Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Colum Eastwood Excerpts

Committee of the whole House & 3rd reading
Tuesday 20th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

I am sure that the Secretary of State will have heard what the hon. Gentleman said and will refer to it in his final remarks.

The cases that we are talking about here include that of Coagh and Michael Ryan—an IRA man who shot two Ulster Defence Regiment officers, both in the presence of children.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I am very grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s kind words. I just want to make sure that I understood him; he said that inquests have not dealt with innocent civilians being killed. In fact, they have: the Ballymurphy inquest and the Springhill inquest brought truth to families almost 50 years after their loved ones were murdered in cold blood by British forces. If we are going to talk about this, let us talk about it in the round.

[Alex Burghart]

I am happy to clarify my remarks for the hon. Gentleman. I am certainly not saying that at all. I am explaining why the inquisitorial process has suffered such a loss of confidence. It is because of the way in which certain inquests have been conducted and the way they have behaved. I am not talking at cross-purposes with the hon. Gentleman.

In the case of Clonoe, we are dealing with the fact that a van-load of men shot up a police station with a fully automatic machine gun and were confronted by the security forces. In the case of Loughgall, an IRA unit attacked a Royal Ulster Constabulary base and were shot. Those security forces, who kept our country safe in those moments, were asked to do extremely difficult things. They no longer trust the inquisitorial process, because they can see where it leads. It leads to lawfare—to years of court processes in which, even when the judges say, “This is a farce,” or, “This is ludicrous,” they are powerless to prevent the legal aid cavalcade from going on and on.

Amendment 113, which appears in my name, and the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington would essentially do the same thing that the hon. and gallant Member for Birmingham Selly Oak was seeking yesterday: they say, “Enough of the multi-track approach; let us put all the inquests into the legacy commission.” Let us dispense with the twin-track approach, which the hon. and gallant Member argued against yesterday. Of course, the twin-track approach is really a three-track approach, because inquiries are still being granted. As we argued at the time, the Government should have asked ICRIR to deal with, for example, the Finucane inquiry rather than set up a new public inquiry. Then, because of civil cases, we will have a four-track approach. For all the reasons mentioned here, I very much hope that the Government will at the very least accept that, where we are dealing with military action against known terrorists, the inquests ought to be dealt with by the legacy commission.

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[Alex Burghart]

The right hon. Gentleman says no from a sedentary position, but that is not the case. We have received legal advice that “essential” is no bar at all. For the reasons I have already set out, it will be very easily stepped over, whereas “new and compelling”, as we know from the overseas operations Act, is a more significant legal test.

“New and compelling” provides certainty in three ways. First, it is a filter test: no engagement with veterans unless there is new and compelling evidence. Secondly, it is a term already applied by the courts, so we have one system and equality of treatment. Thirdly, it is not subjective like “essential”: the evidence must be new and must be a matter of fact, and it must be compelling, meaning that it will impact the outcome. The test of new evidence only would be meaningless as there is no threshold.

Finally, I turn to new clause 7 in my name. It would require annual reporting on recruitment and retention within the armed forces. We have all seen repeated reports that our special forces are under threat because of the demoralising effects of lawfare, both present and historical. In October, we were warned by the SAS Regimental Association that lawfare was

“eroding the will to fight”.

In November, we were warned by eight retired generals and one chief marshal that “recruitment, retention and morale” were all suffering. In December, seven former senior SAS officers spoke of the dangerous operational consequences of lawfare. This morning, Brigadier Ed Butler, former commanding officer of 22 SAS, said in stark terms that “continued lawfare” was affecting recruitment and retention. When leaders with such experience issue such warnings, I think we all have a duty to listen and to take them seriously.

[Colum Eastwood]

Can I clarify the point the hon. Member is making? Is he putting forward an argument that if special forces are not allowed to do whatever they want, in whatever theatre, outside legal boundaries, people will not join up?

[Alex Burghart]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that that is absolutely not the point I am making or, indeed, a point I have ever made. The simple point I am making is that vexatious repeat-and-rinse investigations are hugely demoralising to people who once served and people who still serve. That is very different to what he has just alleged.

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In the firefight that followed, all eight members of the IRA active service unit were killed. These are the people otherwise described as victims in this exercise. I have already detailed the worst of them, Jim Lynagh; rather than detail the rest, I will simply say that on forensic analysis, it was found that the weapons recovered after the event were responsible for 40 to 50 killings—killings that took place in every single county in Northern Ireland. What was the effect of this operation? Well, the East Tyrone brigade had been responsible for more than 20% of the IRA’s activities and killings in Northern Ireland beforehand; afterwards, they were responsible for less than 10%. This operation saved lives.

[Colum Eastwood]

Can I ask the right hon. Member to put on the record that another man, Anthony Hughes, was killed on that day in that operation? He was a totally, completely and utterly innocent civilian who was not involved in any IRA activity, or in any other organisation.

[David Davis]

I was about to come to that point, and I will probably come back to it again. That is the real tragedy of that day—he was the real victim, as was his son, I think, who was wounded as well. I know that the hon. Gentleman will not agree with this, but one of the things about the British state is that we take our judicial responsibilities in these matters seriously, and we have prosecuted our own soldiers. The name Clegg jumps to mind, but there are others who were prosecuted and sent to prison even for acting irresponsibly, let alone malevolently. Of course that is the worst tragedy of that day—that is literally in my next paragraph. I will give the hon. Gentleman my notes after this debate, so that he can see for himself.

Incidentally, that is one of the reasons why I say that this case should go to the legacy commission. It is a really important thing to investigate, but it should be investigated in a cool, analytical manner, not in the theatre of the court. Why do the IRA want to have a coroner’s inquest rather than a legacy commission investigation? Because they were humiliated at Loughgall, and they want to rewrite history with themselves as the heroes and British soldiers as the villains. Let me give the Committee an early sign of the sort of thing they will try to claim.

We have been hearing recently that these IRA people were only aiming to destroy the building—they were not aiming to kill anybody. That would have been completely different from the first operation, where they murdered people in cold blood before blowing up the station. That also does not explain why the IRA fired 78 rounds at the building—bullets kill people, not buildings. It does not explain why they were there at the shift change, when the RUC men were about to come out of the building. It is plainly nonsense, but it is the sort of nonsense that they want to perpetuate in a court. That is another reason why I would rather see the dispassionate actions of the commission than the activities of IRA lawyers in the courts.

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[David Davis]

I am very close to the end, Madam Chairman. The hon. Lady is exactly right, and that is the entire thrust of amendment 51. If I had had my way, I would have said that amendment 49 was better, because it would have stopped all these inquests. The amendments would not get rid of the investigations, but would put them into a better process, which the Government have designed.

I will finish on coroners courts. I have listened to a number of soldiers who have appeared in these courts, and the Committee can guess who I am talking about, but they are tough, intelligent soldiers. However, the court is not their environment, when they are being harassed by a lawyer not to get to the truth, but to get a story out of them. I spoke this morning to one of them who has been through more of these court cases than most, both inquests and judicial reviews. He told me that IRA lawyers are, in his words, “more interested in drama than justice”.

[Colum Eastwood]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Davis]

No, not on this point. I am nearly at the end. I have already been rebuked by the Chairman for going on.

What that soldier said is, I am afraid, consistent with what I saw. I have never appeared in an inquest, but I have appeared in a Diplock court in Northern Ireland. [Interruption.] Sorry, am I being heckled? I saw the same: the lawyers were interested in rewriting history. The IRA would welcome the restarting of the Loughgall inquest. They would view that as a victory in its own right, because it would allow them yet another attempt to rewrite the history of the troubles.

