Police Service of Northern Ireland Training College

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Sir Roger. I commend the hon. Member for North Down (Alex Easton) for securing this debate. I support both the concept of and the need for a proper training facility of modern standards for the PSNI. As has been referred to, some years ago, there was a proposition to have the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, the Prison Service and the PSNI on a joint training site at Desertcreat. Frankly, that would have cost a lot less than the cumulative cost now facing the PSNI alongside what was spent at Desertcreat for the Fire and Rescue Service. It was, perhaps, rather short-sighted not to have proceeded with that expenditure at that time.

Policing is now a devolved matter, and the Minister will no doubt tell us today that the responsibility for it lies with the Stormont Executive. Maybe the devolving of policing, as some of us said at the time, was not such a good idea after all; if it had not been devolved, then there would be no hiding place for the Minister. There would be no batting this away and saying, “That is for Stormont.” The obligation would be—as I think it always should have been—with the Minister and the Northern Ireland Office.

We are now in a situation where the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland is bidding for £116 million but, from what I can see, there has been no positive response from the Department of Finance in Stormont. She can make as many bids as she likes, but until the money is granted, nothing is going to happen. Is something going to happen under a Sinn Féin Finance Minister, who would far rather squander money on net zero madness, needless and expensive Irish language signing, and useless north-south bodies? I would dare to say that the PSNI and its needs are pretty far down the Sinn Féin Finance Minister’s list of priorities.

It would be far better if policing had never been devolved. Then, if this need had still existed, we could have come here today and really put it to the Minister that it was his responsibility and his Government’s obligation, and that they were the ones who were failing. Instead, he can rightly say, to a significant extent, that it is Stormont that has failed to provide the policing facilities. That was one of many mistakes made in respect of devolution.

Yes, we need a training centre, but what will the training there encompass? I ask that question in light of the controversy last week in this place about the need to readjust the training directives for police officers in the United Kingdom, which had gone overboard in terms of their political correctness. Is the same thing going to happen in respect of the PSNI?

I suspect that it is, because when I look at the PSNI’s “Race and Ethnicity Action Plan 2025-2030”, I read about matters such as:

“mandatory… cultural competence training to all…officers”.

What on earth does that mean? In paragraph 3.3.2 of the plan, I read language that speaks of:

“Interacting…in an…appropriate and culturally sensitive way”.

What does that mean?

In Great Britain, we have seen training that reduced the scandal of what happened to Mr Nowak, when police arrived and, on the playing of the race card, automatically looked for the white man. That is what happened in that case. Is that what will happen in Northern Ireland under this PSNI training? If it is, we can do without it. We want policing based on training that is fundamentally fair and equal for all. Frankly, it is no comfort that this “ethnicity action plan” is to be overseen by our highly politicised and politically perverse Equality Commission. If that body has anything to do with the plan, then it will definitely head in the wrong way.

There need to be lessons learned right across this United Kingdom, including from the attack on young Mr Nowak. There need to be lessons learned about the abomination of what has become a corrupting political correctness, which is affecting training for our services. People just want policemen who act fairly, who act swiftly, who act correctly and who are not constantly looking over their shoulders and wondering whether or not, when they do the right thing, they are offending some madness in some ethnicity action plan.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I certainly agree with all that the hon. and learned Member has said with regard to ethnicity.

In relation to the police, we have to commend those young officers who go out daily and put themselves in harm’s way to protect our community. However, does the hon. and learned Member agree that there is a real disconnect with the senior leadership of the PSNI with regard to community engagement? We only have to look at the weekend event in Scarva, when political representatives had to step in and ensure that the PSNI dealt with protesters in the same way—with equality—when they were dealing with a parade that was highly political, in which people were carrying “From the river to the sea” banners, which are highly offensive and constitute a hate crime. Does he agree that the PSNI needs training around dealing with the Protestant Unionist Loyalist community, and start to listen to their concerns on the ground, and engage with them on the issues that matter to them?

