Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alex Burghart and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 21st October 2026 Commons Chamber

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

As this is the Secretary of State’s first Northern Ireland questions, may I welcome him to his place? Victims and survivors of the troubles will, as the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) said, be deeply concerned to hear that on Monday police intelligence documents produced in the High Court in Belfast referred to the ongoing existence of the IRA. Will the Secretary of State please tell the House: is it the Government’s understanding that the IRA is still active?

[Chris Bryant]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is asking me to talk again about proceedings in the High Court in Northern Ireland, and I think it would be inappropriate for me to do so.

[Alex Burghart]

With all due respect, I was not asking the Secretary of State to comment on the case; I know that he cannot. I was asking him to tell us what the Government’s considered opinion is on whether the IRA is still active. That is important, because one of the documents produced on Monday revealed—

[Chris Bryant]

In the court case.

[Alex Burghart]

This is for context. The document revealed that the Secretary of State was told by the police,

“it is possible that dissident republicans have already accessed the firearms in the Garvaghy Road area, and it is possible that in the event of police removing protesters, firearms may be used to attack police.”

It would not interfere with the court process for the Secretary of State to tell us this: is it his understanding that the IRA has rearmed?

[Chris Bryant]

The shadow Secretary of State is asking me to comment on documents produced in the judicial review into my decision on Drumcree. I am not going to do that, because I think it would conflict with the judicial review process and I do not want to be held in contempt of court.

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[Chris Bryant]

I did not catch all of that—I am not sure whether you did, Mr Speaker—but I think I heard “PTSD”. As I said earlier, one of the things I have campaigned on is acquired brain injury. I suspect that many people in the armed forces were told that they had PTSD but actually had an acquired brain injury that had never been properly diagnosed. It is one of the pieces of work that we need to do far more effectively. I want to look at how we properly look after those who are serving now in Northern Ireland into the future to ensure that they can have the most fruitful lives possible.

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

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Secretary of State twice refused to answer questions about documents referred to in judicial review proceedings in the High Court in Belfast that refer to the ongoing existence of the IRA. Can you confirm that there is no parliamentary rule, including the sub judice rule, that would have prevented the Secretary of State from answering those questions?

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Debate between Alex Burghart and Chris Bryant

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

[Alex Burghart]

My hon. Friend raises an important case, and I am glad that he has had an opportunity to put it on record.

Yesterday, the Secretary of State said that the Irish Government had committed to working

“in lockstep with us so that our legislation and their legislation will come into force on the same day.”—[Official Report, 19 October 2026; Vol. 791, c. 798.]

I hope the Secretary of State will confirm that, this being the case, he will not commence this legislation until the Irish legislation is ready to be commenced.

[Chris Bryant]

Yes.

[Alex Burghart]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that reassurance.

All that being said, we should be clear-eyed about what the Irish legislation does and does not do, and why it is in no way equivalent to the legislation that this House is passing. The general scheme put forward by the Irish Government is a means by which the Irish state may co-operate with the legacy commission. It does not require it to do so, nor does it set up any body equivalent to the legacy commission in the Republic. In short, while it is a step in the right direction, it guarantees nothing and it does not create an equivalent action in the south.

Yesterday, we heard in powerful terms about the failure of the Republic to engage fully on Omagh. Sadly, in the rejection of the Democratic Unionist party’s amendment, we also heard something about this Government’s failure to engage on Omagh. This afternoon, my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) has raised the issue again. I draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that, in 2021, when Mr Justice Horner recommended an inquiry, he urged that an equivalent investigation take place in the Republic. He could see, having assessed all the evidence, that one was needed, yet here we are, five years on, and there is no equivalent investigation in the Republic at all; nor is there any sign that there will ever be one. It is a source of sadness for this Committee that the framework that was signed by the previous Administration did not have within it an undertaking from the Republic that there would be such an inquiry. That was a significant omission.

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[Alex Burghart]

You are quite right as ever, Ms Ghani—it is good to be finally put right on that.

[Chris Bryant]

Certification is obviously a key part of the amendment the hon. Gentleman is talking about, but one of the problems of course is that presumably certification can be judicially reviewed, which is likely to lead to yet further lawfare.