I will make an aside, which in a way goes back to the point made by the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood), although it is the converse of it. One of the soldiers at Loughgall got the military medal. In my view, many of them should have done, but he got it for putting himself at extra risk to save civilians and to prevent the death of civilians. That tells us what we are dealing with in relation to British soldiers in Northern Ireland.

My last point is that this operation was approved in detail by the general officer commanding, Northern Ireland. I believe that it was approved in detail by the Secretary of State. It was reviewed by the Director of Public Prosecutions, with all of the information to hand—forensics, witnesses, the lot. We should remember that RUC people would not have been involved directly, but would have given witness statements. Do we want to run that through a circumstance where the evidence is degraded, where people’s memories have gone and where some have died? One of the individuals involved has dementia. Is that what we want to do, or do we want to do it properly, by dispassionate method, using an instrument that is designed for the process and that those on both sides of the House agree will work?

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[Al Carns]

That is encouraging to know, but although these are deaths from the same conflict being considered decades later, we are deliberately providing two different routes for dealing with them. For more than 12 months I have recommended that we create a single centralised body to deal with the troubles-related issues. I know that there are some who would be uncomfortable with that, particularly those who represent families who have waited a very long time for an inquest, and I understand why that is. I am not suggesting for a moment that those families should lose the work that has already been done; the evidence gathered should go with the case. Nor am I seeking to prevent prosecutions. If the commission finds evidence that someone committed a criminal offence, whether that person wore a uniform or belonged to a terrorist organisation, that evidence should go to the prosecuting authorities. I am trying to get us to one process in which we can have some confidence.

There is a reason why I feel strongly about this. We need to be very careful about the history that we are creating through the legacy process, and also to think about why it is impossible to balance truth and reconciliation with justice. The state kept a great many records during the troubles; of course it did. Operations were recorded and reports were written, and the people involved can often be identified. There is an enormous amount of material about what the British state did and did not do. The IRA and other terrorist groups did not keep operational records. There is no equivalent archive sitting somewhere with records of who gave an order, who carried it out, and what happened afterwards.

[Colum Eastwood]

I am not sure that we know that the IRA did not keep records, but that is an aside. What we do know very well, given all that we have seen over the last number of years and the reports that have been done, is that the IRA and other terrorist organisations were riddled from top to bottom with informers reporting directly to the British state. Those files exist, and they could tell us a whole lot about what the IRA and other organisations were up to.

[Al Carns]

I thank the hon. Member for the intervention, but when the records exposed threaten either national security or individual security, we must take that into account.

Yesterday, I think we all agreed that families deserve justice and answers, and indeed that many want closure, but with the majority of the murders during the troubles and conducted by terrorist organisations remaining unsolved, there just is not the evidence to get to the truth or to justice. I would like to ask: how is the Bill going to change that? Let us think about that. How is this Bill going to change the amount of evidence, and where is the new evidence to come from? I think we need to be honest with the families: do we genuinely believe that ex-IRA or Unionist terrorists are going to come and give information to this process? If by coming forward to offer information to provide answers that would at the same time self-incriminate the witness or individual providing the information, how many will participate?

I hear people talk about Ireland and about new biometric and forensic evidence-gathering capabilities, but there just is not the evidence to get to the truth. The reality—I could be wrong, and if I am proven wrong, I will hold my hand up—is that very few terrorists, if any, will come forward. The quest for the truth will rely on slivers of new evidence—and I mean slivers, although that does not mean we should not investigate them—that are found or indeed that arise from Ireland opening and giving the UK access to its extensive archives. Do we believe Ireland will do that? It would be politically very difficult and legally painful, and indeed it would lead to questioning the reputation and moral compass of successive Irish Governments.

We need to be honest with families: this Bill will not magically produce new evidence, and that creates a very real problem when, 30 or 40 years later, we try to establish the truth through legal proceedings. Material available to investigators is inevitably much richer on one side than it is on the other. If we put the cases through different processes as well, we will make the problem even worse. I have described this before as creating a hierarchy of truth. I do not mean that as a slogan, but something quite specific. What can be investigated most easily becomes what gets investigated most thoroughly, and what gets investigated most thoroughly produces the most findings. After enough years have passed, those findings start to become the history of the conflict. I do not believe anybody in this Chamber intends that to happen—I genuinely do not think that is the case—but intention is not really the point. We need to look at where the system we are building eventually takes us.

The Bill is trying to prevent repeat investigations, and I welcome the work to do so. I will, however, give a small example. Soldier B from Coagh has not been charged, but has had eight years of legal process, and three court cases have ruled that his actions were justified and there was appropriate use of force, yet the family have received legal aid to take the case again to the Supreme Court. Soldier B is unlikely ever to be charged, but he has undergone eight years of legal uncertainty and will endure many more. This is not about prosecutions; this is about the process being wielded as the punishment.

I come at this as a Labour MP. The Good Friday agreement asked an enormous number of people to do very difficult things. There were decisions made as part of that settlement that many people found very hard to accept, and still do. Prisoners walked out of jail, and people who had been enemies were expected to sit in government together. Blair and Mo Mowlam understood that there was no settlement available that could somehow settle every account from the previous 30 years, but they were trying to stop another generation having to live the same argument.

I worry that we are in danger of doing the opposite with legacy. In 10 or 15 years’ time, the Northern Ireland people’s understanding of what happened will come in large part from what is being established now. If over those years one part of the conflict has been examined again and again, because that is where records and people are available, while much of the activity of terrorist organisations remains beyond reach, we should not be surprised if people begin to draw conclusions from that. That would be a poor legacy for a Labour Government to leave them.

None of this diminishes what families have been through. There are people—hundreds of people—who have spent decades trying to find out what happened to someone they loved. They are entitled to pursue the truth, and I would never vote for a system designed to deny it to them. However, I also know veterans who have lived for years with the possibility that somebody will reopen an event that has already been examined, sometimes more than once—in many cases more than once. Many of those people are now very old men, and we cannot keep pretending that endless process is the same thing as justice.

The Government have chosen to strengthen the legacy commission, and I think that is the right thing to do. If we believe the commission can do this work, let it do the work. We should give it these outstanding cases and the material already collected and let the families take part, and if it finds evidence that belongs before a court, that is where it should go. Even the Joint Committee on Human Rights has questioned the justification for having two approaches to these revived inquests. I think that is a fair question, and I have yet to hear a convincing answer, other than that it will stress-test the framework agreement with the Irish.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Colum Eastwood Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Monday 19th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I am very reluctant to give way too many times, because I am conscious that lots of people will want to make speeches and catch your eye, Ms Ghani.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I have not given way much to Members on this side of the House, so I will take one intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood). I will also take an intervention from the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp), and then I promise that I will really crack on, Ms Ghani.

[Colum Eastwood]

It would be good if the Secretary of State cleared something up for the House. We have heard a lot about justice, vexatious claims and everything else. Will he tell us how many of the 25,000-odd people who served time as a result of troubles-related crimes were members of the security forces?

[Chris Bryant]

I am not sure whether this is a quiz. I do not know the precise answer to that question, but I think my hon. Friend has made his point.

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[Mr Francois]

I have two replies. First, if “new and compelling” is such a bad phrase, why have the Government included it in one of their own amendments? Secondly, yes, it should be a high bar.

[Colum Eastwood]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Francois]

Just a second—I know the hon. Gentleman is keen, but let me answer the Secretary of State first.

This is the whole problem with the Bill. For years, many of our veterans have faced the sword of Damocles. They have been perennially investigated and re-investigated, often at the hands of Republican Sinn Féin—mainly for political reasons, because they want to rewrite the history of the troubles. Our wording does not stop any future investigation; it just means—

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[Mr Francois]

No, we are trying to prevent lawfare. That is the whole point of the new clause.

