Immunity for Soldiers

Anne-Marie Trevelyan Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I start by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). I do not think there is any Member of this House who does not have a deep affection for him. He is held in high esteem, and his was probably one of the most powerful contributions many of us will hear over years in this House. It starkly lays out the challenge we face. We spend a lot of time in this House bantering with one another, sharing bonhomie and referring to those who served as gallant men, but we have just heard the cries and calls for help. No matter how well we wish to dress on 11 November to honour those who have honoured us, we have just heard the challenge to us as parliamentarians: the job is not done. It is okay honouring and recognising sacrifice, but when our men need us—and they do—we have to act.

The debate has come at a most opportune time. Members of the House will know I made comments publicly last week expressing my deep disappointment at the sounds coming from the Ministry of Defence, which envisages legislative protection for armed personnel, but not those who served in Northern Ireland. Mrs Moon, you know me. We serve together on the Defence Committee. You know the history, you have heard the stories and you know the experience of people who have lived or served in Northern Ireland. They deserve our support.

I have enormous time for the Minister of State, but he should not be here today. We cannot talk as a nation about our commitment to those who served us, yet delegate anything that happened in Northern Ireland to the Northern Ireland Office. When we as a country established an armed forces covenant and said we had a commitment to those who served, it was not caveated. We did not say, “One system for those who live in England, Scotland and Wales, and another for those who live in Northern Ireland.” We did not say, “If you happen to serve in Northern Ireland, you will be treated as less than someone who happened to serve overseas.” When we talk of sacrifice, we recognise it as such. It does not come in different grades or forms that require different responses.

I read the response to the petition—I commend the petitioners and the hon. Member for Southport (Damien Moore), who opened the debate admirably—and the Government are right when they say that any proposal should be consistent with the rule of law. They are right to say that criminal investigations and prosecutions are a matter for police and prosecuting authorities, which act independently of Government and politicians. They are wrong, however, to fail to seize the challenge here for us. We set the rule of law in this country. As parliamentarians, it is our duty to set the parameters through which our prosecutors and police operate.

We have a problem. The Government say that they will consult on proposals. They await the responses on the Stormont House agreement or the proposals for a statute of limitations, but what consultation was there on the odious on-the-runs letters? None, but the political proponents of the IRA asked for them, the Labour Government gave them, and the Conservative Government continued to operate the scheme. John Downey, responsible for the Hyde Park bomb, walked free as a direct result of that on-the-runs scheme. There was no public consultation. There was no putting it through the prism of the Northern Ireland Office to see what the views were among political parties or the general public. The deal was done. The Government provided the cover that terrorists sought; they did not ask us. They did not ask the public in Northern Ireland for their view. They did not ask for people’s views on whether it was appropriate to give a get-out-of-jail-free card to those who attempted to destroy society in Northern Ireland.

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

I have a constituent who served on many tours under Operation Banner. He highlighted to me one line of the Government response, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned:

“We do not support amnesties or immunity from prosecution.”

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with my constituent’s response, which was:

“Hiding behind legal process, when in fact everyone and their dog knows that it is a political process (otherwise how could it be possible to amnesty terrorists at the same time you are prosecuting soldiers) is entirely incomprehensible”?

[Gavin Robinson]

I am grateful for that intervention, and for the contribution from the hon. Lady’s constituent veteran. He is right. I do not support an amnesty. I will never support an equivalence between terrorists and those who stand up for law, order and democracy in our country—never. They are not the same, and when we published our report 18 months ago, no member of our Defence Committee supported an amnesty either. When a statute of limitations was proposed, the ask was very constrained. First, it recognised that the state had to discharge its duty under article 2 of the European convention on human rights. As the hon. Member for Beckenham said, all those cases were investigated. Secondly, there was no preclusion of a second prosecution if there was “new and compelling evidence”. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) was right to ask what was meant by that.

The distinction between an amnesty and a statute of limitations is acute, and much more thought needs to be given to it. Where the state has discharged its duty and there has been a satisfactory investigation, and a veteran has been told, “Sir, you have no case to answer. Go home,” they should be allowed to get on with their life, unlike the scores and scores of terrorists in Northern Ireland who live with no fear of prosecution.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne-Marie Trevelyan Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

On the ESA underpayments, obviously mistakes should not have happened and we need to clear this up as quickly as possible. The DWP is taking the issue very seriously. It has about 1,200 people working on sorting it out. We have already paid out almost £330 million. The Department expects to finish correcting the majority of the original cases by April and it aims to process additional cases by the end of the year.

