am not in a position to answer your question as to whether there would be any possible divvying up. It would be up to the British Government to persuade a Libyan Government that has been deemed secure and stable enough to be the recipient of Libya’s frozen assets. It would be up to us to then try and persuade them to part with some of those assets to compensate victims in Northern Ireland and England. Forgive me if I have got that wrong, but I would understand that to probably be the explanation. It is not an adequate explanation for your question.
Q62 Mr Goodwill: No, I understand where you are coming from. In that case, it may be possible that some of this money could be released through NGOs that could deliver aid on the ground and help the Libyan people. While we may not consider it at this time, we could at least negotiate with a Libyan Government or those who purported to be the Government in Libya. There could be some release of funds to help the Libyan people, and at the same time help people in Northern Ireland.
William Shawcross: I wish that were the case. I do not know whether that is possible to do unless you have the agreement of a Libyan Government that is finally in the position to receive those frozen assets.
Mr Goodwill: That is understood.
William Shawcross: If the Libyan Government is deemed by the international community to be stable and responsible enough to receive those frozen assets, it might well be responsible enough to meet its obligations to the British people in Northern Ireland.
Q63 Mr Goodwill: That is understood. In the announcement made on 6 March, Alistair Burt said, “I am confident that William’s appointment will bring greater focus to our efforts”, and that it would “help move us closer to resolving this pressing issue”. We hear now that this report is never going to be published. Were the Government at the time guilty of kicking this into the long grass? Was the announcement yesterday an admission that they were going to stop even looking for the ball?
William Shawcross: No, it was not kicking it into the long grass. When the Foreign Secretary, Mr Johnson, first asked me to do this in July 2018, it was quite clear to me that he felt very strongly that something should be done, and we should know more about what possibly could be done. I was asked to look at the feasibility of doing anything, in a way. That is a reasonable word to use.
He was not trying to kick it into the long grass at all. I am not saying they were necessarily in Government, but I met others, as I have already indicated, who said that this was not a good idea – to try to cause more communal problems and tensions than solve. There have always been mixed feelings. I am sure you know people who probably think that also.
Q64 Mr Goodwill: Without straying into the content of the report, which we understand you cannot disclose, are there recommendations in the report that you consider would be feasible as ways to move forward, which have been, in effect, rejected by the Government, or have you concluded that there are not really practical or feasible ways forward?
William Shawcross: I can safely say that my principal conclusion was that this is a really painful, difficult and immensely complicated subject. To move forward, you need more work on it. I have not been able in six months to do enough work to say, “This is the way forward. This is how everybody who deserves compensation can get it.” You need more research and a longer report than I was able to do.
Q65 Chair: Mr Shawcross, the written ministerial statement yesterday notes that your formal appointment was made by Jeremy Hunt when he was Foreign Secretary. You may not know the answer to this question. It is perfectly acceptable if you do not, but I am going to ask it, none the less. When this task was first mooted with you by the then Foreign Secretary, now the Prime Minister, was it done with or contrary to the advice of FCO officials?
William Shawcross: I have no idea.
Chair: That does not surprise me, but I thought I would ask it. You might have been told in conversation or whatever.
William Shawcross: No. I am sure officials knew perfectly well. The suggestion came when I visited Mr Johnson in his office at the Foreign Office. It was not something that was cooked up—
Q66 Chair: At that time, the then Foreign Secretary had struck up a very good relationship with Libya, had he not? There had been at least two official visits to Tripoli. There may have been a third. The mood music was pretty good. Do you think that had been the spur to embark upon this piece of work?
William Shawcross: I cannot answer that question with any accuracy. I am sorry.
Q67 Chair: Could you answer it with any inaccuracy?
William Shawcross: I would not wish to do that.
Q68 Stephanie Peacock: Good morning, Mr Shawcross. Do you feel that you are able to comment on whether your report recommended qualifying criteria for who would be eligible for compensation? Building on your answer to Mr Goodwill, you have said more than once this morning that you did not feel that you had enough evidence or time, and that your report simply was not conclusive. Did you at any point in your report outline a timeline forward or any further actions that should be taken for there to be conclusive conclusions?
William Shawcross: I did not indicate a timeline, no, but I made it clear that more time was needed. I am sorry. Well, I am not sorry. It would have been wrong for me to have pretended that I could come to any definitive conclusions as to what precisely should be done, how many thousands of victims there were and those sorts of crucial details. It would have been quite wrong for me, on the basis of the work I was able to do, to pretend to come to such conclusions.
Q69 Chair: Mr Shawcross, we started this session with you expressing surprise and disappointment with the written ministerial statement. You referenced the fact that you had, in my words, not yours, a cursory conversation shortly before its publication. Will you seek a meeting with Foreign Office Ministers to discuss the current position and further thoughts that you might have, or do you see that as the end of the matter as far as you are concerned?
William Shawcross: That is a difficult question. I have another job at the moment that is taking up a lot of time. But I certainly do not want to end my interest and, if I may use the word, enthusiasm for trying to find some solutions to the awful problems in Northern Ireland. Again, I say that I am a neophyte in the affairs of Northern Ireland. All of you know far better than I do what is or is not plausible.
Q70 Chair: Sometimes it is the fresh pair of eyes that means you see the wood for the trees. Let me ask that question again. Will you drop a line to the Foreign Secretary saying, “Could I have an online conversation with you about the written ministerial statement and further thoughts that you have?”
William Shawcross: I do not know whether the Foreign Secretary will wish to speak to me after all my candour, or I hope candour, with you. He may think that I have already broken the terms of my confidentiality agreement.
Chair: The Foreign Secretary is a reasonable man. It would not be an unreasonable request for the author of an important report to seek, if for no other purpose, an exit interview with the Foreign Office in this respect.