[Alex Burghart]

As the right hon. Member knows, judicial review is a process in the system. I am asking him to refine the inadequate process that he has put forward. “Essential” is inadequate. “Essential” will be judicially reviewed, and of course “new and compelling” and certification will be judicially reviewed, but there will be an opportunity to create much greater confidence in all communities that we will not have the sort of rinse-and-repeat investigations that have taken place.

[Chris Bryant]

I think it is important that we debate these points in detail, because I understand the reference to the overseas operations Act—indeed, we took the structure for our amendment from that as well—but I just do not understand why the hon. Member wants certification in this Bill when it is not present in that Act.

[Alex Burghart]

it is because there has been a complete loss of confidence in the process. If the right hon. Gentleman is saying, “We will accept ‘new and compelling’ but we do not want certification,” let us have that debate, but that is not what he is saying. He is saying that he wants “essential”, which is understood by legal authorities to be a very low bar—

[Chris Bryant]

No.

[Alex Burghart]

The right hon. Gentleman says no from a sedentary position, but that is not the case. We have received legal advice that “essential” is no bar at all. For the reasons I have already set out, it will be very easily stepped over, whereas “new and compelling”, as we know from the overseas operations Act, is a more significant legal test.

“New and compelling” provides certainty in three ways. First, it is a filter test: no engagement with veterans unless there is new and compelling evidence. Secondly, it is a term already applied by the courts, so we have one system and equality of treatment. Thirdly, it is not subjective like “essential”: the evidence must be new and must be a matter of fact, and it must be compelling, meaning that it will impact the outcome. The test of new evidence only would be meaningless as there is no threshold.

Finally, I turn to new clause 7 in my name. It would require annual reporting on recruitment and retention within the armed forces. We have all seen repeated reports that our special forces are under threat because of the demoralising effects of lawfare, both present and historical. In October, we were warned by the SAS Regimental Association that lawfare was

“eroding the will to fight”.

In November, we were warned by eight retired generals and one chief marshal that “recruitment, retention and morale” were all suffering. In December, seven former senior SAS officers spoke of the dangerous operational consequences of lawfare. This morning, Brigadier Ed Butler, former commanding officer of 22 SAS, said in stark terms that “continued lawfare” was affecting recruitment and retention. When leaders with such experience issue such warnings, I think we all have a duty to listen and to take them seriously.

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[Chris Bryant]

We are relitigating a case that was decided yesterday, as I have said. The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) argued that our Bill was unbalanced because somehow or other we were deprioritising the situation in Omagh. There is actually a public inquiry into the Omagh bombing, and it would be inappropriate to put the matter into the legacy commission. It is important that we let the independent inquiry do its work, as with the inquiry into the killing of Pat Finucane and that into the killing of Robert Hamill, which recently published its findings after a very long period.

The right hon. Member for Belfast East also tabled amendment 32, which I think he intends to press to a vote in a few short moments, and I want to speak to that briefly. I think it falls at the first hurdle because, as he said in his speech, it would be inappropriate for us to have measures that apply only to one category of people. We do not believe that it is right that only veterans can benefit from protection from repeated investigation. We want a legacy framework which, while rightly focused on getting information for families, does so in a way that does not needlessly duplicate aspects of investigations that have already obtained valuable information. That does not serve anyone—not victims, not witnesses and not the legacy commission, which will want to ensure that its resources are used as efficiently as possible. The collection of protections that the Government have put forward were designed following consultation with veterans—that is true—and were not included in the legacy Act. All these measures have been introduced to protect and ensure the fair treatment of any veteran who is asked to engage with legacy mechanisms. For those reasons, I will be opposing his amendment 32.

Turning to amendment 51 by my beknighted friend the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis), on which I think he also intends to have a separate Division, I understand the anxiety and concerns there are. This is one of the classic instances where there are multiple views on how we should proceed. As he will know, the Government have a long-standing commitment—it is something we committed to before the general election and as part of our manifesto—to restore those inquests that were in progress but were halted by the legacy Act, and we intend to deliver on that commitment. On one of the reasons for that, I can quote Andy Seaman, the brother of Private Tony Harrison, who was murdered by the IRA in 1991. He said:

“My brother’s case was shut down when the Legacy Act passed. The opposition”

—that is, the Conservative party—

“cannot pretend to care about the plight of victims’ families—including military victims—when their actions demonstrate the precise opposite”.

