The Attorney General is facing mounting questions over his links to Gerry Adams and whether he had a role in the compensation decision involving the former Sinn Fein leader.
Sir Keir Starmer is set to repeal Troubles legislation, sections of which would have denied Mr Adams, and some 400 other Republicans, taxpayer-funded payouts over their detention in prison in the 1970s for suspected involvement in terrorism.
Lord Hermer on Wednesday defended his right to have represented the former Sinn Fein leader in a separate damages claim by IRA bomb victims but refused to say how Mr Adams paid him for the case.
He refused to say whether he was involved in the compensation decision, which has been made on human rights grounds.
Sir Keir, who brought his friend into his Cabinet when Emily Thornberry was expected to get the role, is already under fire over Labour’s handling of the economy and the corruption scandal surrounding Tulip Siddiq.
The Prime Minister insisted on Wednesday that he did want to find a way to block Mr Adams and other Republican detainees from claiming compensation, despite remaining committed to repealing the Troubles legislation. However, Number 10 officials declined to say how he might achieve that.
Senior peers, lawyers and victims have urged Sir Keir to stick with the original law, even if this means he has to fight Mr Adams in the UK courts and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Colin Parry, whose 12-year-old son Tim died in the IRA Warrington bombing in 1993, said it would be “offensive” if the Government were to allow Mr Adams to claim compensation.
“No government has ever offered us compensation. We are basically the forgotten victims who will remain forgotten in perpetuity. I don’t see any sign of this Government or future governments seeing a need to reopen or reconsider that,” he said.
Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, has demanded the Prime Minister reveal whether Lord Hermer was involved in advising the Government on the proposal.
Sir Geoffrey Cox, the former Tory attorney general, said it would be “unusual” if Lord Hermer had advised the Government on the issue after representing Mr Adams as a client because conflict of interest rules were “very broadly defined”.
Jason McCue, the lawyer representing the IRA bomb victims suing Mr Adams, said he would be “surprised” if Lord Hermer was involved “on a decision that could benefit his former client if only because it would call that advice into question and undermine faith in Government.”
Asked in Parliament whether he had been involved, Lord Hermer told MPs on the Commons justice committee it was a longstanding convention that law officers did not disclose whether they had advised ministers and what they might have told them.
He said: “The law officers’ convention which is enshrined in the ministerial code precludes any minister from saying whether the law officers have been asked to advise on any given issue, let alone what we have advised.”
Lord Hermer represented Mr Adams in a damages claim in 2023, which was brought against the former Sinn Fein president by three victims of Provisional IRA bomb attacks at the Old Bailey, London Docklands and Arndale Centre in Manchester.
It is understood that he withdrew from the case when he was appointed Attorney General by Sir Keir. Matrix Chambers, where Lord Hermer worked, continues to represent Mr Adams in the ongoing damages litigation.
Speaking in Parliament, the Attorney General confirmed that he had represented Mr Adams but defended the right of lawyers to act for clients “without fear or favour” and irrespective of what they had done “whether it was morally right or morally wrong”.
He said this was one of the “key parts of our rule of law framework”, noting that he had at the same time represented the family of a young British soldier murdered by the IRA in the 1970s.
No win, no fee, no comment
“My concern about attacks on lawyers for doing particular cases is that it undermines faith in the legal system. I don’t want to overegg that but it has a particular resonance for me because I have been involved for many years in organisations that seek to protect lawyers working in fragile environments,” he told MPs.
“I have seen how lawyers themselves become targets including assassinations of many people known to the organisations I have worked with and supported. I have seen in most bloody terms what happens when you undermine faith in integral parts of the rule of law system.”
Asked if he had been paid by Mr Adams on a “no win, no fee” basis, he said: “I am afraid I can’t recall, and even if I could recall, I’m not sure I would feel inclined to answer a question as to the basis on which I was paid by any given client.”
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Mr Jenrick wrote: “The Attorney General, Lord Hermer, represented Gerry Adams in 2023. We urgently need to know whether he was involved in the decision to abandon a winnable appeal, which now leaves his former client in line for a payout. The Government’s claim this signals its “absolute commitment” to the Human Rights Act makes no sense whatsoever.”
In a second post, he added: “The Attorney General will not say whether he stands to gain financially if the Government pays out to Gerry Adams. Nor has he said whether he was involved in decisions which benefit his former client.”
The original Troubles legislation was introduced by the Tories and amended explicitly to reverse a Supreme Court ruling which determined Mr Adams had been illegally detained during the Troubles because the wrong minister had signed his custody order.
Labour decided to repeal the law last year after a Northern Irish high court ruled that the Tories’ legislation was incompatible with human rights laws. Hilary Benn, the Northern Ireland Secretary, said that Labour’s decision to repeal the law underlined “the Government’s absolute commitment to the Human Rights Act”.
Ministers decided against appealing the Northern Irish court decision despite warnings on Tuesday by 16 leading lawyers, former judges and ministers that the decision would “reopen the door to a wave of meritless litigation” relating to events dating back more than 50 years.
In a report by the think tank Policy Exchange, the 16, who include former Labour security minister Lord West, said that hundreds of people who were lawfully detained for suspected involvement in terrorism could be paid compensation in an “unjust and wasteful use of public money”.
Sir Keir was challenged during Prime Minister’s Questions by Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, over the “shameful” decision to “write a cheque to compensate” Mr Adams.
The Prime Minister said he would go ahead with his manifesto commitment to repeal the Troubles Act, which he said was found to be “unlawful” and would have granted immunity to hundreds of terrorists and was not supported by victims in Northern Ireland.
But he told MPs: “We will put in place a better framework. We are working on a draft remittal order and we will look at every conceivable way to prevent these types of cases claiming damages.”
Lord Faulks, a former justice minister who drafted the original amendment, said Labour had supported the block on compensation when in Opposition and it would be “extraordinary” to take a different course of action.
