Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andy McDonald and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 21st October 2026 Commons Chamber

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

6. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill on access to justice for victims and survivors of the troubles.

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Chris Bryant)]

The Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, which finished its remaining stages in this House yesterday, will deliver a reformed independent legacy commission with stronger disclosure powers that will be critical for families and victims seeking answers and access to justice. It will also repeal the immunity scheme and lift the bar on civil claims, which the previous Government’s Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 wrongly introduced.

[Chris Bryant]

First, I would say that the legal profession is a noble profession and that—[Interruption.] I am not sure I have carried the Conservative Front Bench with that line. If we are to uphold the rule of law, we have to make sure that lawyers are protected in their ability to defend people in the criminal justice system. The idea that everyone is innocent until proven guilty is fundamental to our system. That is why I think it behoves all of us to be careful about our language.

[Andy McDonald]

The Bill we passed last night gives the Attorney General of England and Wales the power to override decisions on troubles-related prosecutions, yet the Secretary of State told the House yesterday:

“This is not to take anything away from the prosecuting authorities in Northern Ireland or in Great Britain.”—[Official Report, 20 October 2026; Vol. 791, c. 1018.]

But that is precisely what the Bill does. The Attorney General could effectively overrule a decision by Northern Ireland’s independent Public Prosecution Service. How can the Secretary of State reconcile that with the 2000 criminal justice review that flowed from the Good Friday agreement, which deliberately removed political interference from prosecution decisions?

[Chris Bryant]

Let me be absolutely clear: there will be no political interference in any of these decisions. We think that it is appropriate—as was recommended by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, made up of Members from both our two Houses—that the prosecuting authorities in Northern Ireland and in England and Wales both come to their conclusions. We will draw up guidelines on how to deal with troubles-related issues that may follow on from the legacy commission. But in the end, the final prosecutorial decision is a very simple non-political one: whether it is in the public interest and whether there is more than a 50% likelihood of getting a successful conviction. I am glad that yesterday evening the Committee of the whole House agreed that without a Division.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Debate between Andy McDonald and Chris Bryant

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

[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.

Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban

Debate between Andy McDonald and Chris Bryant

Thursday 9th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I will in a moment.

The violence is criminal too. We are grossly alarmed at the expansion, including the proposed E1 settlement bloc, and at the Israeli’s Government’s legislative changes to entrench Government control.

I know that not everything we have done has pleased everybody, and that we have not gone as far as many would like, but it is important to say that we have taken action. We have recognised Palestinian statehood, although I note that some people do not support that. We have stopped negotiations on a free trade agreement, although I know that some people do not support that, as we have just heard. We have strengthened the enforcement of tariff differentials between green-line Israel and the illegal settlements, but to be honest, I do not think it is as effective as we would like it to be. That is one of the significant problems both for what we are doing now and for what we might want to do in the future.

We have also suspended and blocked military and dual-use licences for equipment that could be used, or is being used, in humanitarian abuse in Gaza. We have sanctioned individuals and organisations linked to the settler movement. We have recently pushed the Charity Commission to look into UK charities that are linked to activities in the illegal settlements.

Let me be absolutely clear: of course we support Israel’s right to exist. I do not think that any hon. Member who has taken part in the debate, certainly not on the Government side of the House, is anti-Israel, as the hon. Member for Grantham and Bourne (Gareth Davies) suggested. It is perfectly legitimate to criticise the activities of the Israeli Government without wanting to undermine the existence of the Israeli state. That is a really important distinction to make.

The hon. Gentleman is right, however, that many UK businesses are engaged in perfectly legitimate trade in green-line Israel, which is a powerhouse in many sectors including high tech, pharmaceuticals and so on. I pay tribute to those who have established strong economic relations between Israel and the UK, and, for that matter, between Palestine and the UK—I would like to strengthen that latter connection more. I would like to name UK companies that engage in trade in medicines, food and beverages, and financial services completely legitimately, and in a way that will be supported by everybody in this Chamber, in green-line Israel. Frankly, however, I will not do so for fear of reprisals against those companies, and that in itself tells a tale about the toxicity of this debate.

As I have said, the settlements are illegal. There is therefore a legal obligation on us as a Government not to aid or assist the occupation. The immediate corollary of that is that we need to stop UK businesses providing economic support and legitimacy to illegal settlements. Of course, we want to design measures to stop trade with settlements in a way that balances that with enabling British businesses and citizens to benefit from a strong trading relationship with Israel and with Palestine. That is one of the tricks we have to pull off.

There are four key things that we could do and are seriously considering. First, we could ban imports to the UK of goods from the illegal settlements. I think all UK consumers would want us to do this effectively, and lots of supermarkets and other chains have been looking to do it in their own way. The challenge is—and this is not an excuse, to respond to the question from the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse); it is just a fact—that there is no properly verifiable means of determining the real source. [Interruption.] No, if the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to make the argument, he can criticise me afterwards if he wants to. This situation is very different from Ukraine, because in Ukraine there is a verifiable process to determine whether something is from occupied Crimea or from Ukraine. That is a significant difference. This is not an insurmountable difficulty, but it is a challenge.

[Andy McDonald]

If that is a problem and we want to implement the ban, the issue of distinguishing the goods is Israel’s problem; it should not be ours. We should not be held over a barrel by being told that distinguishing goods is a problem for us. It is Israel’s problem to distinguish which goods to prevent, and we should ban those goods in totality.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend makes a perfectly legitimate point, but the danger is that, if we end up banning all trade with Israel, we fall foul of the other problems I have mentioned.