[Jim Allister]

I absolutely agree. I think that Saturday at Scarva was an object lesson in how not to do public order policing, because the mentality that seemed to infect all that was to inhibit, and even to seek to provoke—what I saw seemed to be of that order—those who were legitimately exercising a peaceful protest. Even in that regard, the changing of the designation and determination of the Parades Commission on when and where a protest was held seems to me to be ultra vires of the police powers that surround that. The police need to take a long, hard look at themselves in how they conducted those public order policing matters on Saturday.

Having said all that, we do need a police force. We need those who serve our community, but we need them to serve it even-handedly—to serve everyone with equality and not to have anyone think that they are above the law or, indeed, to have anyone perpetuated in that view by a pandering to them. There are lessons there to be learned.

Let us get a proper training course and training location for our police. Let us also get our numbers to where they should be. Chris Patten told us that we were to have 7,500 police officers. Today, I think we have 6,200. That is way short, and again I think that is a failure of the devolution of policing. Certainly, as Members of Parliament we would be in a much stronger position to really hold the Minister to account if policing had never been devolved. For me, this is confirmation of the folly of that action.

North Belfast: Violent Attack

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. Gentleman will be well aware of the action that the Government are taking to deal with illegal migration. I have also made clear to the House the steps that we take if anyone, however they came to the country, or whether they are from this country, commits a criminal offence: they will face due process. Any foreign national, regardless of how they came, who abuses our hospitality and commits crimes can expect to be deported at the end of their sentence.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

My thoughts are very much with the victim of the horrific attack last night, and I echo the calls for calm in our communities. Communities in Northern Ireland are angry: they are demanding answers and they deserve answers, but sadly I do not feel they are getting those answers today. It is not lost on the people of north Belfast who in this place today is speaking up for working-class communities that are very concerned about uncontrolled immigration and the fact that mayors will not even say how many houses they have full of immigrants.

Was this individual known to the authorities? How many others from the same country are currently being accommodated in Northern Ireland? How did they enter the UK? What actions are this Government taking to prevent the abuse of our immigration system, including via the land border with the Republic of Ireland?

[Hilary Benn]

I say to the hon. Member that the public are right to be angry about what they witnessed in that appalling video and what they will have heard about the attack that took place. I will endeavour to come back to her on some of the questions she has asked but, as I have already indicated to the House, other answers will be provided in due course once the facts have been checked. It is really important that the facts are checked before information is given to the House, because I would not want to stand here and say something that turns out not to be the case. Checking the facts thoroughly is a responsibility on me before I inform the House, and that is what I intend to do.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over)

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Carry-over motion
Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

I appreciate the opportunity to take part in this debate on the carry-over motion. We are here this evening as a direct consequence of the failure of this Government to honour their commitment to repeal and replace the legacy Act, to deliver on a manifesto commitment through a two-year Session of Parliament, and to bring with them the victims from Northern Ireland and veterans right throughout the United Kingdom.

This is not a failure of our making. The Secretary of State talks about and laments the fact that the Tories lost the support of all parties in Northern Ireland, but I see little support for the process that the people of Northern Ireland and veterans right across the United Kingdom have had to endure over the last two years. Time after time after time, we heard the Secretary of State talk of safeguards for veterans. Time after time after time, we heard him and the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who is sat beside him, indicate that those safeguards would protect veterans in the United Kingdom, yet here we have it—the Secretary of State has had to open up. He has had to tell us, as the Prime Minister confirmed to me, that he is going to bring forward further amendments to do what he said was already done. He has lost the confidence of veterans and victims.

