Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

The Secretary of State says that there is no such thing as vexatious prosecutions. I think that he would do well to remember the cases of Phil Shiner.

In 1991, the SAS shot and killed three members of the IRA’s East Tyrone Brigade in Coagh. The coroner originally found that the soldier’s use of force was reasonable and proportionate, and that the IRA men in question had the intent to murder. A judicial review was brought against these findings, but in October last year it was thrown out by the High Court in Belfast, with the judge saying that the case was “ludicrous” and

“utterly divorced from the reality”.

Depressingly, this morning we hear that that case is to continue 35 years after the incident and after the soldier in question has been investigated for years. How can the Secretary of State think that is right?

[Hilary Benn]

Any citizen of the United Kingdom, as the hon. Member is well aware, has a right to bring a judicial review against any decision that has been made. It is for the courts to determine that. Having seen what the original judge said in throwing out the case, and given the fact that the inquest found that the use of force in that case was lawful, perhaps it is not surprising that the judge threw it out as having no merit whatsoever. If the case is continuing, we will have to leave it to the judicial process to decide what happens, but I have confidence in our courts.

[Alex Burghart]

Does not this case absolutely exemplify why the Government’s solution is entirely wrong? It reopens the door to vexatious litigation, which allows our veterans to be dragged through the courts, even when the courts themselves say that the case is ludicrous. It also exposes the absurdity of the fact that legal aid is paying for these challenges against our veterans—we are all literally paying for lawyers to bring vexatious litigation against our troops. The Government seem rightly to have paused their Bill. Will they please use this opportunity to think again and take a new approach that guarantees genuine protections for those who serve?

[Hilary Benn]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there will be genuine protections. On the question of legal aid in Northern Ireland, that is a matter, as he well knows, for the Northern Ireland Executive. Given the case that he has cited, I was not aware that the previous Government at any point considered removing the right to bring judicial review against any decisions at all. If he is now advancing the argument that judicial review should not be available in certain cases, I would say good luck to him because that is a foundation of our legal system.