Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Al Carns Excerpts

Committee of the whole House & 3rd reading
Tuesday 20th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Chris Coghlan (Dorking and Horley) (LD)]

We owe our special forces an enormous debt. I understood that more clearly when I served in counter-terrorism in the Foreign Office. That debt has not been honoured with the endless and unjustified litigation against Northern Ireland veterans. In Northern Ireland, there has been a sustained attempt to paint a moral equivalence between those who are maintaining law and order and those who conducted murder. Veterans fear persecution, and that is why I support amendment 129, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler), which will require a new evidence certificate to be issued before the resumption of any inquest.

As the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) described so movingly, on 8 May 1987 a heavily armed eight-man Provisional IRA team approached a police station at Loughgall. They used a JCB to breach the perimeter, with a 300-to-400 lb bomb in the bucket. They were engaged by the SAS and killed. It was the largest single loss of life for the IRA. Tragically, an innocent civilian was mistaken for an IRA member and was killed as well.

There have already been four investigations or inquests into Loughgall. If there is another, what further answers are the families expecting? On their own terms, their loved ones were members of the Provisional IRA, committed to violence for political ends. What would this mean for veterans? Anyone who opened fire would be anxious that doing their duty could be portrayed as a serious crime. I share the grave concerns of SAS veterans and their regimental associations. The failing in the Bill is that there is no robust, objective test to prevent the reopening of inquests without new and compelling evidence.

I may be a Member of Parliament, but I am also a reservist soldier in the London Guards. I have served alongside soldiers who know that they have done nothing wrong, but who now worry about the possibility that in 30 or 40 years’ time they too could be hauled out of retirement into court. How can that be right? British soldiers risked their lives for others, and we owe them the just protection of this amendment.

[Al Carns (Birmingham Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I have found the conduct of the debate, today and yesterday, deeply encouraging. It has been thoughtful and meaningful, and the passionate speeches that we have heard have informed my insight and understanding in respect of Northern Ireland veterans and of all the other issues. Indeed, my hope for democracy, candour and a progressive Parliament has generally been restored, following other debates that I have had the privilege of sitting in on.

As you will know, Ms Ghani, I spoke to the Committee yesterday about some of the changes that the Government have made to the Bill. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for those changes: he has listened. The change on equivalence matters to me, as do protections against people being investigated again and again for some of the same events. However, I still think that we have got the architecture of the Bill wrong from the start. What happens to outstanding inquests is of concern, and balancing truth and reconciliation with justice is almost impossible. Let me explain why.

We have 38 inquests that have stopped. They will restart under the Bill; some will go back to the coronial system, while others will go to the legacy commission. It would be useful if the Secretary of State could tell me whether the inquests that sat with the Solicitor General can go straight to the commission, or whether will they need to be opened, as inquests, before they move to the commission following a recommendation.

[Chris Bryant]

When the Solicitor General carries out his sift of those processes, they will go straight to the legacy commission.

[Al Carns]

That is encouraging to know, but although these are deaths from the same conflict being considered decades later, we are deliberately providing two different routes for dealing with them. For more than 12 months I have recommended that we create a single centralised body to deal with the troubles-related issues. I know that there are some who would be uncomfortable with that, particularly those who represent families who have waited a very long time for an inquest, and I understand why that is. I am not suggesting for a moment that those families should lose the work that has already been done; the evidence gathered should go with the case. Nor am I seeking to prevent prosecutions. If the commission finds evidence that someone committed a criminal offence, whether that person wore a uniform or belonged to a terrorist organisation, that evidence should go to the prosecuting authorities. I am trying to get us to one process in which we can have some confidence.

There is a reason why I feel strongly about this. We need to be very careful about the history that we are creating through the legacy process, and also to think about why it is impossible to balance truth and reconciliation with justice. The state kept a great many records during the troubles; of course it did. Operations were recorded and reports were written, and the people involved can often be identified. There is an enormous amount of material about what the British state did and did not do. The IRA and other terrorist groups did not keep operational records. There is no equivalent archive sitting somewhere with records of who gave an order, who carried it out, and what happened afterwards.