Ours is a far clearer definition than that which the Government have proposed—that evidence should be “essential”. That is a much lower bar, and, crucially, what “essential” would mean is undefined in the Bill—essential to whom? There is considerable support for our amendment within the veterans community and from those who commanded them. General Sir Peter Wall, another former Chief of the General Staff, and General Sir Nick Parker, a former commander of the UK Land Forces, argued in a recent public statement:

“We have consistently proposed a straightforward solution: a single route through which families can seek answers, but no renewed adversarial proceedings against previously investigated veterans unless genuinely new and compelling evidence has been independently established.”

Let me turn to our amendment 47. Many veterans of Op Banner, which commenced 57 years ago, are now in the autumn of their lives. Some suffer from physical ailments and some from mental health issues, including memory loss. Some issues even relate back to their service in Northern Ireland in very difficult circumstances, where they often had to act, in effect, as piggy in the middle between two warring sectarian communities. The essence of our amendment is that those factors should be taken fully into account, including the number of times that a veteran has been previously investigated, before any prosecutions are proceeded with.

Our new clause 13 is included in order to restrict resort to civil actions, lest veterans be pursued by a treble whammy combination of the legacy commission, coronial inquests and civil actions on top.

New clause 55 is tabled in the name of the former Veterans Minister, the hon. and gallant Member for Birmingham Selly Oak, who famously described the Bill as not fit for purpose. As the Committee will know, he is more than capable of speaking for himself and I do not wish in any way to steal his thunder, but given the order of speeches I thought it appropriate to say something now.

The essence of new clause 55 is, as I understand it, that it would prevent the continuation of a dual-track approach under the auspices of the Bill, as any new investigations of whatever kind would have to take place under the aegis of the legacy commission. This is a very important point. We have seen, in previous years, what I have referred to before as the conveyor belt of inquests, whereby a veteran—often by now quite elderly—is subjected to a sometimes gruelling inquest. The purpose of an inquest is to establish how someone died, not to apportion guilt or blame. Nevertheless, in a number of cases, former soldiers have been subject to an unfavourable verdict at the end of an inquest, which is then used by Sinn Féin and their acolytes to attempt to forward the findings of the inquest to the prosecuting authorities in Northern Ireland, who then attempted to charge them. Through that process, often funded by the taxpayer via legal aid, many in the republican movement have attempted to systematically pursue veterans and place them in the dock.

[Colum Eastwood]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

[Mr Francois]

If the hon. Gentleman will just let me finish this point, then I will.

The Northern Ireland Veterans’ Commissioner, David Johnstone, recently described the process in the following stark terms in The Times. He said:

“Because the coronial system allows for appeals, judicial reviews, all the way up to the Supreme Court, and families can access legal aid, it is lawfare on steroids”.

As the Committee knows, we on the Conservative Benches are opposed to the Bill in principle. Nevertheless, we believe that it would be helpful were this amendment to be passed. Therefore, should the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak wish to press his amendment to a Division, we would certainly support him in the Lobby tonight.

[Colum Eastwood]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has talked a lot about the republican movement. Maybe it would be worth it if he took the opportunity to make it clear for those listening that not every victim of state violence was involved in the republican movement. In fact, one of the inquests he might be talking about was around the Ballymurphy massacre. Lots of people were murdered by British forces on that day. Can he make it clear that there are lots of people out there today crying out for truth and justice if possible, who had nothing whatsoever to do with the republican movement or any other organisation?

[Mr Francois]

I think, in fairness, I was very clear in my opening remarks that people were murdered by both republican and loyalist terrorists. There were men of violence on both sides who sought to kill innocent people to forward their appalling aims. I respectfully say to the hon. Gentleman that even members of the republican movement have been critical of the Bill. Danny Morrison, a former Sinn Féin publicity director and one-time spokesman for Bobby Sands, told a documentary about Operation Banner in August this year:

“There’s absolutely no doubt about it that the British Government, in a way, has to protect its Veterans, because if it doesn’t now, who’s going to go and fight overseas in another conflict?”

That is a very realistic point.

With regard to the Government’s amendments—as there are 140 of them, I cannot go through them individually; you would not thank me for that, Ms Ghani—the Secretary of State sort of implied that they have support from the veterans community. I have to say that that is incorrect. Even despite his amendments, he has not achieved his aim there. Indeed, the Northern Ireland Veterans Movement summarised the Secretary of State’s amendments in the following words:

“Despite repeated assurances that veterans would be protected from additional prosecutions, the amendments now tabled remove those protections entirely. By reinstating Coroner’s Inquests and civil actions, the Government has reopened the very legal routes historically used to drag former soldiers and police officers back into adversarial proceedings—often decades after events were thoroughly investigated.”

On behalf of our special forces, the Special Air Service, the Special Boat Service and the Special Reconnaissance Regimental Association collectively pointed out in their public statement:

“The amendments still allow: (i) a re-investigation to commence without even the suggestion that new evidence is available; and (ii) a veteran to be compelled to participate in that investigation even if their involvement is not for purposes of obtaining new evidence—all that is required is that the investigator should consider that it is ‘essential’ to re-investigate (and a meaning of essential is not provided). This is a green light for the continued pursuit of veterans after decades have passed and where there is nothing new to learn.”

Generals Wall and Parker have reached this conclusion:

“The Government must decide whether it is prepared to protect those who served lawfully on its behalf from endless legal process. If that is its intention, it must say so unequivocally and legislate accordingly. If it is not, it should stop pretending that its amendments offer veterans meaningful protection.”

It is obvious that veterans do not support the Government’s amendments, because they are very clear in their own mind that the Bill, even amended, still provides a mechanism for pursuing them via lawfare, to the advantage of those such as Sinn Féin. The process still remains the punishment, and the ultimate outcome is still the same: the veteran ends up in the dock.

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[Al Carns]

I thank the hon. Member for his contribution, and for his consistent analysis, scrutiny and support of all things Northern Ireland.

As my new clause is not going forward, we will continue —unfortunately, in my mind—with a twin-track approach. We will have the legacy commission on one hand, which in some cases is underfunded, and inquests on the other hand. We will waste a huge amount of money through that process, because I genuinely believe that that illusionary justice is very unlikely to come about. We will allow the process to drift on, potentially for up to 15 years. Think about what that means to someone who is 80, 75 or 70 years old—15 years of not knowing, of having to be worried about whether they will be called back or have to provide evidence in some way, shape or form about an incident 30 or 40 years ago. Sometimes, I cannot even remember what I did yesterday. We will keep our brave veterans, who I think have served valiantly, waiting in limbo.

Importantly, a lot of this activity is based on several factors, the first of which is the willingness of Ireland to support us. I completely support the Secretary of State’s move to hold Ireland to account for what it has said it will do, but let us see whether that happens. The second factor is the costs, which are astronomical. At minimum, an inquest costs £20 million. There are tens of inquests to go, and even if they go into the legacy commission, we are still talking about £5 million per inquest. That is significant. Then we have politics to think about. As this process progresses, it will consider Sinn Féin’s activity—either in Northern Ireland or in the Republic of Ireland—and how that affects both the legislation and the agreements Sinn Féin have made recently. On top of all of that, if new evidence—new biometrics, the smoking gun—is found, people will only go to prison for two years, so what is the point?

As for information recovery, there is no new information unless it comes from Ireland.

[Colum Eastwood]

This is nonsense.

[Al Carns]

It is highly unlikely that there will be new evidence. We can say, “This is nonsense”, but the reality is that it is not going to happen. It has not happened for the last 10 years; it is unlikely to happen now, except in one or two cases.