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

Yesterday, pupils from Tweedmouth Community Middle School won the national Modeshift STARS trophy for secondary schools for its amazing work to encourage more pupils to cycle to school. Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating the school, its head, Mr Hulbert, and his team of staff, who are committed to creating a fitter, greener and more environmentally focused next generation of Berwickers?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to join my hon. Friend in thanking and congratulating Tweedmouth Community Middle School on its excellent work encouraging pupils to cycle to school. It is clearly an excellent achievement. We all know the importance of keeping our young people active. I congratulate Mr Hulbert and all the teachers, but particularly the students who have taken this up and put it into practice. It is a very good example of what schools are doing across the country.

Supreme Court Ruling: Abortion in Northern Ireland

Anne-Marie Trevelyan Excerpts

Thursday 7th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

It is those personal stories and the reality of the situations in which women find themselves that really bring home why it is so important that this matter is addressed, but I repeat that it needs to be addressed in Stormont by politicians elected in Northern Ireland—that is the right way to deal with this issue.

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

The women of Northern Ireland deserve a long-term solution and their human rights need to be respected, but with regard to the short term, will my right hon. Friend confirm that no women who have abortion procedures in England are being charged for them?

[Karen Bradley]

My hon. Friend is right. As well as the Supreme Court judgment, we have today received the figures for women who have travelled to Great Britain for abortions. In 2016, the figure was 724 women, and in 2017 it was 919, following the Government’s announcement that we would ensure that all costs were covered. It is not a perfect solution, but it does at least show the House’s intent.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne-Marie Trevelyan Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The Government are putting more funding into mental health provision. We have already committed to making available an additional £1.4 billion to improve children and young people’s mental health services, and we have committed that, by 2020-21, 70,000 more children and young people each year will have access to high-quality NHS mental health care. The hon. Lady rightly raises mental health as an important issue for us to deal with, and particularly the mental health of children and young people, but across the board we need to give more attention to mental health. We are putting money into it, and we are clear that we want to see parity of esteem between mental health and physical health in the national health service. That is something the Labour party in 13 years of government failed to do.

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

The EU agreement published this week has sadly left my fishermen in Amble and the north-east very anxious. While it is great news that we will regain control of our fishing grounds at the end of the implementation period, there is real concern that our EU colleagues might try to take advantage of our losing our voice in the CFP by altering discard rules or quota rules during the implementation period. Will the Prime Minister consider asking the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to prepare a financial mitigation plan to protect our fleet until 2021 should we need to do so?

[The Prime Minister]

The implementation period is there so that people have the certainty of being able to operate on the same basis until we reach the new partnership that we are negotiating. As I said earlier, in that new partnership, we want to take back control of our waters but ensure that British fishermen are not unfairly denied access to other waters and that we can rebuild our fishing industry. That is important. My hon. Friend mentioned quotas. It has been agreed that the stability key will not be changed, so the quotas that British fishermen will be operating under will not be changed. I know that DEFRA is looking actively at how we can ensure that we not only maintain our fishing industry, but enhance and rebuild it after we leave.

Armed Forces: Historical Cases

Anne-Marie Trevelyan Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

There are some in Northern Ireland who talk much about respect, equality and discrimination; yet the same people were silent when it came to the violent threats made against some veterans who simply wanted to exercise their civil liberty to march to the Cenotaph in Londonderry and lay a wreath in remembrance of their comrades—some respect and equality there. Some people in Northern Ireland politics speak with forked tongue.

When we add to all these things the fact that legacy inquests and investigations by the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland are laying bare the modus operandi of the counter-terrorism operations by the Army and the police that brought the terrorists in Northern Ireland to their knees and helped to secure the relative degree of peace that we enjoy today, we should all be concerned. Our national security and the security of every UK citizen is put at risk when we allow the operations of the security forces to be exposed in this way through the legal system. We must bear in mind that there is a continuing threat. A police officer was targeted by Republican terrorists in County Londonderry yesterday, and another was shot while in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North. That terrorist threat remains, yet we are exposing how the security forces counter that violent extremism and terrorism. We can be sure that putting soldiers and police officers in the dock while the terrorists walk free is an expediency that will cost us dear in years to come if we do not do something about it now.

