Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution

Ben Obese-Jecty Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I thank the more than 175,000 people who signed this e-petition, of whom 403 are my Huntingdon constituents. I would like to start by paying particular tribute to the military personnel who served in Northern Ireland on Operation Banner between August 1969 and July 2007 in what was the longest continuous operational deployment of our armed forces, and in which 722 service people lost their lives as a result of terrorist action, and 1,441 in total.

Over the last decade, we have seen myriad bodies established to investigate injuries and deaths during the troubles. In this time, many have raised concerns about the reliability and credibility of evidence and witness statements—some from over 50 years ago—and reopened some investigations that had long since concluded and had a line drawn beneath them. I am a veteran myself of Iraq and Afghanistan. It is 15 years since I served in Afghanistan, and I would hate to think that someone could now quiz me on where I was stood on a particular day, who I was stood next to, and which direction I was facing, and for those answers to perhaps dictate my freedom, and how my family and those around me would be impacted. To ask people to remember what they were doing over 50 years ago is absolutely ludicrous.

This Government have said that the last Government’s legislation was flawed, that it failed, and that they will amend it in a way that

“honours our duty towards…veterans”.—[Official Report, 30 June 2025; Vol. 770, c. 10.]

Amid so much anxiety being felt by veterans of Northern Ireland and their families, I would like to hear clarity from the Secretary of State in his wind-up on how the Government will honour their duty towards veterans in their actions and exactly what they plan to do on taking the IRA to task on this. The words from Back Benchers on the Government side have very much indicated that the aim of this legislation is to prosecute the IRA going forward, and I would like to hear from the Secretary of State what his plans are to make that process occur.

Although I am a veteran myself, I never served on Operation Banner. My own service overlapped with the tail end of our operations in Northern Ireland, but the lessons learned and the skills won across nearly four decades characterised so much of my training. Those were skills that we applied to counter-insurgency operations in Iraq: fives and 20s, rummages, public order et al. Without such hard-won knowledge, my own experience on operations might have been very difficult, and my generation of soldiers, and now veterans, owe a debt of gratitude to those who served on Operation Banner.

Growing up in the ’80s, the sight on the news of British soldiers patrolling in a place that looks so familiar, but felt so distant, was a stalwart—a visual cue for a conflict I did not then understand. It was a time when the word “terrorist” simply meant the IRA and only the IRA. In the wake of Iraq and then Afghanistan, it is difficult to fully comprehend how dangerous the operations in Northern Ireland truly were. We lost 178 service personnel over a decade on Operation Telic, including the invasion of Iraq and subsequent warfighting operations. We lost 170 service personnel on Operation Banner in 1972 alone.

We must stand behind those who have served this nation and fought against terrorism. The Government must stand behind our armed forces post service to ensure protection, safety and support for all veterans. It is therefore a grave concern that the Government did not support the legacy and reconciliation Act, which would have shut down 38 legacy inquests.

If the Government go the way that many feel they will, they may get their legacy legislation catastrophically wrong. We could see those cases and more reopen with, to quote my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis),

“at least 50 innocent retired veterans will be exposed to legal persecution for crimes they did not commit.”—[Official Report, 9 July 2025; Vol. 770, c. 944.]

We simply cannot let that happen. Constituents who served in Northern Ireland have contacted me to express their dismay at what they feel is this Government’s attitude towards them and those they served alongside.

Veterans in my constituency and the country at large are at a loss to think that historical, often baseless, cases might be opened, reopened and vexatiously pursued. That is causing unfathomable worries for many, some now at the end of their days. Where are the reassurances that the Government’s future legislation will protect rather than persecute veterans? Not only will that have an impact on veterans, but I am concerned about the impact on future retention and recruitment of our armed forces if people feel the orders they give, or their actions, will be subject to public investigation in perpetuity. Members from both sides of the Chamber who have served may well be brought within the scope of that.

I urge the Government to bring clarity to the minds of those who served in Operation Banner. I urge the Government not to betray those who fought for this country, and to commend, rather than condemn, their courageous restraint. I urge them to go about this matter in the right way and stand with our veterans, rather than playing into the hands of those who wish to rewrite history, settle scores and drag our veterans through the mire.