Debate on the Address

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Tuesday 11th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I know that the Prime Minister places a high premium on strengthening the Union, and we welcome the measures in the Gracious Speech that are designed to strengthen the Union. We embrace the levelling-up agenda—we want to see Northern Ireland benefit from it, and we want investment in our infrastructure—but my hon. Friend makes a powerful point. If our farmers, our businesses and our citizens find that doing business with the rest of the United Kingdom is becoming increasingly difficult, that is a levelling down for Northern Ireland, not a levelling up. Great Britain is our biggest market, and the supply chains between Great Britain and Northern Ireland are vital to the economy.

The European Union has stated that its desire is to protect the Belfast agreement and the peace process in Northern Ireland—yet, as I have warned in this House, harming the economy of Northern Ireland and undermining our ability to deliver prosperity for the people of Northern Ireland undermines the peace process, because peace and prosperity go hand in hand. It pains me to see young people out once again on the streets of Northern Ireland, engaging in violence against the police. It pains me to see the instability that is arising because of concerns around the protocol. To be clear, violence is not the way to address this, but politics has to be seen to be working.

The Government must listen to those of us who have a political voice, heed what we are saying on behalf of the people who represent us, and understand the depth of concern that exists in Northern Ireland about the protocol, its impact on Northern Ireland and our economy, and its impact in undermining our place within the United Kingdom. Article 1 of the Belfast agreement is clear: there shall be no

“change in the status of Northern Ireland save with the consent…of its people”.

There is no consent for the Northern Ireland protocol; indeed, the consent mechanism within the Northern Ireland Assembly has been changed by the protocol in a way that diminishes the safeguards that were built into the agreement in the first place. That is intolerable, and the Government need to address it in their current and proposed legislative programme.

I value the Union, like the rest of my colleagues in the Democratic Unionist party, and I want to see Northern Ireland prosper within the Union. The world’s fifth largest economy is the United Kingdom, and our United Kingdom provides us with the support and resilience that we need through difficult times, and with incomparable opportunities when times are good. I believe that the case for the Union is strong. It is a case that I want to make and that my colleagues want to make, but the protocol undermines that case in a way that is harmful to Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom.

The Gracious Speech also touches on the matter of legacy—the legacy of our troubled past in Northern Ireland. We recognise it as an issue that needs to be tackled. For too long, the innocent victims of the dreadful violence that we endured in Northern Ireland have not been given the priority that they deserve within the context of the peace process. Today, we have had a verdict delivered in the coroner’s court in Belfast on the inquests in the cases of what have been described as the Ballymurphy families. They have waited many years for this moment, and the coroner has issued his verdict today. We recognise that there is a desire across all innocent victims in Northern Ireland, whatever their background, to get to a moment where they can have a better understanding of what happened to their loved ones and to pursue justice.

We believe it would be wrong to deny people the opportunity of pursuing justice. That is why we will oppose any measure that seeks to introduce an amnesty in Northern Ireland for crimes such as murder. Sadly, our troubled past is marked at times with injustice that has occurred in Northern Ireland. The act of terrorism itself is a great injustice, and the hurt, the pain and the tragedy that it has inflicted on people in Northern Ireland and on many families is an injustice, but we must not compound injustice with further injustice.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank my very good friend for allowing me to intercede. I take it that the right hon. Member will fully support the cessation of vexatious claims against veteran soldiers, veteran policemen and veteran security personnel in Northern Ireland. What he was referring to is terrorism, which is entirely different.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, and he anticipated the point I was about to make. Where there is evidence that someone has committed murder or potentially committed murder, we are very clear that no one is above the law, but I am concerned, for example, about the case we saw last week in Belfast. Yet again, veterans of our armed forces were dragged before the courts, with no new evidence, having previously been subjected to article 2-compliant investigations, and were put through the agony and the distress, in their latter days, of having to go to court and defend themselves. That is what the hon. Member was referring to when he talked about vexatious prosecutions, and we opposed that.

