Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 Section 3(2)

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Julian Smith]

I want to take care about prejudging the work that the Government have put in place, cross-Government. As my right hon. Friend is aware, the Prime Minister has set a new focus on this issue, and I am sure he will be inputting into that. I will be working, along with the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office, to move that issue forward.

I absolutely recognise the sentiment and the principle underpinning the amendments on legacy, and I recognise the strength of feeling across this House on this matter. We have been clear that the current system for dealing with the legacy is not working well, and we will move forward in the ways I have discussed. While we want to find a better way to address these issues, to do so through the presumption of non-prosecution would pose a range of challenges and may not provide a complete solution to the issues at play.

A presumption of non-prosecution in the absence of compelling new evidence is likely to need to be applied to everyone involved in troubles-related incidents, including former terrorists. However, implementing these provisions would not remove the obligations under domestic criminal law and international obligations under the European convention on human rights for independent investigations of serious allegations. With regards to troubles prosecution guidance, hon. Members will of course be aware that criminal investigations are carried out independently of the Government. Prosecutorial decisions and the guidance that underpins them are devolved matters in Northern Ireland.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I apologise for interrupting the Secretary of State in mid-flow, and I know people want to get on. However, as someone who served over in Northern Ireland—and following the question from our right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), which he stepped around—may I repeat this back to him? Even though he is reiterating the issues about criminal prosecutions and other jurisdictions, the point still remains, as my right hon. Friend said—this is what people have been asking for—that we should not just bring somebody in on the basis of a trawl in the hope that something new will turn up. The issue is that having to have compelling evidence to pursue an individual is critical. That does not impact on any criminal activities or any effective future prosecutions, because they would face the same issue.

[Julian Smith]

I think my right hon. Friend, who has spoken very persuasively on this issue for many years, makes some important points, but I return to the fact that the Government are looking at all these issues in our cross-Whitehall review.

In Northern Ireland, just as in England and Wales, prosecutorial decisions are made independently of Government. The Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland is not under the superintendence of the Attorney General for Northern Ireland. The Director of Public Prosecutions has a consultative relationship with the Attorney General for Northern Ireland, but the former cannot be compelled by the latter. This feature of the relationship between these key figures is an important component of the devolution settlement in Northern Ireland, and it is not within the UK Government’s powers to direct the Attorney General for Northern Ireland or the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland. Members will be aware that what is central in these cases is not how an individual came to have a weapon, but what they did with it, and it is for the courts, not the Government, to determine innocence and guilt.

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[Tony Lloyd]

I would say to the right hon. Gentleman that the members of his own party who are taking part in the negotiations have a duty on them. Yes, of course, that duty extends to representatives of Sinn Féin. I want all parties to get around the table. I will come on to that a bit later on, but he cannot avoid the responsibility that members of his own party have in getting Stormont up and running. For nearly three years, we have had the absence of Stormont—three years of people making excuses about the fault lying elsewhere—and it is now time that people accepted responsibility for their actions.

I have to ask the Secretary of State, or perhaps the Minister who responds to the debate, about abortion. The House has committed to offering safe and legal abortions to women in Northern Ireland. There needs to be confidence in the law, those we expect to operate it and the way that it works. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), who has campaigned tirelessly on this issue, is important. Consultation is fundamental to all this, but again, Prorogation has dealt the Secretary of State a very difficult hand, because the House will return on 14 October, and on 22 October the legislation will come into effect. That means that the capacity for the House to make decisions to fill the legal gap that will exist between 21 October and 31 March is real. The consultation needs to take place now, and the House has to be ready to implement legislative change as soon as we are back, in the middle of October.

On veterans, the Secretary of State made some very important points—I know that he comes under pressure on this. If the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) is saying that we as a House are very clear that illegality by members of the armed forces, like any other member of society, like members of the IRA and like members of loyalist terror groups, will have the same outcome—that the law will be applied—that is really helpful, because we are then talking about how we move forward in a way that allows independence of investigation and of prosecution, which the Secretary of State referred to. In the end, it is important that the Stormont House bodies, which were agreed to by all parties in Northern Ireland, are allowed to operate, because victims who saw their loved ones killed and who were themselves victims of terror have rights in this, including the right to know that there is a proper investigation, whoever and whatever was the cause of their victimhood.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I did not intend to intervene on the hon. Gentleman, but as he raised that point, I will. The point that I, and I think many of my colleagues, are making is that those who have served and have left—some are in their seventies, and so on—face this unedifying process of suddenly being hauled back, not because there is compelling evidence, but in the hope that people may find something that was not available to them at the time. That is surely the key issue— a lack of natural justice—and it has to be stamped on.