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[Colum Eastwood]

I respect the hon. Member’s opinion on this, but does he accept that over the last week and a half, there have been two former paramilitaries in court on the basis of things that happened long ago? It is not the case that these cases are not being brought forward. The hon. Member’s biggest complaint is that too many cases are being brought forward; now, he is saying that there is no chance of new evidence. I do not really understand this argument.

[Al Carns]

The likelihood of having a huge amount of new evidence that justifies the amount of money spent, and the pain and anguish that all these people are going to be put through, just does not weigh up. There needs to be one single delivery process; instead, we have a twin-track approach that is going to cost a huge amount of money, and the victims sat underneath cannot decide which way to go. It is completely contradictory. I agree that if there is new evidence, by all means bring it forward —of course we should do that. That is in line with the rule of law, but it has to be balanced with the greater aim, which is truth and reconciliation.

From my perspective—this is perhaps equally important —we will also allow those in Northern Ireland who were defeated in a military campaign to now engage in a political one—one that uses every operation to rewrite history, paint the state as the aggressor, and convince the good people of Northern Ireland that reunification is the answer to all of their problems. For a 15-year-old in Northern Ireland now, if they have to put up with five, 10 or 15 years of this going through the courts consistently, it will paint the state in a negative light. Morally and ethically, this approach does not support our veterans as it should, and strategically, it deals the best possible hand to our adversaries.

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My position is simple: those who commit crimes in uniform should face justice, bereaved families deserve the truth, and those who have already been investigated deserve finality. Those aims do not conflict, and a fair system delivers all three. Amendment 103, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon, would help to deliver that system.

[Colum Eastwood]

It is frustrating sometimes, going through these debates. I know from speaking to victims, as many of us in this House do—although not enough of us—how frustrated they have been by some of the language that has been used in our many debates on this issue. I feel that the first people we should always talk about are those who were murdered and those who were left behind, not those who did the shooting. That is what I feel.

We let ourselves down in this Chamber by focusing far too much on veterans. People in this place are entitled to be proud of the British Army if they want, but why is the focus nearly wholly on those who have been charged, or should be charged, with shooting children, for example? Some 26% of the children killed during the troubles were killed by somebody in a uniform. People would not really understand that, listening to some of those in this room. I get that Members want to represent veterans, and I understand the politics around all of that. Yes, veterans might be worried about getting a knock on the door, but there are other people who got knocks on the door over 30 years. They might have got only one knock on the door from a police officer and never heard from anybody else about the matter ever again. Those are the people we should be concerned about.

I listened this morning to the “Today” programme. Someone I know very well, Emmett McConomy, was on representing his brother, Stephen. How about this for a split-second decision? Stephen was 11 years old, playing with his friends in front of lots of witnesses on Fahan Street in Derry. A British soldier shot him in the back of the head with a plastic bullet. He died a couple of days later. The soldier was pulled in, interviewed for about half an hour and let go again. Not long after, the police and the Army raided Stephen’s mother’s house. The bishop of Derry at the time, Bishop Daly, said they were in the house longer than the soldier was in the interview suite. Was that a split-second decision? Should the soldier who did that not be hauled in front of a court? They would have been, if this had happened on the streets of Manchester, Liverpool or Edinburgh. People who most Members of this House would see as British citizens were shot and murdered by the British Army or a British police force. Should those people not be entitled to the same level of justice, if it can be achieved, as any other citizen in the United Kingdom? I do not understand the argument against it.

Many people have made the argument, including victims, that justice is becoming more and more difficult to achieve—I get that—and that many victims want different things. However, they are entitled to seek justice, and they should not be barred from seeking it by any Government; their rights should be upheld, just as any of us would expect our rights to be upheld.

The former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leeds South (Hilary Benn), gave a fantastic and important speech. He reminded us who this debate should be about. He talked about Majella O’Hare. I spoke to her brother Michael today, as I do most times when these issues are coming up. I want us to remember what that was about. She was a 12-year-old girl going to chapel, to go to confession. She was shot by a member of the Parachute Regiment and killed. That was not a split-second decision. Majella did not have a rifle in her hand, or a coffee jar, or anything else.

The hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) gave a powerful speech, and I understand his personal experience and I respect it, but he talked about the issue of memory loss, as have some others; I do not know about other Members in this room, but if I shot a child of 12 years old on her way to chapel, I would remember it until my dying day. That argument cannot be used as an excuse for not doing anything.

Last week, WAVE trauma centre, a fantastic organisation, brought some victims to this Chamber. I know that many people met them. They had good experiences and bad experiences with some of the people they met. Patsy Gillespie’s daughter Jennifer was among them. A braver family you could not meet. Jennifer was 12 when the IRA came into her house, held her and her mother at gunpoint, took her father Patsy away, chained him to a van full of explosives and made him drive that van into the British Army base on the Buncrana Road in Derry, killing Patsy and five soldiers. Patsy tried to warn the soldiers, but the IRA remotely detonated the explosives. Jennifer is no supporter of the republican movement. She wants truth and the justice possible for every victim that can get it.

We also met Mo Norton and her husband. Her brother, a soldier, was killed in the M62 bus bombing. She said a very powerful thing to me: “Why are we never talked about when they talk about veterans? What about all the soldiers and police who were murdered, or the families who were left behind? Are they not entitled to seek truth and justice?” That is where the argument that some people are making would lead us. I just do not understand why we do not talk about those soldiers when we talk about this issue.

I was at an event last week with the family of Sean Brown, who was the chairman of Bellaghy Gaelic athletic club. He was closing the gates when he was taken away and shot repeatedly and left outside his car. There have been two court cases already. Five High Court judges, the Lord Chief Justice included, have mandated this Government to open a public inquiry into what happened. We think 25-odd people were involved in that murder, and the state has admitted that they included state agents. Next week, we will have to go to the Supreme Court, because this Government are appealing the judgment that mandates this Government to bring about a public inquiry. I appeal to the Government today to take the opportunity to listen to what Bridie Brown has had to go through. She is an elderly woman, and her husband was brutally murdered. She is demanding a public inquiry, and she should be entitled to it, because the court has said that she is entitled to it. I ask the Government to drop that appeal.

One of the reasons why I am opposed to some of the disclosure elements in this Bill is that I looked at the files that were released to the Sean Brown family. It was black pages from start to finish. I have seen that a thousand times with victims. They have to fight and fight to get disclosure, and all they get are blanked-out pages. There are cases right now of dead children where the families still have not got access to their files and will not for many years.

We have issues with some of the provisions. We have issues with the national security veto, which has been used many times before. It is a national embarrassment and should not be used again. However, this is the last chance we have. I have been working on this issue for 20 or 25 years, and others have been working on it for much longer. Victims have had to think about it every day. I get that some veterans are worried, but my first concern is for the victims and those who were left behind. We have amendments, and we will support other people’s amendments—even people with whom we do not normally agree. The bottom line is this: if we do not pass this legislation, we will not pass any legislation on this issue. It will not happen. We saw what the last Government tried to do: they tried to close down access to truth and justice. Let us take this opportunity, despite all our issues with this Bill, to give those who have been left behind by the process some chance of truth, and the hope—the vanishing hope—of a prosecution.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)

Colum Eastwood Excerpts

Carry-over motion
Tuesday 13th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his comments and the briefing that his team gave mine at the start of this week. At the outset, I want to acknowledge that he and his team have worked hard to try to make improvements to this Bill. I am afraid, however, that the Bill is a mess. That mess is attested to by the fact that we are still debating it when it was introduced a year ago tomorrow and we have yet to breach Committee of the whole House. The mess is attested to by the fact that we are debating a carry-over motion for the second time. It is attested to by the fact that the Government told us in April that they were going to submit their amendments after six months of delay, but published them only yesterday after another six months. We have 144 Government amendments making up a pack of about 300 amendments over 119 pages. This is a mess in the process of becoming a bigger mess.