We are clear that the veterans of our armed forces and our police officers who courageously served on the frontline and who defended our entire community against the ravages of terrorism should not be subjected to such vexatious prosecutions. There has been far too much focus—far too much focus—on our veterans and our retired police officers. We need a process that brings the spotlight on to those who caused by far the greater amount of hurt and suffering in Northern Ireland, who are those who stepped outside the law and were part of paramilitary terrorist organisations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I will be on the time limit, I hope.

I listened very carefully to the Gracious Speech, and I made the assumption that the promise to address the legacy of the past with regard to Northern Ireland refers to a Government commitment to protect veterans from vexatious and repeated prosecutions. That assurance was solidified when I looked at the media Q and A that accompanies the Queen’s Speech, where it is put much more specifically. My good friend the Minister for Defence People and Veterans also promised this to me in the Chamber on 21 April, and now I expect it to happen.

Privately, I have been assured from a very high level that such action to help veterans and indeed other members of the security forces is imminent. I hope so because, honestly, it is a matter of huge importance to me. I speak as a supporter and a member of the Justice for Northern Ireland Veterans campaign. Personally, I served over three years on operations in Northern Ireland. I have been involved in several actions there, witnessed several terrorist murders, and have lost too many soldiers and friends who were working alongside me. I have also held innocent people, caught up in terrorism, who have died in my arms. It devastated me then, and it still does to this day. So to me, this commitment finally to sort out a cessation to legacy vexatious prosecutions is exceedingly personal.

I understand that the new Bill might involve introducing what could be called a qualified statute of limitations, with the presumption that no charges should be brought against security force personnel for alleged offences before the Good Friday agreement of 1998. Quite rightly, this plan is based on the fact that if no new compelling evidence against such people has been brought forward, such a prosecution ends. Let me be clear: nobody in the military, the police or the security forces supports anyone who breaks the law, and if someone does so, it is right that they face the full vigour of the legal system. That is the essential and crucial difference between a soldier and perhaps a policemen, and a terrorist. The security forces operate on behalf of and under the law, whereas terrorists do not. There is no way that soldier and terrorist should be treated equally under the law—and that must not happen.

I am delighted that, at last, we are beginning to see this matter resolved for a number of veterans, who to this day still dread a knock on the door and being hauled off to Northern Ireland from retirement—many are in their 70s and early 80s—to answer charges for actions that took place many years ago, and which were normally investigated and dismissed at the time.

The recent collapse of the trial of soldiers A and C is hugely significant, as the judge sent the prosecution packing with scathing comments about its case. However, I am worried because the word is that those people who have been charged recently or are in the process of being charged may still face prosecution in the Belfast court. Having myself given evidence in that court in 1986, when five terrorists were charged with murder, I know that it is not a prospect that veterans face with equanimity —they often say they would much prefer to be under fire. When I stood in court to give evidence for the prosecution against terrorists, I was shouted at, demeaned, threatened and told that my family were dead. That is not something that people like happening to them.

I gather that around seven more trials of veterans are in the offing, with perhaps another 16 more veterans also in the frame for prosecution. I feel that those trials and prosecutions should be stopped in their tracks, and I very much hope that will happen. Perhaps the same logic that sent the prosecution in the case of soldiers A and C out of the court with its tail between its legs will prevail. We owe our veteran soldiers and, indeed, all the people who tried to preserve peace in Northern Ireland—not just soldiers—a debt. They have lived under the continual threat of prosecution for many years; we should sort it out.

Our Northern Ireland veterans do not want an amnesty. Why should they have an amnesty? They have done nothing wrong. They obeyed the law, often at great risk to themselves, and are rightly affronted when some people suggest that they are just the same as terrorists. They are not—they are most definitely not. Like me in my time, veterans were sent to Northern Ireland at the behest of predecessors of ours in this place and told that if they obeyed the laws of conflict and of this country, we would look after them. That is exactly what Jim Callaghan, as Home Secretary, said to my own platoon of the Cheshire Regiment in Londonderry during the spring of 1970. At the time, my soldiers, 36 in strength, were reduced by a third, who were in hospital with burns and broken limbs. Mr Callaghan was seriously shocked by what he saw. He promised me, my men and all our soldiers in Northern Ireland that our predecessors here in this place would look after us as long as we obeyed the law. I think it is time that we honoured that pledge given by the Home Secretary 51 years ago.