We have talked about and asked the Secretary of State about equivalence. How can there be equivalence between somebody who donned a uniform, did service and made sacrifices legally and lawfully in this country and others who donned a balaclava, took an oath of allegiance to evil and sought to destroy our nation and all those in it? Can there be equivalence? No. Yet today, the Secretary of State says that he will bring forward amendments, and we are asked to support a carry-over motion on a process that has lost the confidence of the people it is meant to bring with it. That is a shame.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

My right hon. Friend is making a very powerful point. Despite the promised raft of amendments, this Bill does not and will never protect those who put on uniform and stood between good and evil—the bloodthirsty terrorists. When the East Tyrone killing machine of the IRA was taken out at Loughgall, it saved countless lives, and it was the same at Coagh. People have had enough of the hounding of those who served, and they have had enough of this Government bending the knee to Dublin. It is time that we stand up for our veterans, not throw them to the wolves.

[Gavin Robinson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Secretary of State dismisses the allegation that this is all about Dublin, but what was the clarion call over the last week? There was a British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference this week, and he knows that he is under pressure from Dublin to show progress, but what have we got from them? Nothing more than hollow words.

The Dublin Government said that they committed to information retrieval. How many requests have they accepted from the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery? None. They have given no answers to any victims in Northern Ireland. The Irish Government have more secrets locked away in their drawers than lectures that they choose to give to this House. They still have an interstate case against this country. They promise lots; they deliver nothing.

Tonight, we are asked to support a carry-over motion. The amendment paper for this Bill, containing 49 pages of amendments from myself, my hon. Friends and hon. Members throughout this House. Although the Secretary of State was confident about this Bill, he now indicates that he is going to bring forward a substantial number of amendments. He would be better off scrapping the Bill and bringing back a Bill that can command the confidence of victims and veterans.

I listened to the powerful contribution of the Chair of the Northern Ireland Committee, the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), who is no longer in her place. She will remember that one of the most startling experiences we had as a Committee was talking to victims who asked us this question: “Is the Secretary of State going to agree to early release for dissident republican prisoners?” On 21 May last year, he said to me that

“there are no such plans”—[Official Report, 21 May 2025; Vol. 767, c. 1011.]

yet that engagement continues. Worse, the Northern Ireland Office has now appointed a lady called Fleur Ravensbergen, who is engaging with the New IRA, who attacked Dunmurry police station just yesterday. Through their interlocutors and the International Red Cross, they are asking the Secretary of State to offer them early release. I say: shame!

Dunmurry Police Station Attack

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I will take the hon. Member’s question away. The allocation of resources is a matter for the Chief Constable. This is a very urgent investigation. I point out to him that one of the consequences of the legacy Act that the last Government passed was that responsibility for investigating troubles-related cases departed from the PSNI; it does not rest with the PSNI today, but with the legacy commission. It is the commission that does investigations in respect of the cases that have been referred to it, not the PSNI.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I, like every right-minded person, utterly condemn the abhorrent attack on Dunmurry PSNI station and the one on Lurgan in my constituency. I commend PSNI officers for their bravery in dealing with these attempts on their lives. Does the Secretary of State agree that Sinn Féin’s response drips with rank hypocrisy, condemning the bombers of today while glorifying, lauding and even erecting illegal statues to the bombers and terrorists of yesterday? Does he agree that the decision to put forward Órlaithí Flynn MLA—daughter of Patrick Flynn, convicted of an IRA bomb in Dunmurry—to condemn this attack was a calculated insult to victims and a grotesque reminder that Sinn Féin’s words condemn terrorism, but their politics still romanticise it? Surely the Government should reflect on their decision not to strengthen the legislation on glorification of terrorism and act to legislate against it immediately.

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. Member, quite rightly, speaks with great sincerity and anger about what has happened. On the very last point that she raised, she will be familiar with the provisions of the Terrorism Act 2006. As she will be aware, the Government have recently agreed to ask Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorist legislation, to undertake a review of section 1 and report back.