The Secretary of State has been handed this mess. I know it is not of his making, but he has been given the unenviable task of fixing it. Yet this Bill cannot be fixed, because the fundamentals are wrong. However much one scrubs off some of the worst corners and the worst excesses, the fundamentals are still there. Next week, we will have a chance to debate this legislation and its many amendments, but the amount of time set aside is wholly unequal to the task. For reasons I cannot understand, the Government have effectively denied the House the Report stage. Only an hour has been set aside for Report, and it is inevitable that the Committee of the whole House will eat that away entirely. As a Back Bencher, the Secretary of State was a defender of this House’s role in scrutiny. It is upsetting that we will not be able to give this Bill proper treatment in the Commons and that it will only get proper scrutiny in the Lords. That, though, is only a minor quibble in the face of the problems in the Bill itself.

In simple terms, we cannot support this legislation because it reopens the door to vexatious litigation against those who served in Northern Ireland during the troubles. In the long time in which this Bill has been in the Table Office, a number of cases have come to public attention that illustrate both the problem that requires fixing and the inadequacy of the Government’s response. In November last year, we debated the findings in the case against soldier F from Bloody Sunday.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

rose—

[Alex Burghart]

Soldier F was found not guilty after the longest and most detailed inquiry in British legal history. Judge Patrick Lynch told Belfast Crown court that even after such an investigation, the evidence fell well short of the standard required.

[Colum Eastwood]

Will the shadow Secretary of State give way?

[Alex Burghart]

The judge said:

“A 53 year old statement cannot be cross examined”—

[Colum Eastwood]

I bet he will not give way.

[Alex Burghart]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment, but I will finish my sentence.

[Alex Burghart]

Because I was in the middle of speaking. The judge said:

“A 53 year old statement cannot be cross examined, nor can I assess the demeanour of a sheet of A4 paper.”

It is becoming vanishingly difficult to get convictions.

[Colum Eastwood]

I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for giving way, but I would also be grateful if he actually mentioned a victim in his speech. We are three minutes in, and there has not been one mention. He talks about soldier F, who murdered lots of people on Bloody Sunday along with his colleagues. They were unarmed people, as proven by a British Prime Minister-appointed court of tribunal, and as understood, recognised and supported by a Tory Prime Minister. Will he mention some of the victims of soldier F or some of the other victims that we should be talking about tonight, instead of people who were willingly and openly going into streets and shooting people down who did not have a gun in their hand? That is what happened.

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Gentleman, if he had waited a moment, would have heard me talk about the victims. The victims, who suffered so much, are being given the promise of convictions that will never come. Even when we have the most detailed inquiry in British legal history, no conviction comes, yet this House is now expected to believe that the legislation before us will open the road to all these convictions. It will not happen. It is a promise that will not be fulfilled, but that does not mean that soldiers who did nothing but their duty will not be pulled through the courts time and time again.

In February last year, this House debated the terrible ruling in the Clonoe case from 1992. On that occasion, four men—known terrorists—armed with semi-automatic weapons and a Dushka machine gun attacked an RUC police station and then moved on to commit further crimes. They called themselves an army. They carried weapons of war, they sought to kill and they operated entirely outside the bounds of the law, and yet we were asked to believe that the use of lethal force against them was not justified. The men will now be subject to unjust and unfair scrutiny of the decisions that they had to make in exceptionally difficult circumstances, decades ago.

The case of soldier B, a former SAS officer, has been raised repeatedly in the House. In 2024 a coroner ruled that he had been justified in using lethal force in Coagh in 1991. Then, in 2025, the case was taken to the High Court in Belfast, where it was thrown out by a judge who described it as “ludicrous” and said that it should never have come to court. Despite that, in April this year the case went to the Court of Appeal, where it was again thrown out. Last month an attempt was mounted to take it to the Supreme Court, and that attempt is ongoing. Soldier B has been dragged through the courts for five and a half years, when the legal system in this country admits that the case against him is ludicrous.

Drumcree

Colum Eastwood Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful for the way in which the hon. Gentleman has approached this issue. My attempts to have discussions with the Executive have focused partly on trying to get a budget. Six months in, we still do not have a settled budget. That is going to provide very significant problems in the very near future for the whole of the operation of the Executive if we are not very careful and very keen to work with the Executive to get to a good outcome. We have made an offer of £1.5 billion and more over three years, which is a good settlement considering the difficult situation that we have. Everybody has been predicting the collapse of the Executive for some time, but it seems to be much more resilient than people suggest. That is a good thing.

In terms of the rule of law, it is not for me to tell the police whom they should speak to about unlawful actions or how to determine what the punishment should be. I will merely point out that an offence under the Public Processions (Northern Ireland) Act carries an imprisonment of up to six months and a level 5 fine. That is for the prosecuting authorities to consider.

Let me turn to the young people in Portadown. One of the phrases frequently used on both sides was that people wanted a breathing space, and we have that breathing space now. Once the dust has settled a little bit, it will be important for us to consider and work out how we can strengthen the cross-community relationships that have undoubtedly been tested over the last couple of weeks, as the hon. Gentleman says, and I want to do that with local representatives.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Sometimes you would be forgiven for forgetting that in the late ’90s, 21 Catholics were murdered as a result of this dispute. Three of them were children—the Quinn boys—who were burned to death in their home. Why anybody thought it was a good idea to try to force this parade down that street is frankly beyond me and beyond any right-thinking person. This wound should never, ever have been opened up again. The Garvaghy Road residents have had this done to them and on them. This chaos has been visited to their door. Will the Secretary of State work with the Irish Government to ensure that proper investment is now put into Portadown to rebuild relationships that took a long, long time to build back up?

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. We were here only a few weeks ago having had the report on Robert Hamill, whose murder occurred against the background of the problems in Portadown back in the day. This issue is still very live and very raw for a large number of people in the community. I have to push back, though, and say that the Parades Commission decision has been upheld by the courts on repeated occasions. I did not revoke the decision, but, given the situation when the section 9 letter came to me from the police the other day, it was absolutely apparent that I had to deal with this matter.

My hon. Friend asks me to get the Irish Government to be engaged. I always want to work as co-operatively as I possibly can with the Irish Government, and I have spoken to them several times, but in the end, security in Northern Ireland is the responsibility of the UK Government. We need to ensure that community relations in Northern Ireland are enhanced.

Robert Hamill Inquiry Report

Colum Eastwood Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Well, that was a slightly partial version of what is in the report. If the hon. Member read the whole report, I think she would come to a rather more settled position. She is absolutely right that, on the first issue that the inquiry was asked to look at—namely, whether the behaviour of the crew in the Land Rover had in some way contributed to the death—the report is absolutely clear that there was no collusion with the attackers. However, there are quite serious criticisms of the way the investigation was pursued, or was not pursued effectively. Of course, there is the additional issue of how Reserve Constable Atkinson behaved and that whole saga. I think it is best to tell the whole of the story, rather than just part of it.

I did not answer one of the questions that was asked earlier about the support for the family. I spoke very briefly to Diane over the weekend. Of course, the Northern Ireland Office has been in contact with the family throughout the process. In the end, of course, the most important thing is ensuring that the family get the answers they need.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

If people in this House are going to utter Rosemary Nelson’s name, I would expect that they should also call for justice and truth in relation to her case, because—I say this in case people do not realise—she too was killed by loyalists not long after.