[Tony Lloyd]

I understand what the right hon. Gentleman said. I simply say that it is a shame that proper investigation did not take place at the time. He will agree, as a former soldier, that he would not have countenanced illegality by those he worked with. Every decent soldier I know of would agree with that premise—that illegality was not what our armed forces were sent to undertake in Northern Ireland. I hear what he says; I am not sure that we are a long way apart on this issue.

Turning to the issue underlying all this, it is three years since the Stormont Assembly and the Stormont Executive were last working. We have seen the impact in areas as wide as health, education and the way in which the interface takes place—I know that the Secretary of State was agitated about the lack of powers that he had with respect to Harland and Wolff over the summer months, for example. We need to see change take place and Stormont back together. I pay tribute to his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), and him for the close working relationship that they have developed with the Tánaiste, Simon Coveney. It is important that there is a close working relationship between Dublin and London.

The single biggest threat to the United Kingdom at the moment is a no-deal Brexit, and the part of the United Kingdom facing the biggest threat is Northern Ireland, where the impact of a no-deal Brexit would be devastating, in a way that would go beyond the impact on my constituents and those of other Members in England, Scotland and Wales. The impact in Northern Ireland would not be simply economic, although the economic impact would be enormous. There would be an enormous impact on agriculture, on manufacturing, on services, and not simply on the social mores that have developed over the last 20 years, since the Good Friday agreement. There would be an enormous impact on the capacity to cross the border easily, and so on, and not simply on identity, which the Secretary of State referred to, though of course that is a fundamental issue.

The Good Friday and St Andrews agreements were milestones in establishing peace and a very different climate in Northern Ireland. It is important that nothing be allowed to jeopardise that, and a hard border, which there would be with no deal, would jeopardise it. We have seen in the Yellowhammer papers that people are concerned that we are drifting towards a no-deal Brexit. I note today the words of the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, making it clear that Ireland is not prepared to accept a promise in place of legal guarantees. The Taoiseach speaks for many on the Opposition Benches.

We have an odd situation. Parliament does not trust the Prime Minister, the Irish Government do not trust the Prime Minister, and the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) does not trust the Prime Minister on this issue. In that context, I say this to the Government: we are facing Prorogation and a period when our Parliament cannot act. The Secretary of State himself made it clear how important it was

“in the run-up either to a deal or no deal, that the very tricky decisions can be made, and I am sure that those will have to be made at pace.”—[Official Report, 5 September 2019; Vol. 664, c. 364.]

Of course, he is absolutely right. We will have to make decisions very quickly, and Prorogation makes that more difficult.

Immunity for Soldiers

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Bob Stewart]

My right hon. Friend is right: it was taken a long time ago. We must remember that most of our young men were 18 or 19 years old. They were kids. My soldiers looked so young that they could have been in year 9 or 10 at school.

Firearms were used as a last resort. On the yellow card it says, in capitals:

“FIREARMS MUST ONLY BE USED AS A LAST RESORT”.

That was drilled into us. A challenge had to be given before someone could open fire, unless doing so, it says on the yellow card, would increase the risk of injury or death to others or oneself. That challenge was clear: “Army. Stop or I fire.” Again the yellow card is specific: opening fire was allowed only if lives were endangered by someone firing a weapon at a soldier or someone they were protecting, or if someone was planting or throwing an explosive device—the card specifically mentions petrol bombs. One third of my platoon were injured by petrol bombs in 1970 on the streets of Londonderry, at the Rossville Street/William Street junction—one third burned, and we had not opened fire at all. And nor did we. If someone is driving at a soldier, that soldier is allowed to open fire. Finally, if a terrorist has killed someone or is in the act of killing someone, a soldier can open fire if they cannot make an arrest in any other way.

We could only open fire with aimed shots, not with machine gun fire; we did not do it automatic. We had to use “the minimum force”—that, again, is on the yellow card—and we had to be careful that we did not hit innocent people. That little phrase stopped so many British soldiers from firing, particularly in Belfast on the Falls Road.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend recall, as I do, it being drilled into our heads that a 7.62 round would travel through two levels of brick and kill something on the other side? That often gave our soldiers cause for hesitation, even when thinking about returning fire.