[Colum Eastwood]

I am not sure that we know that the IRA did not keep records, but that is an aside. What we do know very well, given all that we have seen over the last number of years and the reports that have been done, is that the IRA and other terrorist organisations were riddled from top to bottom with informers reporting directly to the British state. Those files exist, and they could tell us a whole lot about what the IRA and other organisations were up to.

[Al Carns]

I thank the hon. Member for the intervention, but when the records exposed threaten either national security or individual security, we must take that into account.

Yesterday, I think we all agreed that families deserve justice and answers, and indeed that many want closure, but with the majority of the murders during the troubles and conducted by terrorist organisations remaining unsolved, there just is not the evidence to get to the truth or to justice. I would like to ask: how is the Bill going to change that? Let us think about that. How is this Bill going to change the amount of evidence, and where is the new evidence to come from? I think we need to be honest with the families: do we genuinely believe that ex-IRA or Unionist terrorists are going to come and give information to this process? If by coming forward to offer information to provide answers that would at the same time self-incriminate the witness or individual providing the information, how many will participate?

I hear people talk about Ireland and about new biometric and forensic evidence-gathering capabilities, but there just is not the evidence to get to the truth. The reality—I could be wrong, and if I am proven wrong, I will hold my hand up—is that very few terrorists, if any, will come forward. The quest for the truth will rely on slivers of new evidence—and I mean slivers, although that does not mean we should not investigate them—that are found or indeed that arise from Ireland opening and giving the UK access to its extensive archives. Do we believe Ireland will do that? It would be politically very difficult and legally painful, and indeed it would lead to questioning the reputation and moral compass of successive Irish Governments.

We need to be honest with families: this Bill will not magically produce new evidence, and that creates a very real problem when, 30 or 40 years later, we try to establish the truth through legal proceedings. Material available to investigators is inevitably much richer on one side than it is on the other. If we put the cases through different processes as well, we will make the problem even worse. I have described this before as creating a hierarchy of truth. I do not mean that as a slogan, but something quite specific. What can be investigated most easily becomes what gets investigated most thoroughly, and what gets investigated most thoroughly produces the most findings. After enough years have passed, those findings start to become the history of the conflict. I do not believe anybody in this Chamber intends that to happen—I genuinely do not think that is the case—but intention is not really the point. We need to look at where the system we are building eventually takes us.

The Bill is trying to prevent repeat investigations, and I welcome the work to do so. I will, however, give a small example. Soldier B from Coagh has not been charged, but has had eight years of legal process, and three court cases have ruled that his actions were justified and there was appropriate use of force, yet the family have received legal aid to take the case again to the Supreme Court. Soldier B is unlikely ever to be charged, but he has undergone eight years of legal uncertainty and will endure many more. This is not about prosecutions; this is about the process being wielded as the punishment.

I come at this as a Labour MP. The Good Friday agreement asked an enormous number of people to do very difficult things. There were decisions made as part of that settlement that many people found very hard to accept, and still do. Prisoners walked out of jail, and people who had been enemies were expected to sit in government together. Blair and Mo Mowlam understood that there was no settlement available that could somehow settle every account from the previous 30 years, but they were trying to stop another generation having to live the same argument.

I worry that we are in danger of doing the opposite with legacy. In 10 or 15 years’ time, the Northern Ireland people’s understanding of what happened will come in large part from what is being established now. If over those years one part of the conflict has been examined again and again, because that is where records and people are available, while much of the activity of terrorist organisations remains beyond reach, we should not be surprised if people begin to draw conclusions from that. That would be a poor legacy for a Labour Government to leave them.

None of this diminishes what families have been through. There are people—hundreds of people—who have spent decades trying to find out what happened to someone they loved. They are entitled to pursue the truth, and I would never vote for a system designed to deny it to them. However, I also know veterans who have lived for years with the possibility that somebody will reopen an event that has already been examined, sometimes more than once—in many cases more than once. Many of those people are now very old men, and we cannot keep pretending that endless process is the same thing as justice.

The Government have chosen to strengthen the legacy commission, and I think that is the right thing to do. If we believe the commission can do this work, let it do the work. We should give it these outstanding cases and the material already collected and let the families take part, and if it finds evidence that belongs before a court, that is where it should go. Even the Joint Committee on Human Rights has questioned the justification for having two approaches to these revived inquests. I think that is a fair question, and I have yet to hear a convincing answer, other than that it will stress-test the framework agreement with the Irish.