The report is clear, and I want to send our message of thanks and good wishes to the Hamill family, who have had to struggle for far too long for the report to be released. It is clear that there were massive failings corporately on behalf of the RUC and in terms of an individual who deliberately went about his business trying to cover up what happened to Robert Hamill. The impact of legacy is clear on the everyday workings of policing in Northern Ireland today. That is why we have to deal with the legacy issue. Those people in this House who do not want to see prosecutions—even the opportunity for prosecutions—for what happened in the past should read this report and listen to the Hamill family today.

We need to remember the context, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said. This happened during a murderous sectarian time that all revolved around the issue of Drumcree. Will he join me in calling for everybody to take a step back, to remember what happened not that long ago, and to try to take us away from using those old issues to stir up hate and sectarianism and potentially much, much worse?

[Chris Bryant]

It is often very difficult, including for a well-resourced inquiry, to get to the truth. I will read out another clause of the report:

“We are left in no doubt that the decision by so many to have no recollection was by no means always spontaneous but was the result of suggestion, cajolery and in some cases threat. This has added to our difficulties.”

The truth is that sometimes sectarianism leads not just to the murder, but to the cover-up. That is why I am very keen to ensure that we do everything we possibly can to diminish that. There is a Purcell anthem that I used to have to sing a lot when I was at school and at university. It includes the line:

“Let your moderation be known unto all men”.

Perhaps that should be our motto.

Oral Answers to Questions

Colum Eastwood Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

The right hon. Gentleman will have noticed that the new Defence Secretary, who himself served in Northern Ireland, said on Monday:

“This Government are absolutely committed to the troubles Bill”.—[Official Report, 6 July 2026; Vol. 789, c. 15.]

The right hon. Gentleman will not have to wait too much longer—[Interruption]—to see the substantial package of amendments to which he refers.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Members are shouting from the Opposition Benches that people have been waiting nine months, but there are victims who have been waiting decades for this issue to be resolved. Will the Secretary of State bring the Bill forward as quickly as possible, thinking about the victims first, never mind personal statements by anybody in this House? Our strong military lobby does not seem to care about the innocent victims who have been left behind in Northern Ireland.

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about this piece of legislation. As we know, the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 did not command support across all communities in Northern Ireland. How can we hope to proceed if that is the case? That is why the Government are committed to reforming, repealing and replacing the legacy Act—that is what is in the Bill. I hope that when people see the full picture they will realise that it is fair, balanced, proportionate and reasonable, and that it seeks to command the confidence of all communities in Northern Ireland.

Dunmurry Police Station Attack

Colum Eastwood Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I join the hon. Member in his tribute to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and agree with him that the response from all communities in Northern Ireland to this terrible attack is a sign of the new Northern Ireland and shows that those responsible have no support at all. Sadly, though, they do have some capacity. As he knows, the enforcement of the law is a job for the police service, and if criminal offences have been identified, it is for prosecutors to take decisions. I hope the hon. Member will agree that my answer to the question from the Chair of the Select Committee about recent convictions and steps taken, shows that there certainly is capacity within the PSNI to go after people and—if the evidence can be found—to enable a prosecution to take place.

On the question of legacy, under the previous Government’s Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, which established the commission, every request for disclosure and information falls to the police service and other partners. That was already the case, regardless of anything contained in the legislation that we are currently taking through the House.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The people who planted this bomb in Dunmurry have set their faces against the people of Ireland, who made the decision long ago that the only route to constitutional change is a democratic one. They have attacked and tried to kill Irish police officers, they have murdered a young journalist in Derry, and just last weekend they have put children and babies in harm’s way. Will the Secretary of State confirm to the House today that the only route to achieving the united Ireland that some of us want to see is the democratic route laid out in the Good Friday agreement, and that it is up to those of us who want to see that happen to make the argument for it? These people are only an impediment to that change.

[Hilary Benn]

I say to my hon. Friend that the huge significance of the Good Friday agreement is that it charted a way forward and made clear the peaceful means by which those who wish to seek constitutional change in Northern Ireland can pursue it, but I also make the point that there never was any justification for the violence. There was always an alternative to the violence, and that was shown in the negotiation of the Good Friday agreement.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over)

Colum Eastwood Excerpts

Carry-over motion
Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

I strongly encourage the hon. Gentleman to take time to read the Armed Forces Bill amendment paper. The two gentlemen sitting either side of me, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), have tabled very many amendments. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to go out this evening and to try to find one veterans organisation that supports what his party is trying to do with this Bill.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The hon. Gentleman is the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland so he should know the lie of the land there. He has talked a lot about veterans. Has he read the letter from Sandra Peake, the director of the WAVE trauma centre? She is an unimpeachable character, who has stood up on behalf of all kinds of victims. She is imploring us to put the Bill through tonight so that we can properly scrutinise it. Has he read that letter? Is he going to mention victims at all in his speech?

[Alex Burghart]

I have read that letter. I have great respect for the WAVE trust; I did some work with it when I first came to the House. I respectfully disagree with what is in that letter, for reasons that I will set out in due course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Burghart]

I must agree with the right hon. Gentleman that this is clearly what vexatious litigation looks like. This is vexatious litigation moved against men who did nothing wrong but are now confronted with a legal framework that creates endless potential for challenge against them.

[Colum Eastwood]

Has the shadow Secretary of State read the Saville report? He referenced the Saville inquiry not that long ago. Has he read what it says about Soldier F, about how many people he killed that day—unarmed, innocent people marching for civil rights shot down in cold blood by Soldier F, by his own admission? Has he read that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The first thing to say is that there was an alternative. There has been a lot of debate recently about whether or not there was an alternative to murder and mayhem: there was an alternative and that is represented by the party of which I am a member. The only honest way to deal with this particular issue is to make it clear that no matter whether the culprit or perpetrator was wearing a uniform or not, the murder of anybody was wrong. That violence brought us no closer to the aims that I hold very dear; it took democratic struggle to get us to the point of peace and opportunity for real change.

I was at an event on Friday in my constituency for the 45th anniversary of the death of a boy called Paul Whitters, who was 15 years old when he was shot in the head by a police officer and died. It was a very moving event. His family were there and his mother had come home from Glasgow—she had had to leave, of course, after all that heartache and pain. There were 186 children killed in our troubles: 80 of them were killed by republicans, 50 by loyalists and 49 by the British Army or the RUC. When we talk about this issue, I want people to think about those children. All I ever hear from certain quarters of this House is about veterans and organisations that are lobbying, and about votes and Back Benchers and all that stuff, but I want people to think about those children.

Julie Livingstone was 14 years old when she was shot in the head and killed in Lenadoon, a month after Paul. Stephen McConomy, whose family I know very well—they are decent, hard-working people—was 11 years old when he was shot and killed by a soldier in 1982. The people who went to try and comfort Stephen and see if he was okay were told that they would be shot as well. The soldier who carried out that murder—and that is what it was—was interviewed for one hour by the RUC. Six months after that, the RUC and the British Army came to Stephen McConomy’s house, and Bishop Daly said at the time that they were in the house longer than the time they took to interview the soldier who killed Stephen. Again, he was 11 years old.

Alan Jack was five months old and in his pram when the IRA set off a bomb in Strabane that killed him. I just want people to think about this. This is not some political game. Those of us who live there do not always agree, as Members might know, but we take this very seriously. This is about trying to give the people who have been left out of this process some truth and some justice if possible. We all know how difficult justice will be, but why are they not entitled to the same access to justice as any of us would expect today? If Members are against trying to sort out this problem, they should ask themselves, “Why not?”

