Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 24th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me just a few minutes, I will answer that very question very specifically.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I applaud the intent of the Bill and I want to see the end of the harassing of our veterans—people who have served this country well in uniform. My right hon. Friend talks of accountability a lot. Where is the accountability in the granting of immunity to people who have murdered or seriously maimed other people?

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. One of the things that has been clear in talking to victims groups, and obviously one of the challenges of this issue is that different people, even within the same family, can have very different views about what they see as a successful outcome for their family, in terms of finding a resolution, or information and understanding. With that information and understanding, as the Bill will outline, can come accountability. It is right that we have accountability, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East, who was Chairman of the Defence Committee, outlined in his report, we cannot have justice in the sense of the punishment fitting the crime following what was done in the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act. I will touch on that in a few moments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Kyle]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. We are not talking about whether we want to move forward or not; the important thing is that we move forward in the right way.

Investigations are absolutely central to families being able to move forward and to the ability to deliver justice. The hon. Gentleman will notice from the Bill, which I am sure he has read in great detail, that the word “investigations” is mostly replaced by “review”. The emphasis that has proven successful in the past—from the Stormont agreement right through to the ongoing Kenova investigations—has provided, in limited circumstances, the kind of reconciliation, truth and justice that victims have requested. That is where we believe the future should be.

Currently, there are 32 files with the prosecution service of Northern Ireland as a result of the Kenova investigations. Not one has been picked up, because the prosecution service does not have the resources. There has been progress, and I am sure that the justice that we are talking about could be dispensed if the prosecution service of Northern Ireland had the right resources.

[Dr Murrison]

I do not necessarily disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s line of reasoning at all, but on immunity, does he not accept that that ship sailed in 1998—a concept, of course, that his party needs to take quite a lot of responsibility for? He says that justice is being denied, and I have some sympathy with that, but does he accept that as a result there has been 20 years-plus of peace in Northern Ireland?

[Peter Kyle]

Since the signing of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement there have been long periods in which politics has been functional, and there has been huge progress that had been inconceivable before. Its achievement was totemic. As I have already said in this speech, the commitments and aspirations in the Good Friday agreement with regard to victims have not been realised and we need to make effort. We are losing the generation affected by these issues, as has been said. We need to get on with this, but we need to get it right.