Respect for veterans and accountability are not opposing principles. They are both part of the same principle: the rule of law. We are not opening a new inquest into Loughgall; we are restoring the inquest that was under way as a result of being directed by the former Attorney General, the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), to comply with our human rights obligations. He said in September 2015:

“Following careful consideration of a huge amount of material I have come to the decision that new inquests into the Loughgall deaths are justified.”

There are two other issues which I think Members intend for us to vote on. The first is new clause 7 in the name of the shadow Secretary of State. I understand the thrust of what he is trying to say, though, as he himself pointed out, recruitment into the armed forces is up now for the first time in about a decade. It is up 7% in general and the outflow is down by about 7%, all of which is good. I do not think anybody in the House wants to undermine the thrust of getting more people serving in the armed forces. I am absolutely certain that he would not expect us to be specific about the numbers in special forces. More importantly, his amendment is cobbled together in a rather bizarre way. The idea of setting up a new person to investigate recruitment and the legislation on recruitment, as he has put it in his amendment, is inappropriate, which is why we are not intending to support his amendment.

[Alex Burghart]

I understand the Secretary of State is not going to support our amendment. However, I hope that he will appreciate what I said in my remarks about the significance of there being pressure on special forces. Can he give a Dispatch Box commitment that he will establish a process whereby, for example, the Intelligence and Security Committee can be given regular updates on recruitment and retention within special forces? This is extraordinarily important. It is germane to the debates we have been having—[Interruption.] He shakes his head, but I would like to understand why he will not make this small concession.

[Chris Bryant]

Because it is not germane to the matter that we are considering today—

[Alex Burghart]

It is entirely germane.

[Chris Bryant]

No, it is not germane. I completely disagree with the hon. Gentleman and simply say to him that I think it is inappropriate to try to make some false equation between the legislation we are considering today and the specifics of recruitment into the special forces.

[Alex Burghart]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

If he is going to continue making those kinds of arguments, I think he will undermine himself.

[Alex Burghart]

I refer the right hon. Gentleman to all the remarks that have been made in the press over the past year by senior generals and senior former members of the special forces. He is not arguing against me; he is arguing against them, and I strongly encourage him to reconsider.

[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.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)

Debate between Alex Burghart and Chris Bryant

Carry-over motion
Tuesday 13th October 2026 Commons Chamber

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

Could the Secretary of State set out in greater detail for us what the word “essential” will mean in law?

[Chris Bryant]

As the hon. Member will know, the word used in the legacy Act is “necessary”, which is a much lower bar. “Essential” is traditionally a higher bar, and it is used in lots of legal judgments already. The kind of thing we are talking about is where there is a new forensic process that was not available 30 years ago—for instance, we might be able to examine a fingerprint on a piece of shrapnel much more effectively today than we could previously—or where there is literally a new piece of information, and it is essential to be able to conduct the work of the organisation.

Secondly, there is a new provision that the legacy commission must obtain and review any information it needs from the state itself before it considers whether to request an individual to come as a witness.

Thirdly, there is another new provision that the legacy commission must not request information from a witness unless it has considered whether compelling new evidence exists or the likelihood of a witness being able to provide new information.

Fourthly, the legislation will put the protection from cold calling into law and strengthen the provision for remote attendance, ensuring it applies to all aspects of the commission’s work.

Fifthly, prosecutions in troubles-related cases are rare— I expect them to be rare— but to provide greater assurance and confidence in decisions to prosecute, any future prosecutions of serious troubles-related offences will require the consent of the Attorney General acting quasi-judicially. That will apply regardless of whether the offence relates to state or non-state actors. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), who I know was committed to making this change both inside and outside of Government, and who rightly pointed out that there is precedence for this approach and it in no way changes the thresholds required to proceed with the prosecution or the prosectors’ independence in considering the evidence before them.

I have also tabled a number of amendments in relation to the legacy commission’s victims and survivors advisory group, providing clarity that former paramilitaries cannot be appointed to the group and that former service personnel, many of whom are also victims, must be represented.

The legacy Act’s immunity scheme was previously being repealed from statute via a remedial order. To enable Parliament to consider the changes we are making in the round, we will now repeal it through the Bill. This addresses the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, to whom I am grateful.

