Northern Ireland

He arrived at Hillsborough in May 2005 with the institutions suspended and the two governments running out of options. The Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill, introduced later that year, would have created a mechanism for those known as on-the-runs. It was withdrawn after Sinn Féin opposed the inclusion of security force members.

Following the St Andrews Agreement of October 2006 he negotiated a power-sharing agreement between the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin which saw these bitter blood enemies share devolved government in May 2007, with Ian Paisley as First Minister and Martin McGuinness as Deputy First Minister. Hain has called it the thing he is proudest of.

Legacy has taken most of his attention since he left the Commons. There was evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in 2014, then opposition to the amnesty proposals of 2020. He opposed the 2023 Northern Ireland Legacy Act, which granted an amnesty opposed by all Northern Ireland victims and political parties, and fought it clause by clause through the Lords.

In February 2024 he told the House that he had been informed on good authority that key legacy inquests were being deliberately delayed so that they would lapse on 1 May, when the Act discontinued them. He asked whether that was any way to treat people who had already waited decades. The Act has been through the courts repeatedly since, and a remedial order was still before the Commons in January 2026.