Supreme Court Dillon Judgment

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord lived and breathed this during the last piece of legislation: the legacy Act that we are discussing. The appeal was not continued—I have said this from the Dispatch Box before—because it was made very clear to us by the courts that we would not win. Therefore, we needed to come up with an alternative solution. That is what we are seeking to do in the new Bill.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I am a simple sailor. Recently, I have spoken to a number of simple soldiers, who may be even simpler. When we joined the military, we felt that there was an agreement that, as long as we acted in good faith, the country would support us.

I understand that this is a highly complex subject. I served in Northern Ireland. I do not know where we have got to in the answers, but can I ask my noble friend the Minister to make absolutely certain that we do honour that contract, because already it is having an impact on recruiting, particularly in the Special Forces? We must look after those people who went out every day to try to look after the safety of people in Northern Ireland—they might have got it wrong occasionally—rather than those who went out every day to damage and injure the people in Northern Ireland.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend and look forward to discussing the detail of our future amendments and having further conversations in this space with him as the legislation progresses. Like many other Members of your Lordships’ House, I am personally grateful to those people who put on a uniform, today, tomorrow or, in this case, yesterday. They ran towards the Troubles to protect the rest of us and we should be forever grateful to them. That is not to say, as the noble Lord will appreciate, that putting on a uniform protects you if you did do ill.

I would like to put something on the record. One issue that has been raised repeatedly in this space is how the conversations we are having about the Troubles are having an impact on recruitment and retention. Recruitment into our Armed Forces is up by 13% and outflow is down by 8%. I appreciate that people’s concerns are real, but we need to be careful with our language to make sure that we are not talking people out of joining our military at a time when, as all noble Lords will appreciate, we need people to sign up.