Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2026 Commons Chamber

However, we will never, ever know the extent of what went on unless we have full and complete inclusion in law for everybody, as it should be. That will involve the Government owning up to some pretty insidious things. The hon. Member for North Northumberland (David Smith), who is my colleague on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, said yesterday that he wanted to start by saying sorry. A former Taoiseach said the exact same thing to me: should we start by saying sorry? I do not think that that is a bad place to start—although I know some people will. It is not the role of this House to stop such an attempt. People recognise that through the passage of time and everything else, it will be highly unlikely that they will get any sort of justice through criminal proceedings, but they want that acknowledgment. I think sorry is a good place to start, but it can only be done if we have the truth.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)]

It is an absolute pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood). I thank her for her eloquence and advocacy. She communicated with such power, conviction and sense, and I thank her for what she has said. I thank all hon. Members, right hon. Members and gallant Members for the incredible contributions that have been made over the last two days. People have come to this vexed and troubling issue with a great deal of commitment and determination to get to the right outcome for a better future and a better understanding of the past, and I thank the hon. Lady for that.

I was not born in Northern Ireland, and I do not live there, but my grandparents were from Belfast. They were a Protestant and a Catholic who left for the perfect, peaceful idyll that is the west of Scotland. My maternal great-grandparents were from Carrickmacross in County Monaghan, and all my wife’s family are from Tyrone. That part of the world supplied the working-class labour that brought about the burgeoning iron and steel industry. Our connections and associations with the island of Ireland are deep, and there is a passion for people to see a positive outcome and resolution and to include the many working-class men who found themselves on the streets in Northern Ireland in their tender years. I thank again the hon. Member for Lagan Valley.

I welcome this Bill as an important improvement on the previous Government’s deeply flawed legacy Act. Repealing the conditional amnesty scheme and restoring civil proceedings are significant steps towards delivering truth, justice and accountability. I recognise the vital importance of treating former service personnel fairly, including by acknowledging the extraordinarily difficult circumstances in which many served. I had the pleasure of being one of the founding members of the Royal British Legion’s Solicitors Group, which is pro bono. I have worked with service personnel at close quarters, and I am overwhelmed and overawed by their commitment and dedication to their duty.

It has been said in recent hours in this debate that nobody is questioning the performance of our service personnel who found themselves in that situation, and that it is not veterans against civilians. I met two senior retired Army officers last month—Lieutenant Colonel the Reverend Nicholas Mercer and Brigadier John Donnelly CBE—thanks to Amnesty International and the Centre for Military Justice. Both of them challenged the suggestion that British forces have faced a flood of vexatious litigation under the European convention on human rights, and I worry about the scaremongering that has been perpetrated in that regard. As Nicholas Mercer has argued, the application of the Human Rights Act is vital, because it means that the guilty can be held accountable and the innocent exonerated. That is an important principle. Human rights protections are not the enemy of fair treatment for veterans; they are part of what makes that fairness possible.

However, I must express my concerns. The Government have chosen to publish such a voluminous package of amendments with barely seven days’ notice and have given us just two days to consider them, and that is a concern. I am also concerned about some of the tonality, which has explicitly presented the Bill as providing additional legal protections and safeguards for veterans. Whatever the Government’s intentions, some of these measures may be viewed very differently by victims’ families, particularly those who spent decades seeking answers about the actions of the state and the circumstances in which their loved ones died. What is presented to veterans as reassurance may be experienced by those families as another barrier to justice.

That matters enormously. The Secretary of State has a responsibility to not only improve the legal framework for dealing with the past, but rebuild confidence among communities whose trust in the institutions of the state has been profoundly damaged by their experience of the troubles. He said yesterday—I think I am quoting him correctly—that the principle of the duty of candour will be imported into this legislation when the Public Office (Accountability) Bill passes. I hope he will intervene on me, because I am seeking some clarification. Surely the duty of candour will be imported into this legislation, not simply the principle.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is quite right that the Hillsborough Bill, as most people think of it, is still going through its processes in the House of Lords. As I have said to him privately, and will say again from the Dispatch Box, we want to mesh the duty of candour with this Bill once the Hillsborough Bill has completed its processes in the Lords. It would be premature for us to do it now before the Bill has finished its processes in the Lords, but yesterday, I committed to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne)—he is sitting next to my hon. Friend—that as soon as we have done that, I will work with him to make sure we get this right, and I am happy to work with my hon. Friend as well. It is not just the principle; it is the concept. It is the duty of candour.

[Andy McDonald]

I am enormously grateful to the Secretary of State for that clarification. That is immensely helpful, but I revert to my point that in seeking to reassure one constituency, there is a risk of undermining the confidence of others—not only in the Government’s approach to reconciliation, but in their ability to secure truth, accountability and access to justice.

Most seriously, I fear that some of these proposals risk cutting across the detailed institutional safeguards established through the Good Friday agreement and the reforms that followed it. The first is Government new clause 50 and the Attorney General’s consent to prosecutions. That new clause would require the Attorney General’s consent before proceedings could be instituted for the most serious troubles-related offences. What is the compelling justification for introducing this additional political safeguard into the prosecution process? That question has been raised by other Members, and I join them in asking it. It is not simply a technical adjustment; it risks undermining a central reform arising from the Good Friday agreement. The 2000 criminal justice review specifically sought to protect prosecutorial independence by removing the Attorney General’s power to direct prosecutors in individual cases or on policy matters.

That reform was particularly important because of the history of political interference and concerns about the prosecution of members of the security forces during the conflict. The independent Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland already applies evidential and public interest tests when deciding whether to prosecute. Why should a further decision now rest with a Government-appointed law officer who is potentially exposed to representations from ministerial colleagues? The de Silva report into the murder of Pat Finucane documented political pressure on the then Attorney General over the prosecution of state agent Brian Nelson. That history demonstrates precisely why those institutional safeguards were introduced.

Government new clause 50 also appears to impose no requirement on the Attorney General to explain a refusal of consent, while the availability of judicial review may be limited. How can families have confidence in a process where an independent prosecutor might conclude that a serious offence should be prosecuted, only for a Government law officer to prevent that prosecution without adequate explanation or scrutiny?

The Good Friday agreement was not simply a political declaration of peace and reconciliation. Its implementation required detailed reforms to institutions, including the criminal justice system, designed to establish independence and to instil public confidence. We have to tread with the greatest care not to undermine the Good Friday agreement in any way. We should be extremely cautious about disturbing those safeguards, particularly when it would risk reviving precisely the concerns that they were intended to address. I therefore urge the Government to reconsider new clause 50. Fairness for veterans must not mean creating a new mechanism through which serious criminality could escape prosecution.