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is highlighting a critical issue that I hear about from young and older armed forces personnel and from those who consider joining. The pressure and risks of serving our nation and the long-term impact that that could have on personnel and their families decades down the line is preventing people from signing up and encouraging others to leave earlier than they otherwise would.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I thank the hon. Lady for her timely intervention. She is absolutely right that this is not only affecting the morale of those who serve at present but acting as a huge disincentive for recruitment to our armed forces. Who wants to put themselves in the frontline in such circumstances, whereby these young men and women will be betrayed a few years down the road because of so-called human rights lawyers? It simply is not right, as is being realised—rather belatedly—with the welcome decision to close down the Iraq Historic Allegations Team. Consider the damage to the morale of our armed forces and the consequences this has had, with a marked downturn in recruitment and retention. While so-called human rights lawyers get rich with the lucre of returns such cases can bring—mainly from the public purse—the men and women defending our country on the frontline find it hard to avoid a sense of betrayal. I have heard that from many of them. All right-thinking people should rail against this.

The Stormont House agreement reached between the Government and political parties in Northern Ireland made it clear that there would be no amnesty for terrorist-related crimes, and it proposed a new set of institutions to deal with our troubled past. Let me be clear that this party stands by the Stormont House agreement. We stand by our commitment not to accept an amnesty for the terrorists. We endorse the institutions proposed under the agreement, including a new historical investigations unit that would have full police powers, and would take over the work of the PSNI’s legacy investigation branch and the responsibility for reinvestigating the unsolved murders linked to the troubles in Northern Ireland. We welcome and support that. The sooner we can get that new institution up and running, the better for everyone, especially the innocent victims. However, the Stormont House agreement has not yet been implemented due to an impasse that has arisen between the Government and Sinn Féin over national security.

It is a ridiculous state of affairs that the political party linked to the largest terrorist organisation that is responsible for the most murders during the troubles has a veto over the implementation of a policy that would give the innocent victims access to proper investigation and the prospect of justice. In a democracy, this is surely not right. It cannot be right that Sinn Féin is being handed a veto over a proper investigative process into the murders of the people who were killed by the Provisional IRA. It is a nonsense. Sinn Féin talks about respect and equality. Well, then, let us have some respect and equality for the innocent victims of the IRA, and let us see the Stormont House agreement taken forward and Sinn Féin’s veto swept aside.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne-Marie Trevelyan Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point: the whole purpose of this inquiry was to be able to provide justice for those whose voices had not been heard for too long and who felt that people in positions of power and institutions of the state, and other organisations, had not heard their voice, and had not been prepared to listen to them and properly to investigate what had happened to them. It is important that victims and survivors have confidence in the inquiry. Of course, the inquiry is an independent inquiry and it is up to its chairman to work with survivors and victims, as I know the inquiry chairman has been doing. But I will ensure that the Home Secretary has heard the representations the hon. Lady has made, and we will take what she has said to us today away and consider it very carefully. We all want this inquiry to work properly, and to work in the interests of survivors and victims.

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

Q9. The Prime Minister will be aware that our nation’s commitment to our current and former armed forces personnel and their families by way of the armed forces covenant is a work in progress, and that although we have made important moves there is still much more to do. Will she take this opportunity to assure this House of her personal commitment to the values and promises set out in the covenant, and to pledge to lend her support to efforts to continue the good work begun, and to ensure that personnel, veterans and their families face no disadvantage arising from their service and the sacrifice they have all made for our country?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I know she has championed the armed forces covenant and is a great proponent of our veterans and the armed forces. It is absolutely right to say that everybody in this House owes a great debt of gratitude to our veterans and to those serving today in our armed forces for what they do to keep us safe and secure. That is why it is so important that the covenant is not just a responsibility for the Government, but a national responsibility; we should all be working to ensure that those who have served us, and served us well, do not face disadvantages. That is why we have been doing things such as putting money into a forces Help to Buy scheme to help them with houses—I believe the figure is £200 million. We must continue to do this, and I absolutely commit to ensuring that this is a Government who continue to support our veterans and the members of our armed forces.