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[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Gentleman, if he had waited a moment, would have heard me talk about the victims. The victims, who suffered so much, are being given the promise of convictions that will never come. Even when we have the most detailed inquiry in British legal history, no conviction comes, yet this House is now expected to believe that the legislation before us will open the road to all these convictions. It will not happen. It is a promise that will not be fulfilled, but that does not mean that soldiers who did nothing but their duty will not be pulled through the courts time and time again.

In February last year, this House debated the terrible ruling in the Clonoe case from 1992. On that occasion, four men—known terrorists—armed with semi-automatic weapons and a Dushka machine gun attacked an RUC police station and then moved on to commit further crimes. They called themselves an army. They carried weapons of war, they sought to kill and they operated entirely outside the bounds of the law, and yet we were asked to believe that the use of lethal force against them was not justified. The men will now be subject to unjust and unfair scrutiny of the decisions that they had to make in exceptionally difficult circumstances, decades ago.

The case of soldier B, a former SAS officer, has been raised repeatedly in the House. In 2024 a coroner ruled that he had been justified in using lethal force in Coagh in 1991. Then, in 2025, the case was taken to the High Court in Belfast, where it was thrown out by a judge who described it as “ludicrous” and said that it should never have come to court. Despite that, in April this year the case went to the Court of Appeal, where it was again thrown out. Last month an attempt was mounted to take it to the Supreme Court, and that attempt is ongoing. Soldier B has been dragged through the courts for five and a half years, when the legal system in this country admits that the case against him is ludicrous.

[Chris Bryant]

I would just gently point out to the hon. Gentleman that all that is under his legislation.

[Alex Burghart]

I am giving the Secretary of State an example of the things that will not be stopped by his legislation. This will continue. The Bill does not solve the problem.

Drumcree

Debate between Alex Burghart and Chris Bryant

Monday 12th October 2026 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement and for his call over the weekend. I do not envy him the position in which he has been placed in these past few weeks.

The scenes that we have witnessed on the streets of Drumcree are all too reminiscent of previous times—times that we had all hoped were past, and times that we must still hope are past. The willingness of communities nearly 30 years ago to submit to independent adjudication processes was one of the pillars of the peace. It is consequently at best irresponsible and at worst dangerous for people to ignore those processes when they do not go their way. Further, it is inexcusable for anyone, but particularly politicians, to decide that they will only obey the law when it suits them. That is the road to a very dark place.

As the Secretary of State has set out, the planned march was legal, subject to the detailed restrictions placed upon it by the Parades Commission. It follows that under section 14 of the Public Processions (Northern Ireland) Act 1998, those who prevented this lawful march would seem to have broken the law. The stand-off that they caused ultimately led to Chief Constable Boutcher asking the Secretary of State to review the Parades Commission’s determination and stop the march.

The Chief Constable said that facilitating it would have

“required a substantial public order intervention that was not assessed to be proportionate, and which would have carried an unacceptable risk of serious injury, disorder and a wider contagion effect across Northern Ireland.”

I hope that the Secretary of State can be clear with the House about what is behind this statement and what the nature of that risk was. Was the Secretary of State at any stage made aware of a possibility of terrorism? Was he at any stage made aware that firearms or explosives were likely to be deployed? I very much hope he was not, but the House should know.

I know that the Secretary of State was placed in a desperately invidious position, but the consequence of the march not going ahead is that those who have broken the law have won. The consequence is that those who threaten the

“serious injury, disorder and wider contagion”,

of which the Chief Constable warned, have won. Unless remedy is made, the message being sent to Northern Ireland is that people can pick and choose which laws they obey, and that those who threaten violence and disorder will get their way. I know that that is not what the Secretary of State wants, but he needs to tell the House what he intends to do to prevent that terrible message being the legacy of these past few weeks. I know that it is not for him to determine how the police exercise their duties following this incident, but I hope he can tell the House how the Government now intend to prevent the law from being openly flouted again and again and again.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful for the tone in which the shadow Secretary of State has entered the conversation and for him taking my call over the weekend. We have not faced each other across the Dispatch Box as Secretary of State and shadow Secretary of State until today, and I hope that we can work co-operatively together.

To those who flouted the law and to those who are considering doing so again, I say nobody is above the law: you will face the consequences of your actions. To those who have co-operated with the police, I say an enormous, “Thank you.” To those who are considering ending co-operation with the police, I say please, please, please think again.

