Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Debate between Carla Lockhart and James Sunderland

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) in this debate.

My colleagues and I support the good intention of this Bill. It is the right thing to do to protect those who have protected us and this nation, and indeed many other innocents, in the face of the threat to life and the oppression of fundamental rights.

The Bill is not drafted perfectly, but tonight we have an opportunity to address and debate its deficiencies. One area of significant concern is torture. Amendments 1 to 10 seek to address that deficiency and, indeed, go a long way towards addressing this matter of grave public concern. That is the right thing to do. Like sexual offences, torture must fall outside the provisions of this Bill. Let us do nothing to undermine the values we hold dear as a nation. Where no investigation has taken place, it is absolutely right that the provisions of this Bill do not apply.

Cognisant of the purposes of today’s proceedings, I still wish to raise once again the plight of veterans of Operation Banner. I represent many such veterans who live in my constituency, and indeed hon. Members right across this House do so as well. While the operation was in Northern Ireland, those who served came from right across our United Kingdom and beyond. In the previous debate on this Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and I asked the Minister to state that the provisions of this Bill will not become law until the assurances made in the House on 18 March regarding Northern Ireland are fulfilled. The Minister said in response:

“We are clear that we will deliver our commitments to Northern Ireland. In a written ministerial statement on 18 March, we committed to equal treatment for those who served on Op Banner. We will not resile from that position.”—[Official Report, 23 September 2020; Vol. 680, c. 1049.]

That is a good intention—it is the right intention—but there is no guarantee. I know from our conversations with veterans that the longer this delay continues the more suspicious they get. This is wrong, and I need to know that the Minister believes it is wrong as well, so what is the cause of the delay? Those who await the knock at the door for standing up to terrorism deserve answers, and I urge the Minister to give those answers today.

The Bill is welcome and delivers on promises made by the Government, but we must no longer leave some veterans behind as prey to vexatious prosecutions. That is wrong, especially if, as suspected, it is for no other reason than to give a sop to the political front of the very people who killed and maimed many of those they served beside.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

Having been spared the commitment of serving on the Bill Committee, I am fortunate also to have been spared some of the polarisation that has affected this Bill, so I talk today from a position of complete objectivity. Having also tracked this important journey very carefully for many years, both professionally and personally, I believe this is an essentially good piece of work that deserves a fair passage through Parliament.

As I stated on Second Reading, any new legislation needs to be set in the context of the prevailing macro-conditions and previous legislation. This Bill fills a void where little has previously existed, so I commend the Minister for his vision, resilience and fortitude to date.

The bottom line is that this Bill delivers on the Conservative manifesto commitment to address the issue of vexatious claims and makes the first substantial amendments of their kind to the Human Rights Act by limiting the time during which claims can be brought. I can say from experience that this is what our armed forces want. They aspire to better protected in law. They want to know that the country values their service. They need to know that they will be supported if they pull the trigger lawfully and, after the misery of the ambulance-chasing years, they want the threshold for prosecution to be raised so that the endless knocks at the door finally stop. This is a no-brainer.