Oral Answers to Questions

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

The lifting of the two-child benefit cap in Northern Ireland will help more than 17,000 children and more than 48,000 people in Northern Ireland households. We are also increasing the national minimum wage, which will benefit 170,000 people, and increasing the state pension will benefit 330,000 pensioners in Northern Ireland.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Cancer is a thief and a home-wrecker. Sadly, Northern Ireland has the worst cancer outcomes across the UK. I recently lifted the lid on breast cancer referrals, with red-flag appointments taking in excess of 14 weeks. Although the autumn Budget has been helpful, can the Minister confirm whether conversations are happening with the Treasury to ask for transformational money to help us transform our health service, so that cancer wait times and medical pathways can be improved once and for all?

[Hilary Benn]

Like the whole House, I share the hon. Member’s wish to improve cancer treatment and cancer waiting times for those who are currently waiting too long. There is the public services transformation fund, and the first phase of projects was funded last year. Decisions are about to be taken on the second phase of funding, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Matthew Patrick) mentioned, there also needs to be reform of the way in which the health service works. We are seeing progress under Mike Nesbitt’s leadership, and we need to see more.

Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

We have been unwavering in our opposition to the notion of immunity. There has never been a justification for arbitrarily closing down legal routes for innocent victims—not in 1998, not during the darkest days of the troubles, and certainly not today. While the Secretary of State and his party are perhaps late to this party, we do welcome his desire to remove the prospect of amnesty and, with it, the perverse equivalence drawn between those brave soldiers and police officers who acted within the law and the terrorists who were intent only on murder and destruction. That moral equivalence has poisoned legacy discourse for far too long.

When it comes to this debate, and the fact that the Government are pressing ahead prematurely with this remedial action, it is not just that we dispute the policy; the fact is that it is rubbing salt in the wounds of victims and will open the floodgates. It will not help one innocent victim, but it will open the floodgates against our brave soldiers—those who stood as human shields between good and evil. What is disputed is the reckless manner in which this Government are attempting to achieve this —and all to placate the Government in Dublin, whose approach has always been obstruction and concealment.

The fact that the Secretary of State is willing to pre-empt the outcome of an appeal to the highest court in the land sets a dangerous precedent. More importantly, it sends a message to the Northern Ireland Veterans Movement—men and women who have already given more than enough—that its views and its stake in this process are dispensable.

It will come as no shock to the Secretary of State to hear that there are aspects of the draft remedial order that we have grave concerns about. It is clear that any benefit from reinstating civil cases will be accrued by a subset of victims whose claims are directed towards the security forces. Once again, the full weight of the state is being aimed not at terrorists but at those who stood against them. Where exactly does the right hon. Member suggest those who were bereaved at the hands of terrorists can seek compensation from the provisional IRA? It is an organisation that still refuses to disband, disarm fully and even acknowledge the scale and brutality of its crimes and murders.

Innocent victims and our brave ex-service personnel are crying out for fairness, not arrangements that aid and abet the rewriting of history—a history in which terrorists are daily being recast as victims, and soldiers as villains. The Secretary of State seems content to acquiesce to those who would use the courts to distort the truth of the past. This House should be under no illusion: this is not about justice; it is about narrative. We only have to think of Loughgall. Let us be absolutely clear about what Loughgall was: it was not a tragic accident or a miscarriage of justice, but the right and proper action on the part of brave soldiers to halt and take out an armed terrorist unit on the verge of carnage. Yet, decades later, the full machinery of the state is being turned against those who prevented a massacre, when the Secretary of State backs this latest inquest. Meanwhile, families devastated by IRA bombs and bullets continue to wait, many without answers, many without justice and many without even acknowledgment.

This is not about truth; it is about blurring the distinction between those who served the law and those who sought to destroy it. It is time for this Government to show the resolve needed to defend those who defended us. They must not do so with warm words or platitudes but with action. The remedial order fails in that aim; it weakens protections, emboldens lawfare and abandons veterans to endless legal jeopardy, and we cannot and will not support it.

Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

Yes, it will be voted on in both Houses in the new year.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Despite what the Secretary of State continues to say in the House, the prosecution of elderly veterans has been vexatious. In the Soldier F trial, the judge agreed with the submissions of the defence that the threshold to prosecute was far from being reached; political interference brought that matter to court. If the Secretary of State cannot even accept that there have been vexatious prosecutions, how will he ensure that the remedial order will give a clear distinction between the bomber who presents him or herself as a victim and the ordinary man, woman or child who was murdered or maimed by the actions of terrorists?