[Bob Stewart]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Most men on the ground were petrified that, by accident, they would kill an innocent person. That was a factor in the decision to open fire, in those milliseconds.

I know what happens in the case of a fatality, as I was involved in such an investigation. The Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Special Investigation Branch of the Royal Military Police hauled us over the coals. Even though we had just acted to save our life or someone else’s life, we were treated as though we had done something wrong. Soldiers are separated, questioned individually and kept in isolation. They are not given assistance and they have a very uncomfortable interview. The weapons they used are seized and checked; all the ammunition is counted, and they have to account for every single round. That is what happened to our men, and some women, when they were involved in fatality shootings.

Detailed reports were produced. The problem is that those reports are usable by the Director of Public Prosecutions; they are dug up, and some people go to court. In 1978, I had a very uncomfortable interview with two soldiers who were working with me. They were not infantry. I told them they had to go to court and would be charged with manslaughter. They went ballistic. They said, “Sir, you bloody officer. You are actually going to ditch us. You are going to abandon us; you are going to let us go to a court.” I felt rotten, because I agreed with them, but the Royal Ulster Constabulary told me that I had to instruct those soldiers to go to court and I had to support them, because if they went to court on a charge of manslaughter and that court proved there was no case to answer, the case would be dismissed and they would never hear about it again. Well, will they?

We always acted within the law. If we did not, as we have heard already, we should be prosecuted, but this card was given to us by our predecessors in this place as a protection, as well as instructions as to how we should act. Terrorists just disappear. There is no record of what they have done; they just kill. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) has said, we must not judge them in the same way as soldiers. It is so easy to go after men in uniform who went out at our bidding and acted within the law, with everything written down. It is so much more difficult to get evidence on a terrorist. Those terrorists just disappear, and then they get letters; I know those letters do not give them immunity, but it seems like they do. To the men and women who are veterans and who I am trying to represent, it seems like our Government—or Governments, because this includes the Labour Government as well—are giving those guys get-out-of-jail cards. So many of our veterans feel really bitter about that.

It is unsurprising that there is huge anger among the veteran community. They ask, quite rightly, “What are you Members of Parliament doing to help us? You sent us there. You gave us this bloody card and said that if we used it and acted in accordance with it, we would be protected.” Now, our soldiers need protection. They need our protection. How can soldiers, policemen and members of the Ulster Defence Regiment—some representatives of that regiment are here—be considered in the same light as a terrorist? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury said, those guys went out to kill; we went out to save lives. There is a huge difference in intention, and we have to sort this matter out. Terrorists did not give a damn who they killed. I have held people dying—women and young girls, including one 18-year-old girl who happened to be a Catholic. They did not give a damn who they killed, and it was terribly upsetting.

Our men and women who served in uniform require us to act. We need a statute of limitations for Northern Ireland veterans. It is absolutely right that we have a statute of limitations for people serving outside the UK, but what is the difference? Someone putting on a uniform was more likely to be shot in Northern Ireland than someone doing it in Iraq or Afghanistan. I can tell you that in Northern Ireland, our casualty rate was pretty big. The casualties we had in Northern Ireland outstrip the casualties we have had in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not just that: there were people who were really badly injured. I had three who lost their legs.

Colleagues, we cannot consider our servicemen and servicewomen in the same light as terrorists. I am ashamed that our Governments—I say “Governments” because I include Labour, the coalition and our present Government —are, as our servicemen and servicewomen see it, complicit in a witch hunt against them. These are old soldiers. Many are in their 70s—I will get there in a couple of months. In the Army, when we really wanted to sort something out, people would be told, “Get a grip.” It is time that our Government and our Ministers got a grip.

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[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, and to have served under Mrs Moon’s.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) that there is not an awful lot more to be said, but I will say it anyway because the e-petition demands that we reiterate and re-reiterate the reality of what has been going on. I congratulate those who started e-petition 243947 on their work, and my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Damien Moore) on his very good and powerful speech.