Do not tell me to draw a line under the past. The people who want to move on the most are the victims who have been left behind in our society. They cannot just draw a line under the past when the truth is not out there about what happened to their loved one and the justice that they deserve has not been achieved. The bottom line is that if we are serious about bringing our communities together and reconciling them, whatever our constitutional views, we have to do it on the basis of truth and honesty. We should stop using our victims as political footballs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

It is astonishing. My right hon. Friend is exactly right. I served early on in Northern Ireland, and I lost a very good friend—I apologise for repeating his name—in Robert Nairac. We have never got to the bottom of what happened to him.

I thought that the speech from the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) was incredibly interesting. It is very difficult to pursue truth, which is why I supported the previous legislation. That was not because I thought it was a great Bill, but because I wanted some truth to come out. I do not think the vexatious pursuit of veterans will ever produce the truth that he rightly seeks. There is a better way, and it is not this Bill.

[Colum Eastwood]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I will, but briefly, because I do not get any extra time.

[Colum Eastwood]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member. I understand his point, and a point was made earlier about the commission for the retrieval of remains. Basically, IRA members who were involved in the disappearance of people were given immunity within the confines of giving information. The bottom line is that it did not work. Jean McConville was found by a passer-by. Columba McVeigh has still not been found and others have not been found. The IRA did not give the information, even once it was given immunity. Immunity does not work, and it has been proven not to work.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

We will not altogether agree about this issue. We can debate what actually happened, but we will never know, because the Government refused to pursue this matter through the courts. South Africa was a good example of how it could be done. I went out to advise in South Africa at the time, and I genuinely believe that the truth and reconciliation committee got to the bottom of quite a lot of what happened in South Africa and allowed some mending of fences. We will no doubt debate that issue further. I have high respect for the hon. Gentleman, and I understand his position.

In conclusion, we are being asked to vote blind on a Bill that we knew was damaged before. All our protestations about the vexatious pursuit of veterans were denied, as were all the issues that the right hon. Member for Belfast East has raised throughout the whole of this debate. The legislation was rather arrogantly pushed through, and the Government said, “No, you don’t know what you’re talking about. The legislation is perfectly okay.” At the last moment, when they have failed to get the Bill through, they have produced this idea that somehow there are amazing new amendments that will protect veterans going forward. Why should veterans, who have been vexatiously pursued endlessly for no particular reason, other than because they were veterans who served in Northern Ireland, now say, “Oh, that’s okay; it’d be a good idea to see what comes next time around, because they were so honest this time around.”? The Government have failed to be honest about this from start to finish.

The Armed Forces Minister is not here for a reason—because he knows very well that he does not want to be sitting on the Front Bench when the Bill gets voted through to the future. [Interruption.] I say to all colleagues, it is time to call time on this piece of bad legislation and kick it into the gutter.

Northern Ireland Troubles: Operation Kenova

Colum Eastwood Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments, and for the spirit and the tone in which he delivers them in relation to this extremely serious matter. I do indeed acknowledge—as I think I have already indicated—what he said about the nature of the collusion that has been discovered, and what it was and what it was not, for instance in respect of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. Those are very, very important findings.

It is for the Irish Government to determine what information they reveal, but they have given commitments to me, to the UK Government and, indeed, to all of us about the co-operation that they will provide. The Tánaiste has said to me that the legislation to allow witness testimony to be given to the Omagh bombing inquiry will be in place by March, and we look forward to seeing, in due course, the outline of the Irish Government’s legislation that will implement the rest of the commitments when it comes to co-operation with the new legacy commission that we are seeking to establish by means of the legislation currently before the House.

I am always happy to return to the House to provide further information and to answer further questions, but we are waiting for the Thompson judgment, which is absolutely about the “neither confirm nor deny” policy. That is why, when I wrote to Sir Iain Livingstone on, I think, 13 August, I said to him what I quoted in my original answer to the question from the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson).

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Let me say first that the people responsible for the murder of innocent people in Northern Ireland over many decades were the people who carried out those murders, and the organisations of which they were members. However, it is also clear, from these reports and from previous investigations, that elements within the British state worked hand in glove with loyalist paramilitaries as they murdered scores, indeed hundreds, of innocent people in the north of Ireland, and also that the IRA were riddled with informers, including, clearly, at the very highest levels. Now that we know all that, has the Secretary of State made an assessment of how many lives could have been saved, and how much earlier we could have had peace in Ireland, if the British Government had acted properly?

[Hilary Benn]

I should say to my hon. Friend that I have not made such an assessment, but Operation Kenova itself had something to say in relation to the activities of the alleged agent Stakeknife. Its view was that the balance—I hate to use the term “balance sheet”—of lives lost and lives saved was not quite as it had been described by others. What I think is particularly important about the report published today is its confirmation of a point made by Jon Boutcher when he published the interim report: he said that in the absence of information about what happened, people form a view about what they think happened, and as a result what is finally produced—there is an example of this in relation to the final Operation Kenova report—may turn out to be not quite what everybody thought it was, and that is the argument for trying to be as open as possible about what happened. However, I wanted to make clear in coming to the House today that what has been revealed is, as I have said, disturbing and deeply shocking and should not have happened, and it is really important that we learn the lessons.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Colum Eastwood Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 18th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

It was never given a chance because this Government dropped their appeal—something I will return to shortly.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alex Burghart]

No.

Let me start with conditional immunity. The legacy Act provided immunity to individuals in return for their providing an account to the commission that was true to the best of their “knowledge and belief”. That is the immunity to which the Government are now opposed, but I am afraid that that objection is born of acute political amnesia. This House will know that the Blair Government accepted that the price of ending the conflict was a departure from the norms of criminal justice in Northern Ireland. They gave us the early release of 483 prisoners, 143 of whom were serving life sentences, including, it must be said, the man who in 1984 tried to kill the entire British Cabinet; the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998, referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), which limits prison terms to two years; the decommissioning of weapons legislation, which allowed for the destruction of forensic evidence that would have led to convictions; and an effective amnesty for all those who provided information to the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains—in short, immunity in return for information.

We also had the controversial letters of comfort—156 of them. One was received by John Downey, thought to have been the Hyde Park bomber, the case against whom collapsed on the production of his letter. It had apparently been issued in error, but nevertheless that letter effectively granted him immunity from prosecution. Even if, as Labour now claims, the on-the-runs were not intended to grant immunity, the use of the royal prerogative of mercy on at least 13 occasions certainly was.

Even if that was not enough, it was very much the intention of the last Labour Government to create a scheme for immunity. We know that because in November 2005, Peter Hain, now Lord Hain—the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—brought legislation to this House in the form of the Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill, which was explicitly intended to create immunity from prosecution for terrorists. That was on the face of the Bill. The now Secretary of State was in the Cabinet at the time; he will have been supportive of that legislation—legislation that he now refers to as a moral outrage. That Government eventually dropped the legislation, not because of opposition in this House, but because of the opposition of Sinn Féin, who withdrew their support once they discovered that the scope was being extended to cover the security forces and the police.

[Colum Eastwood]

Let me take this opportunity to refresh the shadow Secretary of State’s memory. Sinn Féin actually supported that piece of legislation. Gerry Adams is on record as supporting that piece of legislation—I wonder why. Sinn Féin also supported, at one point, amnesty for everybody because it suited them. Why was that piece of legislation overturned? Because the Bloody Sunday families pressurised Sinn Féin, who in turn pressurised the Government, to drop it. That is what happened.

[Alex Burghart]

I hate to disagree with the hon. Gentleman, but if he goes back and looks at the news stories from the time, he will discover very clearly that Sinn Féin withdrew their support for the Bill once the Labour Government decided they would extend the scope of the Bill to cover security forces and police officers. The republicans never wanted equity; they wanted a one-sided agreement that would privilege only the terrorists and not the Army. I say all that to highlight the absurdity of Labour’s opposition to our legislation, and to remind the House that the proposals presented to us today are the opposite of what Labour believed was necessary, in the words of Peter Hain, to complete the peace process 20 years ago.