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[Chris Bryant]

I know the shadow Secretary of State is getting himself worked up about this argument. I do not think he really believes the argument that he is advancing. [Interruption.] I read it rather differently.

The truth of the matter is that I have met with the Special Forces Association, as have both the Ministers who are here beside me—the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North, and the Minister for Veterans and People, my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey). I have spoken to a large number of those who have served, and they are very keen to make sure we have a Bill that is balanced and fair. That is precisely what we are going to achieve. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) said, it does us no favours when we exaggerate and seek to undermine recruitment into the armed forces, in particular into the special forces.

[Al Carns]

rose—

[Mr Francois]

On that point, will the Secretary of State give way?

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[Chris Bryant]

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak.

[Al Carns]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. The reality is that, across the conventional force, we have seen an uptick in recruitment and a reduction in people leaving due to retention issues. It is the first time in 10 to 14 years that we have seen an increase—it is a huge success. We have to be careful of conflating two things that are going on within a more specialist community. One is a Northern Ireland Bill, which, whether we like it or not, does not resonate with the rank and file of the individuals in our community, and one is other inquests and inquiries that in some cases do. We need to keep a very close eye on that in the Ministry of Defence, and I am sure the Secretary of State will work with the Ministry of Defence to ensure we are monitoring it and putting remedial action in place, should that be the case.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point: it is important not to conflate things that do not necessarily belong together. Being able to fillet through the different aspects of what affects recruitment is what really ends up delivering results, and that is absolutely the role of the Ministry of Defence. The Minister for Veterans and People is sitting on the Front Bench, and that is one of the things he has in mind.

The Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Wimbledon, has tabled new clause 12, which I think he intends to push to a vote. It would impose a new duty to promote reconciliation on the Secretary of State and require the Secretary of State to

“publish a strategy for the promotion of reconciliation in Northern Ireland”.

I have tabled quite a few of these kinds of amendments in the past, and I never expected or really wanted the Secretary of State to take them on. I suspect that this is a probing amendment. Clause 11(1) of the Bill already explicitly requires the legacy commission and its individual members to exercise their functions in a way that is consistent with

“the principle that reconciliation should be promoted”,

and that is precisely what we intend to do.

Two other issues have been of particular concern. One is the word “essential”. The Bill states that there should be no duplication of a process that has already been undergone elsewhere, either in an inquest or in the legacy commission. That is a really important part of what we are doing. The previous legislation introduced by the Conservatives used a lower bar—namely, the word “necessary”. We think “essential” is a higher bar. I hear the comments that Members have made about their not being convinced by that, and this is one of the issues I am sure we will want to return to in the House of Lords.

The other issue is compelling new evidence. One of the key asks that was put to me on a regular basis was ensuring that, before anybody could be interviewed as a witness or brought before the legacy commission, there had to be compelling new evidence. I completely agree, which is precisely why that is one of the measures we have included in the Bill. I think we have put it in the right place in the Bill, rather than right at the beginning.

The final point on which there is quite a bit of disagreement is the role of the Attorney General. My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast South and Mid Down (Claire Hanna) and the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) both said that they disagree with that role, and other Members are pulling me in different directions because they are not entirely convinced about it. I want to make it clear that the Attorney General is also the Advocate General for Northern Ireland. We are not seeking to undermine in any sense the prosecuting authorities in Northern Ireland or in Great Britain, and it would be completely inappropriate for the Attorney General to bear in mind at all any political considerations when making a prosecutorial decision. The only thing they are able to bear in mind is the traditional prosecutorial issue of whether there is a more than 50% chance of a successful prosecution and a conviction, and whether prosecution is in the public interest. I think that the measures will provide a greater sense of reassurance that there will be consistency across the piece.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Al Carns Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Monday 19th October 2026 Commons Chamber

How often have we heard Secretaries of State, past and present, say, “The last legacy Act commanded no support from any party in Northern Ireland”? Well, here we have an amendment that is supported by the Democratic Unionist party, the Ulster Unionist party, an independent Unionist, a traditional Unionist and an Alliance Member—I hope that I can add the Social Democratic and Labour party. We have unanimity among the Northern Ireland political parties, at least those represented in this Chamber, all of whom can see the practical and compassionate benefits to agreeing with amendment 23. They all recognise that we cannot allow the pain to continue in this case: the biggest single atrocity. That is not to put it above any other, but we certainly must recognise that, unless amendment 23 is agreed to, it will not be considered where others will.