[Hilary Benn]

There is the clearest distinction between the two groups of people that the hon. Member refers to, and I have made that clear from the Dispatch Box on a number of occasions. There is absolutely no equivalence between those who sought to protect the public and those who committed the most appalling terrorist atrocities. I have respectfully to disagree with the hon. Member, because if she is arguing that prosecutions have been vexatious, she is saying that our independent prosecutors are working on a basis that is outwith their task, which is, in all cases, to look at the evidence and to ask whether there is a reasonable prospect of conviction and whether it is in the public interest to prosecute. If we undermine the independence of independent prosecutors—the separation between the Government and the court system—we are sunk as a nation. That is why I am so firm in saying that there is no such thing as a vexatious prosecution.

Northern Ireland Troubles: Operation Kenova

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

The Secretary of State needs to go further. Several Members have pressed him on this point, but he still has not explicitly told the House. Given the extensive scrutiny directed at alleged agents within the UK establishment, what demands has the Secretary of State made of the Irish Government to disclose the extent and details of agents operating within the republican movement, particularly in the light of the irrefutable evidence of collusion that enabled the murder of RUC officers, UDR members and Protestant civilians, particularly in the border areas? Unlike the Secretary of State, I am not prepared to accept their say-so when for decades they have covered up, housed and protected terrorists, and denied innocent victims truth and justice.

[Hilary Benn]

In the light of what the hon. Member has just said, I hope that she would welcome the commitments that the Irish Government have given—

[Carla Lockhart]

indicated dissent.

[Hilary Benn]

She shakes her head, but she is saying—[Interruption.] Well, the past and what happened or did not happen in Ireland is a matter for the Irish state to deal with, but I hope the hon. Member would welcome the commitments that have been given to co-operate to the fullest possible extent with the new Legacy Commission, which is not the case in relation to the current commission established by the legacy Act, for reasons of which she and the whole House will be well aware. Whatever happened in the past, the most important thing is that we enable families who are still waiting for answers to get access to all the information that is available now. That is what the Irish Government are committed to.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 18th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

At the outset, let me restate unequivocally that we DUP Members will always stand with the innocent victims and survivors of terrorism in Northern Ireland. We will stand with the families whose loved ones were cut down by a ruthless and bloody terrorist campaign. Their pain has not diminished, and neither will our determination to defend truth, justice and moral clarity.

We continue to hear attempts to justify or sanitise and romanticise terrorism. We hear repeatedly from Sinn Féin’s leadership, the self-proclaimed First Minister for all and Mary Lou McDonald, that there was somehow no alternative to the IRA’s barbaric campaign of violence, and that it was justified. Justified? That is an affront to every innocent family whose loved one was murdered. There was always an alternative to murder; there was always an alternative to placing bombs under cars; and there was always an alternative to shooting innocent men, women and children.

I want to take the House back to two significant events in 1987: the IRA bombing of the service of remembrance at the cenotaph in Enniskillen, killing 12 people and injuring at least 60 more; and the Special Air Service’s engagement of heavily armed terrorists in Loughgall in my constituency. Which one of these incidents do Members think was granted a public inquiry? It was not the murder of innocents and the injuring of many more. Instead an inquiry was granted into the heavily armed terror gang, which was rightly engaged with and eliminated by the security forces, who saved countless lives in the process. Such is the subversion of the legacy process in Northern Ireland that the murder of innocents at Enniskillen has never had a public inquiry.