I have not spoken about this subject pretty much since I left Northern Ireland, but I listened with great interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), and it brought back an awful lot of memories of Northern Ireland. I was a young platoon commander like the ones he described, not that long out of Sandhurst. I do not know that I learned very much at Sandhurst; it all had to be re-learned after I left. I remember large periods of incredible, intense boredom, followed by massive periods of panic and fear—literally almost alongside each other. I lived in the masonic car park with my company, in an old caravan that had a hole on the side by my bed. I was damp the whole time I was there, because the rain lashed through the whole of the winter.

I remember the fear in my young guardsmen’s eyes when they were caught up in an incident. It came not from the idea of what might happen to them, but mostly from what they might have to do, and what they might get wrong. The yellow card, which was drilled into us before we left, scared the living daylights out of me before I even set foot in Northern Ireland, and I know it was the same for my young soldiers. As my hon. Friend said, some of them were 18 years old and had very low levels of education. They were in an urban environment that they had never been in, and they were armed and acting in support of the police, as a quasi-police force. We expected them, in a moment, to make the kind of judgments that highly paid, brilliant legal brains would stall at. Those young men had to make those decisions for themselves, as my hon. Friend rightly pointed out, and they bore the burden by themselves—too often, without support.

I take the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View made. I have a real problem with our relationship with the armed forces in this country. We expect them to do the right thing and go to war. I still remember my father, who served with great distinction in the second world war, telling me that many of his friends who had been incarcerated in prisoner of war camps for a number of years came home to find their families in near destitution, because the then War Office had decided that, as they were living comfortably in a prisoner of war camp, their pay could reasonably be cut in half; they would have no need for the other bit. It forgot that, or did not even bother to find out whether, they had dependants living at home, who, by the end of the war, were in deep poverty and starving. I am afraid that that is the kind of relationship that we have percolating through after every single operation. We treat our veterans of Northern Ireland in much the same way.

I am sad to say that the Government, and previous Labour and Conservative Governments—I am not necessarily speaking of mine, but all Governments—are determined to find the reasons why we cannot do things, but never the reasons why we can. Our servicemen and women get put in operations, genuinely risk their lives, and do not complain about it. They do that on the general assumption that a paternal Government would oversee their wellbeing if they were wounded, if their families were hurt or if they ended up in a difficult situation in which they might be prosecuted.

Too often, in the slightly politically correct conversations that take place outside Parliament when Ministers are interviewed, they start equivocating about who was doing what. We get equivocation about the terrorists versus the soldiers. I did not serve with particular distinction, but when I was in Northern Ireland, I had to find a cache of a large number of armour-piercing Garand—an American rifle—rounds. I thought to myself that they were on their way to somebody who would do a snipe on one of our patrol vehicles. They would have gone clean through it, and would have killed anything on the inside. Terrorists were setting up another attack, like those the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) described, on people who were there to keep the peace. There is no equivalence between those who go out to kill people, and those who go out to defend people but may end up having to kill people as a result. That stands above all else. That is what we do as soldiers. That is what we know we are about.

That is particularly the case with British soldiers, who I still believe to this day are the best trained, and most reasonable and decent, troops on the ground. They always operate with a real sense of restraint. They do not even have to be taught about that; there is an instinctive sense of restraint that comes from their training. We now find that 90% of the cost of these prosecutions is going on 10% of the incidents. Where is the natural justice in that?

I want to raise an issue. I had friends who never came back, and I want to talk about Robert Nairac. I saw him a few nights before he went to Northern Ireland, and he never returned. What happened to him—a brave young man trying to do his job—was horrific. He was not just killed but tortured and dismembered. He disappeared, and no one has ever owned up to knowing where his body is buried. No one has owned up to doing it, although we have a fair suspicion of who it was. His poor parents have gone to their grave with no conclusion to the sad tragedy of Robert Nairac. He is typical of many people, both soldiers and non-combatants, who disappeared in Northern Ireland. Where is the justice in the fact that families such as his will never see those responsible prosecuted for their filthy, foul actions? There is no natural justice in pursuing British soldiers, rather than the people who tortured and killed Robert Nairac, because it is easier.

Worse than that are the letters of comfort that were given out. I find it astonishing to discover that letters of comfort are given quietly to those on the run. Why are they on the run? Because they have committed atrocities and cannot come back. That is about Government and perhaps about the Belfast agreement—but in a funny sort of way, not really; otherwise, that would have been done publicly. It would have been shouted from the rooftops if it were an equivalent process, but it never was.