[Al Carns (Birmingham Selly Oak) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson).

I thank the Government for putting forward their amendments. I support the no-equivalence measure, the highest bar for evidence and the double lock on prosecutions. I also thank the veterans who have come here today to observe this debate; all parties, for having a conscientious and solid debate on this issue; the Veterans’ Commissioners; and all those observing this debate from afar. If there is one takeaway from this debate, it is that this issue really should be above politics. It has gone on for so long, with so much pain among so many people, and coming to a solution in Northern Ireland for the people of Northern Ireland should be above politics.

I have tabled several amendments to highlight the overarching problems that I think exist in the Bill. Although I support many of the amendments brought forward by the Government, I am still deeply concerned that this Bill opens the floodgates for hundreds of lawyers to pursue what can only be described as a strategic effort to rewrite history, to paint the state as the aggressor and to use the process as a punishment to hit back at our brave servicemen and servicewomen who served in Northern Ireland.

I served in Northern Ireland in 2003, after the troubles. It was not the most kinetic environment then, but I went through the same training that those soldiers, sailors, airmen and airwomen went through before they deployed to Northern Ireland. There was a requirement for split-second decision making and to engage with a population that, in some cases, did not like us or want us to be there. It was a very difficult operating environment. I was a young troop commander at the time, but I went on to serve in Afghanistan and a multitude of other operational theatres, where those skills became very useful. I know what it feels like.

I went on to be the Minister for Veterans and People, and I was opened up to another side of the debate that I had not necessarily engaged with when I was a young troop commander in the Marines: speaking to victims. I spoke to victims of all sorts and all creeds, from different sides, who were seeking truth. Many had given up on the chance of justice, but they were seeking truth for loved ones and closure, usually in relation to people who had been lost during the troubles.

My new clause 55, which I do not intend to push to a vote, is quite simple: it would move all inquests into the legacy commission, creating one simple body for truth and reconciliation, with an acceptance that the likelihood of justice and “prosecutions” is vanishingly small. There is a question around justice, whether we are ever going to get it, and whether truth and reconciliation should be the priority. Overnight, my new clause would worry a great deal of lawyers in Northern Ireland, as it would cut off what has become an exceptionally lucrative business. With inquests costing hundreds of millions of pounds, not only would my new clause save the taxpayer a fortune, but I believe it would centralise and revitalise, and it would create one central mechanism for troubles-related incidents.

Why can that not take place? Because it breaks the framework agreement with the Irish. I am Scottish; I have an affinity with the Irish. But do we in this House—in this great place—expect the Irish to open up their police and military intelligence files and provide us with the wealth of information and intelligence that must exist on cross-border IRA activities over 30 years? Just think about that from a political perspective. We are all politicians here. Would we be keen to open up 30 years of evidence? Think of the political blowback. Think of the legal issues. Importantly, think about how that would potentially pull us or individuals involved back into the system.

There are many accounts, from various sources, stating that the Republic of Ireland was used to store capabilities, weapons and explosives, and even used for terrorists to flee security forces south of the border. Are we really going to see, as the framework agreement states, reciprocal evidence gathering and exposure of IRA activities from the Republic of Ireland? To my mind, the answer is that that is highly, highly unlikely. Doing so would result in every sliver of evidence being legally scrutinised, people being held accountable and the reputation of Ireland being called into question, and it would have political consequences. I just do not think that it is going to happen in the way in which we would want it to happen.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful for the way in which my hon. Friend has conducted his campaign. As he knows, he has informed many of the amendments that we have tabled today. I do not want to give the Irish Government a free pass on this issue. We need to be ambitious. Just as there should be a duty of candour for us, so there must be a duty of candour for the Irish Government. Every time that I have raised this matter with my counterparts in Dublin, they have insisted that they intend to stand by their commitments, and I think we must make sure that they do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Al Carns]