In recent times, the Secretary of State visited Loughgall and heard directly from innocent victims of the IRA’s East Tyrone brigade, one of the most brutal, ruthless killing wings of the IRA. He spoke with two men whose families endured unimaginable suffering at the hands of some of the IRA’s most notorious killers, and their testimonies were powerful and deeply moving. The East Tyrone brigade were not freedom fighters, but a heavily armed terror unit. Having already killed hundreds of innocent people, they mounted a killing operation at Loughgall, intending to obliterate any RUC officer in that station. They never paused in their murderous intent. They did not stop to give any officer an opportunity to walk away. Terrorism must never be sanitised or justified. Those who defended the innocent must never be sacrificed to appease those who glorify violence.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Secretary of State’s promises to the House mean that the Bill would enable some of those people and their supporters to be included on the victims advisory group? Indeed, if the Secretary of State consulted the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland, the leader of the Alliance party, she would say that they should be included, because they are just as much innocent victims as the people whom they killed.

[Carla Lockhart]

Absolutely. That was a point well made.

This Bill speaks of inquests, and we firmly believe that every family deserves a full and fair investigation, but Loughgall—really? Not only has that event been before the European Court of Human Rights, where the UK was found to be justified, but there is to be a second inquest. How does that make innocent victims feel? There must be no more vexatious pursuit of the security forces, and this Bill does not protect them. Only 10% of troubles-related deaths were caused by the security forces, and almost all of those occurred in engagements with terrorists, yet the narrative we hear is deliberately inverted. There is no comparison—none—between terrorists and those who stood as a human shield in their path. The SAS soldiers who served in Loughgall deserve this Government’s full support.

The Government have allowed the Irish Government an entirely disproportionate role in shaping legacy, while innocent victims in Northern Ireland feel sidelined. Let us be very clear: the Irish state has its own legacy—a dark, uncomfortable legacy—that it has yet to confront with honesty or transparency. That same state’s own tribunal, the Smithwick tribunal, found collusion between members of the Garda Síochána and the IRA on the murders of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan. Those two senior Royal Ulster Constabulary officers were ambushed and executed after information was passed by the Irish police to terrorists. It was the same with Ian Sproule, the 23-year-old from Castlederg. These are not isolated incidents. Across border areas, families have credible concerns about the Irish state’s failures—failures to arrest, to extradite, and to share intelligence, and failures that allowed terrorists to flee across the border and live openly.

We will stand with every innocent family whose loved one was murdered. We will stand with the RUC, with the Ulster Defence Regiment, with our veterans, and with the SAS. Terrorism was wrong. It was never justified, and it cannot be sanitised.

“Soldier F” Trial Verdict

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I have already expressed the Government’s thanks in my answer to the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), and I think those sentiments are felt right across the House.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I welcome the clear and just verdict delivered by Mr Justice Lynch, which rightly found Soldier F not guilty on all charges—vindication for a man who served his country with honour and distinction. Does the Secretary of State agree that this case again exposes the disgrace of vexatious prosecutions of aged veterans, pursued where there was never evidence capable of meeting the threshold for conviction, and that it is time to end the witch hunt once and for all?

Does the Secretary of State further agree that around 90% of all deaths during the troubles were caused by terrorists, and that of the 10% that involved the security forces, the largest proportion occurred while engaging terrorists who were engaged in murderous and criminal activities? Sinn Féin’s historical revisionism, exemplified by the First Minister’s comments following the verdict, is therefore defamatory. To equate murderers with those who defended democracy is an attempt to smear our veterans, and it should not be allowed.

[Hilary Benn]

I agree with the hon. Member that 90% of those who were killed during the troubles were killed by paramilitary terrorists, which is why the vast majority of those who have been prosecuted and convicted have been paramilitary terrorists. However, I do not agree with her when she uses the phrase “vexatious prosecutions”. There are no vexatious prosecutions. [Hon. Members: “What?”] There are no vexatious prosecutions, because if the hon. Member is arguing that a decision to prosecute is vexatious, she is criticising the independent prosecuting authorities, which make their decisions on the basis of whether there is a reasonable prospect of a conviction and whether it is in the public interest to prosecute. We should be extremely careful about trying to undermine an independent judicial system.