As my hon. Friends have said, the endless nightmare for soldiers who served in Northern Ireland was that they were three times more likely to die than the terrorists who they were after. The likelihood of death was greater on the streets there than in other operations before or since. Why was that? Because our soldiers walked through the streets in plain sight, and were targets every single moment that they were there.

I recall the sheer fear I felt as a young platoon commander on the first commemorative Sunday of Bloody Sunday in the Bogside. I remember having to keep a patrol safe as over 100,000 very angry people talked about tearing them limb from limb if they found them, and knowing that at any stage, any one of my patrol could have been taken away, never to be seen again. Those were the kinds of decisions that one had to make. That still resonates, even today.

Ultimately, I simply urge the Government to do the right thing—to recognise that it is quite ridiculous that soldiers who have been cleared in previous investigations should ever be pursued again, unless there is absolute, categorical and clear evidence, beyond what is needed to meet the burden of proof, that they have done something that nobody knew about before. These men, who are in their 70s, should never face that, but they do. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham mentioned one man who was arrested by a stream of police cars and taken away immediately, as though he had committed some foul offence and might run. The overcooking—the nonsense—that the police get up to on these matters sometimes is quite ridiculous.

I do not want these men to be treated differently, but I say quite categorically that if there is to be a statute of limitations, it must cover veterans of Northern Ireland. I understand that those who served in other operations may well be covered, but because Northern Ireland veterans served in the United Kingdom, UK law will override anything that the Government might do. That absolutely cannot be allowed.

I give my Government fair warning that I will simply not put up with shunting Northern Ireland veterans to one side while seeking some sort of general political cover, as though we had done something for them. We will not have done anything unless we deal with all our servicemen and women, who have had the bravery and courage to serve their country. There can be no second-class treatment.

There is debate about whether it should be stated that prosecutions must be based on new evidence, or whether there should be a statute of limitations. I would be content with observing this one principle: no servicemen or women who served in Northern Ireland should be arrested and pursued, particularly after cases against them have been dismissed, simply because the police have nothing better to do with their time than find out whether they did something. It is time that the Government acted on that.

I urge the Minister and his colleagues to recognise that those of us who served in Northern Ireland did not ask to. We did not, in a fit of passionate patriotism and bravery, suddenly volunteer to go there on our own. We were told to go there because we were soldiers. That was the command. We were told that it was an operation; it was not some other affair, as we now seem to hear. We went on that operation—Op Banner was an operation—and did our duty.

[Bob Stewart]

It was Operation Banner. Soldiers did 28 days in Northern Ireland and were awarded a General Service Medal, which is the recognised medal for serving in combat zones such as Malaya, Aden and Borneo. Northern Ireland is on the clasp for the General Service Medal, so it is an operation like any other.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree. The other day, I made the point that I have an Operational Service Medal for Rhodesia, as it was then, and a General Service Medal with a clasp for Northern Ireland. I assume that the operations were recognised as equivalents—I do not remember a distinction. I was never told that I was on a subset of an operation in Northern Ireland, but that I could go on a real one in Rhodesia. I can tell hon. Members, without a shadow of a doubt, that Northern Ireland was the more frightening of the two.

The Minister must say loudly to all those who have the privilege of running Departments, and even to the Prime Minister, that this simply cannot stand—it is a deep injustice. Those who served need us to stand up for them, because they have nobody else. Their families need us to stand up for them, because they have nowhere else to go. Successive British Governments have too often failed their servicemen and women because they were mealy-mouthed about how to support them. That has to stop; we must now protect them.

I have one last phrase for the Minister. When natural justice collides with the law, we must change the law to protect those who protected us.

Investigation of Veterans

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

The difference is that, were a case to be brought tomorrow, those letters would not be a piece of legal body armour. It is important that we make that point, and I hope the message will go out loud and clear from the Chamber that anyone who thinks they can swan around scot-free as a result of that does not have the legal protection that some people may have thought they did.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Gentleman is hovering—

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I recognise that I arrived slightly late, but I wondered—

[Mr Speaker]

Well, I am in a generous mood, so in recognition of the right hon. Gentleman’s military background and former leadership of his party, I think the House should indulge him.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, and I apologise that I came in when the Minister was already on his feet. I served in Northern Ireland and in what was then Rhodesia. I received a general service medal for one campaign, and a separate campaign medal for the other—as has been said, they were both operations. We were sent to Northern Ireland, and I lost friends, particularly Robert Nairac—I am sorry I was not here when he was mentioned. I do not know how I can honestly, and with a clean heart, say that my Government represent the best interests of ex-servicemen and women who have served their country. I simply state to the Minister this simple principle: when natural justice collides with the law, we change the law.