William Shawcross: Well, I exited when I delivered the report in March 2020. I certainly will wish to continue conversations on this subject; I am not going to drop it just because of yesterday’s statement. I will just continue discussions with people who I think could be helpful. I have friends who feel, like you do, very passionately about all these issues. They also understand, like you do, that these are incredibly complicated issues that are very hard to solve. I have sympathy with the Government in the sense that I delivered them a report saying, “This is very difficult.” I did not say, “Here is a quick and easy answer.”
Q71 Chair: We have spoken about the instability of Libya and the problems that that country has in a post-Qadhafi environment. You will be aware, I have no doubt, that overtures are being made to the United Nations vis-à-vis the defrosting of frozen assets, i.e. a revocation of the United Nations resolution. The United Kingdom has a permanent seat on the Security Council and the Republic of Ireland has a seat on the Security Council at the moment. Without getting into the unsavoury business of the doing of politics, would you see any merit in the UK Government advocating to the UN that it would veto any movement to unfreeze what is currently frozen unless or until the Libyan authority comes up with a self-authored and Libyan-funded compensation scheme?
To Mr Goodwill’s point, there is huge civic disruption within Libya, but Libya as a country, given its natural resources and its very small population vis-à-vis the size of its territory, is not what one would describe as an impoverished country. It is probably, per capita of the population, as wealthy, if not more so, than somewhere like Saudi Arabia. Would there be merit, if the Government thought that Libya was not going to pay and that it had the authority, in making that hard-nosed bargaining chip play?
William Shawcross: I do not know what stage the discussions are at, but I am sure that any responsible British Government would look at the legality and possibility of raising such an issue.
Q72 Chair: You have done this research and work. You have published, or rather submitted, this report. If only you could have published it, that would be better, but that is for us to take up with others. Given the fact that that is what the Government point to, i.e. that Libya has to do it, would it not be a wasted opportunity and a loss of leverage were the UK Government to acquiesce to a request to unfreeze or defrost what is currently frozen, and then try to retrofit a Libyan-authored solution to this problem? The key chip that we have here is that we have a vote in the Security Council and can veto any application to defrost. Would you agree that it would be beneficial and advisable for the Government to explore those options rather than defrosting and then asking?
William Shawcross: That is really beyond my competence. It is not something that I have studied. It is a very interesting question. You display a greater understanding of the diplomatic issues involved than I have.[14]
Chair: It is the first time I have ever been accused of understanding diplomacy. That is not hugely my forte, but I will bank that. Clearly, we will follow up our conversations with Ministers. Claire, your hand is up, but I do not know if that is an historic hand.
Q73 Claire Hanna: We know a thing or two about historic hands in Northern Ireland as well, never mind historic arms. I have a specific follow-up question further to your discussion with Mr Paisley. I would appreciate it if you did know the answer. You may not be able to give me a number here, but do you know how many specific incidents involved Libyan materials or training? If so, was that information provided to you, or was that something you established with your own investigations?
William Shawcross: I have tried to establish the number of incidents that involved Libyan Semtex, Libyan arms or Libyan-trained IRA personnel. It is incredibly hard to know, for example, that the person who set off a bomb at Enniskillen, say, was specifically a man who had been trained in Libya. These things are very hard to document, partly because it is so long after the event and they were not documented at the time. But I have done what I can to explore those issues. They are obviously crucial. The fact that they are so difficult is one of the reasons why it is very difficult to assess accurately how many direct victims there are of Libyan IRA terrorism.
Q74 Claire Hanna: It is difficult to assess, but do you have some sense? Is it quantified? Do you have any metrics through your work?
William Shawcross: I do not have final metrics. Again, I apologise for this, but I was not able to say, “There were 376 direct victims of Libyan IRA terrorism from these particular atrocities,” etc. I have tried to point the way to those numbers, but I have not said, “This is a definitive number.” I am sorry.[15]
Q75 Ian Paisley: I am just wondering, Mr Shawcross, if you met with Republicans as part of your examination.
William Shawcross: I was at Stormont and I did meet with Republican politicians at Stormont.[16]
Q76 Ian Paisley: Did you hear their representations on the basis that they may have had a conflict of interest?
William Shawcross: I heard their representations because they were Members of Parliament. I felt it important to hear all sides in Parliament at Stormont.
Chair: Mr Shawcross, thank you for your attendance this morning, within the constraints that I understand you are labouring under, for the courtesy of your answers and for the clarity of them where you have been able to give clarity. The meeting will have understood very clearly your sense of disappointment and, I would say, frustration in recognition of a job that needs to be done. You were given a bit of time to try to do a part of it, but there is more to do. It looks like we will have a campaign to wage, to try to convince the Foreign Office that there is some merit in further exploration.
We are grateful to you for the work that you have done in this area. It is very clear to all of us that you understand both the magnitude and the sensitivity of the issue. You have a very ready comprehension of the anger and the disappointment felt by many people who saw, or believe that they saw, a dim light of hope extinguished in a rather quick and cruel way in yesterday’s WMS. That is for us to take up with Ministers because that is a political process.
I am frankly not convinced that we will elicit any further information, but I want to provide the opportunity for it to happen. I am going to, very shortly, conclude this public session. We will then go into private session, the dial-in details of which have been provided both to Mr Shawcross and to members of the Committee. A transcript will be taken of that. I hope that those who are listening in do not take away from that decision that this is in any way underhand, but we are trying to explore all avenues available to us as a Committee to ascertain as many facts and pieces of information as possible. I will see relevant colleagues and, very kindly, Mr Shawcross in just a few moments’ time.