No doubt the Government will say, as the Secretary of State already has, that they have no choice but to change our legislation because it was found to be incompatible with the European convention on human rights. But that is only partially true. While it is the case that the High Court in Belfast found that conditional immunity was incompatible with the ECHR, I am sure that the Secretary of State knows that that court, despite its considerable strengths, is not the summit of the UK legal system. The last Conservative Government were appealing the court’s finding, but when the Labour Government came into power in July 2024, they dropped that appeal and they have never explained why. They had every opportunity to take it to the highest court in the land, and they declined to do so.

In legal circles, the finding of the High Court in Belfast is considered highly disputable. Why? Because the law strongly suggests that if the same logic was applied to the peace process legislation that I have already mentioned—the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998, the Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning Act 1997, and the Northern Ireland (Location of Victims’ Remains) Act 1999—then all of that legislation would be deemed incompatible with the European convention and would have to be struck down.

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[Alex Burghart]

The right hon. Gentleman raises interesting and important points. We are concerned about the question of who will have access to sensitive national security information within the legacy commission’s framework? It would be good to have clarity on that from the Minister later.

Sixthly, there was some confusion on the Labour Front Bench recently about whether former IRA personnel would be able to serve as a legacy commission officer or as a member of the victims and survivors advisory group. Perhaps when we get to Committee the Minister could clear that up and provide legal guarantees that that will not be the case.

[Colum Eastwood]

Will the shadow Secretary of State remind the House who is actually in Government in Northern Ireland and if there are any former paramilitaries involved at all?

[Alex Burghart]

The Labour party is in power in Northern Ireland—it has formed the Government of the United Kingdom.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) said, it would be good to get legal guarantees about who will be able to serve on the legacy commission and the victims and survivors advisory group.

Lastly, veterans have been asking publicly for the inclusion of the word “veteran” in the Bill. They do not consider themselves victims or survivors; they consider themselves veterans, and they hope that the Government will recognise them as such in legislation.

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[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Fifty years ago this month, Columba McVeigh was taken away by the IRA. He was murdered and his body was disappeared. His family are still searching for his remains. Two years later, the same happened to Captain Robert Nairac. Before that, there was Jean McConville, who we know about—a widowed mother of 10, disappeared by the IRA. Eventually, many years later, her family were reunited with her remains.

The people who carried out those tragic murders—those despicable war crimes—would, if the Conservative party had its way, be free from any concern and from prosecution. Majella O’Hare was 12 years old when she was shot by a British soldier on her way to chapel in Armagh. The same goes for Majella. Patsy Gillespie was chained to a van by an IRA unit and made to drive the van with a bomb into an army base on the Buncrana Road in Derry. Patsy was killed along with five other soldiers, and the people who murdered them would be free from prosecution if it were up to the Members on the Opposition Benches.

I have to say that as I sat with the families of Bloody Sunday in a court last month and looked at their devastated faces after 53 years of searching for justice, I expected better from some of our leaders and politicians. I did not expect tweets with the Parachute Regiment insignia being put out by some senior Members of this House and I did not expect fulsome support for Soldier F from others. Let me just put this on the record, because it is important. It seems to me that lots of people who talk about Bloody Sunday never actually bothered to read the Saville inquiry—an inquiry that was, of course, set up by a British Government, led by a British judge and supported by subsequent British Prime Ministers.

Soldier F, by his own admission, killed five people on Bloody Sunday. He killed Michael Kelly and William McKinney. He shot James Wray in the back and while Wray was lying face down on the floor in Glenfada Park, Soldier G came over and finished him off, standing on top of him and shooting him in the back. Soldier F then shot Paddy Doherty, who was crying out that he did not want to die alone, so Bernard McGuigan crawled to him waving a white handkerchief. What did Soldier F do to Bernard McGuigan?

[Jim Allister]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Colum Eastwood]

I am going to finish this. What did Soldier F do to Bernard McGuigan? He shot him in the head, killing him instantly. He then tried to kill an Italian journalist who was looking through a window in the Rossville flats. Soldier F shot six bullets into that window and by a miracle Fulvio Grimaldi survived. Soldier F then went on to pervert the course of justice by lying through his teeth, claiming that four of the people he shot, who were subsequently proven to be innocent civilians, were engaged in riotous behaviour. He went to Fort George army base, where the people who were arrested that day were being held. He assaulted several civilians, including a Catholic priest, Terence O’Keeffe. He then stood a 16-year-old boy, Denis McLaughlin, up against a gas blow heater until he fainted and collapsed. What did he do then? He kicked the young fella to his feet and asked him whether he wanted a drink. When the young man answered that he did, he spat in his mouth.

A few months later, on 7 September 1972, Soldier F went to the Shankill Road—we do not hear that from Unionist politicians, by the way—and admitted shooting a Protestant man called Robert Johnston. He lied again, saying that Robert was a gunman. He was not, and the coroner’s court made that absolutely clear. Robert Johnston was totally innocent as well. I have never once heard a Unionist politician, or anybody in this House, stand up for Robert Johnston and the other man killed on that day.

[Jim Allister]

Is the hon. Member saying to this House that the evidence of the person just described, Soldier G, who he has described as a liar and a perjurer, should have been used to convict Soldier F? Does the hon. Member not accept the verdict of our court? He appeals for justice. Our courts have given a verdict on Soldier F. Does he accept it?

[Colum Eastwood]

There was one reason that I and the Bloody Sunday families accepted the verdict. It was because the point was made absolutely clear: between 1970 and 1974, the British Government, the British Army, the Royal Military Police and the RUC were engaged in a cover-up of mass proportions, when any single member of the British Army who was arrested was questioned without legal representation and not under caution. That meant that any of those cases were doomed before we even got started.

What I am laying out in this House today—and the hon. and learned Member might not like it—is not whether or not there was a conviction in the court; I am laying out the truth, not as I see it but as Soldier F admitted it, and as was found by an international inquiry of truth that was set up by the Labour Government and accepted by them as well. It was also accepted by Prime Minister Cameron, who said that what happened on that day was “unjustified and unjustifiable.” Then, we see the British Government and the MOD paying at least £4.3 million to defend somebody whose actions they knew were unjustified and unjustifiable. That is the truth. Those are the facts. He got far more legal representation than anybody would under legal aid, and if anybody wants to check those figures out, they are available for all to see.

What has happened in this debate is that people seem unable to come to the simple fact that every single murder was wrong, whether it was committed by the IRA or by the British Government, and that not one single person should be free from prosecution. They should not be allowed impunity. As for those people who stand in this House and talk about how great the British Army was and how much they care about the British Army, if that is your position, why then are you accepting and supporting people who committed mass murder?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. How many times do I have to remind colleagues about the use of “you” and “your”? There is not much time left.

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[Colum Eastwood]

Why are those Members supporting people who, by their own admission, murdered innocent civilians—civilians who should be seen by anybody in this House as citizens of the United Kingdom? Everybody can see the hypocrisy that has been on display in this place many times. I know that many people in this House served in Northern Ireland. Well, there are lots of people at home watching this who live in Northern Ireland and they are sick, sore and tired of this. If this legislation has any chance of giving people some truth and justice, it should be allowed to proceed. We of course have issues with the Bill. We have issues around the national security parts of it and around sensitive information, and we will table amendments in that regard in the process, but we have to give this a chance. We have to give our victims a chance, and all this—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I call Tom Tugendhat.