[John Penrose]

That has to be correct. That is why we are talking about bringing forward a Bill in this place to change the law to put this right. My right hon. Friend is also right to say—I think he is echoing the point made by my parliamentary neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey)—that for serving soldiers who get campaign or operation medals, whatever it may be, it feels the same whether or not the legal underpinning of the operation is different. We therefore have to come up with an Act of Parliament that ensures that protections are the same, even if they are arrived at through a different legal route. Either way, it absolutely and essentially has to be robust in the event of legal challenge, otherwise we will have failed in our duty to look after our veterans, no matter where they have served.

Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Bill

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Money resolution: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon) said, his amendments are not perfect, and there will be concerns, but when is the right time for us to defend our veterans? When is the right time for those in this House to speak out and say, “Enough is enough”?

I have to declare an interest. It was not 30 or 40 years ago that I got on the troop ship from Liverpool across to Belfast docks. It was 42 years ago that I and the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards went across to Northern Ireland. I was petrified, like most young people were when they went into the armed forces and into combat. I was not going abroad—we were not going to Afghanistan, Iraq, Aden, Borneo or Malaya. I was going to another part of the United Kingdom to protect a community from terrorism. It was a policing role. I have never quite understood why we issued the general service medal for those who went to Northern Ireland, because it was part of the United Kingdom. It was not an operation, as we have heard. We were not on ops; we were assisting the RUC to protect the community. Sometimes that community turned on us, and we lost a lot of good friends and soldiers. Some we have never found. I have spoken in the House before about my captain, Captain Robert Nairac, whose bravery everybody should understand.

We are not here this evening to just accept what the Secretary of State has said and give it carte blanche. The Secretary of State has no idea what I am going to say, and other colleagues are waiting to argue for these amendments as well, but the Secretary of State and the Opposition Front Benchers have already made their mind up, before hearing from gallant colleagues who have served and colleagues who have never served but have constituents who are under threat day in, day out of a knock at the door or a letter. Perhaps that letter will come to me; perhaps I am one of those people. I am probably one of the older ones who served back then. I went in 1976, and the forces that were out there—some were volunteers for the Ulster Defence Regiment, which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) was serving in—were doing a fantastic job. The RUC was doing a fantastic job. At one stage, we had 10,000 soldiers putting their lives on the line in the Province to keep people safe.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I, like my right hon. Friend, served out there, in ’75, and I recall serving in the Bogside when we used to have to accompany the RUC there; they would not go were the military not with them at the time, patrolling in the same area. We were dealing with circumstances that are very difficult for modern generations to understand. We had to do so under a very different set of rules, and my concern is exactly his: that we are now judging on the basis of a wholly different set of criteria.

[Sir Mike Penning]

My right hon. and gallant Friend understands this so well. It was not so much that the RUC could not cope, but the threat to them was so great that we had to patrol with them. I did not serve in Londonderry or Belfast, even though I have been accused of doing naughty things in Belfast by the IRA and Sinn Féin. I served in Monaghan, Keady and Middletown, where we were in the RUC post, sometimes with the RUC and sometimes on our own.

It was a very difficult time, but we were not conscripts. We were young people who volunteered to serve in our armed forces. When I joined up, I knew that I was going to Northern Ireland. Basically, every 18 months you would go to Northern Ireland if you were from an infantry regiment. We knew we were going to go, and we knew how difficult it was going to be, but—this is the big but—I expected those who sent us to look after us. I honestly feel at the moment that veterans, and not just those from my day, do not feel that this House did the right thing for us, and they passionately feel that we are letting them down.

If this evening’s debate is not the answer and these amendments are not the right ones, I say to colleagues around the Chamber—I am so disappointed that some of my Labour friends who served in the armed forces are not here for something so damn important—that the people who did the right thing for us and for Northern Ireland are flagrantly being let down, day in and day out. They are told there is another consultation, that we cannot do it—that there is technicality here, and the judges will not do it—or that Sinn Féin will use this against us. I don’t give a monkey’s. The Commons should stand up for our veterans, and if we do not vote for that this evening, there is something seriously wrong.