I thank the Secretary of State for the way in which he has approached this Bill. The engagement with all parties has been second to none, and I absolutely support that engagement. I have so many people phoning me and talking to me about the positivity of that engagement, so the Bill is being taken forward through the right mechanisms.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Member is right to bring up the role of the Republic of Ireland, and what it does or does not do. I think of the case of the two superintendents, Breen and Buchanan, who were murdered at the border. It was Garda Síochána who colluded with the IRA to let them know what was going on. Now we find that not only did the IRA kill those men, but the Republic of Ireland and its Government in particular fell very far short. There are many other cases—my cousin is an example —but I also think of Jack Lynch. If the hon. Member casts his mind back, he will remember that Jack Lynch was the Taoiseach for the Republic of Ireland who was going to arm nationalists against the Unionists in Northern Ireland. That is where the canker lies—at the very top.

[Al Carns]

I thank the hon. Member for his contribution, and for his consistent analysis, scrutiny and support of all things Northern Ireland.

As my new clause is not going forward, we will continue —unfortunately, in my mind—with a twin-track approach. We will have the legacy commission on one hand, which in some cases is underfunded, and inquests on the other hand. We will waste a huge amount of money through that process, because I genuinely believe that that illusionary justice is very unlikely to come about. We will allow the process to drift on, potentially for up to 15 years. Think about what that means to someone who is 80, 75 or 70 years old—15 years of not knowing, of having to be worried about whether they will be called back or have to provide evidence in some way, shape or form about an incident 30 or 40 years ago. Sometimes, I cannot even remember what I did yesterday. We will keep our brave veterans, who I think have served valiantly, waiting in limbo.

Importantly, a lot of this activity is based on several factors, the first of which is the willingness of Ireland to support us. I completely support the Secretary of State’s move to hold Ireland to account for what it has said it will do, but let us see whether that happens. The second factor is the costs, which are astronomical. At minimum, an inquest costs £20 million. There are tens of inquests to go, and even if they go into the legacy commission, we are still talking about £5 million per inquest. That is significant. Then we have politics to think about. As this process progresses, it will consider Sinn Féin’s activity—either in Northern Ireland or in the Republic of Ireland—and how that affects both the legislation and the agreements Sinn Féin have made recently. On top of all of that, if new evidence—new biometrics, the smoking gun—is found, people will only go to prison for two years, so what is the point?

As for information recovery, there is no new information unless it comes from Ireland.

[Colum Eastwood]

This is nonsense.

[Al Carns]

It is highly unlikely that there will be new evidence. We can say, “This is nonsense”, but the reality is that it is not going to happen. It has not happened for the last 10 years; it is unlikely to happen now, except in one or two cases.

[Colum Eastwood]

I respect the hon. Member’s opinion on this, but does he accept that over the last week and a half, there have been two former paramilitaries in court on the basis of things that happened long ago? It is not the case that these cases are not being brought forward. The hon. Member’s biggest complaint is that too many cases are being brought forward; now, he is saying that there is no chance of new evidence. I do not really understand this argument.

[Al Carns]

The likelihood of having a huge amount of new evidence that justifies the amount of money spent, and the pain and anguish that all these people are going to be put through, just does not weigh up. There needs to be one single delivery process; instead, we have a twin-track approach that is going to cost a huge amount of money, and the victims sat underneath cannot decide which way to go. It is completely contradictory. I agree that if there is new evidence, by all means bring it forward —of course we should do that. That is in line with the rule of law, but it has to be balanced with the greater aim, which is truth and reconciliation.

From my perspective—this is perhaps equally important —we will also allow those in Northern Ireland who were defeated in a military campaign to now engage in a political one—one that uses every operation to rewrite history, paint the state as the aggressor, and convince the good people of Northern Ireland that reunification is the answer to all of their problems. For a 15-year-old in Northern Ireland now, if they have to put up with five, 10 or 15 years of this going through the courts consistently, it will paint the state in a negative light. Morally and ethically, this approach does not support our veterans as it should, and strategically, it deals the best possible hand to our adversaries.

[Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)]

Before I make some brief remarks about a narrow section of the Bill, I pay tribute to right hon. and hon. Members from across the House for the quality of debate we are having. This is an incredibly difficult topic to deal with, and the vast majority of Members, particularly today, have engaged with it in the spirit in which it should be engaged with.

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[Al Carns]

If we step back and have a think about where we are, a terrorist, a solider or an individual who was engaged in the troubles over the past 10, 20 or 30 years, who remembers having engaged in kinetic activity—having killed someone or conducted something of violence—and who wants to seek solace and to give evidence, will be prosecuted if they do give evidence. It is just worth thinking about that when we talk about justice. A lot of people will want to come forward and clear the deck on the past. If they do, they will be dragged into the courts.

[Claire Hanna]

rose—

[Al Carns]

I cannot give way because I am intervening on someone else. We may just want to have a think about that. If we put ourselves in their position, the system now makes it much more difficult to get to the truth.

[Dr Murrison]

The question is how we can best recover the information—how we can extract it—even at this late date, so that we can give some solace and comfort to those who have been wrapped up in these terrible events, from whatever side of the divide they hail.

In the spirit of the comments of the right hon. Member for Belfast East, I would like to address one or two specifics on clauses 4 and 5, relating to the appointment of the commissioners and the directors of investigations. Clause 4(2) states specifically:

“In exercising the power under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must so far as practicable ensure that one or more of the Commissioners have experience gained outside the United Kingdom”.

That was not what the Secretary of State told me. He is quite right that, under clause 5, one director of investigations should have

“experience of conducting criminal investigations outside Northern Ireland”,

so it is perfectly reasonable to infer that they may be drawn from people operating in the rest of the United Kingdom, but that appears not to be the case in relation to the commissioners. I would be very grateful if the Secretary of State, when he makes his winding-up remarks, was able to clarify that for me—or now, if he wants to.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)

Al Carns Excerpts

Carry-over motion
Tuesday 13th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Al Carns (Birmingham Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his engagement throughout the process. Generals, veterans, veterans’ commissioners, ex-chiefs of the defence staff, victims, those who live in Northern Ireland—he has engaged with them all and collectively they are thankful for it. The Government amendments are also welcome; they are moving in the right direction.

There is one thing that I request from those on both sides of the House. Behind the victims, the soldier Bs and the soldier Fs, and underneath the passion and the emotion, there are human beings. We have to ensure that the message we send to them in this House is that we are after their best interests. We must remember that they will be watching this debate and that it affects every single factor of their lives.

I know what it is like to be in the dark, facing terrorists, when snap decisions have to be made in a difficult environment. Unfortunately, I also know what it is like to console the family members of lost loved ones. I do not know what it is like to have all that wrapped into a community and into neighbourhoods—neighbour on neighbour, street on street. I pay tribute to and commend all the individuals in the Gallery. Thank you so much for attending.

I resigned from Government in part because I could not support our approach to legacy. In particular, I remain concerned about the different routes we created to examine the same conflict and some of the same incidents.

It is my belief that we are adopting a twin-track approach to truth, justice and reconciliation. On the one hand, we have inquests, where the chance of prosecution is vanishingly small, but the prosecution is often not the end state. The process has become the punishment. With a minimum cost of £20 million, on average, and a maximum cost of £20 million per inquest, the total equates, as one Policy Exchange paper put it, to in excess of £1 billion of taxpayers’ money. On the other hand, we have the legacy commission. Let us build it. Let us make it better. Let us make it the single route to truth, reconciliation and justice. It has more investigative powers, it can move faster and it will bring the end state at a delivery cost of a fraction of that of inquests. What other country delivers reconciliation through a twin-track approach? It just does not happen.

I will vote in support of the carry-over motion tonight, but there is more to be done to streamline the route towards truth, reconciliation and justice, so my vote tonight should not be taken as support of the Bill as it stands. I believe that there is a better way, and more work to be done: one route, one process, no more lawfare, no more twin-track approach, stop the legal exploitation of the system, and put all the inquests through the legacy commission. I will vote tonight to carry the Bill over, but when we get to Committee, it must change.