The hon. Gentleman asks me specifically about the advice that I have received and quotes in precise terms the words that I was given by the Chief Constable. I have publicly set out the advice that I received, which said that facilitating the procession would require a major police intervention carrying unacceptable risks, as the hon. Gentleman said. He will understand that I will not comment on specific intelligence that I did or did not receive, for obvious reasons, but in the end I am accountable for the decision that I made. It was my responsibility to weigh the police advice and the consequences of proceeding, which is precisely what I did.

The hon. Gentleman asks how we will ensure that we build respect for the rule of law. That is a matter for all communities into the future. He also made a point about politicians. I will point out that we politicians have a particular responsibility to abide by not just the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law. Schedule 4 to the Northern Ireland Act 1998 requires Ministers to pledge

“to uphold the rule of law based as it is on the fundamental principles of fairness, impartiality and democratic accountability, including support for policing and the courts”.

Those should not just be words that are spoken for one moment; they should be things that we embody in everything we do.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

Debate between Alex Burghart and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 24th February 2026 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) on securing this debate. I should say at the outset that the Conservatives support the motion.

The truth is that the people who helped Jeffrey Epstein by supplying him with contacts and information were the people who enabled him to become powerful. Those people effectively enabled him to build his net of influence, his net of abuse. That network of power, in turn, enabled him to abuse more and more people, so it is quite right that this House is enabled to scrutinise what went on and how it went on.

I listened to the Minister’s remarks. I appreciate the way that he has approached this debate and the way that the Government will constructively co-operate with the terms of the Humble Address. However, this is the second occasion in only a few weeks when the Government have had to be brought here by Opposition parties under the terms of a Humble Address to disclose information that they quite obviously could have disclosed without the need for such an Address in the first place. I acknowledge the humility with which the Minister has approached the debate, but the Government as a whole could have been much more proactive on this issue right from the start. I also appreciate the humble way in which the Minister came to the House and reminded us that he had been right all along.

[Chris Bryant]

Very humble.

[Alex Burghart]

Very humble.

The leader of the Liberal Democrats referred to this as the first global political scandal. Indeed, it is a global political scandal whose tendrils have reached into the operation of many Governments across the west and the east. The fact that our allies in Poland have launched an intelligence investigation into Epstein’s links with Russia and that in the published Epstein papers it is clear that Jeffrey Epstein was supplying people at the very top end of Putin’s regime with sensitive information about the American leadership show that this is an international scandal and one in which our Government and our security services must play their part in uncovering things. However, I know that the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton is a lover of history, so I must gently take issue with his claim that this is the first global political scandal. I think of the Dreyfus affair, the XYZ affair and the Panama scandals—there have been many—but this is, to take his substantive point, a global political scandal.

I associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that we can only be, as a general point, supportive of the royal family’s role in promoting our country. The people who have witnessed the best of the royal family using their awesome soft power to support what we do best can only be in awe of the vast commitment they make to public service and the life of the country. Indeed, if it is the case, as reported in the press, that very senior members of the royal family expressed concerns about the appointment of Mr Mountbatten-Windsor in 2001, one can feel only enormous sympathy with them over what has subsequently come to light.

The revelations surrounding the relationship between Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Jeffrey Epstein, like those surrounding the relationship between Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein, and the arrest of both men on suspicion of misconduct in public office make it right that questions are asked and information is brought before the House. If one looks back to 2001, it is possible to identify the hand of Epstein in Mr Mountbatten-Windsor’s appointment. It is reported that Peter Mandelson first met Epstein in the summer of 2001; Mountbatten-Windsor had, I believe, first met Epstein in 1999. Shortly after Mandelson’s first meeting in October 2001, Mandelson was appointed as trade envoy.

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[Chris Bryant]

indicated dissent.

[Alex Burghart]

The Minister shakes his head, so I will go through the chronology again for him—there is no harm in doing so.

[Chris Bryant]

You’ve got the names wrong.

[Alex Burghart]

Well, Hansard will show it—it may be that the numbers were jumbled up in the Minister’s head.

In the summer of 2001, Mandelson met Epstein for the first time; in October 2001, Mountbatten-Windsor was appointed as trade envoy. It is possible that Mandelson influenced that. As I said, Mountbatten-Windsor had met Epstein for the first time in 1999, so he was already an associate of Epstein. I am glad to have sorted that out—I can go through it again, but I am sure the Minister will be able to read about it tomorrow.